Yesterday we were seeing how God desires truth,
reality, in the innermost being, in our inner
parts.
And the test of whether we fear God
or not is basically this.
See, all Christians think that they fear God.
But for myself, I have used this as
a test to find whether I fear God
or not is whether I'm more concerned about
purity in my inner life and thoughts and
attitudes than in my outer life.
All people who are more concerned about having
a good testimony before men alone about purity
in the outer life and who are careless
about their thoughts and attitudes, which no one
can see, are people who do not fear
God.
The mark of a man who fears God
is, or a woman who fears God is,
that he or she is far more concerned
about those inner movings and thoughts which no
one can see, far more concerned about one's
private life than one's public life.
In fact, Jesus said that if you clean
the inside of the cup, you don't have
to worry about the outside.
The outside will automatically be clean.
It's an amazing thing.
If you read carefully in Matthew 23, he
told the Pharisees, you are so careful about
the outside of the cup.
You are so particular that you want to
impress people with everything you do, the way
you speak, the way you dress, the way
you read your Bibles, the way you go
to the synagogues.
Everything is designed to give people an impression
that you are really holy.
But he said, you are not worried about
the inside of the cup.
God is worried about that.
And he said, if you clean the inside
of the cup, you won't have to worry
about the outside at all.
It will automatically be clean.
The Old Testament law was like an ointment.
If you had a sore, my hand, this
ointment would, you could rub this ointment on
it and it would go.
But it didn't solve the problem, because once
it went in one hand, the sore would
come on the other hand.
So I was glad to have this tube
of ointment called the law, rub it, and
it would be okay.
Then it would come in my leg or
somewhere else.
This is how people lived till Jesus came.
Always something erupting somewhere or the other.
You finish with one thing and then another
thing has come up.
And they were glad to have the ointment
of the law.
The law raised the level of the Jewish
people far higher than the level of all
the nations of the world.
It was good.
We never despised it.
It was God who gave it.
But when Jesus came, it says he set
aside that, and he brought grace, perhaps the
most misunderstood word in Christendom.
The law came by Moses, but grace came
by Jesus Christ.
That's John chapter 1, verse 17.
The law came by Moses, and grace came
by Jesus Christ.
I ask people, who's greater, Moses or Jesus?
And if Moses lifted you that high, how
high do you think Jesus should lift you?
Far higher.
How much higher?
As much higher as Jesus is above Moses.
But when we look at those who say
they are under grace, does it look as
though they are higher than all these people
in the Old Testament, like John the Baptist
and Elijah?
Oh no.
They are so much lower.
That's why I say grace is the most
misunderstood word in Christendom.
Grace is not just forgiveness.
The Bible says, when you are under grace,
sin will not have dominion over you.
That's the mark of a man who has
really understood grace, that sin has lost its
power over him.
I speak as one who was born again,
and for sixteen years, I thought I was
under grace.
Well, I experienced one part of grace, forgiveness
of sins, and I was defeated.
I never let other people know it, because
it was inside.
And then God opened my eyes to see
what grace was, the new covenant.
And here in Hebrews 4, we see another
aspect of the new covenant.
It says here, it's called entering into rest.
And it says here, in verse 9, there
remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people
of God.
The Old Testament Sabbath was instituted by God,
and it's mentioned here as verse 4 in
the last part, and God rested on the
seventh day from all his works.
And referring to that Sabbath, he says in
verse 9, there remains a Sabbath rest for
the people of God.
Yesterday I said that David wanted truth in
the inward parts, but he couldn't get it.
He couldn't make it.
You couldn't have it until Jesus came.
Everything on the inside could come only after
Jesus came, after the Holy Spirit came.
The law could only clean up a person
on the outside.
In fact, everything in the Old Testament was
on the outside.
The temple was on the outside.
Today the temple is inside.
The sacrifices were on the outside.
Today we make sacrifices inside.
There the sacrifices were visible for everybody to
see.
Today our sacrifices, Jesus says, let no one
see, let only God see.
Everything is hidden in the New Covenant.
I was mentioning this ointment, which cleaned up
the outside.
Now what Jesus brought is like an antibiotic,
which a person can take, and it deals
with the problem inside, and then the sores
disappear on my hands and my legs and
everywhere, and I can throw away that tube
of ointment.
That's what it means to be free from
the law.
But if you haven't taken the antibiotic, you
better keep the tube of ointment, because that
will at least keep you from sin.
The trouble with a lot of Christians is
that they've thrown away the tube of ointment
and they haven't taken the antibiotic either, and
they are worse than those people under the
law.
When can we be free from the law?
When I've really come under grace.
Sin shall not have dominion over you because
you're not under law, but under grace.
I'm not living with a tube of ointment
anymore.
I've got an antibiotic that's gone inside and
dealt with the problem inside.
I've learned to allow the Holy Spirit to
convict me inside.
I have secret dealings with God alone when
nobody knows.
I've learned to judge myself first, stop judging
other people.
Dealt with the problem inside, inside the cup.
Ask God for power to help me to
clean the inside of the cup.
I don't need the tube of ointment anymore.
So here it speaks about arrest, and that's
another thing which those people under the law
never understood.
And yet it was a very important thing
under the law.
We read that once in the time of
Moses, when the Sabbath was instituted for Israel,
there was a man who went out on
the Sabbath day just to pick up sticks.
There was a law that you shouldn't make
a fire on the Sabbath day.
Now he hadn't made a fire.
He was just picking up sticks, probably to
make fire on the next day.
But he did some work.
And they asked Moses, what shall we do
with this man?
Moses said, well, let's seek God.
God said, kill him.
He disobeyed the Sabbath.
It was a terrible thing in the Old
Testament, to break the Sabbath.
Many, many times God rebuked the Israelites for
breaking the Sabbath through the prophets.
There's an old chapter on it in Isaiah
58.
And we read that the reason why, you
know, it was not just the weekly Sabbath
they had, God gave them other Sabbaths, like
there was a Sabbath of giving the land
rest after six years of working the fields.
God said, give rest of the land on
the seventh year, and I'll give you double
the crops in the sixth year, so that
you'll have enough to carry you through till
the eighth year.
But the covetousness of those Jewish people made
them disobey.
Now the fields in the seventh year too.
In the beginning they obeyed, but after a
while they didn't keep that sabbatical year.
But you can't fool God.
God's not mocked.
What a man sows, he will reap one
day or the other.
And for 490 years they disobeyed God by
not keeping the sabbatical year for the land.
And God said, okay, I'm going to send
you to Babylon, and for 70 years the
land will have rest.
Because you wouldn't give it rest once in
seven years.
I'll make sure you give it now.
I'm just using these examples to show how
serious a thing it was to break the
Sabbath in the Old Testament.
Now the Pharisees in Jesus' time, they understood
the seriousness of it, but they misunderstood the
meaning of it.
And it looks as if they were frequent,
I mean, not looks, we see frequently that
they were in conflict with Jesus on this
very issue.
We read of Jesus coming into the synagogue
on the Sabbath day, and the Pharisees were
watching him closely to see whether he would
heal someone on the Sabbath day.
Their understanding of work was that you don't
even heal a person.
They misunderstood it completely.
And sometimes I wonder whether Jesus deliberately did
things on the Sabbath day to provoke them.
Provoke them, because we read in John chapter
5 that he went to the pool of
Bethesda.
Now he could have gone to the pool
of Bethesda on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday, but he went on a Saturday.
He could have healed those people any of
those days, but he went there on a
Sabbath day, and he saw this man lying
there for 38 years and told him to
take up his bed and walk, and it
was Sabbath day.
And the Jews wanted to kill him.
Why did Jesus provoke them?
Because he was trying to point out to
them, this is not the meaning of the
Sabbath.
This is not what God meant.
Have we understood what is the spiritual application
of the Sabbath for us today?
If it was such a serious thing, as
I showed you from a few examples in
the Old Testament, and such a controversial issue
in Jesus' discussions with the Pharisees, so controversial
that the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus because
he broke the Sabbath.
And now today, does all this have a
meaning, or does it have no meaning?
To many Christians, if you were to ask
them, what is the Sabbath mean to you?
They still think of that Old Testament law
that you must rest one day, and they
say, well, the day is shifted to Sunday
now, and we read the Bible and do
special things on Sundays in relation to God
that we don't do on other days, that's
the Sabbath.
Why do you get that in Scripture?
It says here, there remains a Sabbath rest
for the people of God.
And anything that is emphasized tremendously in the
Old Testament must have a spiritual application for
us, and here is a whole chapter, Hebrews
chapter 4, written on this subject in the
New Testament.
And it says in the first verse of
this chapter, let us fear, lest there is
a promise remaining of entering into God's rest.
Any one of you should seem to come
short of it.
To whom is he writing?
He's writing in chapter 3, verse 1, we
read, to holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly
calling, whose apostle and high priest is Jesus
Christ.
He's writing to born-again believers, holy brethren
who have partaken of a heavenly calling.
He's not writing to unconverted people.
He's not writing to Jewish people.
He's writing to those who have accepted Jesus
Christ as their apostle and high priest.
And what does he tell such believers?
We fall into that category.
Let us fear, lest there is a promise
given to us of entering into rest, and
we should seem to come short of it.
And this is in connection with the previous
verse, verses, chapter 3, verse 16.
He speaks about those who came out of
Egypt, led by Moses, but he was angry
with them for forty years because, verse 18,
he swore that they would not enter into
his rest.
The land of Canaan is called here a
land of rest.
That is another big thing in the Old
Testament, entering the land of Canaan.
God gave the Israelites, we read in Exodus
3.14, two promises.
To the elders, Moses spoke, saying, Thus said
the Lord, I will take you out of
Egypt, and I will bring you into Canaan.
That was the gospel they heard.
It had two sides to it.
Don't ever forget it.
I will take you out of Egypt, I
will bring you into Canaan.
Now, some people say, the promises of God
are always fulfilled.
Well, here is one promise that wasn't fulfilled.
None of those elders ever entered Canaan to
whom God spoke.
It was the next generation that entered.
God may have something for us, and it
may never be fulfilled if we don't believe,
if we don't have faith.
And that's what it says here in chapter
4, verse 2, the middle, The word they
heard did not profit them, because it was
not united by faith in those who heard.
They heard a word, but their faith was
not added to it, so the word did
not profit them.
In other words, it was not fulfilled.
Remember that.
Everything that God has for you is not
going to be fulfilled automatically.
Christ died for the sins of the world,
the Bible says.
There are millions of people in the world
whose sins are not forgiven.
Why?
Didn't he die for the sins of the
world?
This is the answer.
Their faith has not taken that word, that
Christ died for their sins.
So that's the example he uses here.
The children of Israel came out of Egypt,
redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, and
you're redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.
Maybe you've come out of Egypt, you're born
again.
Good.
Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb, he says,
do you know that there was one more
part to that gospel, and that they were
to enter into Canaan.
And that's the part that God left out
to that entire generation of 600,000 people.
And he says, take heed to that warning.
In 1 Corinthians 10, quoting the same example
of the children of Israel perishing in the
wilderness, he says, these things are written as
an example for us, upon whom the end
of the age has come.
It's an example for us.
What is the example?
That people who are redeemed by the blood
of the Lamb, who are baptized in the
Red Sea, which is a picture of baptism
in water.
And 1 Corinthians 10, verse 4, speaks of
a baptism in a cloud, which is a
picture of the baptism in the Holy Spirit
that came from above.
What is the purpose of that?
And I tell you, this is where so
many who speak about the baptism in the
Holy Spirit today have gone completely astray.
In the Old Testament, we read of that
pillar of cloud is called in 1 Corinthians
10, a baptism in the cloud, a baptism
in the Holy Spirit.
What was it for?
The cloud came for one purpose.
It wasn't to give them any experiences.
It was to lead them into Canaan.
And that's the purpose with which God gave
the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
I believe this is where so many people
have gone astray.
They have not understood the purpose of the
baptism in the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit has come from above to
lead us into Canaan.
Step by step by step, that cloud went
ahead of them, and at one point, they
turned back.
That's why God was angry with them.
They would not enter into Canaan.
They would not enter into that life of
rest.
They would not enter into the life of
victory.
They looked at the giants and said, well,
these giants look stronger than God.
They insulted God.
That's unbelief.
What does it mean when it says, their
faith was not mingled with that word?
Here was a promise God had given them.
I will bring you into Canaan.
He didn't tell them, I will bring you
out of Egypt, and then you will fight
your way into Canaan.
That's not what he told them.
He said, I will bring you out of
Egypt, and I will bring you into Canaan.
That responsibility was entirely God's.
All they had to do was believe.
But they looked at the giants.
Were those giants more powerful than the armies
of Pharaoh that God dealt with?
Pharaoh's armies, Egypt was the only superpower in
the world in those days, and God dealt
with it mightily.
God liberated his people from the only superpower
that existed in the world in those days.
And who were these?
What was Canaan compared to Egypt?
Couldn't God deal with those giants?
He certainly could.
But they looked at those giants and said,
no, it's not possible.
And they did not enter that land.
And he says, God was angry with them.
Did he bless them?
Did he give them food every day?
He certainly did.
For forty years he gave them food, every
day, miraculously from heaven.
Did he give them water to drink?
They never thirsted for forty years.
Who?
People whom he was angry with.
You know, there are believers who say, God
answers my prayer.
I'm sure he does.
It doesn't prove he's happy with you.
It only proves he's a good God.
God makes the sun to rise on the
good and the evil.
You know that verse in Matthew 5?
So I ask people, what do you have
to do for the sun to rise on
you?
You have to be either good or evil.
Qualify?
Everybody qualifies.
He makes the rain to fall on the
righteous and the unrighteous.
If you want the rain on your farm,
what do you have to do?
You have to be either righteous or unrighteous.
That's all.
Everybody qualifies for God's material blessings.
Everybody qualifies.
Good and evil, righteous and unrighteous.
And when the Israelites received the manna for
those thirty-eight years after they had turned
back from Canaan's land, it only proved that
God was a good God, that he answered
their prayer.
When they were sick with snakebites, he healed
them.
I want to say this, my brothers and
sisters, because I've seen so many people around
the world deceiving themselves because they think God's
answering my prayer proves he must be happy
with me.
No.
If those prayers are related to material things,
if God blesses you materially, it only proves
God is a good God.
It does not prove he's happy with you.
You may say he's done a miracle for
you, not greater than getting manna from heaven,
not greater than supernatural healing from snakebites, not
greater than quails falling in the field in
front of you so that you can have
a meal.
They experienced some of the greatest miracles written
in the whole Bible.
There was no one.
If you had one of those Israelites coming
up here and giving a testimony, we'd sit
with our mouth open wondering, boy, look what
he saw.
He got, I mean if we, today if
a man gets bread falling from heaven once,
he'd be testifying about it around the country
for the next thirty years.
But these people, they received manna every day
for forty years.
God wasn't happy.
If a man came up here and said,
I want to tell you brothers and sisters,
I saw the sea split open.
And not one of these fancy stories like
people speak nowadays.
This man would be speaking the truth.
One of the Israelites.
I saw a cloud coming from heaven that
led us day by day.
And we prayed and God gave us bread
from heaven, not for one day, my friends,
forty years.
And when we were thirsty, a rock was
split and we got water and one after
the other he'd give his testimony.
I think most believers would sit there and
look at him and say, boy, what a
man of God.
Would you ever think that God was angry
with that man for all those forty years?
That's what it says here.
He was angry with them.
Because despite all these things, they never got
into where God wanted them to go.
And that's a word for every Christian who
finds a satisfaction in material blessings, God's prospered
me, God's given me a good home, God's
given me good children, God's provided all my
needs.
That doesn't necessarily prove that you have sought
the kingdom of God first.
There are lots of people out there in
the world who are atheists, godless people, who
have many material blessings, far more than you
and me.
It doesn't prove they've sought God's kingdom.
It only proves that God is a good
God.
Miracles also do not prove that God is
happy with us.
They experienced miracles.
Jesus healed sick people who were never converted
later on.
And I believe some of those people who
shouted crucify him must have been some of
the people who were healed by him once
upon a time.
It's amazing.
Jesus said that there would be people in
the last day who come to him and
say, Lord, we did miracles in your name.
And he will say, depart from me, I
don't know you.
So miracles also don't prove that God is
happy with you.
Have you entered into rest?
Have you understood this Sabbath rest that God
wants you to enter into?
It's an inner thing.
And I want to share a little bit
with you tonight as to what that means.
The Sabbath which God emphasized so much in
the Old Testament, the Sabbath which was the
issue on which there was a great conflict
between Jesus and the Pharisees, is explained to
us as a rest into which we must
enter.
We first enter into rest when the heaviness
and the weight of guilt is removed from
us.
When we first come to the cross, when
we see that Jesus died for us, that
unrest and heaviness that was in our heart
because of sin, because of the guilt of
our sin of many years, is gone.
That's the first step.
And I trust most of us have taken
that.
If not, I want to tell you, you'll
never come there unless you come in humility
to the cross and say, Lord Jesus, there
is no way that the guilt of my
past life can ever be blotted out.
In my country there are 800 million people
who are trying to blot out the guilt
of their sins by doing good works and
giving money to the poor and spending a
lifetime of doing so many things, going to
sacrifice, giving sacrifices, going on pilgrimages, doing something
to get their sins forgiven.
It cannot be forgiven.
That's only through the blood of Jesus that
he shed on the cross, that all our
past guilt is removed in a moment.
That's the first step.
And if you haven't taken that, you need
to take that now, where the guilt of
your past life is removed in a moment,
when you say, Lord Jesus, I'll never be
good enough to come to you.
I come to you as I am, just
as I am, without one plea but that
thy blood was shed for me and that
thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb
of God, I come.
If you come like that, you can be
forgiven.
But many who are forgiven like that still
have not entered fully into rest.
I see Christians who are weary and heavy
laden.
In my younger days, I used to preach
that verse, Matthew 11, 28, in the streets
of India, here and there.
Jesus says, Come to me, all you who
labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.
Today I preach that to believers.
I find them all weary and heavy laden
believers, who are so heavy laden, agitated about
something or the other, or about someone or
the other.
Weary, heavy laden.
Are you one like that, born again, but
not in rest in your heart?
There's no rest in your heart.
There's agitation in your heart, disturbance.
It's like they have this thing called an
agitator in some of the older washing machines.
Always agitating, going this way and that way
and this way and that way.
Is your heart like that, concerning someone, concerning
some situation, concerning something about the future?
It's to such people Jesus says, Come to
me, I will give you rest.
It's to such people the word of God
says, There remains a Sabbath rest for the
people of God.
It's not that external seizing to work, stopping
work.
It's the inward seizing from all unrest, seizing
from all agitation, coming to rest.
A rest that comes, like it says here,
why was it those people could not enter
into rest?
It says, because they didn't have faith.
They didn't believe that God was almighty, mightier
than those giants.
But it says for us, verse 3, Hebrews
4, 3, We who have believed enter into
that rest.
It's only by faith.
It's not by struggling.
The more you struggle, the more there's going
to be unrest.
You know, heaven is a place of perfect
rest.
And this is where the Lord invites us.
When John was on the Isle of Patmos,
he first saw a vision of the Lord.
He was persecuted.
He was exiled to that island.
And then the Lord showed him a vision
of the condition of all the churches in
his time.
It was the first century, but it was,
five of those seven churches were in a
pretty backslidden state, very bad state.
And he looked at all this, and it's
pretty depressing when you look at Christendom even
today.
The Lord said then in chapter 4 to
John, He said, Come up higher.
I want to say to you, my brothers
and sisters, that's the word you need to
hear.
The Lord is inviting us to come up
higher, to come up and see everything from
his standpoint.
Then we will enter into rest.
That's the place where the Lord wants to
bring us.
In fact, when you were converted, potentially that
place was already yours, because the Bible says,
He has seated us with Christ, where?
In the heavenlies.
But we come down to earth so quickly,
and we look at everything from this earthly
standpoint, and that's why all the unrest comes.
God invites us to come up higher, to
enter into his rest, by faith.
When Jesus taught us to pray, he didn't
say we have to repeat that prayer every
day.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be
thy name.
I think it's a very good thing to
repeat it, if you can mean every sentence.
If it's just like a parrot or playing
a tape recorder, then it's useless.
But he did say, Pray in this way.
When you read the two passages where it
comes in Luke 11 and Matthew 6, he
said, Pray in this way.
In other words, basically, the content of all
our prayers should follow this general guideline.
How does it begin?
He said, Before you start your prayer, say,
Our Father who art in heaven.
In other words, remind yourself of two things.
One, that you are praying to one who
is your Daddy.
The one who is your Father, who loves
you more than anyone on earth loves you,
who is compassionate like a father, pities his
children, so the Lord pities those who fear
him.
He knows our frame.
He remembers that we are dust.
This is the one to whom we are
praying.
We are not praying to someone who is
demanding.
We are not praying to one who is
reluctant to forgive, but one who is ready
to forgive.
We are praying to one who understands that
we are dust.
We are praying to one who has seen
your sincerity.
We are praying to one who knows the
struggle in your life.
One who sees how you are longing to
please him, even if people misunderstand you.
One who understands your particular situation, your particular
difficulties.
A father, that's the first thing we need
to remember when we pray.
We are praying to one who has tremendous
compassion for us, who has understanding.
You know, some of us have temperaments which
are very reserved and shy.
I'm like that.
I was born like that.
And I remember in my younger days, before
I found my security in God, I used
to be envious of believers who were extroverts.
You know, these happy-go-lucky people who
are born like that, who can slap people
on the back and say, Hi, how are
you?
And here I am, I'm reluctant to do
things like that.
I'm very shy and inward-looking.
I say, I wish I could be like
that.
God never made me like that.
And then I felt inferior to them.
Then till I discovered that I didn't have
to be an extrovert to be a disciple
of Jesus, I could follow Jesus with my
own temperament and personality.
Jesus didn't say go into all the world
and make extroverts.
He said go into all the world and
make disciples.
And that's what I am to be.
Now, I say this because some people feel,
I want to be like that person who
is very outgoing and can always talk about
wonderful things and make people happy.
Well, if you're not like that, it doesn't
matter.
God made you the way you are and
you've got to find acceptance.
God understands you even if people don't.
And some of us have had experiences in
life which have given us certain hang-ups,
have maybe warped our personality, and people don't
understand.
I want to say God understands.
He understands the things that people don't understand.
He understands everything we've gone through in our
past life.
You know, sometimes we compare believers like this.
One believer has reached up to here.
Another believer has reached up there spiritually.
And we say, well, that believer is ahead
of this brother, so he must be more
zealous.
Well, not necessarily.
It's true, he's higher up.
But you know what God sees?
God sees where they started from.
This man who is here may have started
from way down there.
And this man who is here only started
from here.
So who's made more progress?
God who sees everything, sees this brother as
a far more wholehearted brother than this one.
But we can't see that.
We see this person as ahead.
And we are.
That's why the Bible says don't judge.
All those wonderful faculties of discernment that you
think you have, you don't have them.
Just humble yourself and say, Lord, I don't
know.
I even see myself darkly through a glass.
How in the world am I going to
see other people clearly?
It's good to humble ourselves and acknowledge that
we know very, very little.
God understands.
We're speaking to a father who understands our
struggles, who understands the pit from which we've
come up.
That other brother was fortunate enough not to
have come up from such a pit, so
he doesn't have the hang-ups I have.
He doesn't have the struggles I have.
He was fortunate enough to be brought up
in a home where the parents were God
-fearing.
Maybe you came from a home where it
was like a gutter.
God understands that, even if men don't.
God makes allowance for it, even if men
don't.
He's a father.
And it's when you understand that, when you
believe that, we who believe enter into rest.
Otherwise, you'll always have a complaint.
Somebody doesn't understand you.
Somebody doesn't understand your struggles.
Why do you want people to understand your
struggles?
Jesus says, come to me, all you who
are weary and heavy laden.
He didn't say, go to men.
He said, come to me.
Even today, he says, come to me and
I will give you rest.
That's the Sabbath, where my life can be
a perfect Sabbath rest.
I want to say, my brothers and sisters,
that before you work for the Lord, that's
what you need to come into, first.
God is a father.
And the second part of that prayer was,
our father who art in heaven.
See, I need to know not only God
as my loving, compassionate, understanding, kind father, who
understands everything about me, my personality, my warped
temperament, the crookedness in my personality that has
come up through the difficult circumstances I've had
in my home and upbringing and maybe my
ancestry.
You know, we have carried a lot of
baggage from our past ancestry and life.
God understands it.
He understands you fully.
And he's one who's in heaven, which means
he's one who's got total control over everything.
There are times when I sit outside my
house and I look at the stars and
I say, Lord, how great you are.
And if you know a little bit of
geography, you know that these stars are much
bigger than our Earth.
They are massive.
In fact, I've read in the geography books
that one of these stars is so big
that our entire solar system could rotate inside
it if it were hollow.
Can you imagine that?
The sun and the moon and all the
planets rotating inside this star at the same
distance if that star were hollow.
That's how big some of these stars are.
But they are so many light years away.
It will take us thousands of years to
reach some of those stars, even if we
travel at the speed of light, which is
186,000 miles a second.
And so far away, such a huge universe
and our Earth, this thing which will look
so big when we live on it, when
you look at it from the heavenlies, it's
a speck of dust, not even a speck
of dust.
This is how God sees it.
And I say, Lord, I want to see
this myself.
I want to encourage you to do this
sometimes.
I do this particularly when I have a
difficult problem, when I'm facing.
When I have a difficult problem, this is
what I do.
I want to think of my Father in
heaven.
And this is how I meditate on my
Father in heaven.
I shut my eyes and I think of
Almighty God up there, my Heavenly Father, running
this massive universe with all the stars and
huge stars and small, small planets and one
small little speck of dust somewhere out there
called the Earth.
And on that Earth, there's a still smaller
speck of dust called me.
And this person called me is having a
problem, which I think is a huge problem
which nobody can solve.
And when I look at it from that
perspective, I say, Lord, what is this?
This little thing worrying me so much?
Our Father who art in heaven.
I want to encourage you to begin your
prayers like that.
Not necessarily always with those words, but with
that faith that, you know, a lot of
our prayers are not answered because we don't
believe.
Because if you pray a prayer and you
don't believe, it's like writing a huge letter
and not mailing it.
You can have a satisfaction that you wrote
the letter, but nothing is going to come
of it.
You don't have faith.
But when you pray even a one sentence
prayer, it's like a one line letter and
you mail it, it goes.
And you have faith and say, my Father
in heaven, I believe you know everything that's
happening here and there is no problem you
cannot solve.
Is there a problem in the universe that
God cannot solve?
Is there a problem on Earth that God
cannot solve?
Do you believe that that problem you are
facing is so big, God can't solve it?
Sometimes I used to think like that.
Now this is what I do.
I meditate on Almighty God who runs this
universe and then I come to rest.
Otherwise I'm in unrest.
I'm agitated.
I'm worried.
The Bible says, be anxious for nothing.
But in everything, Philippians 4.6, by prayer
and supplication.
And I think that means specific prayer.
I think that means specific prayer.
You remember the blind man who came to
Jesus and said, Son of David, have mercy
on me.
And Jesus said, be specific.
What do you want?
Don't just say, have mercy on me.
He said, I want my eyes open.
Okay, granted.
We need to be specific.
Oh God bless me.
What does that mean?
What do you want?
Lord, this particular thing.
Okay.
Prayer and supplication.
Lord, this particular thing is the thing that's
bothering me.
This particular problem right now.
Maybe this particular sickness in my child.
This particular problem that other person has created
for me.
In everything, by prayer and supplication.
And then there's a very important word after
that.
With thanksgiving.
Well, prayer is, I don't know.
I don't know what it is.
Not exactly like mailing a letter.
It's like email.
It reaches there immediately.
Thank you, Lord.
You received it.
Praise the Lord.
You received it.
Just I click that button and it's gone.
It's reached that person already.
Thank you, Father.
Thank you for hearing me.
Thank you for saying that you received the
email and you're taking care of that problem.
Wonderful.
Thanks a lot.
And when you do that, it says peace.
The peace of God will guard your heart
and your mind.
It says it will guard is a military
word.
It's like a military garrison of soldiers surrounding
your heart and your mind.
The peace of God will guard is compared
here to an army that will not allow
all those anxious, worried thoughts to come in
and disturb you.
And what do you experience in your heart
then?
A Sabbath rest.
There remains a Sabbath rest for God's people.
God is insulted when we don't trust him.
That's why it's a serious sin.
That's why Jesus said we must become like
little children.
How easy it is for little children.
No matter what problems there may be in
the house.
Consider a home where there's a little one
-year-old child.
Maybe there's not enough money in the house
for a meal tomorrow.
In India, most people live in houses that
are not their own, rented from landlords who
can just turn you out of the house
one day.
And maybe the landlord has asked you to
vacate the house tomorrow morning and you haven't
got a place to move.
And you've got to pack your things and
move.
I've seen homes in India where if you
don't move everything is put out on the
roadside and there you are with all your
stuff.
Immersive.
And maybe it's like that.
The situation is like that.
There's not enough money, you've got to vacate
the house tomorrow, you haven't found a place
and the father and mother are in a
panic, awake, worried.
And you go and see that one-year
-old child is fast asleep.
He's at rest.
And you wake up that child and say,
hey, don't you know that you've got to
vacate this house tomorrow?
Don't you know that there's no money in
the house?
He says, well, that's daddy's problem, it's not
mine.
That's what the Lord wants us to say
too.
We've got a daddy too.
Lord, I want to be like that child.
Yeah, it is a problem.
The child's got to vacate the house tomorrow
too.
But he's got a father, he's not an
orphan.
One of the things that Jesus said to
his disciples in John chapter 14 was, verse
18, I will not leave you as orphans.
You know, they were orphans.
As long as Jesus was with them, he
was okay.
He was like father, mother, everything.
And life was so secure with him around.
And one of the things in the Gospels
we see is that the disciples felt so
secure when Jesus was around.
It didn't matter if there was a storm
in the sea, it didn't matter if whatever
happened, if demons were there, man with 6
,000 demons came at them, wouldn't bother them
if Jesus was there.
They were so secure.
And now he says, I'm going to go
away.
Can you imagine the panic?
And on top of that he says, it's
better for you that I go away.
They just can't understand that.
How can it be better for us if
you go away?
We only feel secure when you're here.
And he says, if I don't go away,
you know, I can only be here in
Galilee.
What about those children of mine in India?
They won't have me.
Or in the United States, they won't have
me.
Only you folks will have me in Galilee.
You fellows will be secure.
But if I go, the Holy Spirit will
come.
And when he comes into people's hearts, they'll
have me with them wherever they are.
So, you know, the Holy Spirit came to
replace Jesus.
He said, another comforter.
He didn't say 8 comforters.
He said, I will give you another helper.
Someone just like me.
And the wonderful thing will be that he
can be with you wherever you go.
And he'll be with people everywhere.
See, this is the purpose of the Holy
Spirit coming.
And that's why it says in Romans chapter
8, that when the Spirit of God has
come into our heart, the first thing he
cries out is, you know what it is?
Daddy.
Abba is just the Hebrew for daddy, by
the way.
I don't know why they didn't translate it
properly.
Maybe they felt it was not right to
use such a word.
But Abba, in the, it's very similar to
the English language, to the Indian languages, which
they use for father.
Exactly that.
It's a word of intimacy.
In our Indian languages, we have an official
word for father, which is equivalent to the
Indian father.
And then we have Abba, which is daddy.
That's what the Holy Spirit says in Romans
8 says.
He says, Abba, daddy.
I'm not an orphan anymore.
I've got someone to provide for me.
I've got someone to take care of my
problems.
It's okay.
The landlords told me to vacate the house,
but my God can.
The King's heart is in the hand of
the Lord.
He can turn it wherever he wills.
Proverbs 21.1 says, he can change the
mind of the landlord by tomorrow morning, no
problem.
He changed the mind of King Ahasuerus.
That's a lovely story there in the Old
Testament where it killed Mordecai.
And he had an equally wicked wife who
sat down with him the whole night and
made a seventy-five or seventy foot gallows.
Now you don't need a seventy foot gallows
to hang a man.
You just need about ten feet.
But he was determined to humiliate Mordecai the
whole nation.
Like a six-story building, a huge gallows.
They must have spent the whole night doing
that.
And Mordecai, he was sleeping.
He didn't know what was happening.
He didn't bother because the Lord who took
care of him, the Lord didn't slumber or
sleep.
So that was enough.
If the Lord was awake, then Mordecai could
sleep.
And I'll tell you that.
The Bible says he gives his beloved sleep.
And if the Lord's awake, you can sleep.
Even when your enemies are working overtime and
doing all types of things, planning evil for
you.
And the wonderful thing we see there is
how God turned the tables on Haman and
turned the tables on the devil.
It's a very simple way.
God didn't use a great complicated way by
striking Haman down with lightning from heaven or
something.
That would have been not so good.
He did a better way.
He just took away sleep from the king
of that country, King Ahasuerus.
You know God can sometimes disturb a person's
sleep.
King Ahasuerus couldn't sleep that day.
So he said, well, maybe the best way
is to read some boring books.
Let's get the history books of the nation
and start reading them.
Maybe I'll get some sleep then.
So he got all the history books out
and he got somebody to read the history
books and went on and on and on
and still couldn't sleep.
He finally came to the place where it
says, Mordecai saved the king's life.
By the time it was about six o
'clock in the morning.
Mordecai saved the king's life and the king
was wide awake.
He says, well, what did we do for
Mordecai?
He saved my life.
He said, we did nothing.
Oh, I'm sorry, you missed out on that.
We better do something to honor him and
see the timing of God.
It says that very moment Haman had finished
the gallows and walks into the king's compound
and walks into the king.
The king says, well, Haman, what do you
think we should do to honor a man
whom the king wants to honor?
And of course, Haman, proud man that he
is, thinks, well, that must be me.
Who else?
And he says, I think you should put
him on a horse and get one of
your chief men to lead him through the
city and say, thus will the king honor
anybody.
I said, that's a good idea.
Why don't you put Mordecai on a horse
straight away and lead him through the city.
See, God's got a sense of humor.
Just striking Haman dead with lightning out there
at night wouldn't have been such a wonderful
thing, but to humiliate him, to make a
fool of the devil.
This is our father.
Can't you rest?
These things are written for our instruction.
The God who lived in Mordecai's time is
just the same today.
And he couldn't call him father.
We can.
We're not orphans.
I want to say to all of you,
my brothers and sisters, you're not an orphan.
Do you know that?
Don't let the devil tell you anything else.
You are not an orphan.
It doesn't matter if you slipped up here
and there.
God is always on your side against the
devil.
Always.
I sometimes use this illustration in India.
I say, supposing you've got a very naughty,
troublesome 12-year-old child at home.
I say, you mother, you're there.
Your father's away at work and this child
is creating problems for you and he shouts
at you and yells at you and bangs
the door and goes out into the yard.
And then you hear a scream.
And you see him there standing against a
tree with a huge cobra snake with his
hood up, ready to strike him.
And remember, this is your naughty child who's
giving you headaches day and night.
Now what will you say?
Will you say to that child, you deserve
that.
Now you snake, sting him.
Kill him.
Will you say that?
And every mother sitting in the congregation says,
I'll never say that.
I say, are you sure?
Even to that naughty child who you tell
him, I'm sick and tired of you.
You won't say that?
No.
I want to say, God's a better mother
and father than you are.
And even if you're naughty and you've done
something terrible and the devil comes at you,
God's on your side against the devil.
He doesn't like your sin, but he's always
on your side against Satan.
Every day, every time I live and I
sleep with this confidence, God is always on
my side against the devil.
And if I confess my sin and I'm
honest with him and I keep my conscience
clear, then I've got a sound pillow to
sleep on at night.
A good conscience is the best pillow to
sleep on.
A conscience clear of offense toward God and
toward men.
This restlessness comes in our conscience.
Have you obeyed that scripture which says in
Ephesians 4 and verse 26, that even if
you're angry, you must never let the sun
set on your anger.
Now in those days, they didn't have electricity,
and I know how it is in a
lot of our villages in India too.
Once the sun sets, when it gets dark,
you just go to bed.
So what he's saying is, before you go
to bed, settle everything that needs to be
settled.
To all married couples who might conduct marriages,
I give this bit of advice.
From this day onwards, please never go to
sleep at night with anything unsettled.
Don't let the sun set on your anger
or your bitterness or some misunderstanding or something
unsettled.
Clear it.
Let give God a chance to work.
Enter into the Sabbath.
There is an unrest there.
That's what God wants more than anything else.
More than you're serving him, more than you're
working for him.
When God made Adam, do you know that
Adam's first day was a day of rest?
How many of you knew that?
He was created on the second part of
the sixth day, towards the end of the
sixth day.
Right?
What was the next day?
Sabbath.
But that was the first day for him.
It was as it were God saying, listen
Adam, before you do any work, let's spend
one day, you and I together.
Then you can go out and work in
the garden.
It's like joining a company which says, well,
you're signed on today.
You go for one month's holiday.
Then we start working.
Have you ever heard of a company like
that?
God's like that.
He's a good God.
He says, let's you and I have some
fellowship.
Don't do any work today, Adam, rest.
That's the Sabbath, a fellowship with God.
Unclouded fellowship with God, with not a cloud
between.
Because every sin has been confessed, cleansed in
the precious blood of Jesus.
And every wrong that I have done to
my wife or husband or brother or sister,
I have gone and humbled myself and said,
I'm sorry, brother.
I'm sorry, sister.
I'm sorry for what I did.
It was my mistake.
And then I can go to bed.
A clear conscience.
No unrest.
The Bible says, let the peace of Christ,
Colossians 3, it says, let the peace of
Christ, verse 15, in one translation it says,
be a referee in your hearts.
Now in India, a lot of our young
people play football.
A lot of children play football.
And in football, there's a referee who blows
a whistle.
When they blow a whistle, it means something
is wrong in the game.
And here it says, the peace of Christ
is like a referee.
And when you hear that whistle, some unrest
in your heart, some agitation, it's God blowing
the whistle, saying, you've done something wrong.
It's like a wrong, a foul start.
Something wrong.
It's like in these athletic games where you
ran before the gunfire.
You've got to come back.
It's a whistle.
Come back.
Something is wrong.
And in that game, you've got to just
come back and settle that foul before you
proceed with the game.
Something is wrong, and that peace of Christ
has been lost.
And you must stop everything and settle that
before you proceed.
This is the meaning of the Old Testament
Sabbath.
A heart which is at rest 24 hours
of the day, not worried about the problems
of life because I've committed it.
I've emailed it to my Heavenly Father, and
he's received it.
And I thank him immediately.
Not agitated because of something unsettled between me
and another human being, or a sin unconfessed
to God.
Perfect rest.
I want to say to you, my dear
brothers and sisters, let us fear, lest we
don't enter into this rest.
Whatever else you may do for God, He
does not value it if you don't first
have fellowship with Him.
That first day must be a day of
fellowship.
Then you work for Him.
We must put first things first.
God invites you today to come to rest,
to trust Him.
Let's pray.
Now while our heads abound in prayer, I
want to invite you to respond to the
word of God that you have heard.
I want you to listen to the invitation
of Jesus, who says, Come to me, all
you who are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.
There remains a rest for God's people.
Trust me, I can handle that problem.
I've got a solution for that thing that's
bothered you for so many years.
You're not an orphan.
Trust me.
Let's enter into that rest, brothers and sisters.
Let's make a decision before God today that
if there's anyone you've wronged or hurt by
an angry word spoken maybe ten years ago,
if you haven't settled, or this morning, that
from this day onwards, you'll never go to
bed with a disturbed conscience.
You'll make that phone call.
You'll apologize.
You'll set things right.
And if it's a money matter, at the
earliest opportunity, you'll return that money which doesn't
belong to you.
Oh, value that conscience at rest that doesn't
disturb you.
That's the best pillow to sleep on.
Settle it.
Some difficulty between you and another brother?
Humble yourself.
Take that first step.
Humble yourself.
Even if it's his fault, humble yourself.
Say, brother, I want to have fellowship with
you.
And may you go to bed tonight with
nothing on your conscience, with a heart at
rest in God.
Just think how peaceful your sleep will be
tonight.
With even your problems committed to him, he
who runs this universe can handle your problems.
We who believe, enter into rest.
Heavenly Father, we know you want us to
enter into rest in our inner life.
I pray to be true for everyone here.
You understand us.
You understand the struggles people have gone through.
I pray that this will not be just
a message, but something that leads everyone here,
not only today, but into a lifetime of
a Sabbath rest in God.
There is a place of quiet rest near
to the heart of God.
A place where sin cannot molest, near to
the heart of God.
That's where he invites you, my brother, sister,
close to his heart, where the toils and
worries and cares of this earth cannot bother
you.
He invites you to come there, to lean
your head upon his breast, like John did,
and be at rest.
He invites you, come to me, you who
are weary, heavy laden.
I will give you rest.
Heavenly Father, you know those who are responding
in their hearts across here, this hall this
evening.
I pray that you will give them such
an assurance of security.
Speak this word to their hearts.
You're not an orphan.
You are God.
Lord, God Almighty, is your Father.
I pray they will enter into a real
understanding of that tonight.
I pray that those whose conscience is disturbing
them about something will settle it tonight, Lord.
We will not postpone it till tomorrow.
Enter into rest tonight.
Help everyone, we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.