May it be the purpose of God
to bless us together this evening as we consider his word. Let's
turn to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 11, and read in the last
three verses, verses 28, 29, and 30. Gospel of Matthew, chapter
11, and read in the last three verses, 28, 29, and 30. 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. Surely these are some of the
most encouraging words spoken to a believer or spoken to a
seeking soul. They are gracious words of invitation
spoken to us by the Saviour. And how important and relevant
they are to every one of us to remember the gracious invitation
that we have in this 28th verse, to come unto the Lord, to think
that we have such a condescending God, to try and appreciate that
we come to a God who is so great, so powerful, totally beyond our
comprehension, a God who numbers our every hair, a God who knows
the beginning from the end, A God who created all things and yet
condescends in such a wonderful way to address poor sinners of
the earth in this way, to come unto me. Now then, the Lord Jesus
Christ is the only one who can and will do us any real good. And may we indeed hear such a
gracious invitation tonight may enter into our hearts. We recognize
the importance of it as we trace out our spiritual condition and
recognize how relevant it is to each one of us and to be able
to say in the words of the Lord, Thou art the man. Yes, we're
the man or the woman or the child that needs the Word of God that
needs the Lords to look upon us. Now the Saviour instructs
us in this way, all you that labour and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest, there is a very clear qualification and
in fact there will be no requirement for us to come unto the Lord
unless we had a need. Why should anybody want to come
the Saviour, unless they had a need of the Saviour. And so
it's a blessing to realise here that Lord Jesus himself spells
it out to us very clearly in these words, all ye that labour
and are heavy laden. Well, we may not always realise
our true condition. We may not always recognise that
we are labouring, that we are heavy laden, We may not appreciate
our true condition. We may be, as it were, soldering
on in our own strength and we seem to make no progress. In
fact, we seem to go backward. We don't seem to go forward.
We don't seem to receive the answers to our prayers that we
desire. We pray and we don't seem to get those answers. And
therefore, although we may not recognize it, the truth is that
we are laboring and that we are heavy laden. And we may come
into the category that the Lord Jesus spoke of earlier in this
chapter when he was instructing the disciples to go and tell
John the Baptist of those things which had done. And just to interrupt,
as it were, our train of thought for a moment, to think of John
the Baptist, a greatly blessed man, wonderful favour to be able
to introduce the Lord Jesus Christ as he did, and yet What do we
read of John? When John had heard in prison
the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said
unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? It seems almost incredible that
a man like John the Baptist should make such a request. Surely he'd
had wonderful evidence that Jesus was the Son of God, and he'd
been greatly blessed his position but now we see there's that seed
of doubt and we see that he requires to know, he needs to be comforted,
he needs to be assured and Jesus then responds in this way and
this brings us back to this being heavy-laden and burdened and
what it means is this really, the Lord said Go to John and
tell him those things which ye do hear and see. And he gives
a little list. He says, the blind receive their
sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear,
the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached
unto them. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended
in me. Now I believe that all of these
situations, considered in a spiritual way, will make us under this
position as labouring and are heavy laden. Because if we feel
and if we believe that we seem to be blind, well, what do we
need? We may labour under that blindness,
we just can't see things, we can't understand things. Our
eyes seem to be shut. We can't really appreciate the
great truths that are contained in the Word of God. Is it because
we are, as it were, spiritually blind? And we can't really see the things
we want to? What's the effect? Well, if that's
so, you know, if you're struggling, as it were, and you feel to be blind, You'll
be labouring under it and you'll be heavy laden because of it. You can't seem to see the way.
It seems dark. There doesn't seem to be any
light upon the path. Well, you'll need then the Lords
to come and speak to you and to say those words, come unto
me You may say, well, why is that so? Because of this. Jesus
is the light of the world. I am the light. The Lord is light. And as we may come to the Lord
Jesus, in all our need of our blindness, and in some measure,
we never really see everything clearly. We always need the Lord
to come and to open to us and to direct us and to shine upon
our path so that the light shines there and then we do see, we
do see the way. We are happy to walk in that
way because the Lord shines his light. So we perhaps understand
what the Lord spoke. They're great truths, aren't
they? how encouraged they were naturally to join in prison,
to have had this message brought to him, and to behold the blind
receive their sight. Well, can you and I look back
in our lives and see that we have seen the light? It may not be perhaps quite as
clear as we would want. Remember there was that case
in the Word of God, when that man was given his sight and he
was told, what did he see? Did he see everything clearly? No, he said he saw trees like
men walking. Yes, he didn't see those things
clearly. He saw men as trees walking. It wasn't clear, just a basic
outline. And that is sometimes the case
with us in our spiritual life. We just see perhaps the basic
outline. And we do need God to come and
to clear our misty sight so that we see something of the great
truths of the Gospel and that the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed
to us as he's not unto the world. And that's an important consideration
of Christ is revealed to the Church of God. It's not something
that you and I can really come to appreciate by just natural
study. We perhaps think we can, and
we see many people today who are under that delusion. They
think that they can come to this blessed knowledge of Christ by
natural study. Well, they can come to a natural
understanding, but the spiritual understanding is simply this.
It brings us to that place where we need Christ, we need to know
that He's died for us. We need to know that His death,
and through that death, has taken away our sins. That through His
shed blood, we are washed, we are made clean in the blood of
the Lamb. Now as the Spirit of God, and
it is the blessed work of the Spirit of God, to reveal these
things unto our heart, then it is that we recognise that we
have been blessed with spiritual life. And what normally occurs
then, we are surprised that we hadn't seen the things before.
The light hadn't in fact shone into our hearts, but as it shone,
what a blessed revelation it is. Does it not give us joy in
our hearts to thank and praise God for His goodness toward us? And what has been the result? It's really been like this. We've
come unto the Lord. We've poured out our heart before
Him. We are encouraged to come and to pour out our heart to
our God because our God understands us. Other people don't. God knows
all about us. He knows the details of our heart,
of our mind. He knows that which we need.
And so, as we may have come humbly before our God, and be sure of
this, a seeking sinner comes humbly to God. A true sinner
comes in that way. A proud sinner doesn't come in
that way. A proud sinner is like the publican
who was proud of his prayers, proud of his profession. The
true child of God will not be like that. They'll be ashamed of their works,
they'll be ashamed of their profession, they'll be ashamed of their lack
of belief and therefore they'll come humbly to almighty God. Come unto me will be such a suitable
word. And they may not always have
appreciated they've done just that. They've come to the Lord. They haven't realised what they've
done. But they have been burdened and
they have been laboured and they have been heavy laden and they
have come to the Lord and the Lord has looked upon them. and He has been gracious unto
them, and He has opened their eyes, well, the blind receive
their sight. What a great blessing for us
tonight, if we have in our hearts the evidence from God, the Holy
Spirit, that we do see, and we're able to say this, one thing I
know, whereas I was blind, but now I see. Now that is the revelation
of God, the Holy Spirit, to your soul and to my soul. And what
a great favour it is to be found in a position like that and able
to humbly say, yes, one thing I know. Couldn't say a lot, couldn't
quote a great long experience, but could say very simply, one
thing I know, whereas I was blind, now I see. And so the Lord goes
on. The blind received their sight,
a true evidence that the Lord was the Christ. And then he says,
and the lame walk, the lame walk. Well, again, in a spiritual consideration,
sometimes we might think, well, we just can't seem to walk. We're
just hindered. Our legs don't seem to want to
move. You know, we're, as it were, we're crippled. Crippled
we are. Now, what may have made us lame? I'll tell you what may have made
you and me lame. And that's our sins. They dragged
us down, they dragged us back. We're not able to walk as we
would and we're lame. We're lame in the things of God.
We're not making the progress that we thought we would. And
we're burdened by it. We're heavy laden by it. We're
lame. We don't seem to be making the
spiritual progress that we hoped we would, that we desired. Well, the gracious words of the
Lord are, come unto me. We may have been struggling on
ourselves. We may have been able to correct
ourselves, to improve our situation, to be a better person. Nothing
wrong in desiring those things. But we have to prove this. That
it is of and through the grace of God. The free unmerited favour
of the Saviour. And that's what makes grace real. And that's what makes grace precious. And that's why someone like John
Newton said amazing grace. It is because it comes to those
who are undeserving, those who are lame in the way. And so the
Lord came and said, yes, the lame walk. Yes, they walk. No longer are they not able to
move, but they now walk. And they walk in the ways of
the Lord. They follow that narrow way, which leads to eternal life. They're not distracted as they
were. Come unto me. Come unto me."
Oh, it's a great word, isn't it? It's a great word of encouragement
to those who are blind, those who are lame. And then we read,
the lepers are cleansed. Well, perhaps we don't see lepers
about in our country today, but there were lepers, of course,
in the days of the Lord Jesus Christ. And leprosy was a very
bad disease, which naturally there was no cure for. No cure
for, naturally, leprosy. And if it attacked, it usually
spread. And it was one that separated. Lepers were cast out. Lepers
were outside the camp. They weren't allowed in. It was
a desperate thing to be a leper. In a spiritual sense, what does
leprosy mean? It means sin. It means sin and, you know, leprosy
often covered a person, so does sin. Sin, you see, makes us cast
out. We're separated from God because
of our sin. Our sins separate between us
and our God. Now then, the Spirit of God has
shown you and me our sin. perhaps in measure and perhaps
as we grow spiritually that measure is increased and we see sins
that we never knew existed before. We find sins deep within our
heart which we are surprised to find there and it has a terrible
effect upon us. What does it do? It makes us
labour and we're heavy laden because of the sin which drags
us down. Yes, the sin which drags us down,
not only the original sin, but indwelling sin. And we find sometimes
we're not able to shake it off ourselves. You see, the devil
knows what are our weak points. The devil knows what is attractive
to you and to me. Maybe very different things,
sinful things. sinful things that we may think
about, indulging in our minds, evil things. The effect is that
really in a sense we're lepers. Yes, and we need to be cleansed
and we can't cleanse ourselves. We're heavy laden because of
it. We're burdened. It drags us down. What does the
Word tell us here? What are the Saviour's encouraging
words? Come unto me. Nowhere else to go. You and I
won't find relief anywhere else. We won't find relief in the things
of this world. The more we indulge, perhaps,
in them, the worse we get. We think, well, we'll do this
and we'll do that and we'll get rid of it. My friends, you need
Christ to come and to take away those sins, to cleanse us from
our leprosy. Now, what happens? Come unto
me. If we come unto the Saviour,
How do we come? Well, we come as heavy laden
and what are we doing? We're looking to the Lord Jesus
Christ. We're coming to Him and what
do we see? What must we see? We must see
the Saviour burdened with our sin. You know, we're burdened
with sin, aren't we? You look at the Saviour and see
that He's burdened. He's been burdened. with our
sin and in order to release us from
our burden of sin, he laid down his life because he loved us
so much. Isn't that amazing? The Almighty God should have
loved you and me so much that he was willing to lay down his
life that you and I might receive life. And so the lepers are cleansed. In a natural way, wonderful.
In a spiritual way, it's wonderful to feel and to know the cleansing
power of the blood of Jesus Christ. Now then, the word tells us,
come unto me. All ye that labour and are heavy
laden, Yes, we come to the Lord in this way, as it were, burden-heavy
and laden with our sins. And I believe this must be so,
and it will be so. And you might think, well, I'm
now a good Christian and I'm making good progress. If you
make good progress as a Christian, it'll be in this way. You'll
see more of the depth of your sin, and you'll see more of the
need of the Saviour. And because of that, the Lord
Jesus Christ will be more precious and perhaps more precious far
than earth and all its comforts are because it's comparing time
things with eternal things. And what a great and vast difference
there is. The lepers are cleansed and the
deaf hear. Well, we perhaps know deaf people
And we know what a difficulty it is to make them understand.
They're deaf and they can't hear. And that's just as we were born
in a spiritual sense. We were deaf. We never really
heard the truth of God. And I'm sure this is so, but
the Church of God can testify that perhaps they've been to
chapel for many, many years. And they've never heard the gospel.
You might say, well, what do you mean? Well, they've heard
it naturally, but it's never actually come into their heart.
It's never touched their heart. It's never moved their spirit.
No, they've been deaf to the things of God. But what a wonderful
thing, if you and I in our time of need, we couldn't hear. We've
been blessed with this wonderful desire. We've been laboring under
it. And we've come to the Lord, come
unto me. And the Lord has given us hearing ears and the deaf
hear. Well, again, let's look into
our spiritual lives tonight and to see whether we have heard
the gospel in our heart, not just in our mind, whether it's
penetrated. You see, if it's come into our
heart, it would have made a change. done something for us, and that
something is that which you and I could not do for ourselves.
And we shall bless God for it and thank God for it, for his
wonderful favour and his wonderful blessing in giving us hearing
ears. We speak now and we often have
a hearing ear, and it's good if the Spirit of God has given
us that hearing ear. We've come to the Lord in this
way, We've laboured and we're heavy laden and we can't seem
to hear the good news of the Gospel. It doesn't seem to come.
And then the Spirit of God applies the Word and we hear. We hear
the Word of God. It penetrates into our heart
and it does us good, it's spiritual good. And so we hear and the
dead are raised up. The dead are raised up. What
a statement this is. Well, wonderful, wasn't it, for
this picture to be brought to John the Baptist. John the Baptist,
there's been these demonstrations, the Saviour's raised up dead
people and they've come to life. A miracle it was, and it's no
less a miracle, when the Spirit of God brings you and me into
spiritual life. because we were born dead in
trespasses and in sins. And I'm sure we realize that
a dead person is not able to respond to anything. A dead person
knows not anything. If the Lord comes and has touched
us, the Lord has come to us and said, live. Life has entered
in. spiritual life. Raised from the
dead. What a blessing if we've known
the favour of God to this end. Raised and raised up and the
poor have the gospel preached unto them. The poor. Poor in themselves. Well If you
think of those words that the Lord Jesus spoke when he began
that sermon on the mount, the first words he spoke were these,
blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Now that's an inward evidence. That's not something which is
external. It's poor in spirit. And you may come and say, well,
I'm such a poor person. Such a poor person. Remember
what the psalmist says, this poor man cried and the Lord heard
him and delivered him out of all his distresses. The Lord
brings us down to realise that we are poor. We may have been
quite proud at one time of our life, thought it was really quite
good and We lived an upright life and people could look at
us and see how good we were and we were punctual and good at
our chapel attendance and reading the Bible and all such things.
And we were proud of our natural attainments. What was it? The works of the flesh. And then,
to be blessed, they brought down by the Spirit of God, to be poor
in spirit. As it were, We mention the Pharisee,
we think of the publican. What was he? Was he poor in spirit? He hung his head, beat upon his
breast, cried out, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Yes, he had
a real need. Poor in spirit. And the poor
had the gospel preached to them. You see, this is the good news,
isn't it? They had the gospel preached. Those who labor and
are heavy laden, bow down, bow down. Those are the ones who
hear the gospel. It's preached to them. You see,
in a congregation, there's many people. How many are poor in
spirit, only the Lord knows. But those who are poor in spirit,
they have the gospel preached to them. They receive the word.
It has an effect upon them. It does them good. It's made
a blessing. And the dead are raised up, the
poor of the gospel preached unto them. Well, a little list, isn't
it, of those things that the Lord spoke to the disciples to
go and tell John the Baptist. But how appropriate it is, really,
as we read this word, come unto me. Who are the people that come? Those who are laboring and are
heavy laden. Other people will not come. You
and I can therefore examine ourselves in the light of God's Word to
see whether we have come to the Lord because we've walked in
this path and we understand these separate situations and can bless
God that his Spirit has come and touched our hearts. Come
unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden. And you know
there's a wonderful promise. What is the promise? And I will
give you rest, give you rest, And in these situations, as the
Spirit of God reveals His favour toward us, what does it do? It gives us rest in our souls,
because we're thankful to believe that Almighty God has come to
us, remembered us in our low condition, our heavy burden-ness,
and blessed us, and remembered us with that favour He bears
to His people. Yes, and I will give thee rest. You see, we come to the Lord,
it's his gracious invitation, because of our need. And what
does he do? He gives us rest. You and I cannot
give ourselves rest. There's no true rest in the things
in this world. But spiritual rest is a wonderful
blessing because it means peace with God. Peace with God. no greater blessing in our natural
life than to know peace with God. I will give you rest." Now,
here then is this gracious word of invitation to the living Church
of God, come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest. And not only, of course, is this
a natural rest, but also not only a spiritual rest in this
life, but it's an eternal rest. An eternal rest. be found in
heaven at last. And the pathway of the child
of God is staked out, as it were, in these kind of terms, of walking
in this path and to have the revelation of God to our souls
to encourage us that we are in the right way, which brings rest
to our souls, and we can look forward to that rest that remains
to the people of God, which is an eternal rest. You see, the
Lord blesses us then with from time to time that rest in our
souls on this earth, but look forward then to that time of
eternal rest, that rest that remains to the people of God.
Now, the Lord Jesus comes on then and speaks then to these
people. Remember, he's encouraged them to come to him He's spoken
of who they will be and what kind of condition they'll be
in, and he said what he'll do to them, he'll give them rest,
and then he instructs them. He instructs them in this way.
He says this, 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. Remember the Lord Jesus was speaking
in those days when they were still carrying out probably the
ceremonial law. And as it were, ancient Israel
were yoked, were tied to this ceremonial law. And my friends,
it was an exceeding difficult law to keep. It was so comprehensive
and there were so many rules to obey and so many things to
do. a very heavy burden. And now
the Lord comes and says, take my yoke upon you. His yoke. His yoke. His yoke is so different. So different to the Old Testament
yoke. And you might say, well, what
really is this yoke? Well, put very simply, it's like
this. I believe it's a profession of
our faith. The Lord gives us this He's given
us this spiritual life. Take my yoke upon you. And as
we take it up, this profession, profession of our faith, take
it up, then the Lord says, and learn of me. Now, surely we desire
then to learn of the Saviour. We need to learn more of Him.
Do we not? Is that not our real prayer? that we might grow in grace and
in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, well
I hope it is, and it's a good prayer and it's a right prayer.
But if you and I are to grow in grace, here we have these
encouraging words, that we shall learn of him if we take his yoke,
that profession of faith, upon us. Take my yoke upon you and
learn of me. What does it mean? It means this,
we're linked, we're joined. the Lord Jesus Christ. We're
part of that great and glorious family, part of the Church of
God. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me. Is it difficult? Is it irksome? My friends, the blessing is that
Christ is with us. We're not alone. You're not set
out on a journey by yourself. The Lord is with you to support
you, to encourage you, the burden is shared. And my friends, the
more we are blessed with living faith, as it were, the less of
the burden we carry. Yes, the Lord Jesus takes that
burden. Yes, we're told to cast all our
care, we're told to cast our burdens upon the Lord, because
he cares for us. And if my friends, we have that
revelation, that evidence of that spiritual light and life
and hearing is because we've been blessed with something of
a view of what the Saviour has done on that death upon Calvary's
cross and we learn of him and we want to learn more. We seem
to be so ignorant, we seem to know so little of the great truths
of the Lord Jesus Christ and so we have this encouraging word
to learn of me. And the Lord Jesus, he tells
us, for I am meek and lowly in heart. He understands our condition. Remember, he's taken on our human
flesh. He knows, as it were, how our
heart beats. He understands the path. He's
been on this earth. He knows the trials. He knows
the tribulations. He knows what you and I are He's
not a stranger to those things. He is a brother beloved. He is
a friend. The stick is closer than a brother.
And he tells us, I'm meek and lowly in heart. So what is our
situation? We can share with him, can't
we, all our concerns. We can come to him. Come unto
me. We can come to him. We can tell
him. all about our doubts, all about
our fears, all about our concerns. And he understands. He knows
about us. What a great and glorious privilege
it is for Christians, as they walk through this world, to have
such a glorious Saviour. And to be able to say, my beloved
is mine. Yes, yes, he is. They're all together lovely.
He is the cheapest among 10,000, and our hearts are drawn to Him
because of what He's done. And we find Him meek and lowly
in heart, and ye shall find rest under your souls. You see, fellowship
with Christ, my friends, puts everything right. Things which appear so difficult,
so impossible, union with Christ puts everything right. And that's
why it comes like this, and ye shall find rest. We won't find it unless we walk
this way. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me and the answers, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. This is the promise of God. Are we walking this way? Do we know this rest for our
soul? Is our soul restless? It may be. We want rest. Here is the gracious command
of Almighty God. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. It's very amazing,
isn't it, to think that Almighty God should make such a great
and glorious statement as this to encourage us today. He comes
right down to our level, comes down to our position, so we can
come to him as a brother and as a friend, and we can speak
to him, we can talk to him. For I am meek and lowly in heart,
and ye shall find rest unto your souls. And then he just confirms
his words again. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light. We might think, well I can't
really take on this, it's just too difficult. No, says the Lord,
it's easy, and it's light. And I'm sure of this, the Living
Church of God, who by His grace have been able to take His yoke
upon us. It's a blessed position. It's
not anything that you and I regret. No, to be yoked with Christ is
a blessed position. It's a wonderful favour, union
with Christ. I hope we all desire that, to
be in union with Christ. not in union with the world,
in union with Christ. And to be blessedly in union,
the privilege is to be yoked to him and to hear his gracious
words of encouragement. They are encouragement, are they
not? Here we have in these words, the end of this 11th chapter,
they're wonderful words, aren't they? Come unto me, come unto
me, all ye that labour, everyone, all ye that labour, and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn
of me, the blessed Saviour. 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. Blessed be God. Amen.