We took a short detour from our march through Matthew, and so now we return. My text for today comes from the eleventh chapter of that gospel. I touched on the text very briefly several weeks ago, but now I sense the Lord bringing me back to it for a closer look, beginning at verse 25:
“At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. 26 Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. 27 All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. 28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:25-30)
We ought not miss the point the Lord Jesus makes in verse 25: The Father has hidden the gospel – He has concealed the good news of Christ – from the wise and intelligent, and revealed them only to infants.
Now, of course, the Lord did not at all mean the gospel is hidden from the academically wise and intelligent. That would mean God does not give anyone the gift of intelligence or wisdom, which makes zero sense.
Did you know that in the last 100 years or so, Christians made up just under two–thirds of those receiving the Nobel prizes in physics and medicine (64% in physics, and 65% in medicine)? And nearly 74% of Nobel prizes in Chemistry were Christians (74%).
No, God does not hide the message of Christ from intelligent men and women. But He often DOES hide himself and His good news of Christ from the proud. The arrogant. From those who THINK themselves so wise and intelligent that they do not need – what many would call it – a ‘fairy tale’ god.
You might know the name, Stephen Hawking. The now-deceased world-renowned Cambridge scientist mocked the idea of God and of heaven as a “fairy tale for people afraid of the dark.”
I have known – and currently know – people just like him. They think they’re too smart to believe in the One whose presence and whose handiwork is proclaimed by the skies and earth and nature itself.
After decades of observation, I think especially those who study things such as human anatomy and physiology, those who study chemistry and astronomy and all the rest of the so-called ‘hard sciences’ – I think that those who study such things, seeing the stunning intricacy of all of God's creation and STILL reject a Creator behind it all – I think they are on the disastrous way of becoming supernaturally blinded to truth. It is as if God says to them, “Since you don’t WANT to see my creative hand anywhere, I will not let you see My creative hand in anything.’
Remember, it was Jesus Himself who said to the wise and intelligent religious leaders of His day: “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” (John 9:39)
And so, the less we choose to see, the less God supernaturally lets us see. It is a fearful thing to mess with an omnipotent God.
Hawking – and millions like him – choose to reject this foreboding text of Scripture: "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” (John 3:19-21)
Hawking believed God is a fairy tale for those who are afraid of the dark. I think John Lennox of Oxford University is far more accurate: “Atheism is a fairy tale for people afraid of the light."
So, no: God does not hide Himself from men and women of intelligence. He ALWAYS reveals Himself to those humble enough to recognize: “The fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.” (Job 28:28); And that “God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6); And Jesus was telling us the truth when He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Let’s make some quick application before we move on: Who do you believe about God and things of eternal value? Do you believe the godless scientist, or philosopher, or pastor, or teacher? Or do you believe what God tells us in and through the pages of His wholly inerrant, infallible, and fully inspired word? Our eternal destiny may quite substantially be determined by our answer.
So, moving on through our text, the Lord continues in verse 27: All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”
That’s a pretty straightforward declaration, isn’t it? Anyone who says he or she knows God the Father is demonstrably wrong if they do not also know the Son as described in Scripture and taught by the Church for two thousand years.
The orthodox Jew, the Muslim, the Jehovah’s Witness, the LDS Mormon, and every other religious man or woman who says they know the Father does NOT, in reality, know the Father if they do not know Jesus as Almighty God incarnate in the flesh of the Man known to the world as Jesus the Christ.
You and I really have to get this. There is so much satanic-designed confusion out there – even in many CHURCHES – about the Person of the Lord Jesus and the Person of the Holy Spirit. And if we are not alert to the subtle heresies floating around our culture, we may find ourselves sucked into them. That is why you and I MUST, MUST focus our faith only on what God tells us about Himself through His holy word and as the Church has taught about Christ since the days of the apostles. Remember, Jesus told His disciples, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30). Remember, He told Phillip, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father. (John 14:9)
Christian! St Paul warned the Christians in the Colossian church the same warning he would tell us today: “Beware that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him [meaning, in Christ Jesus] all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form. (Colossians 2:8-9)
So again, and to repeat, no one can know God – the eternal Three-in-One – unless we know Him through His only begotten Son, Jesus our Messiah.
Now let’s move on through today’s text: 28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
We can ask ourselves three questions about these three verses. First, to whom is Jesus’ invitation. Next, HOW do we come to Him? And finally, WHY should we come to Him? We will look at that last question next week.
First, to whom is the invitation? Well, He tells us pretty clearly: Everyone who is weary, tired, ready to give up, wanting some relief from the cares and the burdens of this life. Everyone who has lived as long as we have lived certainly knows what it is like to be weary and burdened. We’ve all ‘been-there-done that’ over the years. Perhaps some of you are now LIVING through the wearying and burdensome days.
It is to you and to me that Jesus offers the invitation. It’s not that He doesn’t offer the same invitation to those who skip through life without a proverbial care in the world – but usually those kinds of people see no need for a Savior, a Comforter, a Rescuer. As Jesus said on one occasion, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:32) He also said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.” (Matthew 9:12)
Are you tired? Bearing a heavy burden? Do you want relief? His invitation is to YOU to take on His yoke. BUT be aware of that point – He tells us His yoke is easy, but it is STILL a yoke. We cannot truly come to Him, to be tethered to Him, if we still want to go our own way, do life “my way.” When we yoke ourselves to Him it means we determine to follow where He goes and stay as long as He stays. Here is what He tells us through Luke’s gospel: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23)
If we are unwilling to DAILY follow Him, to alter our lifestyles to match up with His commandments, they we are not really willing to take and to keep His yoke. May we all remember—there is a cost to follow Christ. That’s why He tells us to count the cost.
Listen – for good reason the Lord Jesus warns us to ‘count the cost’ of devoting our lives to God. Faithfully following Him is often fraught with difficulties and trials and ridicule and persecutions – even from those closest to us. That’s why the Lord told us: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” Luke 14:26-27
So that is very briefly the answer to the question, “To whom is the invitation?” Now let’s move to the second question, “HOW do we come?”
First, if we are to accept His invitation to come to Him – we have to first REALLY WANT to come to Him. Half-baked measures will not suffice when hard times come. Remember that. We don’t have time to look at the Parable of the Sower now. You can read it for yourself in the fourth chapter of Mark’s gospel, and in other places. But if we’re content with how our so-called Christian life is flowing along, then we probably won’t truly commit ourselves to His Lordship and Kingship – and beware, because when trials come, we might easily fall away.
And then, or course, there are those won’t accept His invitation to come because they are angry at God, or at the very least, sorely disappointed in Him because of some tragic event in their life. I know people like that. And many of you probably do, too.
So, having decided we REALLY WANT to come to Him, what next? Ask Him to receive you, and by faith in His unalterable promise, believe that He receives you. But – and this is important – we come to Him JUST AS WE ARE NOW. With all the moral filth of our lives – past and present. All our sins and failures.
Messiah Jesus does not want us to clean ourselves up before we come to Him. He knows we can NEVER clean ourselves up sufficient to His demands. If we could, we wouldn’t have needed Him to die in our place as our substitute.
Besides, sin is so pervasive within the warp and woof of our minds that even if we could get clean enough for Him, we’d pride ourselves in doing so – and thereby sin against Him through our pride. Surely, as Jeremiah wrote: “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
Now, I know I am speaking today to the proverbial choir. I think I correctly assume that everyone here is a faithful follower of Christ, and that you not only agree with everything I am saying about salvation, but you have already done what God tells us we must to come to Christ. However, I am obligated to both God AND to you to remind you – and myself – of these critical points along the path of salvation. As St Peter told his readers:
“Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you . . . And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you will be able to call these things to mind.” (2 Peter 1:12, 15)
In other words, “We must hear the gospel every day because we forget the gospel every day.”
So, we come to Jesus because we WANT to come. And we don’t try to clean ourselves up before we come. Then what? We must confess our sins to God – all of them, what we think are the big ones and the small ones. Even the ones we consider long past but never confessed.
Repentance must, must, must follow confession. Now, I am running out of time, so I must of necessity hurry this message along, but I will return to some of these points in more detail next week.
Repentance means you not only agree with God's word that you have sinned, but you agree with Him that you will NOT – to the best of your human ability – you will not do it again. (Now, of course, if you DO fail in your promise, what then? We confess it and repent again).
How many times will God forgive the truly penitent? A half-dozen times? Twenty? Everyone knowledgeable of Scripture knows the answer to that. God will forgive the truly penitent EVERY time we confess and repent. This point needs to be expanded next week.
And finally, for today, after coming to Him, after confession and repentance, what is next? We should be baptized. I do not understand the reluctance of some Christians to be baptized in public. Acts 2:38 is only one of scores of texts relevant to the necessity for baptism. St Peter, speaking to those who asked him what they had to do to be saved, he responded: “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38)
You will not find ONE example in Acts or any of the New Testament letters where baptism did not follow a conversion to Christ. Not one. So why does anyone today who seeks salvation refuse baptism? I hope it is not because of public embarrassment. If so, please be advised of this warning of the Lord Jesus: “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” (Luke 9:26)
Desire to come to Christ. Don’t try to clean yourself up before coming to Christ. Confess your sins to Him. Repent of those sins. And be baptized.
We will pick up on this theme next time, looking more closely at some of these points surrounding the Lord’s invitation to come to Him – all who are weary and heavily burdened.
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