The Nature of the Spirit's Rest

Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and theit works do follow them,” — REV. xiv. 13.

rest from their labours and their works do not follow them.” Ah! but I forget that this is the Spirit’s rest, “Yea, saith the Spirit.” When the Spirit says “yea,” I enter into work just because I lose the sense of labour. The Spirit’s “yea” is love; it is the consent of the will. It is where my love is weak that my labour is most burdensome and my work most incomplete. But when I enter into the Spirit’s “‘ yea,” I enter into a rest that makes me strong; I forget the sense of toil, I fly over the ground, I bound across the fields of duty. The rest of

the Spirit is always followed by action. When I lie down on the bosom of God I wake up to my own energies. Why does the Son of man say, ‘I must work the works of Him that sent me”? Why, indeed, but because He “is in the bosom of the Father.” Think you that He could have borne so much outward toil if it had not been for His fulness of inward rest? Nay; it was the rested soul that made the active frame; it was the stable will that made the moving power; it was the waveless heart that bore upon its ocean breast the burdens of the world. His spirit had ceased from its labours; therefore His works followed Him.

My brother, art Thou in times of sorrow longing for the rest of the grave? God desires no such rest for thee. The rest of the grave is for a body; a soul must have the rest of the Spirit. Thinkest thou that death is to be a cessation of work? Nay; but only of labour. That which makes thy life a toil is not thy work but thy weariness. If thou couldst only cease to be tired, thy works would follow thee everywhere. God offers thee in death not less work but work more abundantly — work that achieves more because it feels no strain. ‘There shall be no night there” — no sense of reaction from the burden and heat of the day. Thine shall be the blessedness, not of sleep, but of waking, not of dreams, but of doing, not of apathy, but ot feeling. Thine shall be the blessedness of love — the action of the heart. Thine shall be the blessedness of ministration — the labour of love. Thine shall be the blessedness of having one will with the Divine — the state in which service is identical with liberty, and where obedience becomes the freeman’s vital air. Thou shalt resume thine abandoned works when thou hast attained the Spirit’s rest,