The Haven of Rest
MATTHEW 11:28-30
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me (learn from me – in other words “let me teach you”); for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. (Notice – rest for your souls – that is where your faith exists, and that faith comes by learning from him by the teaching of the word for the age, and then that teaching for the age would guide the person to a haven of rest)
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
The Haven of Rest
ACTS 27:9-14
9 Now when much time was spent, and when sailing was now dangerous, because the fast was now already past, Paul admonished them,
10 And said unto them, Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives.
11 Nevertheless the centurion believed the master and the owner of the ship, more than those things which were spoken by Paul.
12 ¶ And because the haven was not commodious to winter in, the more part advised to depart thence also, if by any means they might attain to Phenice, and there to winter; which is an haven of Crete, and lieth toward the south west and north west.
13 And when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete.
14 But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon.
Haven = is a place of safety or refuge, a harbour or a sheltered place in the time of a storm. – I think that this is an appropriate subject, especially with all the storms of uncertainty that is taking place at this time.
From last week’s study - this word Haven is different to the word to Heaven – there are no storms in heaven, just like there were no storms in Eden before the fall of man. What caused storms from the beginning was because of the reasoning of man against the word – and that is why there are so many “storms” on earth now, because the more that man gets away from God by his reasoning against the word, the worse the storms become.
**Storms of war, storms of family disputes, national and international disputes, financial storms, poverty storms, social storms, weather storms
*And so there are reasons for why storms exists, because storms are usually connected with being outside of the will of God as we learn from the story of Jonah, but we also know that God will then use the storms that arise in our lives to bring to pass his great purpose concerning us just as we also found in the story of Jonah.
So this storm in Acts 27 could have been avoided if they had obeyed the warning of the prophet Paul.
ACTS 27:18-20
18 And we being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, the next day they lightened the ship;
19 And the third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship.
20 And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.
If you are a boatman, a haven is a place of shelter and protection against the storm - it is a place that you want to remain in while the storm is raging.
We are living at a time where for many there is an uncertainty and a fear of what the future holds.
MATTHEW 11:28-30 Opening scripture…
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. God did not design man to have to labour by the sweat of his brow and to carry heavy burdens. If we notice what started that was when someone became convinced that their idea was better than God’s way; so that is what started the blood toil and sweat and burdens of mankind.
GENESIS 3:19
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. This was a part of man’s curse – toil, sweat, labour, and burden bearing.
***So from last week we notice that this scripture is addressed to a specific group of people, a people that are forced to labour and are heavy laden, so we know that this age is very fitting for this condition because this is the age of the greatest rejection of the greatest truth of any other age, because it was after the rejection of Paul’s warning that came a great storm, and after the rejection of the warning that God has sent to this end time generation through the ministry of William Branham – we also know that there must be great storms that follow that rejection also.
**So as the elect of this age who have come under the obedience to the end time message, there must be a haven somewhere in all these storms where we can find rest for our souls of where our belief is anchored in a haven of truth amidst all the confusion and lies and the fake news of this age.
All these things are bringing a heavy burden and a confusion of what people believe and people don’t know where to turn, they are already heavy laden with being over worked, and now they are becoming even more heavy laden with the confusion of this pale coloured age.
Labour = (Greek) kopiao {kop-ee-ah'-o} to be wearied - to grow weary, tired, exhausted (with toil or burdens or grief).
Heavy laden = to load one with a burden (of rites and unwarranted precepts) In other words – to load too many rules and compliances and taxes and bills and the changing of laws upon humanity brings an overburden.
*Human beings were never created by God to live under these conditions, and so it’s turning the people into neurotics.
LETTING.OFF.THE.PRESSURE_ LA.CA FRIDAY_ 62-0622B
E-24 See? It's just a built-up pressure. It's the age that we're living in: a neurotic age where people don't know what to do, where they're going. And the doctors don't have the answer for it, because the psychiatrists is being doctored by the psychiatrists. So they have not the answer.
But there's some answer surely, somewhere. We could deal on it for hours. But I was just thinking that God has the answer. If they could just set in a place like this, takes off the pressure (See?), with people who are--are entered into eternity. We are not going into it; we're already in it. That's right.
Neuroticism = a long-term tendency to be in a negative or anxious emotional state. It is connected to a diminished quality of life, including feelings of ill‐will, excessive worry, occupational failure, and marital dissatisfaction. High levels of neuroticism will contribute to poor work performance due to emotional preoccupation, exhaustion, and distraction.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, “and I will give you rest”. Rest = To give rest, refresh, to give one's self rest, take rest; to keep quiet, of calm and patient expectation
***In other words – to trust in the promise of someone with expectation.
**This is what Jesus said that he would give us if we came to Him and were taught by him while under the conditions of this age.
We are to come to a place of a “calm and patient expectation” of what God has promised for this age.
So how do we enter into this haven of rest??
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;
***Learning in this age is more accessible and available than it has been in any other age, yet there is a famine in the world for the true knowledge of the word that has been restored to us in this day.
Remember - It is not the written word that people are lacking in this age (we have more bibles on the earth than ever before) – so we know that it is not the written word that is lacking, but the revealed word which is the true understanding of the written word.
**Jesus is telling us to take on a burden, and to be yoked with him in His work and purpose for this age, and to learn from Him - and He is the revealed word for this age. So the work of this age is to learn from Him and of Him by the revelation of the message of this hour – that is how the mighty God is revealed to us in this hour.
Sometimes (even as message people) we are more concerned for our child’s temporal education in regards to their short lifetime on this life then we are about them learning the education of the eternal things of the word.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
*** Notice carefully - Our soul consists of either faith or doubt in the word of God; remember - that’s what took man out of rest and into toil, it was a condition of the soul.
Man was deceived out of his rest by his reasoning against the word – and that is when the storms began to follow after this event.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
When we are yoked with the Lord, and we learn from him, that that learning is what will lead us back to a place of faith and revelation in the soul - that is the only thing that will bring a rest to our souls, a haven of rest – In other words, our faith will find a resting place in the knowledge of what has been revealed for this age.
HEBREWS 4:9-11
9 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. (On the 7th day)
Notice “His rest” (Sabbath), God is not in doubt about what he has spoken concerning this age of whether it will come to pass or not. He is resting in knowing that His word will never fail.
He is not worrying about if there will be a third pull ministry in the bride, he is not worried about the resurrection and the rapture taking place in this age, He knows that it shall be because His word has already declared it - that is “His Rest”, He is resting in what he has spoken that the promises of this age will come to pass, and so that is also the same rest that we are to enter into, “HIS REST”, to rest in the fact that His spoken word can never fail concerning this age and concerning your part for this age.
11 ¶ Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
*Brother Branham said that this rest was the Holy Ghost, and remember that the Holy Ghost is the revelation of Jesus Christ personally to you – and he is the word.
**So the new birth is the revelation of the word for your day revealed to you by the spirit of the inner teacher, the eternal word of God has anchored in your soul, and that brings a rest to your soul.
CHRIST.IS.THE.MYSTERY.OF.GOD.REVEALED_ JEFF.IN V-3 N-7 SUNDAY_ 63-0728
234 What is the new Birth then? You'd say, "Well, Brother Branham, what is the new Birth?" It is the revelation of Jesus Christ personally to you. Amen!
***Nothing can bring a greater rest than the promise of God made known to you (the outcome of your life revealed by the word), – the secret of who you are made know to you and of what God has promised to you concerning your destiny for this age.
**Abraham rested in the promise that God gave him for his life for his age (of the promise that he would have a son), he had a revelation of the will of God concerning his life for that time, and that was the rest to his soul.
Abraham knew the nature of God in that God was able to keep his word in the face of what looked like the most impossible of circumstances.
**And as the Faith seed of Abraham, each one of us must also come into that same understanding by that same revelation.
**If God changed Abraham’s and Sarah’s body into a young man and woman again, if He kept His promise to them, then he will also do the same for us.
JUDGES 21:25 This is the last verse of the book of Judges just before the book of Ruth… Ruth is the gentile bride at harvest time that comes into marriage and in inheritance with the Lord of the harvest, Boaz.
25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
**The people of this end time age have made their own reasoning their absolute just as Eve did at the beginning, and if that ushered mankind into a dispensation of toil and labour and burdens and suffering and death back then (because of the reasoning that one woman had against the word of God), then what condition do you think the world will come into when the whole world has rejected the truth of the word by their scientific reasoning – and because they have rejected the absolute of the word, now their own reasoning has become their absolute.
**And so with no absolute of the word of God among the people, you have no place to anchor, because the rock of God’s word is the only absolute that there is, it is the only place in all the world where you can anchor your faith and soul.
And so this is the secret of what is needed in these great storms that has come upon the earth at this time – the secret is to come to Him, and learn OF Him.
ISAIAH 28:8-12
8 For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.
9 ¶ Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
12 To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
**People just don’t want to know the Lord in this age – they want to know about all the actors in Hollywood, and who’s divorced who, but they don’t have the time to learn anything about the mighty God unveiled in this age – and that’s because they are blinded from the truth.
*We know that this is the greatest age of where the mystery of God (of who he is) would be fully made known to a people. It is under the teaching of this message we have access to learn OF Him, the mighty God unveiled in this hour.
So we need to spend the time to learn about the deeper things of the teachings of the message of this hour, if we can spend hundreds of hours of studying to get a higher qualification for our temporary jobs here on earth, then God has also given us the ability (by His spirit) to learn of him in this hour under the fivefold ministry.
MARK 4:35-38
35 ¶ And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side. As message believers we know that this is speaking in prophecy of this hour of this evening time age where the multitudes of the first and second pull that saw the healings and miracles have been sent away, and now Jesus was with his disciples were about to cross over to the other side just as we in this age are also about to cross over to the other side into the millennium.
36 And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships.
37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.
38 And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?
***Now when a boatman out at sea sees a storm coming, he has to head for the haven as fast as he can, he has to labour hard at the oars until he reaches this haven of rest and safety because he is in a battle against time, he can’t afford to be playing around with his recreational fishing anymore.
So the first thing is, that he must know where the Haven of rest is, and then he must know how to get there even if the weather is bad and he can’t see the shore, so he has to have the right kind of knowledge of an experienced boatman who knows how to navigate in a storm – so it is his advanced knowledge at this time is what is going to help save him, but if he had not bothered with his navigational studies, of if he had been dilatory in this area, then that lack of knowledge may now prevent him from reaching the haven of rest.
MATTHEW 25:6-8
6 And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.
7 Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. (There were no street lights in those days)
8 And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. (Notice - this was a navigational problem. This word lamp = torch, a torch is for the purpose of being able to navigating in the dark)
Noah had been given navigational instructions for his day, because he had to be able to find a haven of rest before the storm of flood came and destroyed the entire world.
So God provided a haven of rest in Noah’s day through the channel of the preaching and knowledge of the message he gave to Noah in his day, because it is when judgement is pending, that is when you need to have advanced knowledge of how to navigate.
LUKE 17:26
26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
***The storms were so great in Noah’s day that it destroyed everything outside of that haven of rest – so to reject the message of that prophet for that hour meant that you couldn’t find your way to that haven of safety because you rejected the navigation knowledge that God had revealed to Noah.
If a boatman knows that a storm is coming, and if he is a good knowledgeable boatman, then he knows where to go to escape the storm, he already has knowledge of where the haven is, and so he starts heading toward that haven of rest as he sees the storm clouds gathering.
**Noah’s ark was the message of God that was revealed to Noah for that hour, but we find that Noah had to do some labour to enter into that haven of rest of the ark.
Brother Branham preached - THE ONCOMING STORMS OF JUDGEMENT - PHOENIX.AZ V-15 N-2 MONDAY 29th February 1960
THE.ONCOMING.STORM_ PHOENIX.AZ V-15 N-2 MONDAY_ 60-0229
85 That's the way it was in the days of Noah, and God got so filled up with it. But before He sent a storm to destroy the entire world, God made preparation for those who wanted to stay out of it. And I can see Noah standing in the door of the ark, preaching righteousness. Oh, there wasn't many would listen at him. They were something like today. They want entertainment, not the Gospel.
88 I can see Noah in that door of the very ark. Oh, I'd just like to believe one thing; it wasn't that way; but Noah standing in that door, the only way to safety...
I can see Moses, later, standing in the door, with blood on the lintel, preaching judgment, with the blood on the lintel.
Today Jesus is the Door to the sheepfold, ministers of the Gospel standing in that Door, pleading with the congregation to come to safety.
And no doubt but what there was many laughed at Noah, made fun of him. The Bible said they were scoffers. I can just hear them say something like this, "Noah, if you haven't got some better entertainment than that, we'll just stay home."
132 There is a hour coming, and now is (and the sealing is about over), that where every man and woman on the face of the earth is going to be in that place of Refuge, like it was in the days of Noah, or on the outside of It. You have to make your decision. That safety is Jesus Christ. That... He is the only Place, the only One Who has Eternal Life. No man can come to the Father, but by Him. He is the Ark of our safety. The Holy Spirit bears record with us now, that we've passed from death unto Life.
145 If the God, in the days of Moses--in the days of Noah could warn the cattle and the birds to come into safety in the ark, destruction was coming, a storm, He's still the same God tonight. He still loves cattle and birds. And if He made a way for a bird and a cow to escape the wrath of judgment, how much more has He made a way of escape for you and I, who are the off-springs of His creation. How much more has He made a way of escape for us.
LETTING.OFF.PRESSURE_ PHOENIX.AZ SUNDAY_ 63-0113M
149 This old eagle, he gets a crust over his face and head when he gets old. Can hardly eat. He gets poor; his mouth won't open right. Gets almost blinded. And when that crust gets to a certain spot over his head, they say he flies way up in the air, and he sets there, and he beats his head against that rock, knocking that crust off, if he can. And he rolls his eyes and looks back. He beats the crust. Oh, it must come off. It's got to come off. If it don't, he's going to die. He's got to get that crust off of his face and his mouth. And he'd beat his head one way, and then the other way. He beats until he beats that crust off. And when he beats it against that rock until the crust comes off, then he screams, and he throws his wings back and forth, and rejoices because he knows he's going to get new feathers; he's going to eat his vitamins again; he's going to renew his youth. And I thought, "What a wonderful thing that is for the eagle. That's good."
150 But I know a Rock that a man can come to, and can beat, and be beat, until all the doubt is gone, until the worry and cares of the world is gone. And when he's beat the crust of sin from around him, until the Blood has sanctified his soul, then Eternal Life is sure to come. He can just set back and let off the pressure, because Eternal Life is sure.
151 Oh, eagles, today, that's why you're here. You're eaglets. But if the crust has begin to blind your eyes, the cares of the world, or you can't just swallow all the Food of God, let's come to that Rock in a weary land. Let's come There and beat upon the altar until the crust is broke, and our eyes can see clearly, Jesus again, and the cares of this world has passed away. Then the pressure will go off. "He's a Rock in a weary land, a Shelter in a time of storm," a Refuge, a Haven of rest, for the weary. Let's come to that Place.
Henry Lake Gilmour wrote these words in 1889
I’ve anchored my soul in the “Haven of Rest,”
I’ll sail the wide seas no more;
The tempest may sweep over wild, stormy, deep,
But in Jesus, I’m safe evermore.
The Haven of Rest