Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2781
“Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28.
I HAVE often preached from this text. [Sermon #265, Volume 5, THE MEEK AND LOWLY ONE; #969, Volume 17, REST, REST; #1322, Volume 22, REST FOR THE LABORING; #1691, Volume 28, CHRIST’S WORD WITH YOU; #2298, Volume 39, THE CHRIST-GIVEN REST and #2708, Volume 47, THE OLD GOSPEL FOR THE NEW CENTURY] I hope, if I am Spared, to often preach from
it in the future. It is one of those great constellation texts which, like certain stars which shine so brightly in the sky, have served as a guide to mariners—they have helped to direct many a poor tempest-tossed seaman into the harbor he wanted to reach—and these texts have guided many into the haven of everlasting peace. Among the many stars up yonder in the heavens, there are some that are so conspicuously set and so peculiarly brilliant, that they are sure to be observed. And amidst the many precious promises in God’s Word, this is one of the very brightest—it has gladdened thousands of weary eyes and cheered untold myriads of burdened souls.
This morning we were meditating upon the thirst of Christ while hanging on the Cross [Sermon #1409, Volume 24, the SHORTEST OF THE SEVEN CRIES] and I tried to show you the mystic
meaning hidden within the letter meaning of His short but suggestive cry, “I thirst.” Our Lord Jesus Christ still thirsts for the souls of men. He thirsts for our salvation and here is one of His thirst-cries—“Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
I am not going to look at our text, as we usually do, and as we most properly do, from man’s point of view, but, rather, from Christ’s. I shall speak at this time of the longing desire which was deep down in His soul and which made Him give sinners these frequent and urgent invitation to come unto Him. What was it that made Him so anxious those men should come to Him? They were, many of them, most unwilling to accept His invitations. No, worse than that, they often derided Him—but still He cried, not merely once or twice, but His whole life-cry was—“Come unto Me.” And as long as Mercy’s gate stands open, Christ’s continuous cry, until He comes again, will be, “Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” This sacred passion of our Savior’s soul moved Him to entreat sinners to come to Him almost as if they could, thereby, confer some favor upon Him by coming—whereas it was only that they might receive of His mercy, “and Grace for Grace.”
I. To help in bringing out of the text the thought of our Savior’s longing for the souls of men, I want, first, to answer the question—WHO IS HE? Who is He that thus says, “Come unto Me”? Who is this who so anxiously desires that those who labor and are heavy laden should come to Him, that He may give them rest?
If you look at the connection of our text, you will see that the answer to this question is that it is One who has often been rejected. “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” When He mingled freely with the sons of men, in all the gentle manliness, cordiality and sympathy which were so characteristic of Him, when He sat with them at their tables and ate and drank with them, instead of saying, “How condescending He is!” they murmured at Him and said that He was “a gluttonous Man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.” When He walked through their streets and worked His wondrous miracles of Grace and mercy, they attributed them to Satanic agency! Yet, after all that, He still stood and cried, again and again, “Come unto Me! Come unto Me!” Their rejection of Him could not chill the
warmth of His affection—He would not take their cruel negative, but He kept on crying, even as He did on that last great day of the feast, “If any man thirsts, let him come unto Me, and drink.” They turned their backs upon Him, but He cried so much the more, “Come unto Me.” They called Him all that was evil, yet His only answer was, “Come unto Me.” That same rejected Savior, whom, perhaps, dear Friend, you have also rejected, lo, these many years, still stands as if He were rooted to the spot and cries to you, “Come, come, come unto Me, and I will give you rest.”
This is He, too, who, but a little while before, had warned them that to reject Him involved the most fearful guilt. “Tyre and Sidon,” He said, “suffer not such a heavy penalty as guilty Capernaum does. Sodom and Gomorrah were swept away, but not with so dire a doom as awaits Chorazin and Bethsaida, which have rejected My message of mercy.” Jesus looks, with deep pity upon His face, on the many who spurn Him and warns them of their terrible fate if they continue to refuse His invitations. But having done so, He again says to them, “Come unto Me.” He tells them that they will surely die unless they come to Him and then He cries to them, “Why will you die? Turn you, turn you, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” No lips of mortal man ever spoke so honestly and so terribly concerning the wrath to come, as did the lips of Jesus—but that was because they were the lips of Infinite Love! He courted not popular applause by endeavoring to make out that the punishment of the guilty will be slight. It was He who spoke of Hell, “where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched.” It was He who said, concerning the ungodly, “These shall go away into everlasting punishment.” Yet He turns around—no, I must correct myself, and not say, “yet”—but becauseof that honest affection which makes Him speak the truth even when it is most unpalatable, He turns around again and again, and repeats the cry, “Come unto Me! Come unto Me! This is your sole hope—come unto Me, and I will give you rest.”