What does the Bible say about restlessness?

The peace is only for those who are brought into right relations with God. It is not for the wicked who, far from Him, are as restless as the sea. The winds keep the sea in perpetual agitation. Satan, who is "the prince of power of the air," keeps the wicked in a condition similar to the sea, and all their visible actions are like "mire and dirt."

"But the wicked" - solemn word of contrast - "are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." Or, as we read in Jude, "Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame." Graphic picture, drawn by the Holy Ghost, of the state of a soul without God! And at the foot of the canvas He adds but this word, as an eternal inscription, "There is NO PEACE, saith my God, to the wicked."

The souls of men are restless, sin has made them so, for “the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest.” But the good Shepherd calls His sheep from their toilsome wanderings, He brings them to repose at His feet, and He leads them beside the waters of quietness.

For wisdom provides a secure rest in the heart of one who has understanding, a rest that no circumstance can remove (v. 33). How refreshing it is to observe this restful spirit in those who enjoy the comfort of the Lord's presence! But what is in the heart of fools is quickly exposed as totally contrary to rest, for there is no rest for the wicked.

Like the last, this section closes with a divine declaration as to the lawless among the people of God; “there is no peace” for them. Lawlessness in way and in word; lawlessness in doing and in thinking; lawlessness in working and in writing; i.e. the fulfilling of “the desires of the flesh and the thoughts,” and brings down the wrath of God. It is in complete contrast to abiding in His love and keeping His commandments. Sin is lawlessness; it is marked by restlessness and vileness; it leaves out God. The lawless know Him not. They are “like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt” (v. 20). They will follow Antichrist when He comes. Already their restless activity is of the same spirit. The last verse of our section is similar to that of the previous section, “There is no peace, says my God, to the wicked” [or lawless].

A deeply blessed, and most practical lesson may be learnt from this grand central truth. "Love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God. He that loves not knows not God, for God is love … Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit." (1 John 4:7-19) In the day of our regeneration, - when "born of the Spirit," a new life is implanted in the soul, - which finds its rest alone in Jesus. "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." This is the rest of God, and of our new life. Above the world, above the clouds, above the storms, above the heavens, it rests on the bosom of the Beloved. Then, why is it that so many true Christians are strangers to solid peace and rest, not to speak of joy and love? Simply because Christ Himself is not the one object before the mind and the heart; and in all their ways, both human and divine. The uneasiness, the restlessness, the disquietude of true Christians is to be accounted for on this ground alone. The moment Christ gets His right place in the heart, everything else, consequently, drops into its own right place according to divine order. But if anything be allowed to come between the heart and Christ, the Holy Spirit is grieved, the soul is darkened, weakness and confusion follow, and the whole moral being gets out of order.

Now let the soul once know what this rest of God is, let the heart once be set upon it, there will be joy unspeakable in understanding that God's love can rest in nothing short of bringing us into His own delight. There will then also be the full, settled consciousness that we cannot find rest elsewhere. There are indeed joys by the way, but the moment we rest in them, they become, as the quails of Israel (Num. 11), poison.

Whenever the soul loses practically the knowledge that its rest is in God's rest, the moment the eye is off that which it remaineth," we begin to seek a rest here, and consequently get uneasy, restless, and dissatisfied. Every time we find something on which we attempt to settle, that very thing proves but a new source of trouble and conflict to us, a new source of exercise and weariness of heart. God loves us too well to let us rest here.

Whenever the soul loses practically the knowledge that its rest is in God's rest, the moment the eye is off that which "remaineth," we begin to seek a rest here, and consequently get uneasy, restless, and dissatisfied. Every time we find something on which we attempt to settle, that very thing proves but a new source of trouble and conflict to us, a new source of exercise and weariness of heart. God loves us too well to let us rest here.

Christian reader, are you “a man of rest”? Have you found “rest unto your soul”? The vast majority of believers in Christ have not; and why? why their disquietude, their lack of a settled calm in the midst of trying circumstances, sickness, loss of property, want of success in business, and the thousand and one things of life that harrow the heart, and torment the soul, and from which none may hope to escape — for none are promised immunity? The answer is simple — it is wrapped in allegorical form in the story of these brothers, Baruch and Seraiah. Most Christians have a mind fashioned more after the pattern of Baruch than that of Seraiah; they are ambitious, they hope for something in life apart from, or in addition to, Christ. They do not in their hearts really submit to the judgment of God pronounced in His word against this world; and they consequently seek something here in this scene of sin, either for themselves or for their children. And these things are not always evil in themselves; nor is the mere possession of them wrong or inconsistent in a child of God; it is in the seeking of them that the evil lies. “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek for” confessed the psalmist. This was not anything of earth, but that he might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life (not just to go to heaven when he died), to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple (Ps. 27:4). It was a purely spiritual ambition, he coveted earnestly what it is lawful for us all to long for. And this brings rest, this maintains the soul in quiet and unbroken calm in the midst of a groaning, toiling, restive world, never satisfied, and altogether unbelieving concerning the judgment hanging over its head, or the suppressed volcano boiling for vent beneath it.

What is the secret of the unhappiness and restlessness of many a saint? A hankering after rest here. God is therefore obliged to discipline and exercise that soul; to allow, it may be, some circumstance to detect the real state of the heart by touching that about which the will is concerned. Circumstances would not trouble, if they did not find something in us contrary to God; they would rustle by as the wind. God deals with that in us which hinders communion, and prevents our seeking rest in Him alone. His discipline is the continual and unwearied exercise of love, which rests not now in order that we may enter into His rest. If He destroys our rest here, if He turns our meat into poison, it is only that He may bring us into His own rest, that we may have that which satisfies His desires, not ours. "He will rest in his love."