Sermon Tone Analysis

"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."

MAT 11:28-30.

A very unique part of our text is that it seems to be an all-inclusive invitation immediately following a revelation that God determines the recipients of salvation.

"Come unto me, all ye" seems to include everyone, yet it follows a beautiful illustration of the sovereignty of God.

Is it really an invitation to all or does it simply describe those to whom the invitation is extended?

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Then it goes on to explain that 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."

The saving grace of God is only available to those to whom Christ reveals the Father.

MAT 11:27 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."

This displays the sovereign choice of God in salvation, yet the invitation is seemingly extended to all.

No one will be able to say on the Day of Judgment, "I am not saved because I was not chosen!"

We are invited to come to God, but our text qualifies who will come, not who can come: those who "labour and are heavy laden" will come.

This is parallel to JOH 6:37, which says, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; [which shows God's will in choosing] and him that cometh to me [showing who will come] I will in no wise cast out."

It does not describe who can come or who may come, but who "shall come to me."

The invitation to come to Christ is open to all men, but it is qualified with the sovereignty of God showing who will come under the terms of the invitation.

For our first point, let us see the harmony between God's sovereignty in election and His open invitation to come to Christ.

For our second point, let us consider how love of self and love of temporal things hinders coming to Christ more than lack of ability.

For our third point, let us consider that the invitation, which is open to all men, is an invitation to serve under a yoke of rest.

First, let us see the harmony between God's sovereignty in election and His open invitation to come to Christ.

A yoke is a form of service.

Wooden yokes were used to harness oxen for labor.

We are invited to come under Christ's "yoke" to serve the Lord.

How do we reconcile God's sovereignty in election with an open invitation?

Men refuse to come to Christ because they will not, not because they cannot.

"All that the Father giveth me shall come."

We are made willing.

It is not true that people who would be saved cannot be saved because they are not chosen, and therefore God's sovereignty is unjust.

The only ones who cannot be saved are the people who refuse to come.

It was not because the Jews could not come to Christ but because they rejected the gospel.

Then the Apostle Paul turned to the Gentiles.

It was not their inability but their unwillingness.

In ACT 13:46 we read, "Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles."

That is where God's sovereignty shines.

God will be justified in saving those whom He has chosen and in condemning those who rejected the gospel and judged themselves unworthy of everlasting life by refusing to obey.

The gospel calls us to serve the Lord.

Those in whom God had made place for the gospel believed and came to Christ.

God went before the preaching of the gospel and prepared the soil of their hearts for the seed of the gospel and made them willing.

ACT 13:48 says, "And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed."

That does not say anything about a person who wanted to believe but could not because he was not ordained.

Only those who were ordained believed because they were the only ones who desired to come under the yoke of Christ.

The work of regeneration prepared their souls for the gospel; they were made willing, so they believed.

In the verses preceding our text, Jesus explains that the revelation of Christ is an essential element of salvation.

Until the grace of the Holy Spirit reveals Christ in our souls, we will never desire Him.

MAT

11:25-26 says, "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."

The Father did not reveal Christ to the wise and prudent, who were self-sufficient, but to babes, who had nothing within themselves.

The only ones who receive this personal knowledge of the Father and the Son are those who are sovereignly chosen, whose hearts God has prepared to feel their need of Christ.

Our text says, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Those who are not hungry do not need food, but to those who have been sweating and working in the field, even a dry morsel of bread looks good.

"The full soul loatheth an honeycomb," PRO 27:7, but those who labor under a load of sin will find rest.

The word labor in the Greek is kopiao (kop-ee-ah'-o), which means "to feel fatigue, by implication to work hard: to bestow labor, toil, to become wearied."

It signifies laboring to the point of sweat and exhaustion.

Those who have labored to the point of exhaustion are the ones who seek rest.

Jesus' reference to labor in our text teaches how He causes His chosen ones to see the futility of attempting to please God by their own human efforts.

We may have labored and striven in our own strength to please the Lord, but when we see how futile it is, we look for rest.

Jesus'

description in our text of "all ye that labour and are heavy laden"

describes those who are weary in their search for truth and who labor under a load of sin and despair of earning salvation by good works.

The term heavy laden brings to mind the heavy burdens of the law imposed by the Pharisees.

In MAT 23:4, Jesus said, "For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers."

The people carried great burdens of Pharisaical religion requiring them to earn salvation according to the law.

Jesus told them to come out from under that yoke, "For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

He was comparing the yoke placed upon the church by the Pharisees to the yoke under which He wants us to serve.

He wants us to serve under the law of love, not the law of rigor and the law of the Pharisees.

Those who desperately need relief from the crushing load of a sin-laden, guilt-ridden conscience hear the internal call of the gospel.

We are heavy-laden under a load of sin.

We have learned that we cannot earn salvation under the yoke of the law.

We seek to assuage our guilt, to break that yoke, and come under His yoke of service.

Although the word repentance is not specifically used here, our Lord is calling for it.

"Come unto me," demands a complete turn-around, a complete change of heart, and a complete change of service to come out from under the yoke of sin and the yoke of the Pharisaical law.

This invitation is to those who feel they are overpowered and burdened by sin and who have failed to enter the kingdom by their own works.

They are lost!

There is absolutely no way of escape while serving under the yoke of the Pharisees or the yoke of sin.

This invitation applies only to those who have reached the end of their resources, desperate to turn from self and sin unto a Saviour who has taken their burden.

This is not an invitation to those who only legally repent by seeking to flee the consequences of sin but still loving sin.

The Lord Jesus does not extend the invitation until sin has become a burden.

The invitation is to come out from under the yoke of sin, to discontinue serving self and sin, and to serve Christ under the yoke of His love.

Jesus gave the invitation in our text to those who are weary of sin and self-righteousness just after He revealed His indignation against those who refused to repent.

He said in MAT 11:16-20, "But whereunto shall I liken this generation?

It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.

The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.

But wisdom is justified of her children.

Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not."

They never made a turn-around; they wanted to continue serving sin.

His invitation is to repent, which means to come out from under the yoke of sin, no longer cherish sin, and turn to serve the Living God.

Verses 21-24 say, "Woe unto thee, Chorazin!

woe unto thee, Bethsaida!

for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.

And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.

But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee."

Why did Jesus use Sodom for His illustration?

Sodom was destroyed for serving sin, but had never received the gospel.

If the miracles and the teachings of Christ had been performed in Sodom, they would have repented, yet here it was rejected.

It "shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom" than for those who have received the invitation but have not repented, because Sodom had never received the invitation to come and serve the Lord.