BY THE REV. M. MORRISON, LOCHINVER, SUTHERLAND.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”—MATTHEW xi. 28.
IN this chapter you observe that the Lord Jesus reassures John the Baptist, who had been ruthlessly imprisoned for his faithfulness in rebuking sin, of the identity of His own person as the Christ that was to come. The circumstance of being in prison, the prospect of his life being cut off and his career ended, which, to the eye of sense, would not appear to tally with all that was prophesied of John as Christ’s forerunner, would seem for the time being to becloud John’s vision, and to occasion fear and doubt in his mind. The message sent by the Saviour to John dispelled all his fears, and he was restored to the enjoyment of his former assurance while still in prison. This incident in connection with John the Baptist seems to have been so providentially ordered as to give the occasion to the Lord Himself, at an opportune moment, to bear the most sublime testimony to John that ever was borne to a mere man. His hearers were many and of a mixed kind, and they would therefore scatter abroad Christ’s words concerning John. John’s own testimony, during the first part of his ministry, concerning the Lord was of the most clear, explicit, and certain character, but when plunged into the depths of persecution and suffering, he is tempted as to Christ’s identity, and sends the question, “Art thou he that should come, or look we for another?” Satan takes advantage of all the circumstances in which the most faithful of Christ’s witnesses find themselves, in order to weaken them in their faith and in their testimony.
Further, the Lord Jesus here points out, in the hearing of His audience, the awful condition of the cities which, continuing in their impenitence, disbelieved the message of salvation delivered by the Saviour Himself. Their doom was pronounced with no uncertain sound, and what a solemn lesson it conveys to us also, to whom the Gospel has come, and before whom Christ crucified is held forth as the only remedy from the disease of sin! What an account will have to be rendered by Gospel hearers, as well as by those who would not hear, when they appear before the bar of judgment! The aggravated guilt of Gospel hearers is not simply that they are sinners or have committed many sins against God’s law, but that they have continued in unbelief. The greatest sin of those who have God’s Word is the sin of unbelief. The world is opposed to Christ—the world, as including the wise, the great, the learned, the noble, and the rich, who are without God, and all who are gracelessly religious. But Christ
the Lord will have His own effectually called to Himself, and such He compares to “babes,” who were given Him by the Father from all eternity. The objects of His eternal love, concurring with the Father’s love, were not the wise and the prudent, but those He designates “babes.” The rest were blinded, and the elect of God were called out and saved. The Son, as the Father’s servant on earth, thanks the Father for the order and certainty of the covenant of grace which ensures this. Observe, also, that the Lord Jesus refers to the authority and power which was given Him as Mediator by the Father. The nature of this delegated power is as comprehensive as it is absolute. He wields this mediatorial power over all His creatures in heaven and in earth.
With the blessed consciousness of possessing this absolute power by merit and justice, He issues at the close of the chapter the most wonderful invitation ever issued. It is to, and for all sorts of sinners without distinction. Let us now consider briefly:—
I.—The invitation: “Come unto me”;
II.—The condition of those invited: “all ye that labour and are heavy laden; and
III.—The promise: “and I will give you rest.”
I.—The invitation. The Person who invites is “the Lord from heaven,” the sent of the Father. He came from God, and appeared among us with the full consciousness of the position He occupied, the mission which He had to discharge, and the obligations He had to fulfil. The immediate task that confronted Him was to effect reconciliation, by means of His perfect obedience and expiatory death, between the offended God and offending sinners. Fully assured of His success in this tremendous task, and of the honour and glory that should follow, He issues His invitations to perishing sinners. How often have these invitations fallen on deaf ears, but God will not strive always with man! “Behold, now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation;” and “To you, O men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of man” (Prov. viii.).
This invitation, then, coming from the lips of the Lord Himself, imports that there is a reconciliation effected between God and men, parties who were formerly at variance, man being the sole guilty party. It is to Himself He invites; to Himself as God-man Redeemer, the one who mediates between God and sinners. For as God He is equal with the Father, and so able to treat with God on our behalf; and as man, perfect man, He is able to treat with us poor, miserable sinners, on the Father’s behalf. There is no coming unto God except through a mediator, and none are invited to come without taking with them the consoling and encouraging truth that Christ is Mediator. Without Him, God is at all times and in all aspects a consuming fire against the sinner. In Christ Jesus, friends, God, while He remains a consuming fire against
sin, is reconciled to the sinner. So, let your sins be what they may, let them not, under Satanic subtlety, discourage you from looking to superabounding mercy. “Come unto me,” He saith. What a blessed Saviour Thou art! Whatever burdens and sins are borne by the guilty, Thou holdest forth a bright prospect of relief!
As this invitation imparts a state of variance between God and sinners, so also it implies that there is a great distance between the parties. Sin hath separated us from God. We fell in our common parent, Adam, who in his estate of innocence—and we in him—held constant communion with God. By our sinning in him, the fountain of life, which flowed into man’s soul, imparting light and joy and fellowship, was cut off; the Spirit was withdrawn from man, and he was cast out as never again in such a condition fit for the presence of the Holy One. So, friend, the sinner in this case having his mind darkened, and his heart hardened, through the deceitfulness of sin, bears not the image of God, but that of the father of lies. You, who are in your natural condition, are in a state of wrath and condemnation. You are “far off” in respect of your soul’s faculties; you are “far off” in respect of your life and conversation. But here the Saviour invites you to come to Himself, far off though you are. O, essay to come, like the prodigal, who, in putting forth an effort to come to his father’s house, was met by his father, “when he was yet a great way off.” So with you, dear fellow-sinner, you can never of yourself come, but put forth the effort and cry, like the Church, “Draw me, and we will run after Thee.” The Spirit of God is effectual in drawing the sinner willingly in obedience to the invitation, and He can draw you, however heavy your burden.
The Lord Jesus invites us to Himself as a Physician who can heal all diseases. He invites us as Prophet to enlighten, as Priest to reconcile, and to intercede for us, as King to subdue and conquer our hearts and all our enemies, as Husband to impart His love, and as Lord and Master to bestow His blessings and enable us to serve Him. He invites us to Himself as an all-willing, all-sufficient, and all-merciful God and Saviour. In what manner does He invite? He invites sinners in the most compassionate language, expressing the greatest desire for, and delight in, their coming. It is a free, full, sovereign, and unmerited invitation. The provision, to which He invites, is inexhaustible. O, the guilt incurred by slighting it! How can you escape?
The Lord Christ will have us to count the cost in coming to Him. What are we to renounce, and what are we to turn our back upon? Like Bunyan’s Christian, you have to quit “the city of destruction,” with its carnal joys and sinful allurements. You are to come as sinners to Christ, but you are not to think that you can live in sin. He saves us from our sins, not with our sins. You are to come as poor and needy sinners, not thinking you can
bring anything in your hand to make you more acceptable. You must renounce your own righteousness as filthy rags, and come as you are, without any acceptable righteousness.
II.—The condition of those invited: “all ye that labour and are heavy laden.”
What is it to labour and be heavy laden? Sin has been, and still is, fruitful in subjugating the creature to labour and in laying on him heavy burdens. We see this even in the conditions of man’s earthly livelihood. Being cast out at the beginning, owing to sin, from the ease and comforts he enjoyed in his holy estate, he became subject to painful toil and labour for his upkeep, and became exposed to all the miseries of this life. And O, what endless and trying exertion day after day is the lot of mankind as the consequence of sin! What a sad spectacle do we witness in “the labour world” to-day! All the wrangling disputes and contentions which agitate and inflame the masses at the present moment have little or no concern with more than what they shall eat, what they shall drink, and wherewithal shall they be clothed. No anxiety is evinced with respect to the soul, eternity, and the salvation of God through Jesus Christ. The Prophet Isaiah, as anticipating the personal invitations of Christ, cries out by the Holy Spirit, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness” (Isaiah lv. 1, 2). Labour, toil, and spending there are without stint, but not on that which satisfieth the longing soul. The working man the world over has become so intolerant of all divine restraints that he is fast developing dangerous symptoms of infidelity and atheism. And when these restraints are thrown aside, all the well-ordered laws of men will have but scant consideration. The fruit of this the nation as a whole is bound to reap. The cry, in effect, is: “We shall not have this Man to reign over us.”
True, then, though it is, that the creature may have much labour and bear heavy burdens in respect to the securing of common necessities, this description refers more to the moral and spiritual condition of the soul. The Jews were under the heavy burden and yoke of the ceremonial law, and the constant care and strain of this system was a burden too heavy for them and their fathers to bear. Christ’s invitation into the liberty wherewith He makes free, should have been specially sweet and welcome to them; but it was not so.
Again, the moral law, as a covenant of life, demanding perfect conformity of thought, word, and action, during the whole lifetime of the creature, is obviously a load which none can bear. The law requires a perfect righteousness, and it cannot, in the nature
of things, accept a defective one: “Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.” Many have tried to reach heaven by their own self-righteous efforts, but they have utterly failed. And let me ask you, friends, “Do any of you make your tears, your prayers, your repentance, and a careful life means of rendering you acceptable to God?” True, you labour and are heavy laden in some sense, but this is not coming to Christ. Again, one may be convinced by the Holy Spirit of his sin, realise it in his conscience as a heavy burden to bear, feel God angry with him, and may labour under this heavy burden to pacify God, and to fulfil his obligations. He resorts to the law as a covenant of works to get relief, for he cannot be at rest, it may be day or night, while he has the awful prospect before him of eternal death and damnation as the wages of sin. He would fain blot out his past, but God’s Spirit makes the past stand out more vividly before the eye of his mind. He sighs, he groans under his burden; he labours to get it removed. Sin is become a load to the weary and heavy-laden, which, notwithstanding all their efforts, cannot be removed until there is a coming to Christ. “Come unto me.”
Such, then, are those in our text who are invited to come to Christ. Do you realise truly that you are a sinner condemned to die? Have you come to this that you see all your righteousness as filthy rags, and that the best you or any other can do is, in point of justification, to be wholly, and whole-heartedly discarded. Such are the comers to Christ. There are many other burdens under which the weary labour—burdens of cares and trials in connection with their lot in providence, in connection with relatives and families, the Church of God and the nation of which they form a part. With them all, you are invited to come. He is able to bear them for us and to solve our difficulties. But now I pass on to consider:—
III.—The promise: “and I will give you rest.” Christ is typified by Noah, who was a preacher of righteousness. Noah means “rest.” Christ is a rest to those who labour and are heavy laden. To those who come He promises to be a rest. He gives rest from the guilt of sin by planting the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, in the conscience. The conscience is freed from the load of guilt, and is at rest with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the resting place for an offended God, and the offending sinner. God found infinite satisfaction in the whole of His Son’s obedience and sufferings unto death. The sinner also gets no rest to his troubled conscience until he gets it in the obedience and sufferings of Christ. God and the sinner are reconciled to each other in Christ. “Here is my rest; here still I’ll stay, for I do like it well.” All the faculties of the soul find peace and rest in Christ. The conscience finds rest in His blood and righteousness; the understanding finds rest in His knowledge and wisdom; the will finds rest in His will; and the
affections find rest in His excellency and love. Thus Christ as prophet, priest and king, gives rest to the soul.
The Saviour is a refuge and, therefore, rest to those who are pursued by the manslayer. There are two steps by which we come to Christ for rest and salvation: (1) by repentance, which implies a conviction of sin, and turning from sin to God, and an apprehension that there is mercy in Him through His Son; and (2) by faith in the Son as able and willing to give all needed rest and blessing. By the exercise of these graces, we are led to rest upon Christ and His finished work as the ground of peace. Believing upon Christ is the act of the whole soul, and the believer, conscious of corruption and evil thoughts within, considers his case hopeless apart from looking to the crucified Saviour. He finds rest only when he is enabled to exercise trust upon Him and His fulness.
The Saviour also gives complete rest at last from the common troubles and trials of this life, and from the temptations of Satan, the workings of sin and corruption, and all the burdens the believer laboured under in the world. This He does when He calls the soul away to the eternal mansions of glory, the rest which He has prepared for His people in heaven. “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” This rest is a perfect, glorious, everlasting rest—rest for soul and body. It is a rest which brings with it the most perfect joy and happiness as well as spotless holiness. The rest in grace here is perfected in glory hereafter.
Christ promises this rest to the weary and heavy laden. What shall happen to you who never believed or felt your need of God’s Saviour, who never realised sin as a burden, which, if not removed, will crush the sinner for ever in hell? If you continue as you are, let me warn you that your eternity will not be an eternity of rest. It will, in fact, be an eternity of restless sorrow, pain and woe. Will you seek to flee from this awful prospect now, as now is the time to escape it? “Behold, now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.” On the other hand, “all that have heard and learned of the Father shall come unto me,” saith Christ; “and him that cometh unto me, I will in nowise cast out.” They do come who hear and learn of the Father, and they come to the Father only through the Son.
O, then, covet earnestly this rest, the rest in Christ here, through the pardon of sin, the justification of your person, and the sanctification of your soul, and the rest in Christ hereafter through the final and complete redemption of soul and body into an estate of unalloyed purity and happiness, where you shall be made perfectly blessed in the full enjoyment of God to all eternity. May the Lord, by the Spirit, make these things yours, and may He bless His Word. Amen.
WE are too apt to bite the stone that hurts us, and not mind the Hand that threw it.—Reynolds.