"Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28).
Blessed invitation! and surely the voice of Him who is "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever" (Heb. 13:8) is still crying to weary souls to part with their heavy load of guilt, which must ere long seal the doom of every unrepentant soul and plunge it into the dark abyss of eternal woe. What would you think of a man returning from a far off land with his bag of hard earned gold clinging to that when the ship had gone to pieces, and trying to make for the distant shore with his heavy load? Would you not be constrained to cry out, "Drop your burden! never mind your gold! swim for your life?" And yet, dear soul, perchance you are still loathe to part with your sins, rolling them as a sweet morsel under your tongue: but do you not know that though you love them as a miser his gold, and find in them your pleasure for a season, yet will they prove but a dead weight to you, and sink you into the depths of hell? forever shutting you out from the presence of Jesus, whose voice you may now hear inviting you to rest in Him and to share His joys throughout eternity.
Dear reader, what about your sins? Are they still a pleasure to you? then beware of the tempting bait which the god of this world holds out to you, for long experience has he had in snaring souls to the place whence there is no returning (Job 10:21), "prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41). What if you are a ready prey of his, "taken captive by him at his will" (2 Tim. 2:26), and shortly find your fancied enjoyment and boasted freedom a delusion, all unconscious of the deep plot that is laid for your soul by the wicked one, and of the impending judgment of a righteous God, which must soon overtake you if still in your sins.
Awake, O soul! and learn that even now the goodness of God would lead thee to repentance. If still careless, again I say beware, for "after thy hardness and impenitent heart thou art treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath, despising the riches of His goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering" (Rom. 2:4, 5), which leads Him to withhold His judgment that you may be saved; and this is the testimony of God's own ward to you if only you will bow to it.
On the other hand you may have lost all pleasure in your sins and are now feeling them to be a load, getting heavier as they must every day in spite of all your endeavors to keep your lusts in check.
What glorious words are these, dear friend, if such be your case, "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest."And who is it that so invites you to come? None other than Jesus the sinner's friend, the One deputed of God to bear in His own person on the cross the terrible load of sin. And now that the work is finished, that the cup of wrath has been drained, and God's holiness has been vindicated, with what assurance can you hear the voice of the risen Savior speaking to you, dear burdened one," Come unto He and I will give you rest!" What a right has He to bid you part with your load, and should not you be willing to let it go after what Christ the substitute from God has endured on the cross, seeing what it cost Him, even the hiding of God’s face, when in that dark hour, "Jehovah laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isa. 53:6), when the deep waters of judgment went over His soul! Behold Him there made sin (2 Cor. iv. 21), learn that your heavy load was borne by another, by the Son of God Himself, and come, come now, and rest in Him.
"Weary, working, burdened one,
Wherefore toil you so?
Cease your doings all was done
Long, long ago.
Cast your deadly doings down,
Down at Jesus' feet,
Stand in Him, in Him alone,
Gloriously complete.”
If now, dear reader, you have come to this blessed Savior, have parted with your heavy load and are at rest, knowing that all your sins have been put away, believing that Jesus " bore them all in His own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24), then what is left for your liberated soul but still to hear the voice of Jesus, which after saying, "Come unto Me...and rest," goes on to say, "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" (Matt. 11:29, 30). Light indeed to the disciple of Christ; and now that He has taken our heavy load, having borne it on the cross, and is risen from the dead free from it all —and "as He is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17)-how gladly should we follow Him, whom this world has cast out, and share in His rejection, bearing His yoke which is easy, seeing that He sustains us and cheers us on! And freed from all condemnation (John 5:24) is it not our joy to be His willing slaves who set us free? whose presence with us here keeps our hearts light and happy day by day, making every storm a calm because He is here; whose grace makes us strong, and though a rugged path be ours in following Him, yet will. He walk with us in it, and shall soon call us to be with Himself in that eternal rest above, where all taint of sin shall be removed, and our only load shall be a heart burdened with praise pouring itself out to Him who washed our sins in His own blood (Rev. 1:5), who once was bowed in death, enduring for us all the fierceness of God's wrath, standing in our stead, bearing that heavy load of guilt which we should justly have borne, having put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself (Heb. 9:26). He has left us down here for a little while to learn of Him who is meek and lowly in heart, whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light, to prove that the One who had saved us from judgment could keep us from falling, teaching our hearts to rest in His own love and care for us amid all the unrest of this world which passeth away.
O fix our earnest gaze
So wholly, Lord, on Thee,
That with Thy beauty occupied
We elsewhere none may see.
T. E. P.