Having read to you my text in
Matthew 11, I hope by the Spirit of God to talk to you for a little
while this morning about the rest and the rest giver. The word rest in the Scriptures
is often used to describe the faith of God's elect. When He's talking about resting
from your labors, He's not talking about quitting your job. He's
talking about stopping all your religious works and resting in
His works, resting in Him. So it's often used in the Scripture
as being synonymous with faith. In Hebrews chapter 3, speaking
about certain individuals who were forbidden by God to enter
into the promised land or the promised rest of Israel, that
is, into Canaan, It says, and to whom swear he that they should
not enter into his rest. Who did he say that to? But to
them that believed not. So we see that they could not
enter in. They couldn't go into that rest,
that promised rest, because of unbelief. These men were noble and influential
men. They had passed through the sea.
They passed through the Red Sea by the grace of God. The water
stood straight up as a wall on either side of them. I remember
hearing one time a man was He was somewhat of a, I think, science
so-called that Paul talked about, but he was a scientist. And he
said he did a study, a geographical study, and back then he said
the Red Sea was only six inches deep. And the preacher said,
oh, thank God, it was a greater miracle than I thought. He grounded
Pharaoh and all his army in six inches of water. The Scripture said there were
walls of water that raised up on either side of them. And they
passed through that sea. And these evil men passed through
the sea with them. Israel got on the other side
and rejoiced and sang hymns to God. Glorified God. These evil men were with them. Noble, influential men. They
passed through the sea. They journeyed through the desert.
And listen to this. They were enabled of God to go far enough into Canaan
to taste the fruits. To taste the fruits. And to see. And so they did see. But all they saw was the walled
fortresses and armies and so on of Canaan, the inhabitants. And they could not rest in their
God who promised to give them this land. They came back with
a negative report. And God said, none of you is
going to go in. None of you. Your carcasses shall
fall in the wilderness. They believe not. And then over
in Hebrews 4, 4, he said, Let us therefore fear lest a promise
being left to us of entering into His rest. Any of you should
seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached
as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit
them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. Well, when God mixes His promises
with the faith of God's elect, what do you have? Listen to this. For we which have believed do
enter into rest. That's what you have. When the
promises of God are mixed in us by that gift of His grace,
that sovereign gift of faith, we have rest. We have rest. And then one final verse before
we go back to our text in Hebrews 4 verse 10. For he that has entered
into his rest, he also has ceased from his own works as God did
from His. Now there's five things that
our Lord outlines in Matthew chapter 11 which will give us
the gist of this rest that He talks about, this rest that we're
called to and the reason why some didn't come. The first thing
I want you to see here is that the rest was clearly declared
in these cities by the prophets, by John, John the Baptist, the
forerunner of Christ, by the Lord's disciples. And if you
read Matthew chapter 10, which is another account of this same
event, you'll find out that the 70 he sent out, as well as his
12 disciples, all went out and preached in these areas. And
these opposers of the gospel were not pagan idolaters. They
were men whose whole lives were dedicated to the study of Holy
Scripture. These were religious men. And if there was Pharisees there,
and obviously there were, There were synagogues. And where there
were synagogues, the scriptures were read so that the people
of those cities had no excuse. And then John preached to them.
Everybody in the land heard of John, John the Baptist, the forerunner
of Christ. The scriptures even bore witness
of him. He was the forerunner. In Matthew
11, 14, our Lord said, and if you will receive it, this is
Elias, which was for to come. Talking about John the Baptist.
And according to Matthew 10, his 12 disciples were gifted
and sent to preach. They were mocked. And then finally Christ Himself
came, the Son of God, the Word of God, the Gospel incarnate.
Never a man spake like this man. The disciples said, even the
winds and the waves obey His voice. Christ came into Capernaum
and Chorazin and these cities and preached the gospel. Preached
the gospel. And then over and above this
were the miracles which God did by Him in their midst to confirm
Him as not only the prophet of God, but as the Messiah, as the
Christ of God. Yet they would not believe. They
had the written Word and its writers. They had the spoken
Word and its speakers. And they had the living Word
with its Father's seal upon Him. And they would not have any of
it. And because they would not have
any part of it, our Lord pronounced a great woe upon them. My friend, you will hear the
Word of the Lord. or you'll suffer the consequences.
Our Lord stood among these cities that so many times had heard
the gospel of God's sovereign grace in Christ and now pronounced
a woe on them. He said it'll be better in the
day of judgment for Sodom than it would be for you. If I had
done these things that I did before you and Sodom, they would
have repented. This is the people that he speaks
to. And then the second thing I want
you to see in our text, I mean, this is what the Lord
had done. I wanted you to understand that
the Lord had spoken here. These people were not ignorant
of the Gospel. It's not like somebody came in
here for the first time and heard it. They had heard it, and heard
it, and heard it, and heard it, and yet would not believe. And then the second thing I want
you to see in our text is those to whom He speaks. All that in
God's providence were gathered to hear. Do you believe that? Do you believe that the sovereign
God arranges providence in such a way as to gather men out of
this world to hear His gospel? You know, Scriptures, they declare
this over and over and over. And yet it's something that churches
across our land Never say. That would be taboo to say that
in an average pulpit. God arranges His providence.
Now I know you had reasons this morning for being here that you
wanted to be here or somebody invited you to be here. People
always have reasons in themselves. But the reasons behind the reason
is the sovereign God of glory who arranged His providence to
bring those men, gather those men to hear his gospel. He brought the Jews to hear Paul
at Antioch, even though they wouldn't hear him, even though
they wouldn't believe him, even though they judged themselves
according to him as being unworthy of everlasting life. Yet they
were gathered. He brought Felix to hear him
in his chambers. Felix would have never. He would
have never went out to a synagogue. But here's Felix in his own chambers
and the apostle of God preaching the gospel to him. And I'm going to tell you something.
There wasn't a Pharisee there that day when our Lord spoke
to those people. And curse those cities who did
not believe they were there by their own accord. You could ask
anyone, oh, I'm here because I want to be here. I'm here for
this reason, that reason, some other reason. My friend, there
are no accidental meetings with the Lord or His messengers. And that's not a denial of the
means or of the will, but a declaration of God's absolute sovereignty
in the salvation of sinners. He worketh all things after the
counsel of his own will. And there were all sorts of men
gathered there that day to hear. Rich men and poor men and educated
and uneducated, religious and heathen, old and young, there
was all kinds of people gathered. But there's only one word which
described everybody there, deceived. Deceived. There wasn't a man
in that crowd who knew God or his gospel except for his apostles. They were there for all kinds
of reasons. They were there because of the controversy. They wanted
to see what all the controversy was about. They were there because
of the miracles, hoping to see a miracle. They were there to
defend their religion. They were there out of curiosity.
But nobody was there seeking God. I don't know if you ever thought
about this, but the Scriptures are so clear on that. Paul said,
there's none who understandeth and none that seeketh after God. If God puts it in your heart
to seek Him, you don't have to worry about it being something
that you made up. Because this world, there's none. If he puts an interest in your
heart, if he puts a wonder in your heart for the gospel, if
anything like that, that would cause you to begin to read the
Word of God, to want to hear the gospel, that's the work of
God in you. That's nothing to do with your
flesh. Nothing to do with your flesh. None that understandeth, none
that seeketh after God, all gone out of the way, together become
unprofitable. And there's as many reasons,
if you were to ask, as there were people there as to why they
came. But in reality, they were there
because God gathered them together. How do you know that, preacher?
Because our Lord thanked the Father. For both those who believed
and those who didn't, he thanked his Father. Now, here's the third
thing I want you to see in our text. A divine intervention. I use that phrase a lot because
it means a lot. And nobody's going to be saved
apart from it. God has to make an intervention
in your life. You're not going to make one.
You're not going to make one. You might make a profession,
but you can't make an intervention. Out of that great mass of deceived
men and unbelief, out of that crowd of people who had heard
nothing all their lives but the preaching of work, salvation,
legal righteousness, and ceremonial sacrifice, some were unable to
hear. Some. Oh, my son. Thousands upon thousands. These
were huge cities. Multitudes did not, but some
did. The wise and prudent did not,
but some did. Now listen to what our Lord says
to His Father concerning these things. At that time, Jesus answered
and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed
them unto bands. Why did He do that? And it tells
you in verse 26, Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy
sight. If any man anywhere at any time
believes the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is because his heavenly
Father has enabled him by His sovereign Spirit and given to
him the gift of His grace, causing him to believe. Have you ever thought about faith
that way? God caused you to believe. But that's how you have it if
you do have it. God purposed for you to have
it. Salvation's of the Lord. And here's what men are ignorant
of. Man's a depraved creature. He fell in the garden and his
father Adam. The Scripture said sin entered
and death passed. We're heirs of his fallen nature.
We're sinners in ourselves. We're sinners in by motive, in
our motives, and we're sinners by practice, and we're sinners
even in our thoughts and imagination. We're sinners. Let me tell you
something. Whenever we get on this subject,
the first thing people tell me when I'm talking to them about
these things, first thing they say back to me is, well, just
look around you. There's some good people out
there. There's some good people. Let me tell you something, it's
a great mistake to draw a conclusion about this world by observation
alone. Don't do it. Don't try to do
it. God restrains men from being as evil as they could be. He
restrains men by the law. Did you know that? Somebody said, boy, this place
is so evil, I don't see how it could get any worse. Get rid
of the law and find out. And then you'll see worse. He
restrains men by the law. In 1 Timothy 1 and verse 9, he
said, the law is not made for a righteous man, but for lawless and disobedient,
for ungodly and for sinners, and on and on he goes. abusers
of themselves with mankind. And on and on he goes talking
about it. This is what the law is for.
It's to restrain these men, lest their ways be forced on the whole
world. If we had no law, this world
would not be fit to live in. And then secondly, he restrains
men by taking away their opportunities. Say, I never would have done
that. You better thank God He didn't
give you the opportunity. You would have. And He restrains
men by marriage and by society in general. And He restrains
men by conscience. God restrains men from being
as evil as they could be. And natural men, when they observe
that, they mistake the restraining hand of God for personal righteousness. And they say, oh, He's such a
good man. If there's any good deeds done
by that man, any good deed whatsoever, it was due to the restraining
hand of God, not his personal righteousness. And don't you
try to judge this world based on what you see with your eyes.
You judge this world based on what the Word of God says. Man, apart from God's restraining
hand, will do anything. You don't think He will? Judas
was one of the twelve. Had not I chosen you twelve,
and one of you is a devil. All God had to do was just... Do you know that when the Lord
Jesus was turned over to those Pharisees and over to those Gentile
leaders, that it said He was given over to their will? God
took away his restraining hand and gave them up to the will
of the people. Oh, my soul. And even then, he
restrained them. Brother Mahan said if he hadn't
restrained them, they'd have boiled him in a pot and ate him.
And that's about the truth. What I'm laboring to point out
to you this morning is that apart from divine intervention, nobody
will ever believe. Nobody will. If I didn't believe
that the Lord God himself would intervene through the preaching
of the gospel, I wouldn't waste my time. I know what's in the
heart of man. But I know what's in the character
of my God. And I know something about his
will. Now, the natural man, if left to himself, if God doesn't
intervene, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God. They're foolishness to him. How long will they continue
to be foolishness until God intervenes? And if He don't, it will go right
on being foolishness to him until he wakes up in judgment. Believing is no more an act of
man's free will or man's natural ability than a man rising from
the dead. Well, I made my peace with God.
Well, you made peace with somebody, but you didn't make no peace
with God. Christ made our peace with God. To believe requires the presence
and power of the sovereign spirit of God. We must be born again. If a man not born again, he cannot
perceive, he can't see the kingdom of God. We must be made meat
to be a partaker of the inheritance with enlightened saints. And
it's a scriptural fact that God's elect are sought out by God,
sent a preacher, and given faith by the Spirit of God through
the gospel. Now that's just so. That's how
God saves sinners. And it's obvious in our text
that they heard the gospel over and over again, but would not
receive it. And so God gave them over to
believe a lie and be damned. That's just so. And He thanks
His Father for that. He thanks the Holy Father for
that, for hiding these things from the wise and prudent, revealing
them unto babes. All right. Here's the fourth
thing I want you to see in our text in Matthew 11. The glorious
means. What is the glorious means that
he declares here? Christ Himself. Matthew 11, 27. All things are
delivered unto me of my Father. And no man knoweth the Son, but
the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son,
and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal it. When we talk
about the means of salvation, we often talk about the preaching
of the gospel. We talk about the sending of
the Holy Spirit. We talk about the arrangement
of God's providence. We talk about His church, the
pillar and ground of the truth. We talk about all these things
when we talk about means. But the real means of salvation
is Jesus Christ Himself. There is no salvation apart from
Him. He is the essential means of salvation, and this salvation
is in the person and work of Jesus Christ. To save a sinner
necessitates another head having been appointed for him long before
this head, Adam, was ever created. If he has no such head appointed
to him, he's left to the fate of his father, Adam. He either
had another Adam which represented him, Or that he only has the
one. And if he only has the one, he's
heir to his nature and heir to his condemnation. And no amount
of toil or sacrifice is going to make any difference. Paul
tells us in Colossians 1.18, he is the head of the body of
the church, all of God's elect, who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead. Everything required of God in
the salvation of our souls was trusted in the hands of our sovereign
Savior. Everything. Everything. To obey the law and ever jot
and tittle with perfect motive, perfect love, and perfect honor.
To pay what perfect justice requires for our sins. Justice dictates
what must be paid for our sins. And justice has to be satisfied. I'll never forget growing up,
that man, we had a little blackboard up there for this, that, and
the other. But he went back there and he said, the sin of adultery,
and he put a thing on there, and the sin of lying, and the
sin of stealing. And he just kept putting them
marks. He said, here's salvation. And he erased them sins. That
ain't salvation. You want to know what salvation
is, read 2 Corinthians 5.21. For He hath made Him to be sin
for us who knew no sin, that we might be made to righteousness
of God in Him. He bore our sins in His own body
on the tree. Sin was paid for to the uttermost. And God raised Him from the dead,
put Him in the holy seal on all that He came to do and did. And
then He ascended into heaven itself where He ever liveth to
make intercession for us. And to trust in the Lord Jesus
Christ is to believe on Him as God has set Him forth. Not as
man. Man sets Him forth all the time.
Some willy-nilly defeated reformer that can't do anything. Just
listen to what they say. He can't do anything. His hands
are tied. He can't violate man's will.
Man is a god over Him. Listen to them preach. The Gospel
tells us who He is and why He came and what He did and where
He's at. Who is this man Jesus of Nazareth? He's God come into the flesh. He's the God-man, one mediator
between God and me and the man, Christ Jesus. God in union with man, God our
Savior. Well, why did He come? He came
to accomplish the redemptive will of God. It's God's will
from everlasting to save a people for the glory of His great name
and to do it through the sacrifice of His Son. That's the will of
God. And He came to accomplish the
redemptive will of God. He came to save His people from
their sin. He came to fulfill all righteousness. He came to give eternal life
to as many as the Father hath given to Him. He came to glorify
His Father in the work He was sent to do. Well, what did He
do? What did the Lord Jesus Christ
do? He finished the work the Father gave Him to do. What did
He cry on the cross? I did the best I could? He said,
it is finished. And then he gave up the ghost.
He finished the work. He sat down at the right hand
of God, expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. And where
is he now? At the right hand of the Father.
Fully accepted, fully blessed, fully glorified, fully victorious. Ruling and reigning and calling
out all his redeemed. Seated on the throne. Jesus Christ Himself is the glorious
means of salvation. All right, here's the last thing
I want you to see. Here's the fifth and last thing
I want you to see here in our text. A most valued gift. Matthew 11, 28. Having pronounced
the woes on these cities, listen to what He says. Come unto Me. All you that labor and are heavy
laden, I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn
of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find
rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden
is light." To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is to enter
into His rest. It's to enter into His rest. To rest all my fears of eternal
torment and condemnation in Him who suffered in my stead. I can rest. It's to rest in His
righteousness alone. Do you believe that? Do you believe
that anything is required of you in so much as the righteousness
of God demands. Do you believe that there is
anything else required of you than that which the Lord Jesus
Christ has given you? Paul said, Oh, that I might win
Christ and be found in Him. Now listen, not having my own
righteousness, just having His. Just having His. It's to rest in His righteousness
alone. The thief on the cross never
attended a church service. He never gave an offering. He
never witnessed to a neighbor. He was never baptized. Yet in
that hour, he was fully justified, fully righteous, and guaranteed
a place in paradise. It's to rest my soul in His hands
to keep and to preserve. He said, him that cometh unto
me, I will in no wise cast out. Do you believe that? I cast myself
out about every three or four days. I'm glad he don't cast
me out. Him that cometh unto me, I'm
not going to cast out. He said, I'll never leave you.
I'll never leave you. It's to rest in him as our wisdom. How do I know what God will accept
and won't accept? How do I know how God saves sinners?
How do I know the very character and glory of God? Our Lord said
to Thomas, if you'd known Me, you should have known the Father
also. And from henceforth, listen to
this, from henceforth, you know Him and you've seen Him. The world looks to the educated,
the philosophers, the worldly wise for wisdom. Christ is the
wisdom of the believer. He has him. He has all the wisdom
he needs. He rests all he knows on him.
And it is to rest from fear of death. Jesus Christ our Lord
died and rose from the dead as the guarantor of our resurrection. That's my hope. When they put
me in that box, oh, by the grace of God, I hope that's still my
hope when I close my eyes in death. I know he's going to raise me
from the dead because he himself was raised from the dead. He's our rest. Now listen to
this. Take my yoke upon you. John Gill
had something good to say on this. He said that this is a
well-known phrase used by Jewish rabbis. And the sense of it was
this, that a man must first make a profession of faith in the
God of Israel, and then live in full conformity to the law. That's what it meant for them.
So these Jews knew exactly what our Lord was telling them. So
when Christ made this statement, He made it clear that the man
who professes faith in Him will live in full conformity. He'll
make this profession of faith in Christ, and he'll live in
full conformity, not to the law, but to the doctrines of the gospel
of the grace of God. And unlike the rabbinical yoke
which left me in laboring and heavy laden, the yoke of Christ
was easy in His burden light. He didn't say work out your own
salvation. He didn't tell them that they
had to keep this law perfectly and on and on and on. The gospel
tells men it's been kept. It's been honored. It's been
exalted as high as it can go. And you can't honor it any more
than you do by faith in Christ and to live in full conformity
to the gospel. The burden which Christ lays
upon His church is to hold Him fast, as I said in Revelation
2 a while ago, to hold fast until He comes. Hold Him fast. That's what the yoke is. We put
His yoke upon us, and it's so easy. It's so easy to bear that
yoke. Because He's the strength of
it. He's the guarantor of it. He's the glory of it. He's the
assurance of it. He's all things. And we put that
yoke on us, and He does all the work.