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[0:00] It is turned out to consider words in the chapter we read, the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 11.

[0:19] Verse 28. 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 you shall find rest unto your soul, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

[0:44] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I would like to continue this series with you on Sabbath evenings on what we could write or refer to as the great invitations that are addressed to us in the Bible.

[1:09] Two weeks ago we looked at Isaiah 55, come unto whoever you want to thirst, come ye to the water. Last week in Isaiah chapter 1, come now let us reason together, saith the Lord.

[1:24] And tonight in this chapter, Matthew chapter 11, come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden. You will notice the context in which the text is set.

[1:40] It happened at a time when Jesus prayed to the Father, saying, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou, because thou hast hid these things on the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes, even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight, all things are delivered unto me by the Father.

[2:04] And no man knoweth the Father but the Son. And no man knoweth the Son but the Father. And neither knoweth any man the Father, saith the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

[2:17] Now, it could be said, and it can be said with justification, that here is one of the many references that we have in the Bible to the predestinating act of God, or to the electing act of God, to that act of God by which he reveals himself and Christ, only to those who have been determined by him to receive that revelation.

[2:43] And in hearing such a teaching, people may very well react and say, well, what's the point of trying to get to know God, the Father, or the Lord Jesus Christ, if it be that he is to reveal himself only to some people?

[3:04] Well, it is to counter that kind of reaction that our Lord addresses these words to us all.

[3:18] Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Whether we know the Father or not, whether we want to know the Father or not, this invitation is addressed to us all.

[3:38] And like all these great invitations of the Bible, no one is left out with its embrace, because in one way or another, we all labor.

[3:51] We all have our burdens to carry. We all have our difficulties to shoulder. And therefore, to us all, the Lord addresses this invitation, come unto me.

[4:05] And needless to say, the thrust of the Gospel message and the Gospel ministry lies just there, that we all need this one who offers rest to us.

[4:22] Let us then together, and very briefly, consider those who are invited in this text, they who labor and are heavy laden. Let us notice, secondly, the invitation that is addressed to them, come unto me.

[4:41] And the invitation that is addressed, come unto him that they might find rest. This invitation makes its own demands upon people.

[4:53] They have to come to a certain person, and the invitation has a certain promise attached to it. He promises to give rest.

[5:05] And then we will notice the basis upon which this invitation is addressed. Come unto me, and I will give you rest.

[5:16] We will have a look at the person who addresses this invitation. And then finally, have a look at those who accept the invitation, and the service to which it calls them.

[5:28] A service in which they are yoked to Christ. A service in which they learn of Christ. And a service in which they make a discovery of the rest that is to be found in the service of Christ.

[5:44] First of all then, those who are invited, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. Now as I said, there are no exceptions in this church, or any other church tonight, in any part of this kingdom, or in any other kingdom.

[6:00] No exceptions to this very broad invitation. It embraces all and sundry. Now, as I said, we all have our burdens, and our cares, and our worries, and our anxieties tonight.

[6:16] We all have our difficulties, and our own particular problems. We all have these things from time to time in life that suggest to us that no one has had this particular difficulty to deal with but ourselves.

[6:36] Everyone from time to time feels like that. Look at some of the examples that one could cite. this now. There are many people in the world tonight, and there are many, perhaps there are some people here tonight who aren't all that well.

[6:51] People who know that they're not well. People who are ill. Perhaps they've been able to hide that fact from most people, not from all people, to this very moment.

[7:02] And that's a burden for them. A burden that they carry around with them. there are some people who have a heart tonight full of sorrow and sadness, full of grief.

[7:14] Not, but not because they've lost some loved one recently, but because there may be some difficulty in their lives, some difficulty in their families, in their homes, that fill them with sorrow.

[7:28] I spoke this morning about William Jay in the Gaelic service. William Jay, the renowned and the godly divine in England a couple of centuries ago.

[7:40] That man, if you ever come across his books, get them. William Jay. Well worth reading. And that man who was so eminent in piety, spent many a day and many a year carrying a sorrow around with him in his heart.

[8:02] The sorrow of knowing that he had an ungodly family. A family who had no time for the things of God. Now there are Christians in the world tonight, people who love the Lord Jesus Christ.

[8:17] People who have given their families an excellent Christian upbringing. And who have seen those families turn away from the things of God. That's a burden.

[8:29] That's a sorrow. That's a very heavy load on many a heart tonight. There are people who carry with them a load of responsibility.

[8:40] There are people placed in positions of authority and responsibility in our land. Perhaps in your own job you may have a very heavy responsibility to shoulder.

[8:53] Perhaps for all I know you may be in public office shouldering a very heavy burden. And it's right that people should be aware of the responsibility that office carries with it.

[9:07] There are people who are burdened because they feel the weight of opposition that is addressed to them. People are against them. There are Christians here tonight who are burdened because they've got opposition to counter to deal with at home at school at work.

[9:25] People are against them just because they are Christians. let's always remember this, that this is the nature of the world and the nature of the spirit of the world and we're not to be surprised if the world addresses its own particular brand of antagonism against the Christian and against the Christian church.

[9:43] It has always been like that and it always will be like that and that's a burden that people have to hold. There are people who are oppressed and there are people who are depressed.

[9:56] people who have cares that they find they can't cope with. People who are temperamentally unsuited for a particular thing that has come upon them in life and they're just at the end of their tether.

[10:09] They're burdened and they're heavy laden. They've got troubles and fears and anxieties. They're restless within. Well these are the people that Jesus invites.

[10:21] Now I'm sure that in one way or another you and I will find ourselves embraced by some of the things that I mentioned here tonight. Take it a step further. Move into the spiritual realm and you'll find there are people who have a load of guilt.

[10:36] They carry a load of guilt around with them and you don't need to enter into the spiritual realm for this. There may be some people night in the streets of Stornoway. Some people in the back alleys of our streets and some homes who are just now cowering afraid that someone's going to find out about them.

[10:53] They've got a load of guilt upon their mind. You see the criminal. He does something he knows he shouldn't do and what's his immediate reaction? Get away from the scene and hide. Get away.

[11:05] And he moves away and he carries this Lord with him on his conscience. And there are some people, no doubt here tonight, who are burdened in their conscience because sin for some reason or another is beginning to trouble them.

[11:19] Sin is being exposed in their lives. and they find it difficult maybe to come to a church like this and they find that whenever they sit in a church and the service begins and the sermon begins, here's this nagging, here's this thing nagging away at their mind and at their conscience again.

[11:38] Sin never used to bother you, bothers you now. You're carrying this load and it's not getting any lighter. Other people feel the burden of the power of sin and the power of evil in their heart and in their conscience.

[11:57] Some people are burdened because they've got a specific temptation to deal with. Satan seems to find a key to open the door to trouble their mind.

[12:11] He knows how to deal with us, you know, and we're not ignorant of his devices. You know that Martin Luther said that all his life he was subject to this awful temptation from the devil that God didn't exist.

[12:30] At times it would take this form, at other times the devil would suggest to him that the Bible had spoke to him, but God wasn't through at all. That could be an awful burden to bear.

[12:42] You might be reading your Bible and all of a sudden a cloud of unbelief floods in on you. This isn't true. This is all nonsense. How do I know it's true? That's a burden and a care and a heavy load that some people have to shoulder.

[12:59] Other people are quite ignorant of God. They hear people talking about God. Look at the people. At this very day that Jesus addressed his invitation, there were some people around them. They didn't know God.

[13:09] They were quite ignorant of God. And here was God in their midst, inhumanity. And they didn't know. That can be a burden for people. You know there are people tonight who are absolutely perplexed about this whole thing that we call the Christian religion.

[13:25] They hear people talk about the way that they came across God and the way they discovered that God is. God blessed them and God spoke to them. They hear people talking like that. They have no clue what they're talking about.

[13:36] They understand the language. But they have no understanding of the experience. That can be an awful burden for people. How do they, and when people are burdened like that they begin to ask questions.

[13:48] They begin to probe. And they begin perhaps to cast probe. Maybe they're going to say that these things aren't true. You know I told a story once, Dave.

[13:59] You've heard already, it doesn't matter. I remember visiting a man in hospital, a man who was dying. And he knew he was dying and he was in great suffering, great physical pain.

[14:13] And I noticed that he had this Bible beside him. And he was reading it. I asked him if he was reading the Bible. Yes, he said. And I said, but do you believe what you're reading? Do you know what he said to me?

[14:24] This man wasn't a Christian, a very nice man, but he wasn't a Christian. Do you know what he said? Yes, he said, I'm reading the Bible. And as I read it, I wish that what it says were true.

[14:37] That's what he was saying. You see, he wasn't, he didn't know God. He didn't know Christ as a Savior. But this Bible was speaking about a Savior whom he didn't know. He didn't know how to find him. As a matter of fact, he wasn't really looking for him.

[14:49] And he wished that what the Bible was saying wasn't true. That was a testimony born to his heart. A heavy burden he was carrying to the very brink of eternity. Wishing that it wasn't true.

[15:02] You know, there are people like that tonight, up in Stonyway like that. They've got intellectual problems about the Christian faith. Great difficulties in trying to grasp the meaning and the significance of something which means so much to people who prefer to hear us babes.

[15:23] People don't have their intellectual powers or prowess. People don't have the ability to probe into the meaning of words and phrases and whatnot.

[15:35] And yet, they've got this experience of God and the others haven't. And without it, there's a fearful burden working down the human heart.

[15:47] And they try to get rid of the burden. The more they try, the heavier it becomes. The more they delve into their own intellectualism, the greater the difficulties. The greater the burden becomes, the more difficult it becomes to shoulder and bear.

[16:05] And then people try to work out their own salvation. And they go to tremendous lengths in doing this. And then it becomes a vain and a fruitless search for peace and fulfillment and happiness and meaning and contentment in life.

[16:25] There's always this pursuit after something which is eluding them and getting further and further away from them. And the further it gets, the more burden they become.

[16:39] And they become heavily laden. Now then, to all such, whatever the burden, there is no limitation on the kind of burden that you care to mention.

[16:55] And there is no limitation of the kind of passion that is mentioned to you shouldering the burden. Whatever the burden, and whoever you are who is carrying the burden, Jesus says, all ye who are burdened, heavy laden, come unto me.

[17:22] Now that leads us secondly to look briefly at this invitation itself. Come unto me, everyone.

[17:33] And isn't it wonderful to think that there is a person alive tonight who can address this invitation to everyone in the world, everyone, all. And even if everyone in this church tonight should come, everyone in every church in Stornoway and throughout Lewis and the whole of Scotland and throughout the British Isles, if everyone listening to the gospel invitation tonight were to respond and come, if all were to come, he wouldn't be overwhelmed.

[18:02] Because this is no ordinary person who addresses the invitation to see. Come, he says, unto me. Come. Now, I've dealt with this word really the past two Sunday nights.

[18:13] Just, in a word, just let me say this about it. You see, recognize this that this involves activity on your part and on mine.

[18:25] You have to come. You see, there are some people who think that, well, if I'm going to become a Christian, I better wait till the Lord becomes a Christian of me. No, my friend, you've got to come to him that he might make that of you.

[18:35] You've got to come to him. You see, you look through the account that you have in the New Testament of the ministry of Jesus Christ and he went about us, you know, doing good and healing people, death with people.

[18:47] He was in the midst of people. And if someone came to say, with a withered hand, if someone needed his hand to be restored, what did he do? Did he stay at home? No, he came to the Lord.

[18:57] Someone who was blind, needed a sight, what did he do? Wait till the Lord came to him. He went to him. all those who were hot and lame and weak and diseased and whatever form, whatever way, what did he do?

[19:11] They came to the Lord. Remember that classic example of the man at the pool of Petesta? This man who was a paralytic for nearly 40 years. And when the Lord said to him, stretch forth thine hand, he didn't respond by saying, oh Lord, I can't.

[19:29] You haven't given me the power to stretch forth my hand. That wasn't the way the man argued. He responded immediately in obedience and he stretched forth his hand, something he hadn't done in all these years.

[19:41] Same with you. As a non-Christian tonight, what you have to do, there's no way out of this. You've got to come to the Lord Jesus Christ.

[19:52] With your need, with your emptiness, with your burden, with whatever Lord you're carrying or shouldering, you've got to come. In your ignorance, in your darkness, in your unbelief, you've got to come.

[20:09] You don't have the religious experience you say that others have had. No, because you haven't come like they've come. It's as simple as that. So, you remember the classic words of Augustine, Lord, thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless, till they find the rest in thee.

[20:31] The point I want to make is this, that there is activity involved here in the very invitation, come unto me. some of us met recently a minister from Australia who was visiting here, and he commented on a word that is a very favorite word in religious circles in the islands, a word which we use in connection with conversion, and quite frankly, as he said himself, and I think one would have to agree with him, I don't know of any place where it is used apart from the islands here, it may be, but I haven't come across it anyway, the word is of course, following, you know the Gallic word Now, you just look at that word for a minute, if you take that as an example of someone who is committed to the Lord Jesus, a person say, for the sake of ignorance, converted, though some people are following would deny that they're converted, let's say just now that you take it as an example of people are converted, look at what's involved there, there's activity, they're following, following who?

[21:41] They're following the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is what the Lord here says, this is what the Bible says through and through from beginning to end, if you want relief, if you want help, if you want a saviour, for yourself as a sinner, you've got to come to him, you have to come to him, and someone is bound to say that's all right, but what do you mean by coming to him?

[22:09] Is it some physical activity on my part? Well, of course we know it's not. It is a spiritual activity, it is the activity of faith in the Lord Jesus, the activity of repentance for sin, turning away from sin and coming in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ.

[22:35] Come unto me. Come unto me. I don't know how I can put it any simpler than that. Remember the way the sim writer put it, I heard the voice of Jesus say, come unto me and live.

[22:53] And he went on and said that he came just as he was. There's no other way in which you can come. You see, the trouble some people said they're waiting until they're better. They're waiting until they feel something.

[23:03] They're waiting until they get something. They're waiting until they know something that they don't know already. They're waiting far and then when this thing happens, then they'll come. But do you not see?

[23:14] It's as you come or rather it is when you come that you're going to get all these things. So you have to come in faith to the Lord who can help you.

[23:29] And that leads me thirdly to consider what he offers here when you come. Come unto me and he says and I will give you rest. Now, I find this a bit difficult really to explain.

[23:42] Rest. Peace of mind. Solace. Contentment. Rest in recognizing that here at last is the path that we've been looking for.

[23:55] Rest in believing all that is said about this person. Rest in my mind and rest in my conscience.

[24:06] You know there are people tonight who are burdened because I'm sure of this. They know full well that the Lord is calling them to himself. And they're struggling desperately against this call that has come in their lives.

[24:21] They're wrestling with it. And the more they wrestle, the heavier the burden. And they know that they will never get relief, never get peace of mind and peace of conscience till they yield to the one who's speaking to them and who has been speaking to them for a long, long time.

[24:41] There's no rest till they come. rest in its very nature is the peace that comes through giving obedience to the command that you're asked, giving obedience to the command addressed to you.

[25:01] Your mind becomes peaceful, your thoughts and your will and your understanding receive rest. The rest of knowing, fellowship and friendship and favor and life.

[25:17] The rest that comes through committing yourself to the Lord. And if I may say this, the rest that comes through knowing what you are to believe.

[25:30] You know, my friend, that's a very important part of the rest that Jesus here offers. I find it repugnant to hear people speak and sing about, it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you have Jesus.

[25:50] You've never heard such a load of rubbish in all your life as that kind of statement. It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you have Jesus.

[26:03] Well, I want to ask that person one question. What Jesus does he have? Where did he find him? I only know of one Jesus.

[26:15] That's the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus who is presented in the world and it's vitally important to me what I believe. Because if I don't believe that Jesus doesn't matter what I believe.

[26:31] That then it doesn't matter what I believe. But if I am to come to receive the rest that he offers, I've got to make very sure that this is the one that I come to, the one that this Bible speaks of and the one who tells me to come to himself and I ask him, Lord, where are you?

[26:55] And that Lord tells me, I am in my word, you'll find me there. So you come to him for rest.

[27:06] But now, fourthly, and I don't want to hold this service too long because I find this building unbearably warm tonight.

[27:17] But I want to say this to you about the rest that he offers. That this invitation has a foundation, has a basis, which no other invitations addressed to you could possibly have.

[27:33] Now, here I want to discuss with you very briefly the context in which your text is set. Come unto me and I will give you rest.

[27:44] Now, I think it is perfectly valid for a person to ask this question. Who is this person who offers you this rest? who is he? And what right does he have?

[27:56] What ability does he have to give me this particular rest? Well, the context answers the question for us. This is the only one who truly and fully and perfectly knows the Father.

[28:11] Verse 27, No man knoweth the Father save the Son. Now, take that with you. Here's a person who knows God perfectly.

[28:25] Because I want to ask you a question. Do you know God tonight? Do you know God the Father in heaven?

[28:36] Now, I start off this service by saying there are some people who are burdened with this. they don't know God. Maybe you here, I know that there must be people here tonight who don't know God.

[28:51] Well, then, here's someone in the Bible who knows the Father. No man knoweth the Father save the Son. Now, what he says is there is no one in the world who has a perfect knowledge of God except the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

[29:08] And then he goes on to say something else. No man, he says in the same verse, knows the Son except the Father. Now, that's important because I want to ask you another question.

[29:23] Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ tonight? Now, there are some people who don't. And there are some people in this church who don't know the Lord Jesus Christ. But there is one person in the world, there is one person in the history of this world, who knows the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, perfectly, with a perfect knowledge, and that is God the Father.

[29:49] Now, take this at third step. Here you have now two passions, God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom we have to say this, that there are mysteries associated with fools, that none of us know anything about.

[30:09] There is a fullness and a majesty and a depth associated with these two passions that you and I are perfectly ignorant of.

[30:21] But, here are two people, two persons, who know one another perfectly. They're in a very close relationship to one another. They are both mysterious, they are both incomprehensible to everyone else, but they are known fully to one another.

[30:42] What does Jesus say? He says to you and to me, come unto me and you will get to know the Father. Come unto me and the Father will enable you to know me.

[31:00] You see, no one in this church tonight has an excuse for not knowing God the Father and not knowing God the Son. Because this Lord Jesus Christ, who was once in this world, knows the Father and knows him perfectly and is able to give you and me a perfect knowledge of this being.

[31:25] and this being himself, the Father in heaven is able to give you and me a perfect knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[31:36] So you see, it is he, he who was God himself and he who came into this world and now nature, this is the one who is able to give us the knowledge that we need and the rest in knowing God that comes through knowing him.

[32:01] So I know that there are objections that people can raise to this invitation. There are many people in Stornom tonight who don't believe in Jesus Christ.

[32:15] There are many people in Stornom who don't believe the claims that Jesus makes for himself. There are many people who don't know God and who don't know the Lord Jesus.

[32:29] And these people aren't ignorant. There are very many, as someone put it, learned, people who don't know God and don't know the Son. Clever people, intelligent people. I've no doubt that there are business men here tonight with great business acumen who have no knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[32:48] I've no doubt there are people here tonight who have far more knowledge than I have. Scientific field, history, law, electronics, engineering, other areas.

[33:06] Very gifted people, people with very high IQ, who have no knowledge of God or of the Lord. people with love.

[33:16] The question that has to be addressed to you, my friend, is this. What class of people do you belong to? Are you so learned? Are you so knowledgeable?

[33:28] Are you so clever that your knowledge that your knowledge of coming to know the Lord in your own life?

[33:41] Listen to the words of Jesus. At that time Jesus said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.

[33:59] You see what he said? There are some people in this world who are so wise, that they have turned away from the knowledge of God and the knowledge of the Lord.

[34:12] But there are other people in the world who are just like babes. Who know the Lord and who know the Lord Jesus Christ. Does this mean that, is this a class of people, this is a distinction?

[34:23] People who are very clever, people who are very dumb, people who have a high IQ, and people who have pretty low IQ, is that the distinction Jesus making?

[34:36] Oh no, that's not the distinction. This is the distinction. People who are so wise in their own conceit that they don't need God. But there are people who have become babes in this world.

[34:49] And what are the characteristics of a baby? A newborn babe, that's the word here. What's the characteristic of a newborn babe into the world?

[35:00] Well, I'll tell you, it's absolute dependence upon someone who can do something for him. That's the characteristic of a babe.

[35:10] if you leave a babe lying unattended, uncured for, unfed, the babe won't last long. He needs help, and he needs aid, and he needs food, and he needs it desperately.

[35:26] And this is what is true of all those who have come to know the Lord through faith in Jesus Christ. They have come as needy sinners to a Saviour, come in all their emptiness, in all their hopelessness, in all their inadequacy, in all their weakness, in all their feebleness, and have said to the Lord, Lord, I failed, I failed, and I failed miserably.

[35:53] I tried, but I couldn't make it. Lord, help me. That's the cry of the babe. Is that you? Is that you now?

[36:05] Or are you still enmeshed in this spirit of self-sufficiency that seems to govern your life? Are you really so clever?

[36:15] Are you really so wise, my friend, that you can do without the Lord? Is that the level of your advancement in this world? is that the extent to which all this knowledge that you've accumulated, is this where it has taken you to, and is this where it leads you to night?

[36:35] Because he puts a question to you. This person who bids you come to him that he may give you rest, he asks you this, are you wise with the wisdom of this world, or are you a babe who cannot know God unless God reveals himself to you?

[36:59] And these are the people who come for rest, the people know that they need God, the people who want God, and the people who know that God must give himself and show himself to them, and how do they find him?

[37:14] they come to him and they say to him, Lord, show me thyself, Lord, give me thyself, Lord, open my eyes, that I may see thee, and open my heart, my understanding, my will, my conscience, that I may have this rest that thou alone art able to give me.

[37:42] Now then, are you wise, or are you a babe, wise with the wisdom of the world that blinds you to the glory of God, or are you prepared as you sit in that pew at this very moment in your life, are you prepared even now to lay your armor down and to come in all the hopeless and helpless inadequacy of your heart and to say, Lord, I am a babe, give me the rest that I need.

[38:23] May I just in a word before closing deal with the final point here, the picture that we have of the person who has come for rest, and Jesus says to him, take my, here's a person now who has come to the Lord, and Jesus says to him, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

[38:52] Now, you will notice that there's another rest that is spoken of here, you will find rest unto your souls, you see, I think the picture we have here is this, a sinner who is at a distance from God and God tells him, come, come and I will give you rest, and he's come, and you turn over the page now and you see this person who has come and the Lord is sending him out into service, go he says and take my yoke on you, learn of me, and you will find rest unto your soul, you know, there's a rest that you discover through doing what the Lord tells you to do, a discovery that you make in a path of obedience to his revealed will, and notice how it is made, it is made as you take his yoke upon, you know, you know the picture, in the old days, this is not the way that they do it here, but in those days in the east, they plowed the field with two oxen yoke together, you know the piece of wood that was strung across their neck, kept them together in harness or harmony, and they moved together step by step, and as they moved together the work was easier, and this is the way it is presented to us always in the

[40:15] Bible, that the best way to live your life is to live it in the company of the Lord, and you walk step by step, don't lag behind, and don't run ahead, walk in harmony as you're yoked together, you know that there are Christians here tonight who will know what I'm going to say, you know my friend I wouldn't be surprised, well I know that there are times when you find it a pretty difficult life to live, you know that the best Christian duty can at times be real drudgery, can't it, why?

[40:54] Because you're not walking in harmony with the Lord, because you're not walking in step with the Lord Jesus Christ, but when you're in step with him, things are so much easier as he says, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light, but only as we walk in harmony with him.

[41:21] C.H. Spurgeon tells the story of the old man whom he knew, an old man who went, as many people in this church night used to go in their own young days, and days when they weren't so young, he went to the well for two pills of water every day.

[41:43] Some of you remember the burden connected with going to the well with the Kerk. Well, this man went to the well with two pills, and he had a yoke across his shoulder.

[41:57] You see pictures like that in other countries today, this way that people carry pills of water. Piece of wood across the shoulder blades, and a pill at each end of the wood, and their arms over the wood carrying it home from the well.

[42:13] Well, C.H. Spurgeon knew an old man who used to carry two pills of water like that every day. And over the years, the yoke had dug into his flesh across his shoulder.

[42:30] And the older he was getting, the more painful he was feeling the yoke. So what he did was he put, he wrapped a piece of flannel cloth round the yoke, and put it then on his shoulder, and that eased the burden and the pain, made it easier for him to carry the pills.

[42:50] And Spurgeon's application of the story, in typical Spurgeon fashion, was this, that when the Lord lays a burden on you, whatever burden he asks you to do, whatever service he calls you to do for him, you'll discover, he says, that the Lord will cover it with a flannel of his love.

[43:09] And when the love of Christ is uppermost in your heart, then you see, no service is too much to do for him then.

[43:21] And that's where you discover the rest and the peace that comes through believing, and the peace that comes through learning of him, because as you serve him in this life, you will learn of one who himself was a wonderful servant, the greatest servant this world has ever known, the person who was obedient to the will of the father, and you and I are asked to cultivate the mind and the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[43:50] And that's the picture that you have here. You come, and when you come, he will give you something to do for him, and he will place a burden upon your shoulder.

[44:01] You may say that you find that thought rather difficult to pay, rather difficult to accept and to think of, you're afraid of what he might ask you to do, but my friend, if he asks you to do a thing, he will be with you in the doing of it.

[44:14] He's there with you. You're yoked to him, and then that yoke of his is covered with his own love to you, and he will see to it that he will never ask you to shoulder a burden that is too heavy for you.

[44:31] He will fit one exactly just for you. He will give it to you and to no one else. And as every Christian will say to you, there is no service in the world like the service of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[44:47] Oh, my friend, my young friend, tonight in the service of sin and in the service of Satan, won't you come into this service? Why give your precious life to him, to the devil?

[45:02] Why? Why spend your day serving sin when there's a wonderful master here to serve the Lord Jesus?

[45:14] Why? Why be so foolish? Won't you come away from that service that burdens you so much tonight and listen once again to his address to you?

[45:27] Come unto me, he says, and I will give you rest. And then learn of me. Come into my school and work with me.

[45:39] And you will discover a peace and a rest the likes of which you've never known in all your life. Will you come to him?

[45:52] Let us pray. Oh, Lord, open our hearts, we pray in. fill us with a sense of thy love and thy power, and give us the grace by which we will be prepared to spend and be spent in thy service.

[46:20] undertake for us, part us tonight with thy blessing, and keep us in thy fear, looking unto thyself.

[46:31]  For Jesus' sake, Amen.