II Chronicles 14:11 …Help us, O LORD our God; for we rest on thee
Did you rest well last night? Maybe that is a cruel question because maybe you did not. If you don’t even think about it, it is probably because you did rest well. I get the impression that half of America doesn’t sleep well. Whether you sleep readily or not, a good question might be, “From where does rest come?” We all need rest. We need rest physically, but we also need rest in a different sense, in our minds and souls, mentally and spiritually.
Second Chronicles 14 is the beginning of the story of King Asa of Judah. He begins well. The Bible says he did that which was good and right. He took away the idolatry of the land and sought the Lord. One theme you cannot miss in this story is the theme of quiet or rest.
Verse 1 says, “In his days the land was quiet.” That means there was no war or turmoil. Again, verse 5 says, “And the kingdom was quiet before him.” Verse 6 says, “The land had rest, and he had no war in those years; because the LORD had given him rest.” In verse 7 the king tells the people to build and fortify the towns while there was peace “because we have sought the LORD our God… and he hath given us rest on every side.”
The most amazing instance of this idea of quiet or rest is found in verse 11. This verse is different because the previous verses talk about a time of both prosperity and peace. Verse 11 talks about a very serious problem. There was an army almost innumerable from Ethiopia, and verse 10 says there was a mighty battle. Verse 11 says, “Asa cried unto the LORD his God, and said, LORD, it is nothing for thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O LORD our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O LORD, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee.” Verse 12 tells us that the Lord smote their enemy.
An obvious theme from this part of Asa’s life is quiet and rest. So, we should ask ourselves, “From where does rest come?” There are two obvious answers. First, God gives rest. He is the source. Again, verse 6 says they had rest because the Lord had given rest. In verse 7 the king says, “We have sought him [the Lord], and he has given us rest on every side.”
This does not come out of nowhere. James says, “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?” The war between people is happening because of the wars going on within people. I have war with others because I have a war within myself. Someone might say, “Are you looking for trouble?” No one should be looking for trouble, but sometimes we find trouble because whether we know it or not, we are looking for trouble. It comes from within us. You are going to get what you seek.
You are not going to have peace, rest, and quiet in your soul if you are allowing things in your soul that conflict with your God, your conscience, and the ideal to which God has made you. God gives rest. So often we have turmoil that is needless. As the old song says, “O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear.” The reason is because we don’t pray, which is a form of seeking and relying on God. If my life is consumed with me, pleasure, money, and being better than other people, that is a tough way to live and it produces the anxiety, stress, and worry that characterizes many an American. They cannot sleep at night because they are not resting in their soul.
Peace is in your heart or nowhere at all. World peace is an abstract. Stop talking about the peace over which you have no control and consider the peace that comes in your own heart by seeking God. All of us know people who are living in tumultuous circumstances but who have a tranquility and quiet about them. That is because God has given them rest. Others may have health, money, friends, and more, but they are not happy. They are restless. Something is not quite right, and the reason is because quiet, rest, and peace is in your heart or nowhere at all. That peace comes first of all by realizing the source. That source is God. He gives rest.
Second, God is rest. He gives rest and He is rest. In contrast to the previous instances of the word of quiet and rest, in verse 11 you find rest in the middle of battle. It is not rest as a noun, an object; it is rest as an action, a verb. In the middle of this battle of an overwhelming force Asa says, “God, help us.” Why? He continues, “For we rest on thee.” So, God gives rest and we rest on Him.
The word rest in verses 6-7 is very close to the word quiet. The word rest in verse 11 is the word lean, to depend upon. It is the same word that is translated in II Chronicles 13:18 as rely. In that instance there was a battle and “the children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the LORD God of their fathers.” II Chronicles 14:12 says, “For we rest on thee…so the LORD smote.” The Lord defeated the enemies and gave them grace. This is another example of what we talked about not long ago, not counting God out when you are running the numbers. They were very much outnumbered, but they rested in God.
The sum and substance of this is that you are never going to find quiet, rest, and peace if you are depending on circumstances. Those things come from your source, not the circumstances. God gives rest and God is rest. Sometimes God gives rest in the absence of the foolishness that characterizes what we seek, and on the other hand, God is our rest when we lean upon Him right in the middle of the storm.