It's good to be back with you
folks. I was talking with Larry. It was Christmas time. It was
your last Christmas. I enjoyed that so much. It was truly Christmas. If you
don't believe in Christmas, you'd have believed in Christmas if
you'd have been here last Christmas. It was just a good Christmas,
wasn't it? I wish it was like that all the time, but it's a
joy. It's a joy to be back with you. I count it a great delight
to see you. It's good to see Don and Shelby. And I was telling
someone before the service, you just feed me too well when I
come down here. I tell you, I am so full. And
somebody said, you all are going to breakfast again tomorrow.
I don't know if I can make it or not. I'm just so full. But
the Lord helped me. I was thinking, if you want to
turn your Bibles over to Matthew chapter 11 is where I'll be taking my text
for a few minutes. I finished preaching last Sunday
afternoon and I don't know why this happened, but it seemed
like my mind, when I got finished preaching Sunday evening, I just
shut down. My mind shut down. I was so physically
and mentally worn out, it just shut down and I haven't been
able to get it started. Since you've never experienced
that dawn. I've never known you to experience
that But it's just shut down on me. So I Hope the Lord gives
us some grace this afternoon to look at a thought that I had
in Matthew chapter 11. This is the words of our Lord
Jesus Christ in verse 25 Matthew chapter 11 in verse 25
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 hast revealed
them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto
me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Father but the Son. Neither
knoweth any man the father except the son, and he to whomsoever
the son will reveal him. Come unto me, all you that labor
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
you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and
my burden is light. I want you to think with me just
for a few minutes on verse 28. Come unto me all ye that labor
and are heavy laden. Come ye heavy laden. What a wonderful and gracious
invitation from the Son of God Himself, from the very lips of
the Son of God for us to come to Him. To come to Him with this
promise that He tells us here and I will give you rest. What a precious promise. Essential
instructions and what a precious promise of rest for our hearts,
our souls, our spirits. Another place, he said, come
unto me, incline your ears and your soul shall live. So there
we have rest and there we have life Another place He tells us
to come now and let us reason together. Though your sins be
as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. I tell you, there's
benefits in coming to Christ, isn't there? Benefits. And He promises these things
for all that come to Him and come to God by Him. Forgiveness
of sins and life eternal and rest for our souls. And He promises
it here. For those who are heavy laden,
coming to me, you're heavy laden. But you know, one of the things
I found out in my own experience, that it's the heavy laden that
are so hesitant sometimes about coming. And it's them that often
find reasons not to come. Their unworthiness and their
apprehensions about being rejected And I remember one time the Lord
Jesus had made the Great Supper, the parable of the Great Supper,
and sent his servants out and said, compel them to come in. And maybe that's what I want
to do for just a few minutes this evening. And maybe this
is not just for the lost people, but I tell you, I found out in
my own experience, a message that's for lost people is for
saved people. Anytime you talk about coming to the Lord Jesus
Christ, that's for saved people. That's for people who are still
coming to Him, isn't it? There's four areas that I want
to deal with, just for a few minutes, and it regards the heavy
laden coming to Him. The first one is this. There
are those who truly say that they feel too repulsive. to come to Him. They feel too
sinful. They feel like they've committed
too great of sins and too many of sins to come to God, even
by Jesus Christ. I want to look at that just for
a minute. And there are those, secondly, who are conscious of
not knowing how to come. Have you ever talked to anybody
about, why don't you come to Christ? I don't know how. And
they've thought about that, and it's a burden to them. It's a
burden to them. And thirdly, I want to look at
others who are so delusioned about religion and what they've
experienced in their own life. They're just ready to throw up
their hands and say, no, there's no use for me. I've tried all
of that, but I want to speak to them. And lastly, I want to
speak to those and speak of those who are burdened about the thought
of thinking, well, my day of grace is over with. I've waited
too late to come. So this is the four groups of
people I want to deal with this evening. And the first one for
those who think that they're too sinful, too vile to come. Now I know that we don't have
much trouble. You don't talk to these people
very often. I'm not coming here and saying there's multitudes
that feel this way. We're living in a day of self-centeredness,
self-love, and people thinking too highly of themselves. Nobody thinks they need Christ.
You don't run into people that way, do you? Not as a whole,
but sometimes. If you talk to people, you find
out there are some who think inside themselves, and this is
an awful burden to them, I have sinned too much against God.
My sins are too many, they're too great. For years we met at
a nursing home, and I know this is one of the most blessed conversions
that I've experienced outside of my own. We were there at the
nursing home in one of our worship services, and I preached and
left, and one of the ladies at church called me and said, there's
a lady here that says she needs to speak to the preacher. And
so I was home, I went back the next morning and I looked her
up, I've never in my life, Susan McDonald was her name, I've never
in my life seen such despair in a woman's face. Her eyes were
as red as they could be and when she spoke you hear it in her
voice. And I said, you know, what's
your problem? And she said, you don't know
me. She said, you've got no way of knowing what a vile sinner
I am against God. She said, the sins that I've
committed against Him, and she said, I'm afraid now to go to
Him. I'm afraid to go to Him. I thought
of every scripture that I could think of how Jesus Christ had
satisfied the judgment of God on behalf of sinners. Every one
I could think of how He pleased the Father, I quoted to that
dear woman. And I said, God is so pleased
with his son and the work that he accomplished on behalf of
sinners. He will forgive all manner of sins and blasphemies. And I said, you go to him and
you tell him how vile you are. Tell him how you continued in
sin against him. We had another worship service
and she wasn't there. I went home and the same lady
called and she said, that woman was coming down the hallway,
got all tangled up in her oxygen cords and she wants to talk to
the preacher again. So I went back the next morning,
Tuesday morning. I found her again. Everything
had changed. I said, Susan, how you doing?
And she said, the Lord has saved me. The Lord has saved me. And I said, well, you tell me
about it. And she said, I went to him and I told him how vile
I was. And she said, he surprised me.
He saved me. I've seen her daughter at the
funeral, and her daughter said, this woman had lived in utter
despair for years, afraid to come because of her sin against
God. There are people that way. This
is what the old prophet said they say. There's no hope. Now that's despair, isn't it?
There is no hope for us, they said. Why? We've loved strangers. We've loved strangers. Well,
turn from your love from those strangers. Turn to the Lord.
Turn at His Word coming to me, and I'll give you rest. But they
said, no, there's no hope. We've loved strangers, so after
them we'll go. We'll just continue on in our
sins. There's no hope for us. You know the Lord Jesus Christ
and His Word, He not only gives us places like this, coming to
me, and I'll give you rest. But you know, He illustrates
this time and time again in His Word, doesn't He? Let me give
you an illustration. You talk about a vile person
coming to the Lord Jesus. You remember in Mark chapter
1, a leper that came to Him? A man got up one morning and
he noticed a spot on his arm, a little sore. And the next morning
he thought, well, it's spread a little bit. And the next day
it was spread a little bit more, so he said, I need to go to the
priest. I need to get this checked out. And he went to the priest,
and the priest examined him. And he put him in a room for
a few days and looked at him, and finally he came to this conclusion. Man, you've got leprosy. You
have got leprosy. That's the most dreaded word.
You know, we get cancer today, but there's some hope. There's
a cure for it. But there was no cure for leprosy.
And he said, you've got it. You're doomed, man. You're doomed
to an awful death. They wouldn't even let him go
back home. They went and sent home and got him some bags of
clothes and gave it to him. And a couple of guys led him
on the outside of town. He said, don't you ever come
back around to anybody in this town. Don't you show yourself
in the temple to worship? You stay out here with the other
lepers or stay by yourself until you die or some miraculous way
you're healed. And man, month after month, and
finally he went all over his body. Finally he was full of
leprosy. Finally his fever was so high
that he was out of his head. Finally his nose rotted off and
all that was in his face was two holes. His ears rotted off. All his private parts rotted
off. His skin became so full of boils they would bust only
to scab over and bust again. This was a vile human being. A man who stink. And you know
what this man did? He heard. that Jesus Christ was
coming by. And he came to him. The Bible
says he heard of Jesus of Nazareth and he came to him. Isn't that
amazing? And there he stood, full of leprosy. And he said, Lord, if you will,
you can make me clean. And one of the most amazing things
happened. I think this is one of the most
amazing things that anybody's conversion that the Lord Jesus
ever did. You know what he did to that
man full of leprosy? That stinking foul man, he reached
out his hand and touched him. Somebody said he did that to
heal him. No! No, he wasn't healed until he
said, be thou clean. But the Bible says he was full
of compassion. He was moved by compassion and
he said, I will be thou clean. And immediately that man was
clean. Isn't that amazing? That vile
man. And I tell you what he did. He
came contrary to the law. The law said, don't you show
your face. If any clean person gets around
you, unclean, don't come near me. And don't you dare go near
anybody. He took his life in his hands
when he come to Christ, didn't he? They could have stoned him
and killed that man. And you know what a sinner does?
A vile, worthless sinner. When the devil tells him, You
can't come to Christ. Look at your sin. Look at your
vileness. You just tell Him this. When
He tells you the law forbids you to come, just tell Him Christ
bids you. Christ bids me to come. I come
at His Word when He says, Come unto me ye that are heavy laden. That's my grounds for coming.
I find no grounds in myself. I'm a vile person. But when he
said, come to me, he included me in my violence. The second illustration is concerning
these fellows that don't know the way to come. I used to work
in a steel mill and man, it was rough in there. We ran some rough
guys. They carried pistols to work
with. shot at each other. It was amazing
what a rough place it was. But sometime you would talk to
one of those fellas and when you got him off his step away
from his friends. I remember asking one of them
one time, he's a rough fella. And I said, I just went up to
him and said, won't you come to Christ? There's life in Jesus
Christ. There's forgiveness for all your
sins. Why don't you come to him? He said, I don't know how to
come to Christ. I don't know how to come to There's people
like that, isn't there? You talk to people like that.
I don't know how to come to Christ. And that's the burden of their
hearts. They'll tell you, I've tried, I don't know how. Well,
we've got a good illustration for that, too, in the Word of
God. There was a man by the name of Barthimaeus, and the man sat
by the highwayside begging, and he was blind. Now, it's bad enough
to be blind, but I tell you, to be a blind beggar, That's
the lowest of low, isn't it? Everything the man had to eat,
he had to bag it. He didn't know where to get a
glass of water unless he bagged it. His clothes, his rags, they
gave it to him. He was a bagger. Everybody avoided
this man, because all he did was bag. And he was blind. And he heard that Jesus was passing
by. You remember that. You remember,
he doesn't. He cried out, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy
on me. And that wonderful thing, somebody
said that happened, that never happened before. Jesus stopped. Devils couldn't stop Him. Raging
sea couldn't stop Him. But a poor, blind, beggar who
needed Him stopped Him in His tracks. When everybody else was
saying, shut your mouth, you're worthless, man. You're just a
beggar. Leave Him alone. He's a busy
man. Oh, he just kept crying, didn't
he? Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And the Bible
says he commanded him to be called. But here's the thing, how in
the world is he gonna get to him? He can't see him. Which way is he going? Tell him to come unto me. Lord,
where are you? Where are you? I can't get there.
There's people that way. There's people who are as blind
spiritually as blind Bartimaeus was physically and you talk to
them about Jesus Christ and they don't know how to get there. Here's my advice to them. Do
the very same thing this man did. Just start crying to him
in your heart. Lord Jesus, Thou Son of God,
have mercy on me. And I bet you when you really
do that, you see what happens is these people, they're heavy
laden about these things, but you start talking to them and
they don't even pray about it. It's amazing. They carry this
awful burden, but they don't even pray and ask the Lord about
it. And you would be my advice. Do the same thing this man. Begin
to cry out to the Lord in your heart. Jesus. Have mercy upon
me. And I bet you it won't be long
those people will have a sense of the Lord speaking to them
and say, what do you want? What do you want? Then you can
go ahead and answer it. Lord, I want to see. I want to
see. That's our whole problem isn't
it? We're blind. We can't see. That's nothing
unique to some people. That's unique to every one of
us. We're blind by nature. We can't see. We're in darkness. We're in the kingdom of devils.
That's where we're at. And we need to go just like David
and pray, Lord, open my eyes. Don't you need that tonight?
That's what I need. I pray that all the time. Lord,
I was praying that sitting there this evening. I went in and took
me a nap this afternoon. I laid on my bed and this was
my prayer. Lord, let me see your glory.
I want to see your beauty. I'm so attracted by this world
and the things and the cares. I want to see you. Open my eyes
and let me see my sins washed away. I need a revival of that
in my soul, don't you? Let me see myself complete in
Jesus Christ, my Lord. Oh, I wanna see that. I wanna
see that. People that don't know how to
come to Him, come to Him just like this blind man came. Bagger,
Jesus, thou Son of David. And I tell you what happened.
He opened his eyes, didn't he? And he can do the same thing
for everybody else that comes to him that cries out to him.
He can open your eyes that you can see. And here was a man,
one instant he couldn't see, and the next instant he did.
And what did he do? He followed Jesus in the way.
A man that couldn't make one step in the right direction,
now was following the Savior wherever he went. Because the
Savior opened his eyes. Here's something else, here's
another instance the Lord Jesus gives us about those who are
delusioned. There was a lady, I don't know
how this began, but a lady probably got up one afternoon, one evening,
or some morning, and she noticed she began to bleed. And she never thought much about
it. The next day, she was still bleeding. And it got worse. And she got afraid. And she got
weak. She couldn't stop bleeding. And
she talked to some friends about it. They said, oh, we know a
doctor that can fix you right up. He can fix you right up. He can stop that bleeding. So
she went to see him. He said, oh, yeah. Yeah, I can
take care of you. I can stop this bleeding. It's
a serious thing, but I can do it. He put her on some medication. A week later she was bleeding
just as bad as she ever was. And she was sicker. And she said, he didn't help
me. He took some money from me, but he didn't help me. She got
somebody else to recommend a doctor. She went to that doctor. Oh yeah,
I can help you. But he didn't help her either.
She kept going to this doctor, kept going to that doctor. And
finally, she had spent everything she had. She sold her buggy. She sold her house. Everything
that she had, she spent it on these doctors. And here was the
thing. She grew no better, but even
got worse for twelve long years. Can you imagine how delusional
she was? Can you imagine what she thought
when somebody come up and said, Oh, I know a doctor that I think
could help you. Yeah, I've tried them all. I've
tried them all and I'm sick of hearing about them. I'm sick
of doctors. They're no good for nothing but
to take your money. Doctors and lawyers, they just
take your money. And then when you can't pay them
anymore, they say, sorry, we can't give you a reservation.
We can't help you. Twelve years. Can you imagine
how delusional this woman was? I have, I know people, I've got
relatives that was raised in the same little community I was
raised in. Free will to the core. And they
left that community the same way I did. Delusion with religion. Delusion with self-salvation. Pulling you up to a mourner's
bench. Beating your back and telling you to pray through.
Telling you to stand up and take it by faith. And I have friends
that won't have anything to do with religion at all today. Because
they're sick of it. And when I talk to them, this
is what I tell them. I'm sick of it too. I got sick of that
when I lived there. I know fellas and got friends
that used to be altar boys and Mormons and preachers and weren't
even converted. And they're delusioned with that.
Don't want anything else to do with it. The burden of the heart.
There's no help for me. I've tried it all. That's what
this woman probably said in her heart. Until she heard about
somebody that could really heal her. This is not your doctors of no
value. This man can heal me. I've heard
what he's done already. This is the Son of David. This
is the Son of God. He can do what nobody else can
do. He can heal me. I don't know,
boy, I don't know where this faith's set up in her soul at,
but I'm telling you what, it's set up in her soul to the point
that she said, if I can just touch the hem of his garment,
I'll be made whole. And she pressed her way through
the crowd and touched his garment, and immediately she stopped bleeding. And she said, I'm healed. I feel
it. I like a salvation you can feel,
don't you? I really do. I don't trust my feelings. I
told Larry on one, we went golfing yesterday, and I told him, I
think on one, I always say, boy, I got a feeling I'm going to
really do good on this. It was a mess. Trust your feelings. But she said, I feel that he's
healed me. And the Lord said, who touched me? They said, Lord,
everybody's touched you. He said, somebody has really
touched me. Somebody out of this crowd has really touched me.
I felt virtue. I felt merit and power go out
of me. Somebody has really touched me.
And the Bible says she came trembling and told him all the truth. I wonder if she started naming
names. She started, Lord, I want a word to Dr. Freewill. And it
cost me a lot. And I was in worse shape when
I left that doctor. I went over to the doctor's safe
safe and went over there to the doctor's system of theology.
None of them helped me, Lord. She started naming names. I bet
some of you here tonight could name some names, couldn't you?
She told him all the truth. And I never did, Lord. I never
did find relief. I never was saved until you saved
me. She didn't say, those fellas
helped me some. I like them. I tell you, when the Lord saved
me, brothers and sisters, I denied free willism altogether. My dad
was a free will Baptist preacher. When the Lord saved me, I said,
that's nothing. It's junk. It didn't help save
me. It hindered me from coming to
Christ. Religion can't save you, can
it? All it can do is hurt you. Christ can save you. He can save
you. Yeah, I'm delusioned with a lot
of stuff, but I'm not delusioned with Christ. He's the real thing,
isn't He? He's the real deal. Lastly, consider
this. This shows us the Lord Jesus
not only gives us this command and this invitation to come and
have rest, But I tell you, He gives us some illustrations.
And for those who think, boy, I've waited too late. There's
no hope for me now. I've sinned and my day of grace
is gone. There are people that think that.
I was preaching in jail. We used to go to jail preaching.
I ran into a fellow down there and he lived with that awful
burden that he had committed the unpardonable sin. He said,
I'm gone. I know another man that way,
a younger fellow. No, he says, it's gone for me,
it's over with for me, there's no hope for me now. No, they
had some of them in their early years, their conscience afflicted
them with sin, and they felt they needed to seek the Lord,
but they didn't, and they procrastinated, and now a few years things have
settled down and they've got afraid. Oh no, it's too late
for me. It's too late for me. Come. I don't care how late you've
waited. Are you still breathing? Then
here's this wonderful command. Here's this wonderful invitation.
Are you heavy laden about it all? Then come unto me. But I've
waited so long. Come now. We've read about those two thieves
on the cross, haven't we? got mixed up, started around
probably with the wrong crowd, started stealing things, and
got involved with all this crime, breaking into people's houses,
and finally they caught them. Brought them up before the judge,
and they examined them, brought the evidence against them, and
they said, here's what you guys have been doing, you're going
to die for your crimes. And they took those two thieves
and crucified them, one on the right hand of our Lord, and one
on the left hand of our Lord. And this man was dying before
the day was over. He's going to be dead. And as
far as he knew, in hell. As far as he knew, he was going
to hell. Here's what he said. We're condemned. And we indeed justly, not only
has the law of the land condemned us, but we're condemned before
God. And they're going to come around
pretty soon and break our legs. That's what he said to this other
thief. And we're going to die. Condemned. This man on the cross,
he's done nothing. Boy, he was cursing Christ, wasn't
he? And mocking him. If you're the
Christ, save yourself, and something miraculously happened. We just
don't know what, don't we? Yeah, we know what. We know what.
He said, Lord, I know you're not gonna stay dead. I know you
have a kingdom that your Father's given unto you, and when you
come into that kingdom, Remember me. I bet you there's a lot of people
went home that day and said, well I don't know about that
man on the middle cross. I really don't know. But those
two thieves are in hell. Don't you imagine people went
there and thought that. Those two thieves, man, they got what
was coming to them. One of them did, but the other
one didn't. One of them got just what was
coming to him, Lord. But the other one got something that
he didn't deserve, he didn't expect. The Lord Jesus looked
at him and said, today you shall be with me. Today that man ordained
you to die, I have ordained you to live. Today you will be with
me in heaven, in the Father's house, in paradise. Somebody said, well the Lord
changed that man's destiny. No he didn't. Nobody's destiny
is ever changed. It's just revealed, ain't it?
Every man's destiny is fixed. God has fixed every man's destiny
either to heaven or to hell. Either through Jesus Christ and
redemption to heaven or through his sins to hell. But it's fixed,
isn't it? We only find out about it. And
we find out about it when we come to Jesus Christ the Lord
and He gives us rest. And you can't know your destiny
until it's revealed. And the only one who can reveal
it is the Son of God. Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. Don't you imagine there was a
hush went over that crowd that day. Shh! Listen! Shh! Little boy sitting
on his daddy's shoulders. Son! Shh! Shh! And boy, you could
hear the pin drop. What's the quietness about? Something's
gonna be revealed here that cannot be known but by revelation. Lord,
if you will, you can make me clean. Where he was cleansed
or died in his leprosy was wholly determined by the will of the
Son of God. Isn't that amazing? When you
think you're salvation, is in the very hands of God. How does that make you feel?
Do you rejoice? Is it the confidence of your
heart that you're saved by the will of God? Isn't that wonderful? And that's what happened on the
cross. Everybody thought this man perished. This man perished
because of his sin. But he didn't. He didn't. Come to Christ. I don't care where you're at.
I don't care what you've done, who you are, how long you've
been in sin. Come to Christ. There's where
every question will be answered. There's where you'll see as you've
never seen before. There's where you'll rest when
you come to Him. And you know something? A lot
of people have come. Heaven is populated with people
that's come to Jesus Christ. There's much people there in
heaven. But you know something? Everybody else is coming too. Everybody's coming to Jesus Christ.
Those who are angry with Him, those who are incensed against
Him, they're coming. Everybody's coming. Everybody's
coming. Come now. Come now. laboring
and heavy laden. Come now. God bless this world. God bless you pastors. Thank
you.