No Rest For The Righteous Series

While I was visiting in the hospital one of the workers came in

and a patient said, “Are you still working?” “Yes,” she said, “No rest

for the wicked, and I guess I am awfully wicked.” We have all

heard this at some time or another, but the thought came to me that

it is ridiculous to apply that to manual labor, when as a matter of

fact the righteous have to and ought to work just as hard and

harder. The biblical origin of that statement has an all together

meaning that would not likely be bantered about as a bit of humor if

those who use it knew.

The wicked, says Isa. 57:20-21, “are like the tossing sea; for it

cannot rest, and its water toss up mire and dirt, there is no peace,

says my God, for the wicked. In Rev. 11:14 we read, “And the

smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever; and they have no

rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image...”

The biblical context to that statement than is that the wicked person

has a turbulent meaningless life now, because he is not at peace with

God, and will have no rest for all eternity if he does not come to

Christ.

On the other hand, those who do come to Christ enter into His

rest as we read in Heb. 4:1-3, and which Jesus invites us to in Matt.

11:29, where he says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for

I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your

souls.” Rest means a great many things in the Bible. We use that

one 4 letter word to translate over 16 different Hebrew words and 7

different Greek words. The term as we are using it simply refers to

the fact that wicked are not right with God, and so they are restless.

The righteous in Christ are right with God, and so they are restful.

As Augustine put it, “Our souls are restless till the find rest in God.”

Now getting to our text, we see another aspect of this whole

matter. We see that there is a very real sense in which the

statement, which is wrongly applied to the wicked, can be rightly

applied to the righteous. We can appropriate a misused saying and

fill it with biblical content by saying there is no rest for the

righteous. Paul in verse 6 says therefore, that is, since we are

children of the day and not of the night, let us not sleep as do others.

The others being those of the night, or non-Christians. We see here

that there is a sense in which we as Christians are not to rest or

sleep.

No one takes this literally and tries to stay awake 24 hours a

day. What Paul means he does mean very literally, and that is that

the Christian must be always wide awake in his relationship to

Christ. We must at all times, and in all places, be conscious that we

are Christians, and that we have been bought with a price, and there

will be a day of judgment. Being wide awake to this means a life

without rest in terms of our labor to win men to Christ, and in our

striving to be more Christ-like ourselves in every aspect of life.

There is to be no sleeping on the job, for we are to be always wide

awake to our responsibility.

In New York there is a Church Of The Heavenly Rest.

Seminary students jokingly refer to it as The Church Of The

Celestial Snooze. There is a good deal of joking about sleeping in

church, and its humor grows out of the fact that it is often so true.

One sermon snoozer poet wrote, “I do not see my preacher’s eyes,

However bright they shine. For when he prays, he closes his, And

when he preachers, closes mine.” Paul is not writing here about

sleeping in church, but about the sleeping of the church in the sense

of ceasing to be the instrument of God for the advancement of His

kingdom. Paul is concerned about the danger of lethargy and

indifference as to God’s plan in history. It is the danger of becoming

a spiritual Rip Van Winkle. Jesus gave this same warning in His

parable of the 10 virgins. Five of them slept unprepared for the

bridegroom, and they were shut out of the wedding feast. Samson is

also an illustration of the danger of sleeping and not watching.

Paul says it is perfectly consistent for non-Christians to sleep

and be unconcerned about the things of God. They are children of

the night, and that is when people do sleep, and that is when