MATTHEW 11
MATITYAHUW 11
1 And it came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities.
2 Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples,
3 And said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?
It cannot be that John actually doubted that Jesus was the Messiah. This, he himself, on the direct evidence and testimony of God, had established. But he was perplexed. He sought assurance and reaffirmation.
It was a supreme test and trial for John to be confined to a dungeon while Jesus, whom he had announced as the Son of God and the long-promised Messiah, went about the country teaching, with no message for John, no hint of recognition of his plight, no explanation, no indication of what John could expect.
We are so strikingly reminded of Elijah himself when, after his so courageous stand on Mount Carmel, he fled in disappointment and despair before Jezebel.
John did not lose faith, but he seemed to lose heart and hope. The weak human flesh was spiritually exhausted by the long intensity of the struggle. John was mortal. He needed to be strengthened and comforted, and reminded of the glorious and unchanging realities.
In this perplexed appeal of John from the dark dungeon to the one whom he had joyfully and courageously hailed as the long-awaited Messiah, we feel a closer fellow-feeling with John than in any other part of his life. He was truly one of us, though he looms so great in the purpose. He struggled against the same mortal frailty, and out of weakness was made strong. Like Job, he could not understand and he agonized for an explanation of a seeming contradiction.
Jesus did not give him any explanation. He did not even answer his question. John must, like Job, endure his unexplained testing in faith unto the end.
4 Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see:
àIt cannot be that John actually doubted that Jesus was the Messiah. This, he himself, on the direct evidence and testimony of God, had established. But he was perplexed. He sought assurance and reaffirmation.
It was a supreme test and trial for John to be confined to a dungeon while Jesus, whom he had announced as the Son of God and the long-promised Messiah, went about the country teaching, with no message for John, no hint of recognition of his plight, no explanation, no indication of what John could expect.
We are so strikingly reminded of Elijah himself when, after his so courageous stand on Mount Carmel, he fled in disappointment and despair before Jezebel.
John did not lose faith, but he seemed to lose heart and hope. The weak human flesh was spiritually exhausted by the long intensity of the struggle. John was mortal. He needed to be strengthened and comforted, and reminded of the glorious and unchanging realities.
In this perplexed appeal of John from the dark dungeon to the one whom he had joyfully and courageously hailed as the long-awaited Messiah, we feel a closer fellow-feeling with John than in any other part of his life. He was truly one of us, though he looms so great in the purpose. He struggled against the same mortal frailty, and out of weakness was made strong. Like Job, he could not understand and he agonized for an explanation of a seeming contradiction.
Jesus did not give him any explanation. He did not even answer his question. John must, like Job, endure his unexplained testing in faith unto the end.
...The wisdom of Christ's reply lay in the fact that John's real need was not an explanation, but the realization that true blessedness consists in a faith that will joyfully and thankfully hold fast through anything, without explanation.
Bro Growcott - He Must Increase: I Must Decrease
5 The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
6 And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.
7 And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?
8 But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses.
9 But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.
10 For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
11 Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
àAre our lives consistent with this tremendous conception? Or are we just a few more natural creatures thinly veneered over with a little religious sentiment?
Do we conduct our lives in harmony with what we profess to be -- THE HIGHEST ARISTOCRACY OF THE UNIVERSE -- the divine, eternal aristocracy of righteousness -- infinitely higher than all the kings and presidents of this poor little passing world of wickedness?
We say, quoting Scripture:
"The whole world lieth in wickedness" (1 John 5:19).
-- and truly it does. Whatever is natural, whatever is human, whatever is not intelligent and purposeful godliness is wickedness.
But how different are WE? Just believing a few first principles of Bible truth and calling ourselves Christadelphians does not automatically make us saints. It could much more easily make us hypocrites.
Bro Growcott - BYT 1.3
12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.<sought with great zeal, and the ardent take it by force>
Beware of Whited Sepulchres
"Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye key up the kingdom of the heavens against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye those that are entering to go in."
àThese men resisted the preaching of Jesus, whom the common people heard gladly, as he went about teaching in the synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. But the scribes and Pharisees, who were the ecclesiastical rulers, withstood him at all hands, waylaid him, perverted the people with their vain traditions, and in every other way did their utmost endeavors to prevent the people from receiving the Gospel of the Kingdom.
So that it was like storming a city for any one to obtain an entrance; the opposition and the strife were so great, that it is written, "From the days of John until now the kingdom of the heavens is sought with great zeal, and the ardent take it by force"—Matt. 11:12. To this obstinate resistance, and effectual also, which the men of name, and influence, and reputed piety, offered to the preachers, and to the preaching of the kingdom, our Lord refers in the words quoted.
Now, how perfectly parallel is this with the conduct of the scribes and Pharisees of our own times. The ecclesiastics, however divided among themselves they may be, are well agreed in this, to oppose with all their might us who preach the gospel of the kingdom; and for themselves they utterly throw the subject away from them as an abominable thing; and the people who hear it gladly, they resist and repudiate, and with all their might, hinder from believing.
In the absence of right knowledge on the subject, and of sound argument, they much misrepresent, falsify, and by all modes of injustice seek to depreciate us with the people. Let the people take heed lest they prevail. To a great extent they are prevailing, and as those Pharisees brought Jerusalem low by hindering her from knowing the day of her visitation, so the clergy will prostrate the people by preventing them from knowing the day of their visitation.
We apprehend they will be effectually deceived by such hypocrisy; for hypocrisy it is for any man to take upon himself to judge and condemn that whereof he is ignorant. Now observe how these same men are shown to be hypocrites, in that very thing upon which they pride themselves. They pride themselves upon what they call their spiritual mindedness; and they accuse us of preaching an outward and temporal kingdom merely.
Now God, to prove how false they are in their pretensions to spiritual-mindedness, has raised up men who preach fully and freely unto every sinner, justification by faith, and the consolations of the divine testimony, and straightway they have flamed against these men as violently as against us: so that the assurance of faith, the peace and joy in believing, are as much the objects of their impertinent and ignorant attacks as are the coming and Kingdom of the Lord. Beware of such calumniators of the truth. This is the day of your visitation; take heed unto it lest it be hid from your eyes.
This opposition to the Kingdom of God, and to the preaching of it, prevails so much in men, otherwise pious and honorable, because they love the honour which comes from men, and not the honour which comes from God only. They love the uppermost places in the feast: and the most honorable seats in the synagogues. They are wedded to some "names," or "denominations" and cannot bear to hear of the abolition of these things.
They would have the house patched up, but this cannot be; for it is a ruin, and ready to fall. They would rather not endure the scoffings and violent oppositions directed against this subject. But we would have men to stand up stoutly to it, like men storming a walled city, and take it by force, through the opposition of fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, at the risk or loss of life also.
Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Mar 1861
The Kingdom of God Suffering Violence
"In what did the kingdom of keaven suffer violence in the days of Jesus, and the violent take it by force?" See Matt. 11:12.
Answer.—The sense is shown by the parallel passage in Luke 16:16:
"Since that time (John's time), the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it."
The kingdom was not preached before the days of John. The law and the prophets were in full force before then: Israelites were commanded to be in subjection to the commandments, but were not invited to become heirs of the kingdom. When, however, the fulness of time came, Jesus made his appearance in Galilee, saying,
"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:14),
that is, the kingdom of God had come nigh to them in him for their inheritance, as shown by the words he commanded the disciples to use towards hostile places:
"Even the very dust of your city which cleaveth on us we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding, be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you."—(Luke 10:11.)
The immediate effect of this preaching of the kingdom of God was, that "great multitudes followed after him," for the sake of the temporal advantage it offered.—(Jno. 6:26). Every man pressed into the kingdom. They believed Jesus to be the Messiah, and wanted to take him by force and make him King."—(John 6:15.)
Jesus withdrew himself from this forcible working of the matter, knowing the time had not yet come to employ force in the establishment of the kingdom, but that the Son of Man had to be put to death. He, moreover, told them that "not every one that said Lord, Lord, would enter the kingdom, but he that did the will of the Father." The violent pressed around him with carnal objects. He discouraged their zeal. We read that
"Great multitudes went with him, and he turned and said unto them, If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple . . . .
Which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first and counteth the cost? . . . So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:25–33.) Thus he repressed the eager and violent crowds who thought to take the kingdom of God by their urgent cooperation as natural men.
The Christadelphian, June 1874
Preeminently the pharisees perpetrated violence against the Kingdom of the Deity.
13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.
14 And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.
àJesus did not mean by this that John the Baptist was a substitute for the real Elijah, and that the real Elijah would consequently not come. He fenced off this interpretation by saying,
"Elias truly shall first come and restore all things" (Matt. xvii. II).
He meant to say that the promise of Elijah had received an incipient fulfilment in John, which appears a perfectly natural intimation in view of what Gabriel said to his father, Zacharias, at the announcement of his birth:
"He (John) shall go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elias" (Luke i. 17).
Elias was the promised forerunner of the Messiah when he should appear to Israel in power; and here was one to act the Elias part at his coming in weakness to suffer. It was appropriate; it was beautiful. It gave John the highest position it was possible to assign him in the estimation of a Jewish congregation. It was Christ's decisive contribution to a controversy that had engaged the minds of many since John
Nazareth Revisited Ch 5
àElijah truly comes at the end, before the great day of Christ's manifestation to Israel, but there had to be an Elijah for the first coming, for the first coming was a real and true offering to the Jews of the Messiah and the kingdom.
God knew that Israel would reject Christ, and that this would not be the day of his glory to which the coming of the literal Elijah was related. It was so foreseen and foretold, and in the wisdom of God the working out of the plan of redemption depended on Christ's rejection.
But, still in the offering of Jesus to them, the promise of the forerunner must be fulfilled, to carry out God's part and to remove any justification of their rejection --
"This (John) is Elias, IF YE WILL RECEIVE IT" (Matt. 11:14).
If they had accepted Christ, John would have been the complete fulfilment of the Elijah prophecy, but God knew it was not to be.
John was sent to prepare the nation -- to raise the national expectancy -- to focus attention on the manifestation of Christ.
This was the principal purpose of his baptism. It was a transitional, introductory appointment, to lead to Christ, to prepare for Christ, and to provide the avenue by which Christ should be manifested.
It was a typical, national purification, because for three years God was going to manifest Himself intimately among them in His only begotten Son.
Bro Growcott - He Must Increase: I Must Decrease
15 He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
àLet us not ask for evidence of the truth if we have made up our minds not to receive it. "I can't see it" is, alas, too often the outcome of "I don't want to see it." It was this perversity that moved Christ to sometimes exclaim "O ye hypocrites." True, some cannot see, though the evidence be ever so glaring. This is the effect of the long, insidious, and powerful working of sin.
There is a consolation in the matter—God is just, and He will not subject helpless brute beasts to the terrors of the resurrection condemnation. But let all doubters and denyers question themselves. Let them take themselves into some quiet nook and examine and cross-examine their hearts and minds. Again, let us not pose as truth seekers—as searchers after evidence—if we are wilfully shutting our eyes to all directions from which evidence can come, except the one which is congenial to our taste.
To trifle with truth, and the Author of it, in this way is a serious thing. Truth seekers must not go to Timbuctoo for evidence, when they know that the counsel of God lies elsewhere. Neither must they stipulate for smooth things, if they wish to hear the voice of God. Pet ideas must be slaughtered if God require it!
Bible truth has been given, not to confirm us in our natural ways and thoughts, but contrariwise, to correct and reform them. Willingness to submit to this operation is the principal secret in reaching the truth.
Bro AT Jannaway
TC 02/1899
16 But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,
17 And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.
à...he introduced himself to public notice at the age of 27,
"he had his raiment of camel's hair and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey."
The report was raised that he was demonaically possessed. This report was partly grounded on his eccentricity of habit, for "John came neither eating nor drinking"; and partly on the vehement dogmatism of his preaching, which was untinged with deference to the influential classes, and fired with a directness and intensity of denunciation against wickedness, that identified him with the prophets of whom Jesus said he was the greatest.
These two peculiarities probably explain the attention of which he immediately became the object. He "did no miracle" (Jno. x. 41); yet there
"went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan."
Had his preaching consisted of the incoherent rhodomontade of fanaticism, ancient or modern, this attention would soon have subsided. But instead of subsiding, it went on increasing for over three years, until the leaders of the people were themselves drawn by the popular current to listen to him, and even Herod, the king of the country, felt constrained to defer to his words (Mark vi. 20).
Nazareth Revisited Ch 4
19 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.
àIf the action of the Son of God could be thus misrepresented, what can his friends expect, who can never attain his perfection?
Nazareth Revisited Ch 20.
20 Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not:
21 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.
22 But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.
23 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.
24 But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.
25 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.
àFrom this it would seem that the inhabitants of these places were what in our day would be considered "knowing ones" -- people considered and considering each other the intelligence and respectability of their several neighbourhoods: "the wise and prudent," the discerning and the not rash, not fanatical -- the proper and not impulsive -- not carried away with the enthusiasm of simpletons and babies.
Jesus, taking them at their own estimate, thanks God that the things which he had in hand were "hid from" them, and revealed to a class whom they despised as mere "babes."
Did Jesus disparage capacity, then? and glorify incompetence and shallowness and ignorance and craze? Far from it. He is himself to be taken as the perfect type of the class he means by "babes." Let us look at him, and we see them.
Was he dull? Was he shallow? Was he ignorant? On the contrary, who so
"sharp as a two-edged sword, piercing asunder to the dividing of soul and spirit?"
Who so quick witted and profound? Who so ample in his knowledge of all things -- great and small -- and yet so adroit and subtle in question and answer that his enemies were at last afraid to ask him any more questions?
In what, then, did he show himself one of the babes as distinguished from the wise and prudent? This point deserves and demands clear, strong, and decisive apprehension -- the failure in which is the failure to discern Christ and his little ones of all ages.
The difference between him and his clever enemies lay in the object to which his unparalelled intellectual powers were directed. What did he love? At what did he labour? To what taste, or theme, or aim did he consecrate his life? Was there ever his like for deep and constant fervour towards God? Was there ever his like for burning zeal on behalf of what God required? Was there ever his like for detestation and condemnation of what God disapproved?
Look at his enemies of that age and this, and see the difference between them and him. Clever they may be, but clever to what end? Not to promote divine ends, but human ends always and only.
"I know you," said Christ, "that ye have not the love of God in you."
This is their character in all generations -- "wise and prudent" in human expediencies, but not in those ends and aims that constitute true wisdom and true prudence -- wise to serve themselves, but not to serve God; prudent to avoid temporal dangers, but not those connected with the purpose of God; sagacious and diligent in all things likely to bring human honour and human gain, but as absolutely insensible to the will and the honour and the purpose of God as if God had no existence.
Nazareth Revisited Ch 24
Little Children
àChrist's life mission was to provide a way of life and to teach men to walk in it. In this chapter we find the Great Teacher propounding a fundamental lesson with a graphic, unforgettable illustration. He came to teach Truth to a world which had, in the unbounded confidence of its ignorance, developed for itself an intricate and highly plausible system of philosophic self-deception.
This system, even in Christ's day, was already venerable with age. In fact, we find it in full bloom ten centuries earlier at the time that David lived and wrote, as his 49th Psalm clearly shows. Its keynote is found in v. 18 of that Psalm, "Men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself."
This has been man's watchword from the childhood of the race. If a man spends his time benefiting himself, building up wealth and power and prestige, he will be honored and flattered and fawned upon. The same banner of glorious selfishness still waves in unchallenged supremacy today.
So ingrained by centuries of repetition and habit is this principle of predominant self-consideration that it is often unquestioningly taken for granted as a basis of interpreting Christ's teaching, even among the brotherhood.
Bro Growcott - As Little Children
The wise and prudent
We are impressed—and appalled—by the prodigious mental capacities and ingenuities of the men of the world who have so painstakingly developed such diabolical instruments of misery and desolation as rockets and jets and guided missiles and laser beams and hydrogen bombs. But the humblest saint in Christ has infinitely more true wisdom and knowledge than the wisest of the world, for—
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom [nothing is wisdom short of that], and knowledge of the Holy is understanding… This is Life Eternal, to know Thee the Only True God" (Prov. 9:20; Jn. 17:3).
All the rest is just perishing, animal, foolish cleverness—but these have found the power to become Sons of God! How pitifully insignificant is the puny power of the hydrogen bomb compared to that. An immortalized saint could effortlessly extinguish man's biggest bomb.
Bro Growcott - BYT 3.29
26 Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.
27 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.
àMen knew Jesus, but not as the Father knew him. Men understood him not, and this is the evident sense in which the word "know" is here used. Looking on him, men saw him but a man as other men -- graver, perhaps, and more thoughtful looking, and more interesting on account of what he did and said, but still merely an individual man -- a member of the genus homo -- a remarkable variety of the species.
They did not know as they looked upon his form that they looked upon more than man.
Even the disciples, while calling him "Lord and Master," looked up to him as to a trusted leader, rather than with the fulness of understanding to which they attained when the Holy Spirit
"took of the things that were Christ's and showed them unto them" (Jno. xvi. 13-15).
The Father only, at that time, looking down on the teeming multitudes of Israel, could discriminate the man Christ Jesus from the rest in his true nature and character: --
" My beloved son in whom I am well pleased; who could say, "I and my Father are one:" "The Father dwelleth in me." "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."
The facts afterwards made known so fully in the writings placed in the hands of believers and transmitted to our day -- that Jesus was begotten of the Holy Spirit, and guided and developed by it from his infancy upwards, and finally anointed with it effulgently at his baptism, constituting him the manifestation of God in the flesh -- were not generally understood or known among the multitudes while Christ walked among them. In this sense, he was not known among the people, though he walked among them.
Nazareth Revisited Ch 24
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Come unto me
Some have concluded from this that such would therefore come to him by a law of spiritual gravitation, -- without means, and without necessity, and without distress. But Christ's words under consideration are the disproof of this. He gives the invitation, and he addresses himself to those who are "heavy laden."
If, therefore, the invitation come under a man's attention, he may consider himself within the scope of the process by which God gives men to Christ, though he never felt himself disposed in such a direction before;and he need not be deterred, but rather encouraged, by the fact that instead of finding himself in the mood of a spontaneous gravitation to Christ, he labours troublously and is heavily laden in the burden of his spirit.
To such, the invitation has been given, with the assurance that the yoke to be assumed is a light one, and that in the Master imposing it, we shall find one, not austere, exacting, and harsh, but one who is meek and lowly of heart, in whose service and society, we shall find perfect rest and joy at last.
Nazareth Revisited Ch 24
àOur minds have no faculty to work on the infinite. We are adapted to the personal and the single. We can worship truth incorporate and individualised. Every power of the mind is thus drawn out: every spring of the heart opened. Christ meets all our need. He is the standard of our duty, the magnet of our loyalty; the absorbent of our love, the theme of our intellectual appreciations, the stimulator of our sublimest sentiments, and the adequate object of our most fervent adoration....
"in Him are filled up all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."
In this is the perfect beauty of the gospel as contrasted with the wisdom of the world in its most pretentious forms—that in Christ, we have a man who is "the truth." Astronomic truth has no personal applications. It is beautiful, but it is high and cold, like the glitter of the stars on a frosty night. It speaks no hope and yields no guidance. We are glad to retire from the fatiguing futility of trying to grasp it, and to take refuge in our small mortal ways.
So with all other forms of scientific truth. They know us not and comfort us not as persons; and mock us with their sterile beauty and consistency, telling us that low and mortal we are, and must remain, and that the grave is the inexorable corollary of life.
...In Christ is peace. He combines all that the heart can desire or the intellect aspire to. He is a friend and a head, and at the same time, the incorporation of the eternal and the universal. Sublime and glorious combination! He gives bosom to the aching heart and pillow to the tired head.
...rest now, from the burden of human futility,—rest supernal in the issue to which he is leading human life on earth.
Sunday Morning 166 - TC 04/1866
I will give you rest
àThe idea of rest is agreeable to the weary, and we are all weary. We need not dwell on the physical weariness inseparable from"this corruptible." All men agree on the need for "Nature's sweet restorer" - that mysterious and healing suspension of consciousness that takes place, or ought to take place, when we lay our heads on the pillow. All are agreed as to the advantage of recurring seasons of holiday rest. But there is a weariness of which the world in general is not so directly conscious, and of which the rest that Christ speaks is the remedy.
God said to Israel, in reference to their efforts to keep up style to please the neighboring nations,
"Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way."
So it may be said to the world in general, that it is weary in the emptiness of its way. It knows nothing of the sweet restfulness that belongs to Christ. Rest naturally belongs to his ways. –Learn of me," says he, "for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls."
There is a "rest that remaineth for the people of God" - a rest that will, as Isaiah says of Christ's rest, –be glorious in that day," but this is not the rest of which Christ here speaks. He is speaking of a present rest, which he otherwise speaks of as "my peace" - a peace, he says, which the world cannot give, a peace which Paul speaks of as
"the peace of God that passeth all understanding, filling the heart and mind." "Let the peace of God dwell in your hearts, and be ye thankful."
"Learn of me, I am meek and lowly of heart."
This belongs to rest and peace. The violent and the arrogant do not and cannot know peace. It is not in the nature of things for the service of the lower faculties to bring rest and peace, but rather the reverse - unrest, unhappiness and fear. A contemplation of our own mental constitution will show us this (and we must remember that we are of divine workmanship ã notwithstanding the abortive state in which we live).
All the faculties to which Christ appeals are of a restful action. The worship of God; what peace there is in this. The love and service of neighbour; what sweetness is like it. It is well said that
"the merciful man doeth good to his own soul; but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh."
Then take the action of faith and hope; no faculties are more calming and soothing to the mental man. So with conscientiousness or the sense of duty to which the law of Christ is one prolonged appeal. There is no satisfaction so pure and lasting as that which comes from the habit of doing things because they ought to be done - because they are right to be done and because we ought to do that which is right - quite apart from any other considerations.
So also with the cultivation of the understanding - the pursuit of knowledge - the love of wisdom - there is no peace like the peace that comes with these. To all these Christ invites us in asking us to learn of him, and under the power of all these we are brought when we surrender to the full obedience of his law, with the result that we "find rest."
In the world there is no rest. Ambition distends the mind with more gas; emulation is a feverish competition that leaves no joy behind; avarice is an appetite never satisfied. The life of the world as a picture may be bright, many- hued, and gaudy, but it is all a vain show that cheats and wounds the heart of every one that follows it. In Christ there is perfect peace, even in the midst of the tribulation that is inseparable from the life of faith.
Seasons 2.92
29 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.
Rest unto your lives
àNo man can give his brother rest. All are alike distressed and powerless -- burdened with sin, oppressed with weakness, devoid of the least ability to change the hapless state of man, or avert the inevitable issues of vanity. But here is one who says "Come unto me: I will give you rest."
And his words are not mere words: that is, our confidence in them does not rest on the words alone, though the words alone greatly inspire confidence. They come from the mouth of one who wrought miracles, and as he said,
"though ye believe not me, believe the works."
They come from the mouth of one who rose from the dead, and therefore they are words sealed, ratified and confirmed as no words have been that ever came out of human month before. They are the illustration of God's meaning when he said to Moses concerning him:
"I will put my words in his mouth."
They are therefore words that we can trust absolutely, and to which we can commit our lives without the least reservation.
Nazareth Revisited Ch 24
àRest unto your souls.
God said to Israel, in reference to their efforts to keep up style to please the neighbouring nations,
"Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way."
So it may be said to the world in general, that it is weary in the emptiness of its way. It knows nothing of the sweet restfulness that belongs to Christ. Rest naturally belongs to his ways. "Learn of me," says he, "for I am meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."
There is a "rest that remaineth for the people of God"—a rest that will, as Isaiah says of Christ's rest, "be glorious in that day"; but this is not the rest of which Christ here speaks. He is speaking of a present rest, which he otherwise speaks of as "my peace"—a peace, he says, which the world cannot give: a peace which Paul speaks of as "the peace of God that passeth all understanding, filling the heart and mind."
"Let the peace of God dwell in your hearts, and be ye thankful."
TC Aug 1894. p296-297
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
à"Easy" here is "gentle." His yoke was gentleness-a loving, but all-powerful yoke.
Paul, who had full authority to condemn, appealed in love to the proud and self-satisfied Corinthians-
"I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:1).
And God said through Hosea, of backsliding Israel-"I drew them with bands of love" (Ho. 11:4).
Bro Growcott - BYT 2. 27
àWith all its drawbacks, a life of faith is a happier life than that of the unrefleeting hunters of pleasure.
...The faith of our Lord Jesus Christ appeals to our whole nature, and touches the highest chords in the mental man.
...the loving and obedient remembrance of the Lord Jesus kindles the whole and the highest powers of our elohistic-imaged nature. There is a place for God and for Christ in our natural constitution. The highest organs of the brain crave them, and run to waste without them.
This place is empty in all worldly schemes and activities: hence the vanity, the vacuity, the unsatisfactoriness of every occupation men pursue in the present evil world. There can be no peace where God is not. The constitution of things cannot allow of it. You might as well look for life without oxygen. The constitution of things is on the side of the faith of Christ. The finger of God is visible in our present organization.
The way of folly is a way of misery and destruction, even now; the way of reverence, of love, of faith, of obedience, of hope, is the way of peace and joy, even in the present mortal nature. This is why the meetings for the remembrance of Christ are sweeter than any other meetings are, or can be.
No such sweetness can be found in the way of human wisdom. Blight, barrenness, and darkness only are experienced in any way that excludes God, our refuge, and Christ our everlasting hope.
Seasons 1.103.