I propose to remark especially on the first clause of each of these
verses--"Take my yoke upon you--for my yoke is easy."
I. In enquiring upon this subject the first question is, What is
intended by this yoke? The yoke of Christ is his revealed will, his
authority. The word here rendered yoke literally means a band, or
something that binds.
II. What is it to take the yoke of Christ?
1. To take the yoke of Christ is to accept his will as our
universal rule of action.
2. To take Christ's yoke is to enter into a voluntary state of
entire subjection to him.
3. To take Christ's yoke is to commit ourselves to a state of
voluntary, loving, confiding servitude.
4. To take Christ's yoke is to commit ourselves to universal
obedience to Christ from love to him, sympathy with him, and
confidence in him. This is no doubt the true idea of taking Christ's
yoke upon us.
III. Christ's yoke is easy.
1. This the text affirms. The meaning of the word is agreeable,
gentle, gracious, useful, kind.
2. Christ's yoke is easy because it is love's yoke. It is
good-will universally to us. Every requirement is imposed upon us
for our own good, and the highest good of the great family of which
we are members. Christ's will is never arbitrary, never capricious,
never selfish, requires nothing of us at any time without the
strictest reference to our own highest good.
3. His yoke is easy because he never prohibits anything, and
never imposes upon us any restraint except for our own good, or for
the good of the race to which we belong. If at any time he restrains
us, or deprives us of anything that we would like, it is love's
restraint. He sees that it would be injurious to us, injurious to
the world, and consequently dishonourable to him; and therefore
enlightened love compels him to restrain us.
We are ignorant, often not able to judge for ourselves; we often
suppose ourselves to need that which would greatly injure us. He is
infinitely wise, his love is always directed by infinite wisdom; and
therefore in everything in which he commands or restrains us, love
is his only motive.
4. The service which we are required to render him is only a
love-service. It consists wholly in love, and its spontaneous fruits
and results. He requires nothing but what love will willingly, and
joyfully, and spontaneously do. He requires us to love him; and
surely this requirement cannot be grievous, inasmuch as he presents
to us infinite reasons for loving him.
5. Christ's yoke is easy because the state of servitude into
which we voluntarily enter, is a state of the highest liberty, the
truest, most perfect liberty. It is just that course of life and
conduct which, above all others, a loving heart prefers. It is
really doing just as we please. A heart that loves Christ supremely,
is the only heart that really takes this yoke of Christ. Now this
loving state of mind prefers above all other courses of life just
that which Christ requires. It is therefore doing according to our
own highest pleasure to do his pleasure; and therefore his service
is the truest and highest liberty.
6. Christ's yoke is easy, because, although a state of
subjection, it is the very opposite of a state of bondage. Although
his yoke is a band, still it is love's band. It is the opposite of
slavery. This service rendered to Christ is not a legal con-straint
or re-straint. It is not slavish fear, it is not the thumbscrew of
conscience to a must-do, a must-serve-the Lord; but it is a
preference of him and his service so deep and radical, and
all-pervading, that no other conceivable way or course of life is so
agreeable as just that which Christ requires.
7. Christ's yoke is easy because it is not only agreeable, but in
the highest degree useful to ourselves, to our friends, to the
world, to the kingdom of Christ.
As I have already said, the word rendered easy, means sometimes
useful, agreeable, kind, gentle, gracious. If Christ's requirements
were such as consulted only his interests and not our own, his yoke
might not be so easy. But since he loves us, is aiming by his
requirements to secure our own highest good, has no selfish end
whatever in view in any case, his yoke is truly easy in the sense of
being in the highest degree useful to us.
8. Christ's yoke is easy because he only requires a love-service;
and he gives us a love-reward. He does not stipulate to pay us upon
the principle of justice; nor do we stipulate to serve him for pay.
He has no servants but love-servants. Those that sympathize with
him, that love his person, are devoted to the great interests for
which he lives, and have entire confidence in him. In short, all his
servants serve him because they love him and love his service. To
all such he gives a love-reward. It is not pay on the score of
justice, it is not what they deserve, but what his bountiful love is
pleased to give them. He gives them more than pay, more than a
reward on the principle of justice, infinitely more. His servants
all prefer to leave the reward with his love, they want no
stipulation as to wages. We serve him because we love him, and he
rewards us because he loves us. All this makes his yoke very easy.
9. Christ's yoke is just as easy as enlightened, true love can
make it. I said enlightened love, I said true love; that is neither
enlightened nor true love that indulges children to their own
injury, that suffers them to act upon their impulses without
restraint or requirement. Christ loves us too well to indulge us to
our hurt. His love is too true to let us go ungoverned, and grow up
in self will and perverseness. This yoke is a state of servitude for
our own highest good and hence for his glory. He subjects us to his
will, and requires us to seek his pleasure because his pleasure is
always good. He does not make us slaves, and compel us to serve him
in order to promote his interests, without reference to our own. The
service which he requires of us does indeed glorify him just for the
reason that he governs us for our own good. For if he did not govern
us for our own good, it would not be glorious for him to govern us.
If the service which he requires of us were not for our own highest
good, it would be disgraceful to him, and not for his glory. But
because his government is entirely unselfish, because his heart is
set upon doing us good, because he has been willing to deny himself
for the purpose of promoting our good, because he brings us into a
state of voluntary subjection that he may restrain us from doing
ourselves and those around us any harm, and requires of us just that
course of life which shall conduce most to our peace, our comfort,
our highest good in time and in eternity, therefore the yoke is easy
and the service redounds to his glory.
10. The things which he requires of us are most in accordance
with our whole nature. This state of servitude is in entire
accordance with our own highest reason, with the most enlightened
dictates of our conscience, with the truest, most healthy, and most
rational gratification of our every susceptibility of our being. He
lays no appetite or passion under any restraint but for our own
highest good. So it is with every restraint, every cross, every
trial--every thing in his whole treatment of us is demanded by our
nature and relations as the condition of our highest well-being.
11. In short, Christ's yoke is easy because it is really more of
a divine charm or enchantment, than a yoke of bondage. The soul
enters into a state of servitude, and takes this yoke, because
constrained by a view of his love. It continues in this service, and
clings to this state of servitude, because bound fast by the cords
of this love of Christ. In short, this servitude consists in just
this, it is the soul's continual offering of itself as a living
sacrifice to Christ, a mere yielding of itself to the divine charm
of Christ's all-prevailing love. The soul is drawn in this
servitude, and not driven. It is called with an effectual calling;
it is persuaded by an effectual persuasion; it is overcome and
conquered, and subdued, and held by the charm of Christ's love.
IV. I enquire in the next place, To whom is this yoke of Christ
easy?
1. Not to the hypocrite who only professes to take it, but does
not in fact love the Saviour. There are many who profess to be
religious, and to be the servants of Christ, who are continually
complaining of the severity of the servitude. To them his
commandments are grievous, his yoke is heavy, unendurable. They will
sing,
"Reason I love, her counsels weigh,
And all her words approve;
But still, I find it hard to obey,
And harder still to love."
This class of persons are living in the seventh of Romans. They
make their resolutions, and as often break them. They cry out, "O
wretched man that I am." The Bible has said, "Wisdom's ways are ways
of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." It has also said that
Christ's "commandments are not grievous." And in this text we have
Christ's own testimony that his yoke is easy. But there are many
professors of religion who regard religion as a thorny way.
"True, 'tis a strait and thorny way,"
they say. With them it is not as "the shining light that shineth
more and more unto the perfect day." Their experience is not in
accordance with the Bible at all. They do not find their religion a
peace-giving religion. They do not know the kingdom of God in their
experience to be "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy
Ghost." The fact is, they have made a radical mistake; they have not
taken Christ's yoke. They have taken the yoke of the law upon stiff
necks, and therefore they find their religion a perfect bondage. Let
no such one suppose himself to be really in the accepted service of
Christ.
2. Christ's yoke is not easy to the selfish, who only take it
outwardly, from fear or hope of reward. There are many who profess
to be Christians, who have no true love to Christ himself, no true
sympathy with him, so consequently they have no joy in his service,
no pleasure in it for its own sake. They have undertaken to be
religious simply to secure something for themselves; and they work
hard to make something out of it. But they do not find Christ's yoke
easy because it is not a spontaneous love-service. It is not that
course of life which above all others they choose because they love
the Saviour supremely, but it is something which they must comply
with as a condition of being saved. It will not do to lose their
souls, therefore they must be religious at any rate, though they
find it exceedingly hard to be so. But this is not Christ's yoke,
this is not a love-service; this band is not a band of love that
binds them to the cross of Christ.
3. Christ's yoke is not easy to the self-willed. There are those
who profess to be religious whose wills have never been subdued to
Christ. They are like unweaned children; and they are continually
chafing in their bondage as if Christ's yoke were iron. Of course
their state of servitude is not a love-service, is not the true yoke
of Christ.
4. Christ's yoke is not easy to any who are not constrained by
his love.
But it is easy to every one who really understands what his yoke
is, and truly takes it upon himself. It is easy to all who truly
choose Christ as their sovereign Lord , their Head, their Saviour,
who enter into sympathy with him and have confidence in him, who
make common cause with him and merge their will in his, who in all
things trust him. To all this class, who thus really take this yoke
upon them, it is easy. And I might add, that the same is true of all
the burdens which he really imposes upon us. Christ's yoke is easy
and his burden is light to all truly loving, confiding, and
submissive souls.
REMARKS.
1. Then let it be understood that Christ's real yoke, or the true
service of Christ, is never hard. His real yoke is never heavy. It
is self-will and selfishness that at any time fault the yoke or the
service of Christ.
2. If what we call religion is burdensome, it is not Christ's
yoke, it is not Christ's religion. If we make an uphill business of
it, and if we find it "hard to obey, and harder still to love,"
Christ says to us, Who has required this at your hand? What I
require of you is a love-service, not this slavish service.
If you love me not, if you do not serve me from love, I abhor
your doings. Let no one think himself truly religious whose religion
is a bondage, and not the highest liberty.
3. Whatever is hard in religion is made so by our want of heart,
our want of love, our want of confidence; and is therefore not
Christ's yoke at all. It is not true religion, it is not Christian
liberty, but legal bondage.
4. All truly religious duties are easy. If we make them hard,
they are not a love-service, and not what Christ requires. If we
make them hard we spoil them. If we go complainingly about his
service, grumbling about the difficulties and the hardness of his
service, he loathes our bondage, he cannot accept it.
5. Let it be understood, then, that they who make religion a
hard, up hill matter, have no Gospel religion. They are wearing, not
Christ's yoke, but the yoke of the law; and that, too, laid upon
their stiff-neckedness and unbrokenness of heart.
6. This subject will throw light upon the true nature of the
Christian warfare. This is not hard, a something to which we are to
be screwed up, and whipped up, by our conscience. It is only love to
Christ spontaneously resisting temptation to displease him. It is
not hard work for the most affectionate husband or wife to resist
infidelity to him or her whom each loves most. This resistance is
not that to which we are whipped up by a mere sense of obligation,
or fear of consequences. It is the spontaneous resistance of love to
that which is entirely inconsistent with it. Such is the Christian
warfare.
7. Nothing that love cannot well afford to do is ever required of
us in our Christian life. Of course if everything is for our highest
good, as well as for the highest glory of Christ, love can well
afford to do it, or abstain from it.
8. Love cannot afford to have one of Christ's commandments
abated, nor one of his prohibitions relaxed. His will is perfect;
his true service is the perfection of liberty; his true yoke is as
easy as possible.
9. Let no one judge of Christ's religion by the common
representations of it. Should we judge of Christ's religion, from
the complaints of many of its professors, we should infer that
Christ kept his children on short allowance, that he required "brick
without straw," that he is a hard master and even a cruel
slaveholder. Their mouths are full of complaints. They do not
hesitate to say in their prayers and in their conversation that
which implies that Christ's commandments are most grievous, that his
yoke is too heavy to be borne, that he supplies their spiritual
wants so sparingly that he keeps them little short of absolute
famine and starvation. Nay, they represent the commandments as
beyond the possibility of obedience, and the service which he
requires as so entirely above their reach, that by no grace received
in this life are they ever able to obey him. Now this is surely as
opposite to the teachings of Christ and this text, as possible. Just
compare this text and many similar ones, to the old confession of
faith, that "no man, since the fall, is able, either in his own
strength or by any grace received in this life, to obey the
commandments of God."
Where did they get this? Is this in accordance with Christ's
teaching in this text? Is this according to the text in which it is
said, that "his commandments are not grievous," and that all "his
ways are ways of pleasantness and all his paths are peace"? The fact
is, that Christ's religion has been grossly misrepresented by it
professors.
Such a statement as this in the confession of faith is a
stumbling block, and as contrary to the teachings of Christ as
possible.
10. You that are not Christians may see your mistake in this
regard. You have been misled. You have been deceived by the
complaining spirit that you have heard among professed Christians.
You have thought religion was hard, something unendurable,
impracticable, something not suited to your present nature,
relations, and condition. But those that have stumbled you are not
Christians. If you would read your Bible you would see that these
complaints are not the Christian spirit; and that all this talking
and praying which really implies that religion is an up-hill matter,
something so far above our reach as to keep the mind in a constant
strain that is unendurable by human nature--that this is all a
mistake.
The fact is, the kingdom of God, when it is really established in
the soul, is "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."
It is the charm of Christ's love revealed to the soul, sweetly
drawing it away into a perpetual offering of itself to a delightful
love-service to Christ. Everything that is hard about it is made so
by unbelief, by a want of love, by self-will. All that, therefore,
is without the pale of Christ's true service. Whatever is not done
for love, is no acceptable service rendered to Christ.
11. Those of you whose religion is a bondage, can in the light of
this subject discover your mistake. Who has required this
bond-service at your hands? Christ is no slave-holder. He employs no
slave-drivers to whip you to duty. If the law as a schoolmaster had
brought you to Christ, you would have escaped from this bondage.
But, beloved, do not mistake your bond-service for true religion.
Do not mistake the yoke of the law for the yoke of Christ. Do not
mistake, do not mistake this drudgery in which you engage, and which
you call religion, for that spontaneous love-service which Christ
requires. The difficulty is, you have not taken Christ's yoke.
12. In the light of this subject, all professors of religion can
see whether and how far you really serve Christ. Do you ever find
passages in your experience, in which all is a spontaneous
love-service, natural, peaceful, joyous? If you have never had this
experience, you have never yet come to Christ at all. If you have
had this experience and have fallen from it, you have fallen from
the real acceptable service of Christ.
Your present state, and your present religion, is not a Christian
state of mind, nor the accepted service of Christ. You have fallen
into the bondage of your own unbelief. And who has required this
bond-service at your hand? This is not Christ's yoke.
13. How much ruinous misapprehension exists in regard to what
constitutes the Christian religion. The great mass of professors of
religion are in such bondage--and the same is true, I fear, of many
ministers,--that they grossly misrepresent the religion of Jesus. By
their teaching, by their prayers, by all that you see and hear from
them, you would get the impression that the religion of Christ is
the most difficult, up-hill, unendurable task, that ever any one
undertook. It amounts to a gross libel upon the religion of Jesus.
They profess to be Christ's disciples, profess to wear Christ's
yoke; and yet "it is that which neither we nor our fathers have ever
been able to bear."
Alas! that Christ is so dishonoured, so contradicted, so
misrepresented, his religion presented in such a repulsive light as
to frighten the young, and make them think it is unendurable, except
as the less of two evils. It may be a less evil, they think, to wear
this yoke of iron than to go to hell; but it is at best so hard, so
void of comfort, so almost unendurable, that for this life, to say
the least, a course of sin is far preferable to Christ's religion.
So far as this world is concerned, they cannot afford to be
religious. It is only to escape from hell that the thought, or the
effort, can be endured. But how gross is this misrepresentation; and
how fatal is the delusion that this fastens upon the minds of those
that are not religious.
14. It is not merely a ruinous misapprehension to those who are
without, but to those who belong to the church and yet are living a
life of bondage. Their misapprehension of the religion of Jesus is
destructive. It is not only a stumbling block to others, but the
ruin of their own souls. When will these bondmen learn that this is
not what Christ requires at their hands? He pities your agonizing
struggles to wear the yoke of the law which neither you nor your
fathers have been able to bear. He beseeches you to really give him
your hearts, to enter into his love-service, to take his sweet yoke
of love upon you that you may breathe easily and walk at liberty as
the sons of God.
15. What folly to make only a pretence of being Christ's
servants, to pretend only to wear his yoke. This is of no use. To
render him any other than a love-service is not truly to serve him
at all; you gain nothing by it to yourselves; you do no good to
others by this bond-service; you do not meet the wishes of Christ at
all. What motive then can you have for this folly? Do you not know
that Christ is greatly dishonoured by those that leave their hearts
in the world, and consequently make their religion a bondage? I
beseech you misrepresent him not; deceive not yourselves. Mislead no
others. Serve him lovingly, or attempt not to serve him at all. Take
his easy yoke and render him a love-service, or no service at all.
"The Lord loveth a cheerful giver," and a cheerful giver only. He
will not accept a service that is not a heart-service, that is not a
free-service.
16. Remember that all duty acceptably performed, must be free, it
must be cheerful, it must be loving. Let no one deceive himself by
supposing that he does his duty, when he does it in the spirit of
bondage, and not from love.
17. From what has been said, it must be seen that there is real
enjoyment in wearing Christ's true yoke, in all true religion, in
all that Christ really requires.
We always enjoy pleasing those whom we most love. In this we
necessarily find our truest and highest enjoyment, in the promotion
of the honour and in doing the pleasure of those whom we supremely
love.
Whatever is not enjoyed, is not true religion. We often hear
people say they do not enjoy religion. They are religious, they say,
but they are not at present enjoying religion. But this is a
mistake. If they have true religion, that is, the religion of love,
it must in its very workings, produce enjoyment.
18. If you look steadily at this subject, you will see how much
Christ's account of his real service differs from the common
experience. Now, is Christ's account of his own religion to be taken
as true? or are we to suppose these experiences, that are really
inconsistent with it, are true religion? Christ's own account of his
religion must stand! He has told us what service is acceptable to
him, and he is to be the judge in such matters. Let no one pretend
that his experience is Christian, unless he finds that Christ's yoke
is easy.
19. This false, but common experience, is the world's great
stumbling block, and legal ministers are helping forward the
calamity. Really, many of the representations from the pulpit are
such a gross misrepresentation of the true religion of Jesus, that
whole churches are in bondage and the ungodly without the church are
perfectly afraid of religion.
20. Christ is not responsible for these slavish experiences. They
are only the result of selfishness and unbelief. He cannot away with
them, he abhors them. They are his dishonour, the church's stumbling
block, and the world's ruin.
21. Christ's true service is the soul's true rest. In immediate
connection with the text, you remember he said "ye shall find rest
unto your souls." True religion is truly the soul's recreation, the
soul's amusement, the soul's highest liberty; it is the rest of
faith, the deep repose of loving confidence. It is love, and only
love, with its spontaneous fruits. This is the whole of it; and this
is the best and truest sense the soul's rest.
22. The real service which Christ requires of us could not be
easier and still be real. Did he require less than love with all its
spontaneous fruits, it would not be real. But if it is love and its
spontaneous fruits, it could not be easier.
23. We cannot afford to have less to do than Christ calls upon us
to do. We need not fear to have more to do than is for our own
highest good.
24. We cannot afford to have less to bear, fewer crosses, fewer
duties, fewer burdens. We cannot afford to have anything lighter,
anything easier, or anything more agreeable. The whole of his
service is the most useful, the most truly agreeable, the most in
accordance with our whole nature and all our relations, of any
course of life possible or conceivable.
And now what do you say? Will you that never have taken Christ's
yoke, now take it? Will you now offer yourself a willing sacrifice
to be Christ's living servant forever? Will you who have worn the
bondage of the law, lay it aside, give up your selfishness, your
self-seeking, your unbelief, and truly embrace Christ, and take his
easy yoke, and find rest for your souls?
