Matthew 11:28. Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
- We are now to inquire into what sort of labour sinners have in these things? For the sake of plainness, it will be necessary to consider this labour, first, as to their lusts; second, as to the law.
First, as to their lusts,
their going up and down among the created things, extracting from them comfort and pleasures, which they take for happiness. I shall show here what is true of this labour and thus confirm the point: They are engaged in wearisome labour.
1. It is hard labour and sore toil:
They “weary themselves to commit iniquity” (Jer 9:5). None of them win the devil’s wages for nothing; they eat no idle bread where he is taskmaster, and they must run whom he drives. The devil’s yoke is of all yokes the heaviest. To prove this point, consider:
(1.) What the Scriptures compare this labour in lusts to, by which it will appear hard labour. The Scripture compares it to:
[1] The labour of a man going to a city and not knowing the way: “The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city” (Ecc 10:15). That is hard labour, as many know by experience. Many a weary step they must take, many a hardship they must endure – and so must sinners in pursuit of happiness.
[2] A man labouring in the fire: “Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts, that the people shall labour in the very fire and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?” (Hab 2:13). How hard their labour is that lie near a fire! What sweat! What toil! “The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire, the founder melteth in vain; for the wicked are not plucked away” (Jer 6:29). But how much harder to be in the fire! As when a house is on fire and men in it, labouring to preserve what the fire consumes. They labour (1) in the fire of lusts, that inflame the heart and scorch the very soul. “For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread, and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life. Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” (Prov 6:26,27). They labour (2) in the fire of divine wrath that is kindled by their lusts. “For wickedness burneth as the fire; it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke” (Is 9:18). This consumes what they are working for in the fire; so when, like the spider, they have spun out their own bowels for a covering, it is far too narrow, and they have only wearied themselves for very vanity.
[3.] Labouring under a burden, as in the text itself, which will not let the man raise up his back. They are the devil’s drudges, labouring under a load that will crush them at last, if they do not cast their burden on the Lord, that He may sustain them (as in Ps 55:22). They are laden with divers lusts, which lie on them as a burden on the weary beast, which weary them indeed, but they are bound on as with bands of iron and brass.
[4.] The labour of a soldier in war; they watch for iniquity as a sentry at his post (Is 29:20). The natural man himself is the very field of battle: “From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts which war in your members?” (Jas 4:1). The war itself you may see described in the three following verses. Who cannot but endure labour with the feet of men and horse in that confusion? Though they do not have grace and corruption at war in them, there are lusts – and lusts opposed to one another, lusts and light also.
[5.] The labour of the husbandman in ploughing: “Ye have ploughed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity” (Hos 10:13). They devise wickedness, which the Hebrew calls plowing it: “Devise not evil against thy neighbour” (Prov 3:29). “An ungodly man diggeth up evil, and in his lips there is as a burning fire” (Prov 16:27).
[6] The labour of a woman in childbirth: “Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood” (Ps 7:14). What pangs do raging lusts create to the soul? What cords of death does it restrict with? There is no small toil in conceiving sin, bearing it in the heart, and bringing it forth; but there is nothing in the abominable child which is brought forth that will satisfy the soul after all.
(2.) It is hard labour, if you consider that eminent emblem of our natural state, the bondage in Egypt. Their deliverance out of Egypt was typical of their spiritual deliverance by Christ, and so this bondage must signify man’s natural state. It may be remarked, (1) As the children of Israel went down to Egypt in the loins of their parents, so were we in Adam. (2) As the deliverance from Egypt was wrought by the angel of the covenant, by the hands of Moses the lawgiver and Aaron the priest, so the deliverance from man’s natural state was wrought by the law and the gospel. (3) As Pharaoh opposed the children of Israel to the utmost, so the devil opposes here. Pharaoh was “the great dragon which lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself” (Ezek 29:3). It was a type of that great red dragon mentioned in Revelation 12:3 etc.
But for what concerns this point, see Exodus 5. There you will find people labouring and heavy laden (vv 4,5). It is hard labour to satisfy lusts, the devil’s taskmasters. He “worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind” (Eph 2:2,3). The Israelites had their tasks doubled, to put religion out of their heads and hearts (Ex 5:10). Lusts also must be satisfied, but what is necessary to do so is withheld, as straw was from the Israelites (v 11). They are scattered up and down among the creatures for it, but can never squeeze out enough for them, even as the Israelites could not find enough stubble to prepare their bricks (vv 12-14). If there was any appearance of deliverance, the labour was made harder. Paul says, “I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died” (Rom 7:9).
(3.) It is hard labour if you consider the effects this labour has: [1] On the souls of men. The minds of men have a toilsome task where sin is on the throne of their hearts. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter” (Is 5:20). That soul must be in a continual fever while inordinate affections are strong, as in all who are out of Christ. Anxiety and cares of the world leave the mind on tenterhooks. A conceived slight, like that of Ahab (1 Ki 21:4), sets the proud man’s heart in a fire of wrath and revenge. And it squeezes the sap out of all their enjoyments, as in the instance of Haman (Est 5:9,13). Envy slays the silly one; lust strikes as a dart through the liver; anger, malice, discontent and the like make a man his own executioner. He is tossed between hopes, fears and vanity, tumbled hither and thither with every wind of temptation, as a ship without either pilot or ballast.
[2] Even the body is often hard put in this labour. Covetousness rises early and eats the bread of sorrow for what is not; the drunkard uses his body worse than his beast. More bodies have fallen as sacrifices to lust, one way or another, than ever fell by the hardships about religion.
2. It is base, mean and abject labour.
(See Jer 23:21-24.) Were we to die like beasts, we might live like beasts, with our souls grovelling still downward on the earth. If the soul had been so narrow as to be satisfied with something less than infinitely good, he would not have spoken like a fool who said, “Soul . . . take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry” (Lk 12:19), when his barns were full. In that case, the swine and his soul might have fed together. But we have immortal souls, capable of enjoying infinite good, and working in the earth must be lowly labour for a heaven-born soul, which God breathed into a body formed from dust but He did not give it to be drowned in a mass of flesh and blood, nor to be only as salt to keep the body from rotting for a while.
3. It is a constant labour.
The sea rests sometimes, the carnal heart never: “The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt” (Is 57:20). Lusts are ever craving; they never say they have enough; they are rolling the stone to the top of the hill, which still comes down on them again and again and creates new labour (see Ps 78:18,20,29, 30). Two things make it a continual labour. (1) Continual disappointments. Sinners cannot miss them, seeing there is no satisfaction to be had in created things; yet their soul still craves them. Hence there is no rest, but they are urged on to work again: “Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way; yet saidst thou not, There is no hope” (Is 57:10). Men are like the silly doves without heart, who still go to the same nest where they have been harried so often before, and will even beg where they have been sent away a thousand times. (2) What is got in created things enlarges the desire, instead of satisfying it. The more that lusts are fed, the more they require to maintain them. Sin is an insatiable tyrant; to labour in its service is just to cast oil into the flame. This thirst can never be quenched.
4. It is vain labour;
they can never reach the end of it: “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not?” (Is 55:2). They shall as soon fill a triangle with a circle as the heart with such things. The grave shall sooner give back its dead than the lusts of the heart say, It is enough. It is impossible to find satisfaction in these things, for they are not suited to the soul – more than stones for the nourishment of the body. The body gets its nourishment from the earth, because it is of the earth; the soul is from heaven, so its satisfaction must come from there. The things of the world cannot satisfy the soul, because God has not appointed them to be the bread which nourishes it; without this, grass could no more satisfy the beasts – nor bread the hunger of man – than sand would: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). God has kept the satisfying of the soul as His own prerogative.
5. Yet it is costly labour;
for precious time is spent on it. Men should husband time well, “redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Eph 5:16). By making good use of time, we might attain true happiness; yet time once gone can never be recalled. But what precious hours are cast away on these things, although they might be used well in trading for heaven. The labour is costly, because gifts of the mind are thrown away on it. Reason makes us differ from the beasts, but men make themselves worse than beasts by abusing it: “Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming, but My people know not the judgement of the Lord” (Jer 8:7). Men’s minds are not used to know God, but other things; their choice also is not fixed upon Him; their affections are bestowed on other things.
6. It is also costly
because the outward good things of the body and of one’s state in the world are bestowed on it. Health and strength go in the pursuit of vanity, and in the service of their lusts. Yes, they are sacrificed many times on the altar of intemperance and sensuality. Riches, power, honours make people kick against Him who lays those things in their hands – just as the horse does when fed. Indeed, to crown all, the soul itself is thrown away upon it: “For what is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mt 16:26). Men seeking vanity lose what is most excellent; and what is purchased at that rate is dearly bought.