20 Jan Pillow (Resting on the Promises of God) 4
One night, I was having a very difficult time getting to sleep. Finally, I got to sleep around 5:00am. Many years ago I trained myself to go to sleep with someone on CD teaching the Word of God. As I always do, I turned on the CD player and finally drifted off to sleep. Because I had not gotten to sleep until early in the morning, my sleep was erratic and filled with many crazy dreams.
Only about a half an hour into my sleep I began to wake up. I was in that hazy spot between sleep and consciousness. I heard a voice in my room. Still not fully cognizant, I thought there was an intruder in my room. As I awakened, I took a swing at what I thought was an intruder but was simply my CD player! I can tell you I knocked out that CD player in the first round! Clearly, it is important to get a good night’s sleep…rest is very important! However, I am not talking about physical rest, but resting in the promises of God!
Over the last few weeks we began our discussion by sharing with you some biblical synonyms for the concept of “rest” in the Word of God:
1. Fret not (see Psalm 37:1-9)
2. Fear not (see Mark 5:36)
3. Let not your heart be troubled (John 14:1)
4. Take no thought (see Matthew 6:31)
5. Be anxious for nothing (see Phil. 4:6-7)
Then we shared with you our key scriptures for this series in Hebrews 4:11-12: “Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
We discussed that the word “labor” is the Greek word “spuedes” which means to meditate. From that we gathered a vital principle…meditate on the Word until it becomes larger than life! Last week we also began to share with you “Four Righteous Realms of Resting”:
1. Rest in the promises of God (II Pet. 1:3-4).
Within this section we discussed the Greek word for “promises” found in II Pet. 1:3-4 is the Greek word epiangelos which literally means “over the word of an angel.” We can rest in the promises of God because they are more reliable than the word of an angel!
This week let’s continue…
The Bible tells us in Mark 4:38-41, “And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith? And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
In this powerful passage from the Bible, the promise of God is “let’s go to the other side.” However, from the “shore of promise given” to the “shore of promise manifested”, many times there arises a great storm. The Greek word for “great” is mega which implies a very great mega storm! I know how the disciples must have felt.
I love to fish and many times I have chartered boats to take me way out in the ocean to catch shark. I had chartered a certain captain for many years and we had become friends. For years we had talked about catching a once-in-a-lifetime shark…a tiger shark! They are rare and difficult to find, and have been known to eat man (please inject your own “Jaws” music here)! Finally, we decided to go after one.
My captain had brought special equipment for catching this size of fish and traveled way out into the ocean by a sunken ship. When we finally arrived, it wasn’t but a few minutes until we hooked up with a seven foot, 200 pound Tiger! I was ecstatic!
As I settled into the fighting chair preparing for a long battle, all of a sudden it hit me. The waves where we were fishing were about 8-10 feet and waves of motion sickness began to wash over me like a mighty torrent of rain! Now, if you have ever had motion sickness like this before I can assure you I would not wish this on a Michigan fan (pause for possible exception here)! I would rather wrestle an alligator than have to fight off this type of extreme motion sickness! I was in quite the dilemma. I could feel myself about to lose my lunch and yet I had the fish of a lifetime on the end of my rod! What to do?! So I simply turned my head and threw up to the side, and never missed a beat with catching this monster! The captain exclaimed with pride, “Now this is a true fisherman!” Then I think he realized that he had to clean up the boat!
I know how the disciples must have felt that night, but “let’s go to the other side” was the promise of God. Isn’t it amazing how one man’s storm is another man’s rocking chair! As you know, Jesus was asleep in the back part of the boat. He simply “fluffed up” the pillow of the promises of God and rested! What is the difference between the “shore of promise given” and “the shore of promise manifested”…resting in the promises of God!