GIVE GOD NO REST
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ALL IN PRAYER: GIVE GOD NO REST.
We cannot decide whether or not we will live or die; we can only decide what we will die for.
Isaiah 62:6–7 (ESV)
On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest,
and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.
"For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest."
IN THE OPENING VERSES OF THIS CHAPTER OUR LORD DECLARES THAT HE WILL NOT REST TILL HIS PURPOSE OF GRACE IS ACCOMPLISHED.
"For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest."
Before He created the world’s. Before He breathed air into Adam’s lungs. And before sin into Adam’s heart. Christ desire for the salvation of his redeemed existed.
"For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest."
Doubt His desire? Unsure of its veracity? Are you like Thomas? Do you need a visual demonstration in order to believe?
"For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest."
Look at the cross. There is your visual validation. Look at the cross. There is your veracity. Bloody, beaten, berated, and abandoned until “It was finished.
"For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest."
His quenchless zeal prevents Him from staying His divine intercession. He will not rest until His work of salvation is complete.
"For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest."
This text exist in our Bible to teach us that if He takes no rest then he would not have us to take rest. He stir His people with a holy zeal aimed at accomplishing the divine plan of grace.
You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.
A restless Savior call upon his people to be restless and to make the Lord himself restless. He calls us to give Him no rest until the work is complete.
Christ determination to perform His work is not a call laziness but liveliness.
Christ determination is encouragement for our endeavors. Without it our zeal would be without purpose.
Christ determination to perform His work is not a call laziness but liveliness.
Many of you would rightly argue that many give themselves with great zeal to causes which they are unsure of there success.
Christ determination to perform His work is not a call laziness but liveliness.
Such people labor with a zeal plagued by anxiety. Whereas, Christians being assured that the Lord has appointed their labor, do so with confidence.
Since He wills it, we will it; and so it will be.
DEUS VULT
We go under the banner “DEUS VULT”. God wills it and will not rest until His will is accomplished through His people.
DEUS VULT
May today’s time in the Scripture bring us all to resolve, the we will not rest, and we will give God no rest, until His work is complete and worshipped by people of every tribe, nation, and tongue.
CULPABLE COMMISSIONS
Our text provides us with three CULPABLE COMMISSIONS.
WATCHMAN
A fortified city commissioned soldiers to set watchman on the walls. They were responsible to give alarm when a foe appeared.
A WATCHMAN IS UNDER DIVINE COMMAND
On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest,
Notice their specific culpability from the Lord. “I have set”. We are under divine command.
A WATCHMAN IS UNDER DIVINE COMMAND
It was unthinkable for a watchman to quit his post. In the excavation of Pompeii, a soldier was discovered standing in his place with javelin in hand. He had not flinched amid the deadly shower which fell from the volcano that buried the city.
A WATCHMAN IS UNDER DIVINE COMMAND
This soldier was steadfast and unmovable when commissioned by his king. How much more should those who have been commissioned by the King of Kings?
Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.
BEING A WATCHMAN DEMANDS CONSTANT CARE
and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.
WE ARE NEVER OFF DUTY
St. Augustine desired to be found always praying or preaching. Our service to the Lord is more than Sundays but as often as we have opportunity.
WE ARE NEVER OFF DUTY
On a dangerous sea coast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea and with no thought for themselves went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost.
WE ARE NEVER OFF DUTY
Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little lifesaving station grew.
WE ARE NEVER OFF DUTY
Some members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building.
WE ARE NEVER OFF DUTY
Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely, because they used it as sort of a club.
WE ARE NEVER OFF DUTY
Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The lifesaving motif still prevailed in this club’s decorations, and there was a miniature lifeboat in the room where the club initiations were held.
WE ARE NEVER OFF DUTY
About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, and some of them had black skin and some had yellow skin. The beautiful new club was in chaos.
WE ARE NEVER OFF DUTY
So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s lifesaving activities, since they were unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club.
WE ARE NEVER OFF DUTY
Some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast. They did.
WE ARE NEVER OFF DUTY
As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that sea coast today you will find a number of exclusive clubs along the shore.
Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.
Rescue the perishing,
Care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save.
Rescue the perishing,
Care for the dying;
Jesus is merciful,
Jesus will save.
SPOKESPERSON
BE INSTANT
Be ready to speak. If there is nobody to converse with then in your solitude speak to God for others. Plead with him for the erring and the unbelieving.
BE INTERCEEDING
Never be silent towards you King. You are a spokesperson for God and to God, so do not be silent.
Come, my soul, thy suit prepare:
Jesus loves to answer prayer;
He Himself has bid thee pray,
Therefore will not say thee nay;
Therefore will not say thee nay.
Thou art coming to a King,
Large petitions with thee bring;
For His grace and power are such,
None can ever ask too much;
None can ever ask too much.
REMEMBRANCERS
Every Christian carries the commission of being a remembrancer to the King of Kings. Oriental kings maintained an officer whose business it was to remind the king of these promises which he had made.
REMEMBRANCERS
The remembrancer’s duty was to remind the king of his promises. A remembrancer would say
“Please your majesty, you promised to do this and that, may it please you to perform your word.”
The Lord has appointed his praying people to be his rememberancers. I know such language seems bold and I say it because it is the language of Scripture.
Put me in remembrance; let us argue together; set forth your case, that you may be proved right.
The Lord does not forget His promises like human kings. He cannot forget but we can. His commission is for our forgetfulness not His. His call for us to remind Him is actually His way of making us more acquainted with what He has promised.
REMEMBRANCERS INVOKE PROMISES
To be a good rememberancer you need to know the promises. You must be acquainted with your Bible so that you can order your petitions correctly. Come to your king as encouraged by the Psalmist
Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope.
REMEMBRANCERS INVOKE PROMISES
If we pray without a promise we have no reason to expect an answer. God will do what he has promised to do: he may do somewhat more, but we have no right to expect it. The best praying in the world is pleading the promises.
REMEMBRANCERS INVOKE PROMISES
It is wise to bring before the Lord his own words, and plead his divine veracity (trustworthiness): It is our business, as the Lord's remembrancers, to be well acquainted with these sacred words of grace which you are to bring to remembrance. If you do not remember them yourself, how can you bring them to the Lord's memory?
REMEMBRANCERS INCESSANTLY WORK
On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest,
REMEMBRANCES INCESSANTLY WORK
Experience tells me that many of Gods promises are seldom used. How many promises can you claim at this moment? Are you not suspicious that more can be named than those for which you can recall?
REMEMBRANCES INCESSANTLY WORK
I submit to you this day that there are more hidden away in Scripture than you have ever used and even more that you don’t know exist.
REMEMBRANCES INCESSANTLY WORK
What a treasury of promises we have in which to pray. Would that our Lord inflame our hearts to know more so that we can engage in incessantly praying His promises.
REMEMBRANCES INCESSANTLY WORK
The treasury of heaven lies open to faith, and yet we fret and worry about our little daily cares. We have but to plead a promise of God to put him in remembrance, and he will supply all our needs: why, then, do we pine in want? Fools that we are, to be anxious and poverty-stricken with the possibilities of infinite riches close at hand!
Thou art coming to a King,
Large petitions with thee bring;
For His grace and power are such,
None can ever ask too much;
None can ever ask too much.
Promises were not given to be forgotten, but to be pleaded, and then to be fulfilled.
It is written,
“Thus says the Lord God: This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them: to increase their people like a flock.
It is the rule of God's kingdom that we must bring to his remembrance the promise which we would have fulfilled in our own experience; therefore, "Ye that are the Lord's remembrancers, take ye no rest."
A CLEAR CAUTION
DO NOT REST FROM PRAYING.
Take no rest from prayer. be always praying. If not always in the act of prayer, be always in the spirit of prayer. "Pray without ceasing." Not only reason, but wrestle with God in prayer. Sometimes pray without words, and sometimes with them. Pray alone, and often pray with brethren.
DO NOT REST FROM PRAYING.
Modern day Christians despise the meeting for prayer; and in this they condemn themselves, by owning that they attach little value to their own prayers.
DO NOT REST FROM PRAYING.
Where the prayer-meeting is despised, there may be cleverness in the preacher, but there will be no unction for the hearer.
DO NOT REST FROM PRAYING.
Eureka Baptist, I beseech you, both as individuals and as a church, do not restrain prayer. "Watch and pray"—that precept is a condensation of our text.
DO NOT REST FROM BECAUSE YOU ARE WEARY OF IT.
Never rest from prayer because you are weary of it. Whenever prayer becomes distasteful, it should be a loud call to pray all the more. No man has such need to pray as the man who does not care to pray.
DO NOT REST FROM BECAUSE YOU ARE WEARY OF IT.
When you can pray, and long to pray, then you will pray; but when you cannot pray, and do not wish to pray, then you must pray, or evil will come of it. He is on the brink of ruin who forgets the mercy-seat.
DO NOT REST FROM PRAYER BECAUSE YOU HAVE PRAYED ENOUGH.
When has a man prayed enough? The greatest pleaders with God in prayer are the hungriest after more of it. The more a man gets from God, the more he desires from God.
DO NOT REST FROM PRAYER BECAUSE YOU HAVE PRAYED ENOUGH.
The way to heaven is up hill, and every inch of the way will need effort; for the kingdom of heaven suffers violence. Grace does not exempt us from activity, but works it in us. If you know the power of the weapon called "all-prayer," never put it up into its sheath, but continually call upon the Lord, and in this matter "take no rest."
DO NOT REST OUT OF DESPAIR.
This experience is universal for all Christians—"What is the use of our labor? So little comes of it. What is the use of protesting for the truth?
DO NOT REST OUT OF DESPAIR.
We have no cause for despair. Our cause defeated? Not a bit of it! All will come right yet. God waits; but he waits that he may be gracious unto us. His time to favor us will come, and we will win the victory. The work of the Lord is in a greater hand than ours. He will not fail nor be discouraged."
"Men ought always to pray, and not to faint"; and when they feel that they are fainting, they should resolve to pray with double earnestness, and faintness will yield to joy.
INCREDIBLE CHARGE
and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.
HE INSIST THAT WE BE INSISTENT.
"Press me! Urge me! Lay hold on my strength. Wrestle with me, as when a man seeks to give another a fall that he may prevail with him." All this, and much more, is included in the expression, "Give him no rest." Importunity is commanded.
INSISTENCE IS INFLUENTIAL
And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.
He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man.
And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’
For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man,
yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ ”
And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says.
And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?
I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
INSISTENCE IS INFLUENTIAL
The parable of the persistent widow demonstrates that effective prayer requires tenacity and faithfulness. A genuine disciple must learn that prayer never gives up and is based on absolute trust and faith in God.
INSISTENCE IS INFLUENTIAL
We can fully count on the Lord to answer when, where, and how He chooses. God expects us to keep on asking, seeking, knocking, and praying until the answers come (Matthew 7:7–8). Disciples of Jesus are people of persistent faith.
INSISTENCE IS COMMANDED
How safely may we commend what the Lord commands! God is to be moved by the importunate prayers of his people. He will hear; he must hear, if we will pray with persistent faith.
INSISTENCE ON OUR PART IS THE SIGN OF COMING ACTION ON GOD’S PART.
When the Lord fires his saints with zeal, his own work never lags behind. God is never behind the desires of his people: in fact, their longings are prophecies of his givings. When we cry day and night, God will work day and night.
INSISTENCE ON OUR PART IS THE SIGN OF COMING ACTION ON GOD’S PART.
When saints groan and sigh for revival, it is because the revival is already come, and has begun within their souls. When the whole company of the faithful shall glow together with passionate desire and importunate prayer, we may know that our redemption draweth nigh.
INSISTENT PRAYER IS A SIGN OF A GROWING WORK.
The sighs and cries of the church are growing pains. Prayer is the thermometer of grace.
The Lord has committed his divine force in a large degree to the custody of his people.
Unbelief shuts up that force: as it is written, He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief." Faith, on the other hand, sets the sacred force free; for "all things are possible to him that believes."
INSISTENT PRAYER IS A SIGN OF A GROWING WORK.
When saints are all alive and instant in prayer, we can rest assure that the Lord will open the windows of heaven and pour them out such a blessing that they shall not have room enough to receive it.
Do some of you feel a deep concern for the souls of others? Is this state of mind prevailing among our leadership? Is this the desire amongst the majority of this membership?
Then a grand future lies before us. If God gives all of us to travail for souls, we shall see greater things than these.