TEXT: Revelation 14:13

SUBJECT: A String of Pearls #2

Last week we began the study of a long Puritan sermon called A String of Pearls or The Best Things Reserved Till Last. The preacher was Thomas Brooks; he preached it at the funeral of Mrs. Mary Blake, a sister who had lived a fine Christian life and whose death left her family and friends heartbroken.

The String of Pearls symbolizes the blessings of God strung together for the believer when he dies. Already we have much in Christ, but what we have now is nothing compared to what we’ll have then! The believer’s death—though painful to those he left behind—is not painful to him! No, it is a joy unspeakable and full of glory. We sometimes think our loved ones would like to come back to us, but this is not true! You couldn’t drag them out of heaven with a team of horses! The happiness they have in that world cannot even be guessed at in this world.

But it can be compared to things we understand. The Bible does this. Heaven is likened to many things and that’s what Thomas Brooks is presenting to us in his sermon. What is heaven like? In the first place, it is like an inheritance; Peter calls it

This is what we thought about last time. Now, we come to a second comparison. Heaven is like a rest.

Not everyone thinks of resting as a good thing. To some, it stands for laziness—loafing around when things need doing—a big, fat waste of time! To others, it is boredom--sitting around when you could be out doing something fun or exciting. Waiting in a doctor’s office, standing in line at the post office, hours on-hold!

The Bible idea of resting, however, is nothing like laziness or boredom. It’s not laying about the house all day, surfing the net till your eyes are glazed over, and so on.

It’s also not a necessary evil! It’s not like going to the bathroom—something you’ve got to do—but, if you had the choice, you wouldn’t do it.

In the Bible, rest is a positive thing! It’s something like satisfaction. God rested on the Seventh Day, not because He was worn out, but because He was happy with His work. Ecclesiastes 5:12 applies the idea to men:

The working man can sleep at night—not just because he’s tired—but because he has put in a honest day’s work. The rich, however, who so often live off the labors of other men, toss and turn all night. Their bodies are not tired enough to sleep—and their souls cannot get comfortable either.

This is one of the marked differences between Christianity and Islam. The Muslim religion promises rest to the servants of Allah. But the rest is like the rich man’s rest, that Solomon says is no rest at all! Seventy-two virgins per man, lying next to rivers of wine! This is the rest of a Rock Star and is not restful!

Heaven is not a resort for rich people to fritter away their lives! It’s not a country club where successful men go to play golf until they drop dead!

No, it’s a place of rest, a place where we can look back on lives lived for Christ (however imperfectly) and be satisfied. Forever.

That’s what the Sabbath was meant to teach Israel. It’s the Sabbath that remains for the people of God!

Tonight’s verse says the dead in Christ have "rest". But what kind of rest do they have? What kind will you have when you die? Thomas Brooks describes the it under six headings—all of which, it seems to me say pretty much the same thing! I’ll try to sort them out for you.

Men can buy rest in this world. If you’ve got enough money, you can quit work and lie in bed all day if you want to. You can hire servants to cook and clean for you, to polish your shoes and to brush your suits, to cut your hair while you sleep or paint you toenails while you watch TV.

But what kind of rest is this? It would be fun for a time—I guess—but then it would become boring and leave you restless. Rest is too expensive to be bought with money!

The believer’s rest, however, is not bought with money, but with the precious blood of Christ. His death for us is so dear, so valuable, so rare that it can buy the rest that cannot be had in any other way. It can buy rest for the soul, a rest that never becomes dull, a rest that satisfies forever!

A couple spends $2000 a night for a hotel room in Monterey. They drive down there and find out it’s in Motel 6! Do you think they’d be happy? Or would they feel cheated? Surely $2000 a night would get them something nicer than that! The travel agent obviously cheated them.

Now, God cheats no one. If your rest was bought with the blood of Christ, it must be a very good rest! What the Puritan calls, "a superlative rest, a rest that infinitely exceeds all earth rest!"

That’s the first thing heaven is: a superlative rest.

The rest we have in heaven is a complete rest—a rest through-and-through. This is unlike the quiet and happy times we have in life. These times always have an end and are followed by more work, more sorrow, more pain, and finally, death. Even in rest, we cannot quite shake the knowledge that it’s coming to an end—soon!

We’re like kids on summer vacation. About the first week of July, they start looking at the calendar and hoping—this time—there’s no September on it!

But there’s always a September. But not in heaven. Like all English boys, C.S. Lewis hated school with a passion. On the last page of his Chronicles of Narnia, he has the three kids killed in a train wreck, but they don’t know they’re dead. There they are, standing before Aslan, the great lion.

In other words, life in this world is like school, death is like summer vacation! The last sentence in the book has the narrator saying:

Can you imagine a day off that is not disturbed by all the work you have to do when you get back? Can you imagine a retirement without the worry of getting older, getting sicker, and dying? There’s nothing like this on earth. But there is something like this in heaven. God has given us much already, but "the best things are reserved till last". And the rest we’ll have then is one of them!

Rest on earth is always subject to interruption. One night, about three o’clock, the phone rang. I jumped up to get it, thinking it was an emergency, but the man on the other end said, "I want a large pepperoni pizza!" He was trying to call Domino’s.

I always read in bed before going to sleep. One night, just after midnight, there was a knock at the door. It scared me, of course, but when I got it, it was a man who wanted to talk to me about his insecurities. Had it been a crisis, I would have talked to him all night, if need be. But it wasn’t. I had talked to him about these things a hundred times before. But, since he worked swing-shift, he thought I should too! As he droned on and on and on, I asked, "Uh, do you mind if I lie down while you’re talking?"

Two years ago, I took my wife out to dinner for our anniversary. I had been looking forward to it for weeks, but when it came I was in a rotten mood, one of the ugliest I can recall. She was very patient and kind, but the dinner was not restful. We came home wishing we hadn’t gone out.

A few years ago, my boys and I went camping for one night in the summer. How often does it rain in the Bay Area in the summer? Maybe one night. That was the night we went camping!

About fourteen years ago, my wife and I drove to Southern California, Our car broke down on the way and we sat in a hotel in Paso Robles for three nights and spend several hundred dollars getting the car fixed. Add to this the fact that it 110 degrees outside, Gladys had a horrible cough and made me go for medicine at three in the morning in a town I’d never been to and without a car!

Our disturbances are not only out there, but they’re also in here. We cannot rest because we’re worried or we feel guilty or we’re being tempted; the harder we try to rest, the more restless we become. Nothing will keep you up at night like the desire to go to sleep.

Rest in this world is never sure. No matter how carefully you try to eliminate distractions, they have a way of getting to you and busting up the quiet times you were hoping for. But in heaven, everything to disturb your peace of mind is excluded

That’s a good rest! One God has for us in heaven.

I don’t usually sleep well away from home. The bed is too soft or too hard; the room is too dark or not dark enough. There’s too much noise or it’s too quiet. It’s not right; no host can make it right because it’s not my sheets, not my pillows, not my bed, not my room, not my house!

But heaven is my house, is my bed, is my room, is my sheets, is my pillows (and is even my noisy, dusty fan!). Our Lord did not say He’s going to heaven to prepare a place. He said He was going to heaven to "prepare a place for you"—not a luxury hotel, but a home, your home! A place where you can rest well and forever.

Heaven is a peculiar rest, a rest that fits you fine.

Brooks could have worded this better. Again, he has a contrast in mind: today, the Lord’s people are not equal. One is resting quietly, while another is tossing on a hospital bed. If we’re at all sympathetic, the pain and worries of other people cut into our own happiness. This is how it should be: "Remember the prisoners as if you were bound with them".

But in heaven, the whole family of God—and every member of it—will be at rest in the full possession of the happiness Jesus Christ bought for them! This means we can all be at peace. Not only is my rest secure, but so is yours, which, in turn makes my rest even more secure, and yours too!

Theologians have often described the Church as being Militant or Triumphant. On earth, the church is at war; in heaven, the church is at peace. One day, we’ll all be in heaven!

What would you think of this marriage? On their wedding day, a man promises to love, honor, and cherish his bride for the next twenty years. After than, he’s leaving her for another woman. He keeps his word to the letter: no one is more affectionate and generous and thoughtful that he is. We is patient and kind and humble; he makes a good living for his wife, he makes her laugh, he cries with her when she’s sad; he even does the ironing!

Do you think the woman is happy? Of course not! For the very fact that he’s leaving her on their twentieth anniversary poisons her every day with him—no matter how sweet he is!

If heaven were a world of perfect rest for a million years, it would be a world without rest, because we couldn’t help thinking about losing it all.

But heaven is not like that! The Lord does not promise us a million years of rest, but eternal rest! And He keeps His Word which makes every day in heaven a day of rest, full sweet, satisfying rest!

With all this in mind, it’s no wonder John says, Happy are the dead who die in the Lord!