Gods Sabbath

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E NTERING INTO G OD ’ S S ABBATH R EST

of God is at hand” (see Mark 1:15, KJV), an immediate interest was generated in their ministry. This was heightened by the amazing miracles Jesus performed and by the gospel message He brought. For a time He was well received and thousands up on thousands of Jews were convinced that He was the Messiah. But there came a time when His popularity with the people suddenly died away, and the opposition against Him intensified until nearly the entire nation screamed for His crucifixion. That nation which God had called to be His peculiar people and through whom the most wonderful blessings were to be chan neled to the world, lost their connection with heaven, their hope of eternal life, and their place in the world. These things did not happen without good reason. Why did those people who had such strong faith that the Saviour would solve all their problems at His coming, who studied the Scrip tures continuously and were prepared to make any sacrifice for the cause, become so utterly hostile to God’s Son and His princi ples of righteousness? In short, they had built up their own concepts of how He should solve their problems. They expected Him to add His mir acle-working power to their plans and their solutions for the ex isting problems. In this way they deposed God from His place as the only successful Problem Solver. They lost sight of God’s ways and so could not enter into His rest. Their faith became totally extinct, and they fell “after the same example of unbelief” (He brews 4:11, KJV) as their fathers in the wilderness. During the centuries preceding the first advent, the Jews had a terrible problem, and they knew it. They were in bondage to powerful foes, the last of whom were the Romans, and they cor rectly recognized this as their national problem. But they failed to see that the reason for this predicament was their insistence on displacing God as their Problem Solver. The problem began shortly after they left Egypt, when opposed to God’s plans for them, they salvaged the weaponry from the dead Egyptians who were washed up on the shores of the Red Sea. At Kadesh-bar An Assistant?