Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
Nothing in this whole creation can ever satisfy your soul, because nothing in this creation is itself ever satisfied. A man cannot give to you what he doesn't have; neither can nature. Nothing in this creation can satisfy your soul because peace is not a part of this universe. Because of sin, an angry Creator cursed this universe and everything in it with death; therefore nothing in this creation can give you lasting peace. "Heaven and earth shall pass away," Jesus said, "but my word shall never pass away." Neither this world nor anyone who is of it knows God's peace. Isaiah heard God's voice say, "There is no peace to the wicked." But those who follow after the righteousness of God are "not of this world" and have found the peace that this creation cannot offer.
Nothing here can find rest. Everything in this creation is restless. The eyes never see enough, and the ears never hear enough. All of creation is laboring for rest and cannot find it. The sun, the grass, the ants, the seas, the winds, are all constantly searching in vain for peace (Eccl. 1:5-8), not to mention the spirits of men.
Only Jesus can satisfy your soul. He said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Mt. 11:28). This rest is in the Spirit of God.
In a dream long ago, my father saw the Lord being buried after his crucifixion. He found himself next to the grave into which Jesus was being lowered for burial. Suddenly, the Lord's eyes opened. He looked at my father and reached up with both hands, offering something to him, with these words: "Take this. It won't be buried with me."
Looking then at the Lord's crucified hands, my father saw money in both of them. In one hand was twenty-eight dollars and eleven cents; in the other, eleven dollars and twenty-eight cents. As he reached down to take the money from the Lord, the twenty-eight dollars and eleven cents changed to the word "Isaiah", and the eleven dollars and twenty-eight cents changed to the word "Matthew". And as the money was changing into those words, he awoke from his dream.
Needless to say, he immediately went to his Bible, where he found Isaiah 28:11 and Matthew 11:28.
The verses from Isaiah prophesied that God would send "stammering lips and another tongue" to men, "to whom He said 'This is the rest, wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest.'" Matthew's verses have Jesus saying, "Come unto me, all ye that labor, and I will give you rest." God put these two verses together for my father, to teach him that Jesus gives men the rest God offers to men, the rest that nothing in this universe can give, when he baptizes men with the holy Ghost and they begin to speak in "another tongue" or with "stammering lips". The baptism of the holy Ghost is God's rest.
The world does not believe this, and so the world goes on searching for peace in all the wrong places. But the few who do believe God's promises, and who are given His rest, find that something that nothing on earth can either give or take away: satisfaction and lasting peace for your soul.