The Fifth Sunday after Trinity is July 9, 2023.

Readings for Year A can be found here and are different to those I posted in 2020.

The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

11:16 “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,

11:17 ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’

11:18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’;

11:19 the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

11:25 At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants;

11:26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

11:27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

11:28 “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you Rest.

11:29 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.

11:30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

John MacArthur explains the context of today’s reading:

The revelation of God is given with a response in mind; the proper response. And if you remember … John the Baptist, you’ll remember that the Lord is calling on the people not only to listen to Him, but to John as well. And if they will listen to John, they will listen to Him, for John speaks of Him. If they had received John, the forerunner, they would then have received the one of whom John spoke, and if they had received the one of whom John spoke, they would have received in their hearts the Kingdom, and if the nation had received Him, they would have received the earthly Kingdom as well.

And so, our Lord has called for them to hear, but while calling, He recognizes that most do not hear; they do not listen. It is basic to biblical truth that men must respond, that men must react, that men are given a choice when confronted with the truth of God; to hear it, to believe it, to act on it, or to reject it. Now, by the time we come to chapter 11 of Matthew, we have had ten chapters of the message, ten chapters of the revelation of Jesus Christ. And now, in chapters 11 and 12, Matthew records for us the various kind of responses to Christ.

Now, we’ve already seen that one of the responses is honest doubt, and honest doubt was really that response that characterized John the Baptist. He believed, and yet he had some doubt, and so, the Lord dealt with that in the first fifteen verses; and now, He’s going to go on to some other responses to Christ that are much more serious. Honest doubt can occur even in the case of a believer, as it did with John. But He’s going to go on to talk about rejection, a superficial kind of amazement and fascination.

He’s going to talk about blasphemy in chapter 12. But in our section today, He’s going to speak of two other responses to Christ that are very common; the first is criticism, and the second is indifference. One talks about what men do, and one talks about what men don’t do, and a man or a woman can be damned to hell just as much by what they do not do as by what they do. When you look ahead to the ultimate great white throne judgment, it is certain that some people are going to say as a defense, “I never did anything.” And that will be their condemnation: they never did anything.

Now, at the end of chapter 11, and the end of chapter 12, mingled in with these negative responses, are two positive sections, in which the Lord calls for the right response. And so, in a real sense, this is a very critical section of Matthew’s gospel. Ten chapters of presentation of who Christ is, now calling for the right response; very essential. Verse 15 really, then, is a call to believe. It’s a call to hear with faith. But this generation, the generation of our Lord’s time, would not hear.

With that in mind, Jesus asks to what He should compare that generation then says it is like children in marketplaces calling to other children to play (verse 16).

He said that those children say, ‘We played the flute for you and you did not dance’ — a wedding game — and ‘We wailed and you did not mourn’ — a funeral re-enactment (verse 17).

MacArthur says that our Lord’s wish to compare this generation to something else comes from a long-standing Jewish tradition of teaching:

That phrase is a very interesting phrase. That question is a very interesting question, for in Jewish literature – in the Midrash, which is the, sort of the compilation of Jewish traditional teaching – that is the most common formula for introducing a parable. Now, all good teachers know that you have to teach in word pictures, or in analogies, or similes, or metaphors, or figures of speech, to make people understand things.

And that was true with the rabbis as well, and so they would commonly say this phrase, “To what is the matter like?” and that is the most common phrase in Rabbinic teaching for introducing a parable. Or, “How can I liken this point to something in life that will make it clear to you? What is it like?” And Jesus is, then, in a very traditional rabbinic way, launching Himself into a parable. “Whereunto shall I liken this generation?” “How can I illustrate what this generation is like?”

MacArthur tells us about the games children played in the marketplace while their parents bought or sold merchandise. Essentially, children re-enacted public ceremonies such as weddings and funerals:

In the center of every town and village was a place called the agora in Greek, and the agora means marketplace, and on the market days, the people would come in.

And they would fill up that open space in the middle of town, with all of their carts, and their little lean-to stores, and all of their wares, and they would sell everything in the marketplace. And it was a favorite place for the children to play, when they had free hours or when their parents were milling around in the marketplace, and children would inevitably be scurrying through the marketplace. And, of course, they knew each other, and so, eventually they would all come together, and games would begin to take shape.

Now, this would be very much like a public park, or a town square, and in fact, on the days when the market wasn’t there, it was a great wide-open space, and there would even be more room for the children to play. And children commonly, as children today, then would play the games that sort of mimicked the life of their elders. They would copy what their parents did. And one of the popular games they played was wedding, and another favorite was funeral – a little harder to imagine – but they liked to play wedding and funeral.

You say, “Why?” Well, because those were public social events. Whenever a wedding occurred, there was always a parade through town, a great processional. The bride, the bridegroom, the friend of the bridegroom, and all of the ladies who were waiting on the bride, and everybody else in the wedding, they would come through town. And there would come folks along playing pipes and flutes, and people would be skipping and hopping and dancing with joy, as they went through the town in this procession.

And so, the children would always see this, and they would know it was a part of life. Very likely they would get together, and somebody, that very fortunate little girl, would get to be the bride, and perhaps she would dress herself a little bit fancy, and she would take the role of the bride. And some little fellow would get to be the bridegroom, and somebody else the friend of the bridegroom, and some of the ladies who would be attending the bride, and they would get the whole game going.

And they would be going through town, and somebody who could blow a whistle or play a little flute would be playing, and they would be calling to their friends, and say, “Come on and join the procession.” And then, after they played wedding a little while, they decided to play funeral – which is just as inevitable as wedding – and it was also public. For whenever there was a funeral, they would lift up the body, and carry the body through the city, and all the people involved with the family would come along.

And they would hire certain Jewish women who were paid wailers, and they would come in and wail, and moan, and lament, and the kids would see this. And so, after they played wedding a while, they got tired of that, and they decided to play funeral. And so, they would wail, and scream, and they would beat on themselves. The term that is used means to strike yourselves, and it was very common in funeral processions that the people would beat on their chest, and they’d beat on their heads, and hit themselves all over their bodies.

And so, the little kids would just pick this up. They’d maybe put on some black clothes, and they’d pound on themselves, and as they were playing funeral, they would cry to their little friends, and say, “Come on, and play funeral with us.” But do you know what? There were some kids that didn’t want to play. And that’s why verse 17 says, “We piped, and you didn’t dance; and we mourned unto you, and you didn’t strike yourselves.” I mean, there were a bunch of kids in the parable that were just spoilsports, bad sport.

“We don’t want to play your dumb game.” “So, we’ll change our game. You don’t like wedding, we’ll play funeral” – that’s the opposite extreme. “We don’t want to play that, either. We don’t want to be involved at all.” Peevish children. The sad game, you see, is opposite the glad game, but they aren’t going to play either game; they just stubbornly don’t want to play. They just want to kind of sit on the sidelines and criticize – the sheer perversity of human nature. Now, the principle of the parable is very clear.

There are some people who just don’t want to play, no matter what the game is, right? No matter how you approach them, they don’t want to play. They’ll criticize the wedding, and they’ll criticize the funeral. Nothing satisfies them. They will always find fault, because they are basically unwilling to participate, unwilling to be satisfied. Now, Jesus says, “That is like this generation. You just don’t want to play. No matter what the game is, you will not be satisfied.

“You’re like the children who, when called by their little friends, had no openness, and no interest, just a bitter, critical, contrary spirit.”

Jesus referred to their rejection of His earthly cousin John the Baptist, who neither ate nor drank and some people accused him of having a demon (verse 18).

MacArthur points out the ingratitude of those who rejected the prophet:

John came in a funeral mode. John came austere. John came dressed in a camel’s hair cloak, which would have been black. John came eating locusts and wild honey, having no normal social relationships. He lived in the desert.

By all human definitions, he was a recluse and a hermit. He came pounding away the message of judgment and fiery condemnation. He talked about an axe chopping at the root of the tree. He cried out for repentance, and the demonstration of the fruit of repentance – Matthew 3. I mean, he came in a funeral mode. He came serious and austere. He lived apart from the normal relationships of life. He never entered into social activities at all. He was a voice crying in the wilderness. And you know what they said of him?

“He has a demon. He is possessed. I mean, anybody who acts that weird is possessed.” It’s interesting, isn’t it, that at first it says they rejoiced in his light for a season. They hadn’t had a prophet in 400 years, and they could see that he was great. I mean, he was absolutely the greatest prophet up until that time … that he was without equal. He had the power of personality to attract them. And they basked in his light for a little season. But the critics among them finally just said, “Ah, he’s nuts.”

You see, they equated madness, mental derangement, with demon possession, and they did that, I think, because that commonly was true. You remember the maniac of Gadara, who was possessed with all of the legion of demons, was also deranged mentally? He was slicing himself up, cutting himself, running around naked, living in caves and tombs. And so, they simply reasoned that anybody who was as deranged as John, to live like he lived, must be possessed of a demon. And you see, that would be the worst thing they could say about him: devil-possessed.

It would have been enough to say, “Oh, he’s – he’s mentally off,” but there might have been a little room for sympathy in that. But when they said, “He’s possessed,” they just pushed it as far as they could push it. Instead of seeing his lifestyle as a rebuke to their indulgence, they just ridiculed him.

Jesus then spoke of the public reaction to Him on the part of the nay-sayers. Contrary to John, He ate and drank with known sinners, so people said that He was a drunk and a glutton, associating with the dregs of society, e.g. tax collectors such as Matthew himself. Then Jesus observed that ‘wisdom is vindicated by her deeds’ (verse 19).

Matthew Henry’s commentary tells us how blasphemous this condemnation of Christ was:

… they imputed his free and obliging conversation to the more vicious habit of luxury and flesh-pleasing: Behold a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber. No reflection could be more foul and invidious; it is the charge against the rebellious son (Deut 21 20), He is a glutton and a drunkard; yet none could be more false and unjust; for Christ pleased not himself (Rom 15 3), nor did ever any man live such a life of self-denial, mortification, and contempt of the world, as Christ lived: he that was undefiled, and separate from sinners, is here represented as in league with them, and polluted by them. Note, The most unspotted innocency, and the most unparalleled excellency, will not always be a fence against the reproach of tongues: nay, a man’s best gifts and best actions, which are both well intended and well calculated for edification, may be made the matter of his reproach. The best of our actions may become the worst of our accusations, as David’s fasting, Ps 69 10. It was true in some sense, that Christ was a Friend to publicans and sinners, the best Friend they ever had, for he came into the world to save sinners, great sinners, even the chief; so he said very feelingly, who had been himself not a publican and sinner, but a Pharisee and sinner; but this is, and will be to eternity, Christ’s praise, and they forfeited the benefit of it who thus turned it to his reproach.

MacArthur discusses our Lord’s comment about wisdom:

… the end of verse 19: “Wisdom is justified by her works.”

The best rendering is works here. It is rendered children in Luke 7:35, but here, it’s works. “Wisdom is justified by her works.” In other words, you sit back and you criticize no matter what I do or John does; no matter what our message is, you criticize. But in the end, the truth will justify itself by what it produces. You can criticize Christ, but where you’re going to run into trouble is when you run into the people whose lives He’s changed, right? You can criticize the church, but where you’re going to have problems is when you have to explain why the church has had the impact it’s had on the world.

You see, truth or wisdom ultimately is justified by what it produces, and that is an unanswerable argument. The wisdom of John the Baptist, which insisted on repentance, and the wisdom of Jesus, which insisted on salvation, was shown to be justified by what it accomplished in the hearts and the lives of the people who believed. They rendered the right verdict, they who believed, and they become the testimony to the truth. Some people are just critical, and you meet them, and I meet them. They’re not even looking for the truth.

They just want to find everything wrong with Christ and Christianity, and that’s a tragic response, because in the end, the truth will be justified by what it produces. You see, these people had a smugness that made them sit in condemning judgment, and they were wrong. Now, in those verses there’s a certain gentleness. The rebuke there is mild. When it says, “Wisdom is justified by her works,” that’s a mild thing. I mean, He doesn’t really crash down on the generation of critics. But draw a line in your Bible between verse 19 and 20, because something happens between those two verses. Something dramatic happens.

And, wouldn’t you know it? The Lectionary compilers left out verses 20-24, where Jesus says the judgement to fall on the towns of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum — where Jesus was based — will be punished more severely than Tyre and Sidon, even Sodom. Why? Because those Galilean towns knew, saw and experienced His ministry. I wrote about these verses in 2015 in my Forbidden Bible Verses series, where you can find out more.

Having warned of His judgement to come, Jesus thanked His Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things — eternal truths — from the wise and the intelligent — e.g. the Jewish hierarchy — and revealing them to infants (verse 25).

Henry explains:

Now in this thanksgiving of Christ, we may observe,

1. The titles he gives to God; O Father, Lord of heaven and earth. Note, (1.) In all our approaches to God, by praise as well as by prayer, it is good for us to eye him as a Father, and to fasten on that relation, not only when we ask for the mercies we want, but when we give thanks for the mercies we have received. Mercies are then doubly sweet, and powerful to enlarge the heart in praise, when they are received as tokens of a Father’s love, and gifts of a Father’s hand; Giving thanks to the Father, Col 1 12. It becomes children to be grateful, and to say, Thank you, father, as readily as, Pray, father. (2.) When we come to God as a Father, we must withal remember, that he is Lord of heaven and earth; which obliges us to come to him with reverence, as to the sovereign Lord of all, and yet with confidence, as one able to do for us whatever we need or can desire; to defend us from all evil and to supply us with all good. Christ, in Melchizedec, had long since blessed God as the Possessor, or Lord of heaven and earth; and in all our thanksgivings for mercies in the stream, we must give him the glory of the all-sufficiency that is in the fountain.

2. The thing he gives thanks for: Because thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and yet revealed them to babes. These things; he does not say what things, but means the great things of the gospel, the things that belong to our peace, Luke 19 42. He spoke thus emphatically of them, these things, because they were things that filled him, and should fill us: all other things are as nothing to these things.

Note (1.) The great things of the everlasting gospel have been and are hid from many that were wise and prudent, that were eminent for learning and worldly policy; some of the greatest scholars and the greatest statesmen have been the greatest strangers to gospel mysteries. The world by wisdom knew not God, 1 Cor 1 21. Nay, there is an opposition given to the gospel, by a science falsely so called, 1 Tim 6 20. Those who are most expert in things sensible and secular, are commonly least experienced in spiritual things. Men may dive deeply into the mysteries of nature and into the mysteries of state, and yet be ignorant of, and mistake about, the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, for want of an experience of the power of them.

(2.) While the wise and prudent men of the world are in the dark about gospel mysteries, even the babes in Christ have the sanctifying saving knowledge of them: Thou hast revealed them unto babes. Such the disciples of Christ were; men of mean birth and education; no scholars, no artists, no politicians, unlearned and ignorant men, Acts 4 13. Thus are the secrets of wisdom, which are double to that which is (Job 11 6), made known to babes and sucklings, that out of their mouth strength might be ordained (Ps 8 2), and God’s praise thereby perfected. The learned men of the world were not made choice of to be the preachers of the gospel, but the foolish things of the world (1 Cor 2 6, 8, 10).

Jesus went on to say that this state of revelation was God’s gracious will (verse 26).

Henry’s analysis continues:

(3.) This difference between the prudent and the babes is of God’s own making. [1.] It is he that has hid these things from the wise and prudent; he gave them parts, and learning, and much of human understanding above others, and they were proud of that, and rested in it, and looked no further; and therefore God justly denies them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, and then, though they hear the sound of the gospel tidings, they are to them as a strange thing. God is not the Author of their ignorance and error, but he leaves them to themselves, and their sin becomes their punishment, and the Lord is righteous in it. See John 12 39, 40; Rom 11 7, 8; Acts 28 26, 27. Had they honoured God with the wisdom and prudence they had, he would have given them the knowledge of these better things; but because they served their lusts with them, he has hid their hearts from this understanding. [2.] It is he that has revealed them unto babes. Things revealed belong to our children (Deut 29 29), and to them he gives an understanding to receive these things, and the impressions of them. Thus he resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble, Jam 4 6.

Henry points out that those God chose for this divine revelation was not on personal merit but His choosing:

We can give no reason why Peter, a fisherman, should be made an apostle, and not Nicodemus, a Pharisee, and a ruler of the Jews, though he also believed in Christ; but so it seemed good in God’s sight. Christ said this in the hearing of his disciples, to show them that it was not for any merit of their own that they were thus dignified and distinguished, but purely from God’s good pleasure; he made them to differ.

MacArthur calls these last five verses a personal invitation on the part of Jesus:

… as we come to verses 25 to 30 … we come to what I like to call “Jesus’ Personal Invitation;” “Jesus’ Personal Invitation.” Our Lord came into the world, the Bible says, to save sinners; that is the purpose of His incarnation. God came to earth to save sinners; to save them from judgment, to save them from wrath, to save them from hell, to save them from sin.

… nowhere in the Scripture is there one more lovely than what we see in our own passage. Look at it with me – Matthew 11:25 to 30. “At that time Jesus answered and said, ‘I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.

Then Jesus discussed His own authority, saying that the Father has handed all things over to Him, and no one knows Him except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him (verse 27).

Henry explains:

Two things he here lays before us, v. 27.

(1.) His commission from the Father: All things are delivered unto me of my Father. Christ, as God, is equal in power and glory with the Father; but as Mediator he receives his power and glory from the Father; has all judgment committed to him. He is authorized to settle a new covenant between God and man, and to offer peace and happiness to the apostate world, upon such terms as he should think fit: he was sanctified and sealed to be the sole Plenipotentiary, to concert and establish this great affair. In order to this, he has all power both in heaven and in earth, (ch. 28 18); power over all flesh (John 17 2); authority to execute judgment, John 5 22, 27. This encourages us to come to Christ, that he is commissioned to receive us, and to give us what we come for, and has all things delivered to him for that purpose, by him who is Lord of all. All powers, all treasures are in his hand. Observe, The Father has delivered his all into the hands of the Lord Jesus; let us but deliver our all into his hand and the work is done …

(2.) His intimacy with the Father: No man knoweth the Son but the Father, Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son. This gives us a further satisfaction, and an abundant one. Ambassadors use to have not only their commissions, which they produce, but their instructions, which they reserve to themselves, to be made use of as there is occasion in their negotiations; our Lord Jesus had both, not only authority, but ability, for his undertaking. In transacting the great business of our redemption, the Father and the Son are the parties principally concerned; the counsel of peace is between them, Zech 6 13. It must therefore be a great encouragement to us …

Then Jesus issued His invitation to those who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, for He would give them rest (verse 28).

MacArthur provides this analysis:

We don’t understand the invitation, unless we understand what the rest is. We do not know to what Jesus calls men, unless we can define that term rest. What is rest? The literal Greek says I will rest you, or I will refresh you, or I will revive you, but of what does our Lord speak when He uses the word anapauō I think for a clear understanding of this, we need to go to the third chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews …

Now, rest is a common Old Testament word. It is used many, many times, for example, in the prophet Isaiah. God repeatedly, in the Old Testament, promised His people a rest, or a refreshment, or a reviving, and in the Septuagint version, uses the very same term, anapauō, that is here translated rest. It is translated rest in Matthew 11; it is translated rest here in Hebrews chapter 3.

But the concept of rest was a Jewish kind of concept. They thought of God’s promise as a promise of rest. Now, precisely, what is that rest? Look with me at chapter 3, and let’s begin at verse 7. “Wherefore (as the Holy Spirit saith” – and he quotes from Psalm 95, which is the Holy Spirit speaking in the Old Testament – “Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation” – or actually, in the temptation – “in the day of trial in the wilderness: When your fathers put Me to the test, proved Me, and saw My works forty years.”

Now, we’ll stop there. This is a warning …

But periodically through the book there are warnings, because there are some people who are outwardly convinced – Jewish people – outwardly convinced that this is all true, and they believe it, but they will not commit themselves to Christ, they will not go all the way, because they fear being ostracized from their Jewish friends and family, and being unsynagogued, as the old word would say it. And so, because of that, they linger at the crossroad, as it were. They are in limbo.

They have come out of the past, in the sense that they brought themselves to understand the reality of the gospel, and they believe it, but they have not entered into it, because they have not activated their faith to receive Christ. And so, they sit on the fence, and that is the place of a potential apostate, who knows it all, but never makes the right decision, and finally hardens himself into the most severe kind of condemnation, because he who knows the most will be condemned the most …

Now, just to take this a step further, I looked up in the dictionary, and you really don’t want to do Bible study out of a dictionary, but just to kind of deal with the – the English concept of rest, I looked it up and found there are five definitions given for rest, and they marvelously parallel what salvation rest is. Number one: the dictionary says that rest is to cease from action or motion; to cease from action or motion, to stop labor and exertion.

And that is a marvelous parallel to, I believe, the rest that our Lord offers. To enter into God’s rest means no more self-effort to earn God’s favor, no more fleshly works to seek His mercy. All works-righteousness systems end as a way to God. We rest from legalism, from self-righteousness. We rest in His consuming grace. Secondly, the dictionary says that rest is to be free from whatever wearies or disturbs …

In the spiritual sense, to enter God’s rest means to be at peace with God, to possess not only peace with God, but the peace of God which passes understanding. To have your heart totally calm in the midst of a storm, to have no more frustration and no more anxiety over life and destiny, no need to worry; sin is forgiven, no guilt is there. To be free from whatever wearies or disturbs. Thirdly, the dictionary says to rest is to be settled or fixed. Something rests somewhere. It’s fixed there, it’s settled there.

And I believe in a spiritual sense that’s a wonderful analogy as well. To enter God’s rest means to be positionally secured in God; to end the running from philosophy to philosophy, religion to religion, guru to guru; the vacillating that comes from terrible insecurity in not knowing the truth. But now, in Christ, we are settled, unmovable, firm, rooted and grounded in Him. Fourthly, to rest means to remain confident or trustful. And to enter into God’s rest means to enjoy faith without fear, to enjoy security, to have perfect trust that our time and eternity is in His care, and He loves us.

And fifthly, the word rest means to lean on, or to repose, or to depend on. And to enter God’s rest means from now on, we depend on Him for everything, and He supplies our needs. Now, what is rest? To cease from action, to be free from whatever disturbs, to be fixed and settled, to be confident and trustful, to lean on, to repose, to depend. All of that is embodied in our salvation. And now, you can go back and look at verse 28 again. When our Lord says, “I will give you rest,” He is encompassing all of that, and infinitely more than that.

Now, let me take it a step further. Rest was also a Jewish term for the Kingdom. The Kingdom is called the time of rest, or the time of refreshing. Rest is also a term for heaven, for in the Revelation it says, “She shall rest from her labors, and her works do follow.” So, when the Lord says you will enter into rest, He means personal, immediate, eternal salvation, with its Kingdom relationship, and its heavenly relationship as well. The fullness of all that God can give to calm the troubled soul; rest. And this is what the Lord offers.

Jesus invited the people hearing Him to take His yoke and learn from Him, for He is gentle and humble in heart and will give us rest for our souls (verse 29).

MacArthur says of the babes Jesus is calling:

Who are the ones who can enter into salvation? They are the dependent – not the independent, the dependent. They are the humble – not the proud, the humble. Those who are humbly confessing their dependency. They are helpless, and they recognize it. They are empty, and they know it. They are nothing, and they’re aware of it. They are deeply aware that they have no resources in life, none. And they turn in utter dependency, and that is what our Lord means when He says: “Except a man become as a little child, he can’t enter the Kingdom.”

You have to come to the point where you abandon all of your own resources, you see. So, the comparison between the wise and the babes is not a comparison between smart and dumb people, not a comparison between educated and uneducated people. It is a comparison between those who think by their own intellect they can save themselves, and those who know they can’t, and are totally dependent on God’s grace. It is a grace and works comparison. It is a God and man comparison.

So, the prosperous, self-sufficient, egotistical, works-righteousness inhabitants of the Galilean towns never did understand, but here and there, less sophisticated people, deeply distressed over their own emptiness, humble and broken, were open to the revelation of God in Christ. And so, it seemed good in God’s sight. Good why? Because that glorifies God, and that is the supreme reason for everything in the universe. It wouldn’t glorify God if the conceited entered the Kingdom. In Psalm 34:2, it says, “The humble shall hear and be glad.”

MacArthur discusses the burden that those invited bear:

I want you to look at the phrase, first of all, that makes men come and that is the phrase, “all ye that labor and are heavy laden.” I believe that is what brings men to Christ, the fact that they are working hard and bearing a terrible burden and they cannot get relief. The word labor is kopiaō. It means to work to the point of sweat and exhaustion, to work until you are absolutely fatigued. It’s used that way in John 4:6. To work to the point where you are totally out of gas. I mean, you’ve done it to yourself. And it is a present active participle. Those of you who are in the process of totally wearing yourselves out with toil. It refers to the weary search for the truth, the weary search for relief from the crushing load of a sin-laden, guilt-ridden conscience, the crushing effort of a trying-to-earn-your-own-salvation, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, reform yourself. Those of you who are frantically and tirelessly wearing yourselves out trying to earn your own salvation and find some peace of mind. Those of you who are working hard to rest. And then He adds heavy laden. That is a perfect passive participle which means at some point in time somebody dumped a load on you and you’re carrying it. And you’re enduring some incredible load. It’s not bad enough that you’re working hard, but you’re doing it with 400 pounds on your back and people keep stacking more on top of that … the rabbis … told them that if you keep the minutiae of the law you shall find rest. That’s what they said. They used the word rest. All the vain, fruitless, striving after peace, contentment, joy and happiness, and rest finally becomes such an intolerable burden that when you get to the place where you just can’t take another step, “Come to Me.” Now that’s repentance. When you’ve run out of gas, turn from that to Me – metanoia – turn 180 degrees, that’s what repentance means, turn around and come toward Me.

… The object of our faith is not a creed; it is not a church; it is not a pastor or a preacher; it is not a set of rituals or a bunch of ceremonies. The object of our faith is Jesus Christ. Come unto Me. What does that mean? Believe in Me. Come is the equivalent of believe. And I showed you that last week in many Scriptures. I will just give you one illustration. There’s so many. But in John 6:35 Jesus said, “I am the bread of life, he that cometh to Me shall never hunger, he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.” If you come and don’t hunger, you believe and don’t thirst, then coming and believing are the same thing. Come means to believe. Believe in Me. Sometimes the Bible says it receive Me. Sometimes it says eat Me or drink Me or confess Me or hear Me, but it all means to believe. Salvation is believing that Jesus is God, that He entered the world, that He died a substitutionary death, that He rose from the grave on the third day for our justification, that He ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, intercedes for us and is coming again and can save us from our sins. That’s believing – believing in Christ. Salvation is coming to Christ in faith – believing. And you know, at the point at which you genuinely come, your faith is spurred on because you have no other resources anyway because you come in desperation.

The yoke means submitting ourselves to Christ. Yes, there is that, at which some faithful baulk, yet, in it, we will find rest:

In verse 29 Jesus said, “Take My yoke upon you.” What does that mean? That means there is a submission involved in salvation. There is a responsibility to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and that is part and parcel of His invitation here. Salvation is taking on a yoke. There is responsibility involved. The Jews used the phrase, the yoke, to refer to entering into submission to something. That’s why Peter used it in Acts, as I read earlier, about the yoke that the Pharisees put on people that they can’t bear. The yoke is that which causes submission. And Jesus says, when you come to Me you must come with a submissive heart. You must come to take a yoke …

And the same thing was transferred over into the Jewish thinking so that a pupil who submitted himself to a teacher was said to take the yoke of the teacher. In fact in extrabiblical writings, for example, Sirach records this statement, “Put your neck under the yoke and let your soul receive instruction.” And that pretty well typifies how the Jews saw the yoke. It was a yoke of instruction. They talked about the yoke of the torah, the yoke of the law, the yoke of the commandments, the yoke of God. And that is what our Lord is asking them to do. He is saying, take My yoke upon you. And then He adds this phrase, “And learn from Me.” It is a yoke of submission to His Lordship, to His teaching, to His instruction. It is a yoke that implies obedience. And I believe true salvation occurs when you in your desperation turn from sin to Christ with a willingness to have Him take control of your life. I don’t think, therefore, that you can take Jesus as Savior and not as Lord.

The phrase learn of Me is basically the word from which we get the word mathētēs, which is the word translated in the New Testament disciple – be My disciple. This involves acknowledging His Lordship, being committed unto those good works that we’re created unto in Ephesians 2:10. Now you say, well wait a minute. I mean, isn’t salvation all of grace? Of course, because you’re a babe. What would you know if God wasn’t gracious to you? Isn’t salvation not at all of works? Of course it’s not at all of works. How could you do any work that could bring you the revelation of God hidden in the trinity? It’s all of grace and it’s all of God’s mercy, but in order for you to truly respond to His grace there has to be a brokenness and a humility in your heart which causes you to turn from your old life to Christ and the legitimacy of your turning is indicated by your willingness to submit and obey.

Jesus concluded, saying that His yoke is easy and His burden — that which goes on the yoke — is light (verse 30).

MacArthur explains:

The yoke that He makes is easy and the burden He gives is light. Why? Because He’s meek and lowly. He, unlike the Pharisees and the scribes, does not desire to oppress us. He does not desire to pile burdens on us that we cannot bear. He is not interested in trying to show how tough it is. He is gentle. He is tender. And He gives us something we can carry. It’s easy and it’s light. As one writer said, “My yoke is my song.” And I think that’s true for the Christian. There is a yoke of obedience. There is a yoke of submission to Christ, but it is not grievous. Is it? It is joyous. It is the greatest liberation in my life. There is the greatest lightness and the greatest ease in my life when I obey. Is that true? It is when I disobey that the yoke chafes my neck. But in obedience and submission to the Lordship of Christ there is an ease and there is a lightness.

He is meek and lowly. Paul loved that phrase. And he besought the Corinthians on one occasion by saying, “I beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ,” 2 Corinthians 10:1. Yes, He’s meek and gentle. He’ll not oppress us. He’ll not give us something we can’t carry. And I can promise you that when you take on the yoke of Christ and you walk in obedience, His yoke is easy and His burden is light. But the yoke of the law, the yoke of human effort, the yoke of works, the yoke of sin is a heavy, chafing, galling yoke. It is a large, unbearable burden carried in the flesh that will lead you to despair, frustration, and anxiety. And Jesus offers you a yoke you can carry, because He gives you the strength. So instead of the heavy burden of pride and self is the lightness of humility and lowliness. Instead of feeding ourselves till we become so overweight that we can’t even carry the load, we release all to Christ and the burden is light.

Now we come full circle back to humility, the meek Christ gives us His easy burden. What have we learned? A humble heart, broken over despair of life and the weight of sin, is touched by the sovereign grace of God as He reveals Christ. That individual repents of sin, turns in faith to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and his faith is shown to be genuine because he willingly submits his life in obedience to Christ’s Lordship. And the result is “I will give you” – what? – “rest.” Rest! You know, this must have rung in the ears of those Jews. Because this is exactly what Jeremiah said in chapter 6, listen to this. “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths where is the good way, and walk in it, and you shall rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk in it.”

Same here. Jesus says, walk in this way and there’s rest for your souls. And they said, we will not walk in it. And as you proceed into chapter 12, the hatred of Christ is intensified. And so the Lord offers salvation, then and now. And I trust we are more ready to receive it than they were and to enter into the rest of His eternal grace.

May all reading this enjoy a blessed Sunday.