You see why it is possible to have blessed fellowship with the Lord with an unveiled face, because of righteousness. I am not surprised that there is such a strong emphasis laid down in connection with the Sabbath with Israel. Go back to the chapters in Exodus that deal with it, and note the references to the Sabbath that are to be found in them. I see this, that the Sabbath is the ground of the greatest strength that we could know in relation to God. Take as an illustration Israel's going round Jericho. They went round the city once a day for six days, and on the seventh day they went round it seven times. Save for the priests who blew with the trumpets, they went round in silence until the seventh time on the Sabbath day, and then as the priests blew the trumpets all the people shouted. You do not usually think of power to such a degree as bound up with a procedure like that. Suppose yourself to be there. You have a tremendously strong fortress before you, shut up and defended. There it stands, the very embodiment of strength. Now you mark a people silently walking round it, and then going home. The next day this is done again, and for six consecutive days, while on the seventh day it is done seven times. What is happening? You say, Nothing is happening. Well, apparently nothing is happening, but if you are able to read the spiritual history you can see what is back of this. There is, as it were, the going forth of a terrific power which is infinitely greater than the power of that stronghold, so that the consummation of that silence is but a shout and the stronghold is brought to the ground. That procedure has been invested with a power. What is it? It is all gathered up in the last day. The whole week is gathered up into the seventh day. The seventh day becomes the concentration, so to speak, of that power of the week, and the stronghold just collapses. What sort of power has been put forth, and why should it come to its issue on the seventh day? Because the seventh day represents God as having achieved all, as having fulfilled all His works, God coming into His rest. You have entered into the greatest power in this universe, when you have come into the rest of God by faith. Faith was there in operation day by day, and then on the seventh day it was still faith. There was no work done. They did not dig into the walls, nor were implements used against them. It was a case of resting faith, the rest of faith, quiet assurance.
They were the other side of Jordan, and were no longer the unbelieving people of the wilderness. They were the believing, obedient people of God, and God said do, and they entered in by faith and did what God told them, and came into God's rest. It is a most important thing to recognise that the meaning of the Sabbath was the very gate-way to the conquest of the land. The land was conquered on the ground of the Sabbath. Jericho was the coming to the altar, both as to principle and as to method. Do you recognise that?
What is God's Sabbath? In the new creation Christ is God's Sabbath, because in Christ God has finished all His works and entered into His rest. That wants explaining. What is it that gives God rest? God has created this universe, and is thus closely associated with it morally, but He can never know any rest while there is an absence of righteousness in this universe. He made it for Himself by an expression of Himself, and righteousness is the nature of God's being. God could not have rest, God is an unresting God, until He has found righteousness. He has found it in His Son. Christ has provided the righteousness which God requires for His new creation. God having found it enters into His rest. Christ is God's Sabbath. Christ is our Sabbath. When we enter by faith into Christ's righteousness, we enter into God's rest. It is a tremendous power. Does it come home to you in its practical value? If only you and I really enter into God's rest in Christ, we are in an impregnable position. That is why the enemy is always seeking to rob us of our rest in some way, to upset rest of heart, by raising questions about our standing, our state, our position in relation to the Lord. His object is to disturb rest of faith. We say that faith is the victory, but faith is not some abstract element; it is not simply a projecting of yourself to believe something is that is not. Faith has an object, a basis, and the faith which is the victory is the faith which appropriates and rests upon the righteousness of God in Christ. That is the victory that overcometh. Everything is overcome by the rest of faith.
The Lord says, in quite simple language, If only you will trust Me, and trust My provision, and stop worrying, stop fretting, stop being anxious; if you will but believe Me, I have the ground upon which I could meet all your need; I am no longer without ground. There was a time when I had not the ground upon which to do anything with you, and for you, but now you are on the ground of Christ, the ground which I have provided; if only you will trust Me, if only you will rest in Me to bring you through, you will be saved from so much of this weakness, and fret, and anxiety! Worry is a destroying thing. At the back of a lot that we suffer in body, and in mind, there is so often a secret, hidden restlessness, something deep down in our subconscious being of a fret, an anxiety, something that is not rest. It takes many forms. Sometimes over a concern of the Lord's we feel that, unless we do it, it will never be done. We feel that if we are not up and at it, then the whole thing will go to pieces, so much depends upon us. No one will think that this is the call for passivity, for abandon of concern for the things of the Lord; but it is possible for us to have the things of the Lord on our hearts and yet not to have faith in God about them. There are hidden secrets to a great deal of our weakness and defeat, and unnecessary suffering. They are the hidden things of something which is other than just restful faith in God. There are some people who need to take things to heart a little more than they do, but for many the trouble is perhaps of the other kind. They are thinking that they have to run God's universe for Him; they must look after things or else they will never be looked after!
But to observe the Sabbath (no one will take that literally as meaning the observance of a particular day of the week), to recognise Christ as God's rest through righteousness, to observe that, to keep that Sabbath, is life which conquers death, because it is righteousness which cannot be destroyed.
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