May it please Almighty God to
bless us together this evening as we meditate in His Word. Let
us turn to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 11, and we'll read the
last three verses. Verses 28, 29, and 30. So the 11th chapter in Matthew,
the last three verses. Come unto me, all ye that labour
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and
ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and
my burden is light. I expect we are all aware that
the Word of God is a spiritual book. It is of course an historical
account of many things. But the predominant truth is
it is a spiritual book. That means that it speaks to
our never-dying soul. We can therefore in some measure
appreciate how important it is, and how valuable it is, and how
wonderful it is that God, in His love to mankind, should give
to us such a wonderful volume of truth that you and I can read
as the very Word of God. Men were used, but my friends,
it's the very Word of God. So may we read it as such. And if we read it as the Word
of God, and if we have some comprehension of the greatness of God and who
He is, then it should influence us as we read it. And not just
ignore it, and not just pass over it, and not think it hasn't
got any relevance to our lives, because it has relevance to every
one of us. young and old. What a blessing
it is therefore that God has given us his word and in his
word we have so many great and glorious truths, so many words
of direction, many words of correction, but great truths that direct
us to none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ indeed in
all the Scriptures should be our cry and should be our constant
concern as we read the Bible to discern the Lord Jesus Christ
in the Scriptures. In the New Testament it's quite
obvious, in the Old Testament it's not so obvious, but a wonderful
thing it is when you and I, as we read the Word of God, pray
over it seeking that Jesus will reveal himself unto us as he
does not unto the world, that he may reveal himself to us as
our Lord and Saviour, the Almighty God, the one who has created
all things, the ruler of the universe, and thus that you and
I may be truly blessed in our souls. We don't want to carry
on through life and get to the end of our life and not have
any testimony of what God has spoken to us through his word. Many people pass on carelessly
through time and fall into that terrible abyss of hell. with
no evidence of the life of God in their souls. Now, we should
realise, and you young people should realise, the wonderful privilege it is,
although you may not appreciate it, it is a wonderful privilege
to be able to come, to read the Word of God and to come and hear
the preaching of the gospel. You might say, well, why is it
a privilege to come and hear a preaching of the gospel? Well,
the Apostle Paul tells us that it is through the foolishness
of preaching that the Lord condescends to bless souls. And what a wonderful
thing, therefore, if you and I realize it is a wonderful thing. The Apostle speaks to us when
he wrote to the Corinthians, and he gave us some little insight. And this is what he says. For Christ sent me not to baptize,
but to preach the gospel, not with the wisdom of words, lest
the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. And the
cross of Christ, of course, directs us to the death of Christ. For the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness but unto us which are saved it
is the power of God well that's a question that you and I can
answer is the preaching of the cross tonight to us foolishness
or is it the power of God bless God if it's the latter he says
for it is written I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will
bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the
wise? Where is the scribe? Where is
the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? You see, this world, everybody's
striving after wisdom, striving after knowledge. The most important
thing is to strive after spiritual knowledge, and spiritual understanding. The apostle goes on, for after
that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. That's clear, isn't
it? Then he goes on, for the Jews
require a sign. And the Greeks seek after wisdom. So they wanted something very
tangible to their own natural understanding. But we preach
Christ crucified. And to the Jews, a stumbling
block. And to the Greeks, foolishness. But unto them which are called,
That's called by God. God calls his people. He calls
us out of darkness into the glorious light of the gospel. But unto
them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power
of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God
is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. And then he says, for you see
your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men are to the
flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God hath
chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise,
and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty. I don't often speak about myself
as most of you know, but just to encourage you younger people. Years ago I was in South Africa
and we had a legal case. people trying to overthrow a
patent that we'd taken out. And we had a meeting with a very
able young barrister and he was a very clever man. And the next
morning I was sat in my hotel and I was thinking, well, it
would be very wonderful if I had the knowledge that that man did,
or the ability that that man had and then these words dropped
in that God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise and God has chosen the weak things
of the world to confound the things which are mighty and base
things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen,
yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that
are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. Well, that put
everything straight and I was totally content. to be in the
situation with the knowledge that God had given me. Well,
we don't want a glory in our flesh. We want a glory in what
God has done. We want to appreciate the preaching
of the gospel and not turn away from it as though it's something
ridiculous, something of no consequence. You see, we will either realize
it is the blessing of God to our souls, or we shall end up
in hell for eternity, regretting that we never heard the gospel
to promise. Well, here we have in these words
before us this evening, the gracious words of the Saviour. And they're words of wonderful
invitation. Invitation to unworthy sinners. And this word here before us
is a word, come unto me, come unto me. But it's not addressed,
as some people say, to everybody, because that statement is qualified. And how is it qualified? It's
qualified in the following words. Come unto me, all ye that labour
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And that comes
back really to our statement about the Word of God being a
spiritual book. Because this verse, or the next
verse, goes on to tell us, And ye shall find rest unto your
souls. It's not rest to our body. That really is irrelevant when
we consider the difference between time and eternity. Time things
are transient. Time things are passing. You
and I might live to a hundred years old. It's nothing in comparison
with eternity, which you and I cannot really work out in our
minds. We can get some vague idea, but
eternity is what it says, no end. Carries on and on and on. And therefore how good it is
that you and I are blessed to find rest, spiritual rest, Not
for our bodies, but for our souls. That's the great question. That's
the great need. And how few people recognize
the truth of it. How few people realize the importance
of it. You look around the world today.
Men and women, boys and girls, rushing around here and there.
trying to improve their natural life, trying to gain more and
more, trying to possess this and trying to possess that, more
and more concerned about their natural health, which one day
will be of no consequence, and yet to realize we have a valuable, never-dying soul. and that we may be concerned
then about the health of our soul. And so if that is so, then
a word like this, you and I will have some understanding of. The
gracious invitation is, come unto me. And if we are therefore
laboring and heavy laden in a spiritual sense, in a spiritual way. We may have natural problems,
natural difficulties. This Word doesn't really address
that. It addresses our spiritual condition. Only that labour and
are heavy laden. And if you and I labour and are
heavy laden, I'll tell you the reason. The reason will be because
the Spirit of God will have convinced us that we are a sinner. and that we have offended God
and that we need to be delivered from our sin. We need our sin
to be forgiven, our sin to be taken away. And while the weight
of that hangs around us, hangs upon us, we will be burdened,
burdened with it, realizing that we cannot free ourselves from
it. You cannot free yourself from
your sin. You cannot free yourself from
the burden of it. You'll be heavy laden. And the
only way of being released from that agony of unforgiven sin
is to come to the Saviour. The glorious truth of the Gospel
is this, the door of the Lord's mercy stands open all day to
the poor and the needy that knock by the way. So if, again it's a big if, but
if the Holy Spirit has convinced us of our sin, And it is a burden
to us, and it will be if it's real. It won't be something which
you can just dismiss as something of a little concern, of no value, but it will weigh
you down. I expect some of you have read
The Pilgrim's Progress. Well, it's an allegory, but it's
an account really, that John Bunyan dreamed and was able to
put down in print of the journey of a Christian. It's well worth
reading. If you haven't read it, well,
get a book and read it. It's well worth reading because
we see there Christian who is the main person in the account,
Christian, realizing he had a great burden. And there are pictures
of it, it's just figurative obviously, of this great burden on his back
and he's struggling on, on the journey. And the first thing
that he wanted to do was to escape from the place he was living.
And the place where he was living was called the City of Destruction. And he realised if he stayed
there, he would be destructed. He would lose his life. And therefore
he decided to escape. Run for his life. The people tried to stop him.
The people tried to stop him. But you know what he did. He
covered his ears so that you wouldn't hear their cries. And
you ran away from the city of destruction, crying, life, life,
eternal life. Well, you and I, you see, we
live, we're born in a city of destruction. But my friends,
what a blessing if the Holy Spirit has given us to realise that
we are under the curse that we are under the condemnation of
the Gospel which says, the soul that sinneth it shall die. And
there's no escape. Naturally, we need, we need the
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, if you and I are
in that condition, then such a word as this will be music
to your ears. Put it another way, good news
from a far country. And that far country, of course,
is glory. And so says the blessed Saviour,
come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will,
and I will give you rest. how many people have read this
verse and how many people have turned away from it and ignored
it. What a blessing tonight if the Holy Spirit shows to us
that we are that needy sinner and that we are a burden and
we are heavy laden and we are battling on perhaps night and
day under this great load of sin it doesn't get lighter because we continue to sin and
the burden gets heavier and we need the Gospel we need
forgiveness we need to know that the Lord Jesus Christ has died
for us. And so this invitation is very
real. And it's very wonderful. It says, come unto me. There are many comes in the word
of God. And what a blessing there are.
See, we can't come too bad. We can't come in reality unless
we are bad. We can't come in reality unless
we are a sinner indeed, and we know we're a sinner. It's not
just something which you and I can brush off, or something
of no consequence. Because the Lord puts us under
condemnation. He puts us under the work of
the Holy Spirit. And bless God, we don't get any
rest naturally from ourselves. No, we're like as we think upon
the ocean as a restless ocean. We need, we need the life of
God. We need the Spirit of God. We
need the blessing of God. And so here we have this gracious
invitation, come unto me. There's only really one condition,
and that's to be labouring and heavy laden under the condemnation
of the law of God. If we're not, there's no need
to come. It won't do us any good. But
if we are to think that the Lord invites us to himself, It's a
wonderful truth, isn't it? To think that the great God always
had great views of God. The great God gives this glorious
invitation to needy sinners, not to those who are not needy,
not to those who are not heavy laden, not to those who don't
labour under their sins, But it is to those who are sinners,
come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden. And what's
the promise? We won't come to the Lord and
find a vacuum. We won't come to the Lord and
find there's nothing there. The promise is And I will give
you rest. And that, as I've already said,
is spiritual rest to our soul. Our heavy laden soul. Rest. And that rest will be discovered
as the Blessed Lord leads us into His death. Into, as we sang
in that second hymn, the great and glorious love of the Saviour
that will give us rest to know that the Saviour loved
us so much from eternity past amazing truth that isn't it back
in eternity past we were known to God He knew that we would
be born into this sinful world and we would need a saviour and
we would hear this great and glorious invitation come unto
me all ye that labour and are heavy
laden you see all those who are truly convicted by the Spirit
of God are not left out There's no one left out. There's no one
too bad. No one too far off. No, this
word is a glorious gospel word. And I will give you rest. It's lovely, isn't it? To know
the positiveness of the word of God. We don't
have to think, well, I don't think that'll apply to me. Because
the Lord says here, I will give you rest. I will give you rest. My friends, let us not come with
the evil heart of unbelief. But let us come with a true conviction
of sin upon our spirits and desiring the Lord will indeed receive
us. Yes, I came to Jesus as I was,
weary and worn and sad. Isn't that a glorious truth? And then the Lord goes on to
say, and these are the blessed words of the Saviour himself.
He then says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. This is how we will come to the
knowledge of the truth. This is how we will come to the
blessing of forgiveness as the Lord leads us into all truth
as it is in Jesus. And we come to understand spiritually
the wonderful and glorious plan of salvation. And to realize
that the blessed Savior engaged in that plan to redeem our souls. take my yoke upon you. That really means to be joined
to the Saviour. We don't see it very much in
our country today, perhaps we don't see it at all. It does
still exist in other countries where oxen who draw the plough
or other farming instruments are joined together with a yoke. Usually in timber, or some other
material and it links the two animals closely together so they
have to go together they can't be separated they won't be able
to do the work they go together they are yokes together and that's
a wonderful picture for us today to hear such a word as this the
Lord says take my yoke yes, his yoke upon us so that we are joined
to the Saviour. And you see, if we are closely
joined to the Saviour, what is the blessing? He says, and learn
of me. If we read the Word of God, if
we yoke to the Saviour and read the Word of God, we will read
about the Saviour. We will read how He lived. We
will read His glorious example. We will read all the difficulties
and trials that he had. And we will read how he prayed
to his father. We will read how much opposition
he had. We will come to the conclusion
that his way was much darker and rougher than mine. You see,
fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Fellowship is something
despised today with the Lord Jesus Christ. Fellowship, we
often think, is something very nice and pleasant, but the Apostle
Paul, as I do refer to, as you well know, the congregation here,
I do refer to the Apostle Paul when he wrote to the Philippians
with that true living desire that he might be united to Christ. He tells us this. I'll just read
a few verses, it's worth listening to. Chapter 3, verse 6. Concerning and zeal, persecuting
the church, touching the righteousness which is in the Lord blameless.
But what things were gained to me, those I counted loss for
Christ. Yea, doubtless, It's good, isn't
it, to have a statement like that? There's no doubt about
it. Yea, doubtless. And I count all things but loss
on the one side and the other side for the excellency of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things, all worldly things, and do count them but
done that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having mine
own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through
the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. And then he says this, that I
may know Him. Now clearly the Apostle Paul
knew the Lord Jesus Christ but he's really directing us to the
fact that he desires to know more of Christ. See what he says? That I may know Him and the power
of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings and be made
conformable unto his death." Just note this was the real heartfelt
desire of the Apostle Paul, a man of God. He wanted fellowship
with the Lord Jesus Christ, realising he was far more valuable than
all the things of this world. And therefore he comes and says
so clearly these great truths. What a wonderful thing it is
if we are blessed with this and be found in Him. Yes, not having
my own righteousness, which is of the Lord, but that which is
through the faith of Christ that I may know Him and the power
of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. The tendency
is to think, well, if I'm going to be blessed with fellowship
with his sufferings that means I'm going to have a lot of physical
hardship a lot of physical opposition you may do but you may not sometimes
a spiritual suffering is to be joined to Christ and realise
how he had to face opposition to the truth he declared the
truth but people ignored it they mocked him fellowship with his
sufferings, be made conformal unto his death, if by any means,
any means, I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Oh, my friends, that's a good
desire, isn't it? Perhaps we think we can't attain
to it, but nonetheless, might we desire that fellowship with
the Lord Jesus Christ? And that's why we come back to
this, take my yoke upon you. And if we are yoked to the Lord
Jesus Christ, we will indeed be a true partaker of this wonderful
fellowship, because what we will do, we will learn of him. We will learn of what he endured
to save our souls. We will learn about the pathway
that he walked and we will know that his way was much rougher
and harder than ours yes, take my yoke upon you and learn of
me and he tells us what he's like to be yoked too he's not
a hard taskmaster no, the Blessed Saviour is not a hard taskmaster
he doesn't beat us we're joined to him in love And so he says,
for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your
souls. This is the path of true Christianity. This is the gracious invitation. Come unto me and ye shall find
rest unto your souls. It's not rest in just sitting
around and taking it easy and just enjoying ourselves and the
things of this world. My friends, it's fellowship with
the Lord Jesus Christ. And fellowship with the Lord
Jesus Christ is found in that path that the Saviour speaks
of when He came to the end of His sermon to the disciples and
told them it is through much tribulation that we should enter
the Kingdom. We sometimes think that applies
to everybody else apart from ourselves. But remember, it's
the truth of God's Word. It's the words of the Saviour. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest
unto your souls. It's not rest to our body. That's
irrelevant. It's rest to our eternal souls. Oh my friends, rest in the arms
of Jesus and realise that underneath are the everlasting arms to support
us as we journey on not by ourselves
underneath are those everlasting arms and what strength there
is to support us in every time of need and you shall find rest
unto your souls. And then the Lord comes and encourages
the Church of God by a very simple statement. For my yoke, my yoke
is easy and my burden is light. Yes, what a privilege it is to
be yoked to the Lord Jesus Christ, my friends, let us not be yoked
to the valences of time, which only end in hell and bring hardship
and difficulties. But my friends, to be yoked to
the saviour is a time of blessing and it brings with it eternal
blessings and it directs us to our eternal home that one day
by his grace we shall be, as the Apostle says, with Christ,
which is far better. It's good, isn't it, if God gives
us grace, if God gives us a willing mind to receive such a great
and glorious truth, to be with Christ, which is far better.
The Apostle had that precious view, hadn't he, when he was
lifted up in his spirit to the third heaven, He was able, therefore,
to speak such words to encourage us today as we journey on. For my yoke is easy and my burden
light. Let's come back to the beginning.
Come unto me. That's a gracious and wonderful
invitation of God himself to the needy, hell deserving, burdened
sinner. And the promise is, and I will
give you rest. And the blessing is then to be
joined to Christ. Not joined to the world, not
joined to all the things of time, but joined to Christ in close
proximity by this yoke. And learn of me, for I am meek
and lowly in heart. What a wonderful thing to have
a saviour like this. A saviour that comes down to
our level. down to the lowest level that's
why my friends I sometimes comment the Lord Jesus was born in that
lowest condition in that manger in Bethlehem it couldn't be lower
he came right down to the lowest condition that's the Savior that
you and I have the Savior invites us to come unto me and so he
says and ye shall find rest unto your souls for my yoke is easy
and my burden is light and let us remember the word of God is
truth. Amen. Our final hymn this evening is
516. Hymn 516. The tune is 735. The triune Jehovah we praise, in
essence, eternally one, who has, by the word of his grace, his
counsels eternal made known. the Father, the Spirit and Word,
as three in one God and no more, in Zion's salvation accord. Then let us this one God adore. And verse three, in Jesus and
Jesus alone, the church stands forever complete. And whilst
he remains on his throne, he will not the weakest forget.
They're his and shall ever be his, and with him in glory shall
reign, the triune Jehovah to bless, forever and ever. Amen. Hymn 516. ? To give hope to the weak ones,
in excelsis Deo. ? of his praise. His answers will I proclaim now. Let all the world know the spirit
of love. O say can you see, by the dawn's
early light, ? The change that may rest in his
mind ? ? Is just as the search for the one who died ? O'er the ramparts we watched,
were so gallantly streaming? ? To thy founding in the world
to come ? ? In the home of the brave to come ? ? The Church exulteth o'er all things ? ?
And loves thee with grateful concern ? ? We hail the Prince
of Peace ? ? North to Iowa, North to Iowa,
North to Iowa ? Now may the grace of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the love of God our Father, and
the fellowship and communion of the Eternal Spirit, rest and
abide with us each, now and for evermore. Amen.