The Two Witnesses (7)

The next thing we see in Joshua concerning the two witnesses concerns bringing God’s people into rest.  The book reads,

And to the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to half the tribe of Manasseh, spake Joshua, saying, Remember the word which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, saying, The LORD your God hath given you rest, and hath given you this land. Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle, shall remain in the land which Moses gave you on this side Jordan; but ye shall pass before your brethren armed, all the mighty men of valour, and help them;  Until the LORD have given your brethren rest, as he hath given you, and they also have possessed the land which the LORD your God giveth them: then ye shall return unto the land of your possession, and enjoy it, which Moses the LORD’S servant gave you on this side Jordan toward the sunrising. (Joshua 1:12-15 KJV) 

Here we see the Reubenites, Gadites, and half-tribe of Mannasseh serve as types of the overcomers because they have entered God’s rest before any of their brethren.   God gave man the Sabbath Day in order to teach us the importance of entering his rest .  Entering God’s rest  reveals one of the highest goals of all Scripture.  This explains why disobedence to the Sabbath brought the death penalty under the Old Covenant.  It was not because Moses was “legalistic” as I have heard some foolish pastors proclaim.  The Sabbath represents dying to self and allowing God to live through you.  It means giving up your plans, your programs, and your selfish ambitions.  Yes, it even means giving up your ridiculous prophesies which never come to pass.

Hebrews 3-4 teaches more about entering God’s rest than any other place in Scripture.  Hebrews 4:9 proclaims, “There remaineth therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God.”  Many have mistakenly taken this to mean that Christians must keep the Sabbath in the same way as Old Covenant Israel did.  Therefore Puritans strictly forbade partaking of any enjoyable activities on that day.  Even great movies like Chariots of Fire show a perverted view of this doctrine by its main hero and its application to young people playing ball on Sunday.  The sabbath rest remaining for God’s people does not deal with religiously “not working” on a certain day of the week.  I know Christians who take Saturday as a Sabbath.  I know others who take Sunday.  And I know a few who take a different day each month depending on when the new moon rises.  I personally rest all day on most Sundays, but if I have to, I will work.  Yes, Moses did teach us that we could not work on the Hebrew sabbath day, which I believe to be Saturday.  The New Covenant takes this natural concept into the spiritual dimension.

The purpose of entering God’s rest now is to cease from our own labors.  Our own labors bring nothing but death.  As Jesus said, “the flesh profits nothing.”  Most church programs, even if they began in the Spirit, have devolved to works of the flesh.  Thus God remains displeased with much that we do.  He desires us to wait upon him.  He would rather us do nothing than to do works of the flesh that we attribute to Him.  Many preachers and prophets have gone forth in these last days, but many speak from their own minds, not the mind of the Spirit.  The overcomers represented by these two and one-half tribes in Joshua have entered God’s rest before the third day.  These are those “alive and left” when Jesus comes to be glorified in his saints.  These are those, along with the ones of the first resurrection that also entered God’s rest, who bring the remaining people of God into rest in the coming Kingdom.