Entrance into God's Rest.
We have here:
I. The Divine rest: "He hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His." (1) Rest belongs necessarily to the Divine nature. It is the deep tranquillity of a nature self-sufficing in its infinite beauty, calm in its everlasting strength, placid in its deepest joy, still in its mightiest energy; loving without passion, willing without decision or change, acting without effort, quiet and moving everything; making all things new, and itself everlasting; creating and knowing no diminution by the act; annihilating and knowing no loss, though the universe were barren and unpeopled. The great ocean of Divine nature which knows no storm nor billow is yet not a tideless and stagnant sea. God is changeless and ever tranquil, and yet He lives, wills, and acts. (2) There is the thought here of God's tranquil ceasing from His work, because He has perfected it. (3) This Divine tranquillity is a rest that is full of work. Preservation is a continued creation.
II. The rest of God and Christ is the pattern of what our earthly life may become. Faith, which is the means of entering into rest, will, if only you cherish it, make your life no unworthy resemblance of His who, triumphant above, works for us, and, working for us, rests from all His toil.
III. This Divine rest is a prophecy of what our heavenly life shall surely be. The heaven of all spiritual natures is not idleness. Man's delight is activity. The loving heart's delight is obedience; the saved heart's delight is grateful service. Heaven is the earthly life of a believer glorified and perfected. If here we by faith enter into the beginning of rest, yonder through death with faith, we shall enter into the perfection of it.
A. Maclaren, Sermons in Manchester,vol. i., p. 291.
References: Hebrews 4:11. E. Cooper, Practical Sermons,vol. ii., p. 301; Homilist,2nd series, vol. iv., p. 211; Homiletic Magazinevol. xiii., p. 111; E. Paxton Hood, Dark Sayings on a Harp,p. 369.