Perhaps you say, “Mr. Moody, I wish you would tell us what it is to come.” I have given up trying to explain it. I always feel like the colored minister who said he was going to confound, instead of expounding, the chapter.
The best definition just comes. The more you try to explain it, the more you are mystified. The first thing a mother instructs her child is to look. She takes the baby to the window, and says, “Look, baby, papa is coming!” Then she teaches the child to come. She props it up against a chair, and says, “Come!” and by and by the little thing pushes the chair along towards mamma. That’s coming. You don’t need to go to college to learn how. You don’t need any minister to tell you what it is. Now, will you come to Christ? He said, “Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.”
When we have such a promise as this, let us cling to it, and never give it up. Christ is not mocking us. He wants us to come with all our sins and backslidings and throw ourselves upon His bosom. It is our sins God wants, not our tears only. They alone do no good. And we cannot come to resolutions. Action is necessary. How many times at church have we said, “I will turn over a new leaf,” but the Monday leaf is worse than the Saturday leaf.
The way to heaven is straight as a rule, but it is the way of the cross. Don’t try to get around it. Shall I tell you what the “yoke” referred to in the text is? It is the cross that Christians must bear. The only way by which you can find rest in this dark world is by taking up the yoke of Christ. I do not know what it may include in your case, beyond taking up your Christian duties, acknowledging Christ, and acting as becomes one of His disciples. Perhaps it may be to erect a family altar to tell a godless husband that you have made up your mind to serve God; or to tell your parents that you want to be a Christian. Follow the will of God, and happiness and peace and rest will come. The way of obedience is always the way of blessing.
I was preaching in Chicago to a hall full of women one Sunday afternoon, and after the meeting was over a lady came to me and said she wanted to talk to me. She said she would accept Christ, and after some conversation, she went home. I looked for her for a whole week but didn’t see her until the following Sunday afternoon. She came and sat down right in front of me, and her face had such a sad expression. She seemed to have entered into the misery, instead of the joy, of the Lord.
After the meeting was over, I went to her and asked her what the trouble was.
She said: “Oh, Mr. Moody, this has been the most miserable week of my life.”
I asked her if there was anyone with whom she had had trouble and whom she could not forgive.
She said: “No, not that I know of.”
“Well, did you tell your friends about having found the Savior?”
“Indeed, I didn’t, I have been trying to keep it from them all week.”
“Well,” I said, “that is the reason why you have no peace.”
She wanted to take the crown but did not want the cross. My friends, you must go by the way of Calvary. If you ever get rest, you must get it at the foot of the cross.
“Why,” she said, “if I should go home and tell my infidel husband that I had found Christ I don’t know what he would do. I think he would turn me out.”
“Well,” I said, “go out.”
She went away, promising that she would tell him, timid and pale, but she did not want another wretched week. She was bound to have peace.
The next night I gave a lecture to men only, and in the hall, there were eight thousand men and one solitary woman. When I got through and went into the inquiry meeting, I found this lady with her husband. She introduced him to me (he was a doctor and a very influential man) and said:
“He wants to become a Christian.”
I took my Bible and told him all about Christ, and he accepted Him. I said to her after it was all over:
“It turned out quite differently from what you expected, didn’t it?”
“Yes,” she replied, “I was never so scared in my life. I expected he would do something dreadful, but it has turned out so well.”
She took God’s way and got rest.
I want to say to young ladies, perhaps you have a godless father or mother, a skeptical brother, who is going down through drink, and perhaps there is no one who can reach them but you. How many times has a godly, pure young lady taken the light into some darkened home! Many a home might be lit up with the Gospel if the mothers and daughters would only speak the word.
The last time Mr. Sankey and myself were in Edinburgh, there was a father, two sisters, and a brother, who used every morning to take the morning paper and pick my sermon to pieces. They were indignant to think that the Edinburgh people should be carried away with such preaching. One day one of the sisters was going by the hall, and she thought she would drop in and see what class of people went there. She happened to take a seat by a godly lady, who said to her:
“I hope you are interested in this work.”
She tossed her head and said: “Indeed I am not. I am disgusted with everything I have seen and heard.”
“Well,” said the lady, “perhaps you came prejudiced.”
“Yes, and the meeting has not removed any of it, but has rather increased it.”
“I have received a great deal of good from them.”
“There is nothing here for me. I don’t see how an intelligent person can be interested.”
To make a long story short, she got the lady to promise to come back. When the meeting broke up, just a little of the prejudice had worn away. She promised to come back again the next day, and then she attended three or four more meetings and became quite interested. She said nothing to her family until finally, the burden became too heavy, and she told them. They laughed at her and made her the butt of their ridicule.
One day the two sisters were together, and the other said: “Now what have you got at those meetings that you didn’t have in the first place?”
“I have a peace that I never knew of before. I am at peace with God, myself, and all the world.” Did you ever have a little war of your own with your neighbors, in your own family? And she said: “I have self-control. You know, sister, if you had said half the mean things before, I was converted that you have said since I would have been angry and answered back, but if you remember correctly, I haven’t answered once since I have been converted.”
The sister said: “You certainly have something that I have not.” The other told her it was for her too, and she brought the sister to the meetings, where she found peace.
Like Martha and Mary, they had a brother, but he was a member of the University of Edinburgh. He is converted. He goes to these meetings. It might do for women, but not for him. One night they came home and told him that a chum of his own, a member of the University, had stood up and confessed Christ, and when he sat down his brother got up and confessed, and so, with the third one.
When the young man heard it, he said: “Do you mean to tell me that he has been converted?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” he said, “there must be something in it.”
He put on his hat, and coat, and went to see his friend Black. Black got him down to the meetings, and he was converted.
We went through to Glasgow and had not been there six weeks when news came that that young man had been stricken down and died. When he was dying, he called his father to his bedside and said:
“Wasn’t it a good thing that my sisters went to those meetings? Won’t you meet me in heaven, father?”
“Yes, my son, I am so glad you are a Christian; that is the only comfort that I have in losing you. I will become a Christian and will meet you again.”
I tell this to encourage some sisters to go home and carry the message of salvation. It may be that your brother may be taken away in a few months. My dear friends, are we not living on solemn days? Isn’t it time for us to get our friends into the Kingdom of God? Come, wife, won’t you tell your husband? Come, sister, won’t you tell your brother? Won’t you take up your cross now? The blessing of God will rest on your soul if you will.
I was in Wales once, and a lady told me this little story: An English friend of hers, a mother, had a child that was sick. At first, they considered there was no danger, until one day the doctor came in and said that the symptoms were very unfavorable. He took the mother out of the room and told her that the child could not live. It came like a thunderbolt. After the doctor had gone the mother went into the room where the child lay and began to talk to the child and tried to divert its mind.
“Darling, do you know you will soon hear the music of heaven? You will hear a sweeter song than you have ever heard on earth. You will hear them sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. You are very fond of music. Won’t it be sweet, darling?”
And the little tired, sick child turned its head away, and said, “Oh mamma, I am so tired and so sick that I think it would make me worse to hear all that music.”
“Well,” the mother said, “you will soon see Jesus, You will see the seraphim and cherubim and the streets all paved with gold”; and she went on picturing heaven as it is described in Revelation.
The little tired child again turned its head away, and said, “Oh mamma, I am so tired that I think it would make me worse to see all those beautiful things!”
At last, the mother took the child up in her arms and pressed her to her loving heart. And the little sick one whispered:
“Oh mamma, which is what I want. If Jesus will only take me in His arms and let me rest!”
Dear friend, are you not tired and weary of sin? Are you not wearying of the turmoil of life? You can end rest on the bosom of the Son of God.
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