Are you weary? Pressed down? Burdened? Weighed down by many
things? Worn out with labor? Tried? Exhausted? In Matthew's gospel
that gospel which reveals Messiah and his kingdom. We read the following in chapter
11 and verse 28. 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. Come unto me, all ye that labour
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. As I said, this is found in Matthew's
Gospel. The first of the four Gospels,
as we've said on a number of occasions, four Gospels are written
in different ways to reveal Christ in different ways. They are not
simply four men's accounts according to the memory and comprehension
of four different men with differences accordingly. but each wrote as
guided by the Holy Spirit of God to reveal Christ in a certain
manner by presenting certain things and omitting certain things
and presenting the order of events in a certain chronological order
in order to reveal Christ distinctly in a different manner in each
gospel. Matthew's gospel reveals Christ
as Messiah and as King. Mark's gospel is taken commonly
by commentators to reveal Christ as the servant, Luke as the savior,
and John, of course, very different to the other three, reveals Christ
overwhelmingly as the son of God. And I'd like to look a little
bit in some messages today, and Lord willing, future messages
to come, at some of the differences in these gospels. and how they
distinctly include certain events and omit other events to reveal
Christ in different manners. We've preached on John's gospel
before, the seven signs in John, the clear revelation of Christ
as the son of God. We've preached on Matthew before
and seen something of the kingdom and the king, the Messiah. I'd like in the future perhaps
to show something of what Mark reveals and of what Luke reveals. Because I don't feel that the
description of Christ as merely a servant in Mark tells the full
story, nor as the saviour in Luke tells the full story. I
feel there is more to each of these gospels than that. We often
speak of Christ as being a prophet a priest, and a king. And I believe that this conveys
much of the meaning behind Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Matthew considers
Christ as the king. Mark, more than simply as a servant,
I believe, presents Christ as a prophet, preacher. And Luke, not simply presenting
Christ as a saviour, but he presents him very much in a certain role,
that salvation is wrought through the priesthood of Christ. But today we come to Matthew's
Gospel again, and in chapter 11 this is a passage very similar
to Luke 10 that we considered recently, has a number of words
in here that are similar to the account in Luke 10, where Christ,
from verse 20, upraised the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida for
their unwillingness to repent when he did great works in them.
And in verses 25 to 27, the Lord Jesus thanks his Father that
he has hid these things from the wise and prudent and has
revealed them unto babes. He says, 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 him. Very similar to what is recorded
in Luke 10. But unlike Luke, distinctly in
Matthew here, He goes on, Matthew goes on to record these words
of Christ following and in the context of this passage and of
those words earlier. Where he says, come unto me,
all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Come unto me. Well, who are those to whom he
is speaking? Who does he call unto himself? This call is not universal. It is distinct and it is defined. It is addressed to certain characters,
to those in a certain condition. It could not be described as
an offer, a free offer addressed to all men. And those who'd have
much to tell us these days about the free offer of the gospel,
have hard labor to reconcile such a concept with passages
such as this, where you hear the calls of the gospel from
Christ's lips himself. They are distinct and defined. The very passage here shows us
that the things of the Kingdom of God are not revealed to all
men. For as we see earlier in verse
25, Christ, as I've just said, thanks his Father that these
things have been hid from the wise and prudent and revealed
unto babes. Well clearly the father did not
send Christ to reveal his kingdom and his salvation to all men. For if he did then that revelation
would have been to the wise and the prudent as well as the babes. But he's revealed it to some
and not to others. And in this context he says unto
some and not to others. Come unto me all ye that labour
and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. All you who labour
and are heavy laden. Well I asked, do you labour? Are you heavy laden? Are you
weighed down? Is this you to whom this might
be addressed? Well if it isn't, then this isn't for you. At least
not yet. Not at this time. Not until you're
brought into this condition. Not until you know something
of what it is to be heavy laden. and not simply heavy laden with
the burden and work of work or toil in this world as you seek
to make a living for yourself. This labor and burden is more
than just that. But if you cannot speak of being
burdened, if you're not tried, if you're not weighed down, Well
this is clearly not for you. Most aren't burdened. Not in
this way. Most don't labour. Not in this
manner. Most don't care. Most have no ears for the words
of one who calls out from heaven above. come unto me must have no desire or interest
either to go unto him or to hear of him. What of you? Do you care? Are you weary? Are you burdened? For those who do know what it
is to be weary, to labour, to be heavy laden, to have a load
on their back, to carry a weight, they will listen to the call
coming to me. What is this burden? What is
this weight? It's a load. A great weight. But it's a burden and a weight.
None of the things of time and sense. None of this world. But it's a burden and a weight.
Of spiritual things. It's the burden of sin. and it's
the weight of guilt that sin brings upon the soul of man.
That corruption, that vileness, that blackness in the heart,
that which once discovered weighs down upon the soul of those who
come to know it. those who were once light and
free as air, those who once thought nothing of what they did and
the consequences, those who once cared nothing for God, nothing
for what their sins did to them and their position before God,
those who once thought nothing of eternity to come, those who
once lived for this world and pleasure and sinned daily, with
no conscience, lightly, easily. But there comes a day, there
may have come a day for you, when the heart begins to feel
another way, when those things you did easily, you can no longer
do easily. Where guilt seems to come into
your heart and conscience. Where you know that what you
do and what you are is not right. And what you do and what you
have done and what you are will damn you for all eternity. You
know that this world is not all there is. You know that the few
years of your life upon this globe are not all there is. But there comes a day, fast approaching,
when you will pass through from this world into the next. When
death will lay its hand upon your shoulder and pull you across
the abyss. And when all that you have done
will come before your face. and you will be called to account. And you walk through this world
increasingly with this upon your mind, increasingly with this
upon your conscience, that you have done wrong and you have
failed to do right. and you see your sins before
you. You look upon your hands and
they are now black before you. You know what you've done and
you know what you're doing and you know where you are and you
cannot escape it and you cannot escape its consequence. and that
sin and those sins and that guilt hangs upon your back as a burden
and as a weight which you cannot shake and you feel the thunders
of heaven above You feel the dark clouds of heaven above gathering
above your head and you know that the hours tick away and
the minutes tick away to that day when you must answer and
give an account. And what will you do? So having come to know something
of this burden, and having come to know something of the God
before whom you must stand in eternity, before whom you must
answer. You seek to turn from these ways,
and you seek to turn from your guilt, and turn from your sin,
and you seek to cleanse yourself, and to turn unto another way,
and to walk another way, and to put things right. And here you come to work and
to labour and to strive to turn from their former ways. You strive
not to do that which you once did and you strive to walk a
better way before God for in so doing you think you will earn
his favour. You strive You work, you labour,
and when you come this way, you find it's hard labour indeed. For the harder you work, the
harder it gets. The more you seek to turn from
sin, the more you seem to sink into sin. The more you seek to
relieve the burden of guilt upon your back, the more it seems
to be added unto. The more you seem to relieve
the load, the heavier it seems to get. The more you seek to
walk righteously and godly before God, the worse you feel yourself
to be. The good that you would, you
cannot do. and the evil that you would not,
that you do. Like Paul in Romans 7. Oh wretched man that I am. What a burden this is to those
souls whom the Lord has brought to see what they are. What are you? Where are you? What do you know of this? What
do you know of the burden of your sin and the guilt of that
sin? What do you know of that judgment
to come which will pour out God's penalty upon those sins? What do you know of that labor
by which you would seek to relieve yourself? from the guilt, from
the corruption, from no sins. Is this you? One who labours
and is heavy laden. Perhaps that's nothing to you. If it's nothing, then the core
here is nothing. But if you know this, And if
the Lord has taught you this by His Spirit, and if it weighs
on your soul, then the words you'll read here in Matthew 11
and 28 will come to you as that answer which you've longed for,
as that answer which you've cried out for, as water to the thirsty
soul, For under such a crushing burden, under such a load, helpless
and hopeless, feeling to fall down deeper and deeper every
day, the words come down out of heaven by the Spirit of God,
whispering to the souls of such as these, in their darkness,
in their poverty, in their despair, they hear a faint sound and they
listen out and they hear and these words come unto them, come
unto me, come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden
and I will give you rest, come unto me Come unto me. Have you heard these words? Have
you been brought to listen for them? Have you heard them coming
to you in particular? Not just read on the page, you
can open the book, you can find them in Matthew's Gospel, but
have you heard them in such a state? Come unto me. come unto me. Have you been brought to that
point where your labour is going nowhere? and where instead of
being so consumed with yourself, so consumed with your own state
and condition, so consumed with what you will do to get yourself
out of such a state, with your labor, with your works, with
your plans, with your righteousnesses, so consumed with self, have you
been brought to that point where you've given up and you as it
were lie upon the ground all your strength gone and all you
can do is hear and then the voice comes come unto me have you heard Well, like I say, these words
don't come unto all men, and they're not addressed unto all
men. They don't come to the hearing
of the wise and the prudent, for the wise and the prudent
are so consumed with their own wisdom and their own knowledge,
even in the things of God and religion, that they have no ears
to hear the Spirit of God calling unto them. but those who are
broken those who are babes are brought to here and they're brought
to see the revelation that can only come from the Father as
the Father makes known the Son to those whom He will and as
the Son makes known the Father to whomsoever the Son will reveal unto me as John says in his gospel chapter
6 and verse 65 Christ said therefore said I unto you that no man can
come unto me except it were given unto him of my father come unto
me come unto me well you cannot Unless God shows you your labor
and your weight upon your back. Unless he shows you that your
labor's doing nothing and that burden upon your back is growing
heavier. And unless he brings you to an
end of yourself, crushed under such a weight, unless he brings
you to that point, at which you can do nothing but hear the words,
the still small words of Christ by the Spirit of God calling
unto your soul, come unto me, come unto me. No man can come
unto me except it were given unto him of my father. Have you
heard these words? It's the father perhaps revealing
one to you who you once rejected, who you
once despised, who you once saw no need of and yet now in such
a state you hear his words come unto me. Consider the call, come unto
me. Come unto me, Christ says, all
ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Come unto me. He does not tell you to labour. He does not tell you to work. He does not tell you to do any
great thing. He does not promise salvation
and rest to those who will do this and who will do that. He
does not promise rest to those who will study the scriptures
and find it out. He does not promise rest to those
who will live right every day, to those who will fulfill his
law. to those who will turn from this
and go to that. He does not place another burden
upon your back. Now he's speaking here to those
who already have a burden and to those who have already tried
by their own strength to get rid of that burden. to those
who've already come to the scriptures, who've already come to the law,
who've already sought to live righteously before God, who've
already sought to relieve their burden and cleanse themselves
from sin and found themselves crushed under that labor which
brought them nowhere. Christ does not place any more
burden upon such souls. He merely says, come unto me. He does not say do. Just come. Just look. Just look to me. Just look to Christ. Just look
to me, he says. Just believe, just come. This coming is not even a physical
coming. It's not even setting off on
a journey where you must travel some great distance at great
effort. This coming unto Christ could
not be simpler. It is merely the soul looking
up to one to whom the eyes were once shut. It's merely the heart
of faith, faith looking unto Him from whence
the call comes. That soul burdened by sin, weighed
down, crushed, lying upon the ground as it were, When it hears
this voice, simply looks up to whence the voice came. And in
looking they come unto him who will give them rest. Come unto
me. Where are you going? Where are
you seeking to relieve your burden? Where are you looking for strength
and wisdom? You'll find none in self. Your strength will leave you
in the gutter. You'll find none in man. The
best of men will lead you astray. You'll find no help in the wise
and the prudent. For these things haven't been
revealed to them. Come unto me, Christ says. Are you looking unto Him? The call is simple. But it's not a simple call that
any can respond to. For it's addressed only to those
who labour and are heavy laden. And it's only heard by those
who labour and are heavy laden. And only those to whom the Son
will reveal the Father truly hear this voice crying out to
them in the wilderness, come unto me. But should you hear, should you hear, This will indeed
be water in a desert to your soul. This will indeed be the
voice that you wish to hear. This will indeed be that relief
of the burden upon your back which you've longed for. Come
unto me and I will give you rest. Have you heard? Have you seen? Have you looked? Unto Him unto Him. Well who is the me? Who is the him who cries out
to the souls of those who labour and are heavy laden? Who is this
that says come unto me? Consider just who this is, Christ,
the Lord Jesus Christ says come unto me, the Son of Man the Son
of God, God himself in the person of the Son with human nature. Both God and
man cries out unto men, as that one mediator between God and
men, the man Christ Jesus, comes as God, as man, to men, saying
unto men who need to be right with God, come unto me and I
will give you rest, the Son of God. the Beloved, the Beloved
of His Father, the One and Only Begotten Son of God, the One
who God gave for sinners, the One who God gave as a sacrifice
for sins, the One whom the Father gave to die in the place of His
people, that He might save them from their sins, that He might
wash them clean, that He might take their burden away, that
He might lead this people unto the Father. This One says unto
this people, come unto Me. The Saviour, the Saviour, the
Saviour says come unto Me. the Saviour, the only Saviour,
the only one able to save sinners cast under the burden of sin,
the only one able to take their sins away, the only one able
to take their sin away and wash them clean, this one says unto
such, come unto me. The one who delights in showing
mercy unto the guilty says come unto me. The one who can show
mercy, the one who can pronounce the forgiveness of sins unto
those who are swallowed up by sin, the one who can wash them
clean says come unto me. The Messiah says come unto me. The Messiah, that one prophesied
of throughout the whole Old Testament, that one to whom the nation of
Israel looked, that he should come to deliver them from their
captivity, that he should come to bring them into an everlasting
kingdom, that He should come to bring them into the promised
land, that Messiah should come to deliver His people, God's
people, from their burdens. He says, come unto Me. The King, the King says, come
unto Me. The King, The King of Kings says,
Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will
give you rest. The King. As I said Matthew's
Gospel presents Christ in a certain light. In Matthew, Matthew presents
his genealogy to show that he is the King. He presents Him
as going about preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom. He presents
Him in every way as He who speaks of Himself as the King, as He
who will bring a people into the Kingdom of God. In Matthew,
Christ is the King And it is He who says unto this burdened
people, come unto Me, the King says. As I said, this passage is similar
to the passage in Luke with the warnings to Chorazin and Bethsaida. and with the mention of the revelation
of these truths and of the kingdom of God unto the babes and not
the wise and the prudent, the revelation of the Father, the
revelation of the Son. Luke 10 records similar account
but the account there stops short of what we read at the end of
this chapter in Matthew. Matthew adds these three verses. Come unto me all ye that labour
and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. He adds this call. This is distinct in Matthew and
the wonderful emphasis that this gives us in Matthew is the startling
realization of just who is making this call. Just who cries this
out? In Matthew, Christ is the King
and the King here, the King here says unto those who are heavy
laden, come unto me. The King calls, the King does,
the King. Can you take that in, just what
this means? That the King, the King of Kings,
should say to those who are cast down, those who are weary, those
who are broken, those who are broken in heart, those who have
laboured and are heavy laden, those who were crushed under
the burden of sin, the King, the King of Kings, The Lord of
Lords comes unto such a people and says come unto me. This is royal, it's majestic,
it could not come from a higher source and yet what condescension
that the king should come unto his people. and call them particularly
unto himself, the King. But see what this King is like
when he says, 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. Oh what a king this is, he's
not far off, he's not aloof, but he describes himself as meek
and lowly in heart. He's approachable. He condescends
to come unto sinners. He comes unto them where they
are. He comes unto lepers. He comes
unto the worst and the basest of people. He doesn't come superior. He doesn't come lording it over
them. He doesn't come looking down
upon them. He doesn't come and make them
feel small. But he comes as was a king who
is meek and lowly in heart and comes to the wretched and the
weak and the lost and the bruised and the broken and says unto
them, come unto me and I will give you rest. Come unto me. Can you take it in? What a call
from such a one that he should call. Have you heard this call? Have you heard it? Have you recognized
just who it comes from? Just how high this is. Just what so known as it is to
be called by such a one that the King should come unto you
in such a state and call you. In Isaiah chapter 55 and verse
3 we read this, Incline your ear and come unto me. Herein your soul shall live,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure
mercies of David. The Lord says unto his people,
Incline your ear and come unto me. Herein your soul shall live,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you. even the sure
mercies of David. For herein lies the answer to
that burden. that burden of sin, that which
weighed the people down, that which weighs Christ's people
down, that which weighs the King's people down. When He says, come
unto Me and I will give you rest, He does it on a certain ground. He can say it because He has
taken that burden which is upon their back. He has taken it and
He has dealt with it. He has dealt with it. He can
make an everlasting covenant with them. He can show them the
sure mercy, the sure mercies of David because he has dealt
with that sin and he has dealt with that guilt and he has dealt
with that burden in that everlasting covenant which he has made, which
he has fulfilled. when He went to the cross, the
Son of God, the King of Kings, the Saviour, when He went to
the cross in the place of this people whom He calls, in the
place of sinners such as you and such as me, when He went
to the cross and He took the burden off their back perhaps
off my back, perhaps off your back. When he took that burden
and went to the cross to take that burden away, that place
where the burden was taken aside, that place that took the labour
away, when he laboured, when he toiled, when he suffered in
the place of his people, when He bore the burden, when He,
as 1 Peter 2, 24 says, bore our sins in His own body upon the
tree, when He was crushed under its load, under its guilt, and
under the judgment and wrath of God the Father against those
sins, when He died that that people might live. When he was
crushed, that they might be lifted up. When he sunk under the burden,
that he might give them rest. He saved his people. Thou shalt
call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. This is he, who calls to such
a people. Come unto me. Come unto me. Have you heard his call? Have
you come? Have you come? Are you one of
those citizens of the king's kingdom? Have you heard the call
of the king? Come unto me. Have you been brought
into his rest? For his yoke is easy, and his
burden is light. He brings rest. There's no burden
when you've come to Christ. He takes away the sin. He takes
away the guilt. He takes away the judgment. He
brings in righteousness. He brings in righteousness. There is nothing for you to do. Nothing for you to do to earn
this. Nothing for you to do to keep
this. It's all free, free and sovereign
grace, freely given. Come unto me and I will give
you rest, rest, eternal rest, everlasting rest in that kingdom
and that glory to come around the throne of the King, around
the Lamb of God, where there is no burden, no guilt, no sin,
no corruption, no death, no illness, no poverty. When all is righteousness,
when all is pure, all is perfect, all is glorious, when all is
at perfect rest, come unto me and I will give you rest. And when that people come, And
when they have come, when they are all come, Christ the King,
the Son of God will go to his father. As Joseph went, as Joseph
said, when his family came unto him in Egypt, in Genesis, when
God brought Joseph's family, he brought his father and his
brothers unto him. Joseph said in Genesis 46 and
verse 31, Joseph said unto his brethren and unto his father's
house he said, I will go up and show Pharaoh and say unto him,
my brethren and my father's house which were in the land of Canaan
are come unto me, they come unto me. And there comes that day
when Christ the King, the Son of God, when all His people are
gathered in, when all have heard His call by the Spirit, all have
been effectually and irresistibly drawn in and have come unto Him
who will give them rest, when they're all gathered, He will
go up to His Father and He will say unto Him, He will say unto
Him, My Brethren, and my father's house which were in the land
of Canaan are come unto me. Oh what a kingdom and the king
of kings has and what a company he gathers in. Are you one of
them? Has he called you? Are you one
who knows what it is to labour and to be heavy laden? Perhaps
you are this day. Can you hear his call? Have you
heard his words? Well, hear his words. Come unto me, all ye that labour
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Amen.