rest

Wine & Rest

by Ben Zornes · Aug 27, 2024

When we think about the sacrifices and offerings in Moses’ Law we most likely jump to thinking about the bloody offering of a lamb. While this is certainly the most prominent offering found in the Law, it isn’t the only one. Like the great Storyteller He is, God hints at another kind of covenantal offering in Exodus 29:40, where wine is poured out along with the sacrificial lamb.

In the thorough sacrificial instructions in Leviticus this drink offering gets very little mention and scarcely any description of how it should be performed. That is until it’s mentioned in connection with the Feast of Weeks––what we would call Pentecost (Lev. 23:13). That was a special celebration of the giving of the Law on Sinai as well as a particularly holy Sabbath. At last, God unfurls this offering even more clearly as Israel prepared to enter Canaan, giving full description of the drink offering as part of the ceremonial worship of Israel.

A few things ought to be drawn from this. A caravan of Israelites in the Arabian peninsula would have a hard time even procuring wine. Wine can only be furnished in times of stability. Poignantly, wine then represents rest. Wine needs deep roots, hardy vines, and vats stored with the leisure to ferment. The Mosaic Law seems at first to overlook the wine offering, but as the promised Canaan rest drew near, wine took a more prominent role in the worship of God’s people.

This all hints at what we have before us here. Christian worship culminates in this cup of wine. This is because, through Christ, we have surety that the warfare is ended, our enemies are scattered and on the run, and the conquest of evil is certain. Here is wine, because here is true rest. Here is Christ.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

The Devil’s Substitute for Joy

by Ben Zornes · Feb 13, 2023

There was a revival preacher who once said, “Entertainment is the devil’s substitute for joy.” On the whole, I believe he’s right. This life is riddled with sorrows, toils, and pains. You have the weight of your work on your shoulders. You hear of the madness which has bewitched our culture. You might have misgivings in your parenting as to whether you are blowing it in raising your kids. You have too much month at the end of your money.

Because life can be so hard, the temptation to turn to diversions and entertainment can be quite alluring. We think such things will take the edge off our hardships. But when we try to put such things as the center pole to hold up the tent of our life, we find they have all the strength of boiled pasta.

At the center of the Gospel is this promise from the Lord Jesus, “Come unto me, and I will give you rest.” What else can fulfill such a promise? Who else can bring such reprieve? Instead of being crushed by the weight of your hard circumstances, and resorting to quick hits of dopamine, Christ calls you to Himself, and no other. The rest He gives fits you for enduring hardship, not merely escaping it. He refreshes those who are His, with cool waters of assurance that our guilt is forgiven, our death sentence is removed, and eternal life is our inheritance.

This is the Lord’s Day. This is the day of new creation. This is the day of Resurrection. Be renewed, as Christ renews His covenant of grace with you. Be refreshed, as His Word proclaimed cuts deep, to remove the lingering lesions of sin. Be rested, as He gives you the victory by growing your faith through the trials His providence has picked out for you.

The Son of God has come that we might gain the victory. Yet all too often we settle for treaties with sin, we negotiate with our flesh, we try to arrange a ceasefire. God calls us to, by faith, tread upon the neck of our fleshly desires. By the Spirit, may God open our eyes to see the ways in which we’ve dodged facing the truth about our sin, and the alternatives we’ve sought out for finding rest, reprieve, and refreshing. The Lord alone can give us grace to endure hardship, as good soldiers, that we may overcome at last, by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of our testimony.

The only basis for peace of body, soul, and mind is found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not in the distractions and trifles of earth, but in the Good News that God, through Christ, has reconciled you to himself.

Our Rest

by Ben Zornes · Mar 5, 2022

Tomorrow is the Lord’s Day, on which we observe the Sabbath. God made the world, then rested. So the Jews were commanded to keep that Sabbath rest by working for six days and then resting on the seventh. They worked and then rested, for they were looking forward to the coming rest the Christ would bring.

Christ rose on the eighth day, remaking the world in doing so, and then set about establishing His Kingdom through the expansion of the church through all the world. So we, in imitation of that, rest and then work. We rest in order to work, because our sins are forgiven. What else would we want to do than, out of gratitude, do good works to glorify our Father. So, children, on this Lord’s Day, rest like champions, in order to go back to the glorious work God gives you to do.

Worry Can’t Be Wielded Responsibly

by Ben Zornes · Mar 22, 2021

Jesus tells us explicitly not to worry (Mt. 6:25). But we, in our boundless pride think that just a wee bit of worry is certainly allowable. â€œIf God could only see my situation, Heâ€™d understand why my fingernails are in the condition they are,â€ so our â€œreasoningâ€ goes.

No matter what you tell yourself, you canâ€™t wield worry responsibly. Worry is a strong magnet, and if you pass it over the shop floor it will collect every last scrap of metal shavings, lost bolt, bent nails, and pieces of twisted metal which are from some inexplicable source. Laying awake at night and fretting over an exam, or a bill, or a meeting is a surefire way to invite other worries to come for a sleep over. But those sleepovers rarely have any sleep.

Worry convinces you that if you indulge in the exercise of fretting, youâ€™ll be able to escape whatever consternation is facing you. Worry tries to supplant what God has commanded you to do: rest on the Lordâ€™s Day, and then cheerfully work your tail off for the next six days. Anxiety, whatever its source, is a black hole of restlessness. It will never bring you peace, it will overwhelm you.

You see, worry is believing the lie that by worrying you can sneak in and grab hold of Godâ€™s sovereignty over all things. If you worry enough surely you can sway the events you are brooding over. AW Tozer once said, â€œno religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.â€ Yet we all too often, in our worrying and bustling panics, reveal that we hold far too low a view of God. He spun the galaxies into their ordered dance. He breathed life into every living thing, upholding it all by His creative power and word. Yet we think God has overlooked this, that, or the other thing. Worry is a black sin, because it us planting a flag on some slice of God’s creation and thinking that we can assess and manage the situation better than He can. This is rank pride. Especially in the midst of a world that is in an all out panic, fleeing from every breath of wind, God’s people ought to be bastions of Christ’s peace.

Instead, God has told you to cast your cares upon Him in prayer, obey His clear commands regarding your particular circumstances, and walk in faith that whether good or evil comes You are held by Him who holds the scepter of the universe. Trusting in Godâ€™s sovereignty is the antidote to the poison of anxiety.