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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/frank-sona/matthew-11-28-person-problem-possession/
Now, before we open the Scriptures at this point, I would just like to pray. Let's pray. Our Father, we come before Thee as we give thanks for the Word of God that has been opened in the teaching of Thy people.
We thank Thee for every word. We thank Thee, our Father, that this, what we are holding is God-breathed. It is from Thee. It is authoritative. It is living. We thank Thee for the message of salvation it contains and the messages of comfort, the messages of doctrine and all the aspects of all of it that is so vital and valuable to us.
As we think of now what we are about to present, we pray for the convicting, soul-reaching power of the Word of God as Christ is presented. We think of those in this audience today that are not saved, sitting next to people perhaps that are on their way to heaven and they are on their way to hell.
They are in their sins. O God, we pray that tonight this reality might be brought home to their conscience, to their heart, to their very being, and that they might realize and grasp that if they died in their sins or the Lord Jesus came today, they would never be able to enter heaven.
And so we ask for help now as we preach Thy Word in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Turn with me to the gospel of Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11. I was thinking of this verse last night as our brother Walls opened the meeting, and it was coming before me.
I've been thinking about it all day today. Matthew 11 in just one verse. I find it's often good at the end of a conference sometimes just to preach on one verse. "'Come unto Me,' these are the words of the Lord Jesus, "'Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'".
I want to notice just three things in this verse. I want to break it down this way. I want you to think about a person to come to now, a person to come to now. I want you to think of a problem to take care of for life, a problem to take care of for life, your sin and the unrest that it causes, the unrest that it produces.
That's for an entire life, and if you die in your sins, that will be forever. But I want you to think of a possession to have forever. Rest, rest. A possession to have forever. I want you to think of this person to come to now.
The Lord Jesus stood before the people as He so often did, and while He seldom, rarely used objects, He sometime, one time would take a penny, other times He would take a child, but very, very rarely.
The great lesson for the people, the great truth for the people as He stood before them was Himself. "'I am come,' He could say, "'that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly.'". John chapter 10 verse 10.
If you notice in that verse, the actual… the word more is in italics. It's not there. The real truth that the Lord Jesus was saying is this, "'I have come that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly,' because you know what?
You don't have any life. You're spiritually… it's just never there. Because of your sins, life has been taken away from you. You have physical life, but you have no connection between you and God. Do you know that, young man?
Do you know that? You have no connection with God. You're in your sins and you're lost. Young girl, doesn't matter how you look, doesn't matter how you feel, you might be healthy as anything, you have no connection to God.
You are in your sins, separated, void of life. The Lord Jesus presents Himself tonight in this meeting, not the speaker, but Christ Himself. "'I am come that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly.
Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest.'". And while we preach the cross, and while we preach the death of Christ, and the payment certainly is made in that death, the reality is this, ultimately we are presenting a person, the person to be received, so that when you walk out of this meeting tonight, today, this afternoon, when you leave this gymnasium, you're not rejecting the words of a speaker.
You are ultimately rejecting the person of the Son of God, of Christ Himself, as He offers Himself to you to be your Savior. Think of the weight of that. Think of the reality of that. Come unto Me, a person to come to now.
For 4 ,000 years before the Lord Jesus said this, geographically, there were places to come to. You could come to the door of the tabernacle. You could come to that place with your offering, and you could present that, and a sacrifice would be given.
And geographically, there would be situated in that place, in that system, a means to temporarily do what God had instructed you to do. And geographically, there were, as the Word of God went forth more, there were cities.
There were actually six of them. Three were located on one side of the Jordan. Three were on the other side. And these were cities of refuge, geographical places that you could go to, and you could be safe from someone who was called the avenger of blood, and they were going after you.
They wanted you to die because of what you had done. And you could be safe in that city, geographically. But this is different. The Lord Jesus isn't telling people now about cities and places. He's telling them about someone you could go to anywhere you are.
Anywhere. I know people saved in Europe. I know people saved in Asia. I know people saved in Canada, and anywhere. But not anytime. Not anytime. We heard it last night. Come now. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord.
God never gives an individual tomorrow. And while you could be saved in any place, you cannot be saved anytime. And so the Lord Jesus stands there that day, and He is speaking to the people, come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
A person to come to now. So I would ask you tonight, or today, what do you think of Christ? That's really the question. What think ye of Christ? What are your thoughts? Because, you see, what you think of the Lord Jesus will as well be linked with what you think of your sin.
The two will go together. We had that brought before us by Brother Brandon last night. The sufferings of Christ and the sinfulness of man. That what you think of the position you're in, and before God, in your sins, will be whether you think lightly of Christ or greatly of Christ.
For those of us that are saved in this meeting, there was a time when we found out what we were, where we were going, how dark was our sin, how deeply marked we were, how scarred, how marred, that what sin was doing to us, and what sin would do to us if we continued on in our sin, that we died in our sin, and we knew we needed the Savior, we needed Christ.
And we said, thank God for the Lord Jesus, and we trusted Him. But there are those in this meeting right now, and you are sitting in your sins, and He calls you. Heaven's call even now is, come unto me.
You can come now, just like the people did that day. It's the same Christ. He hasn't changed. He offers salvation, a person to come to now. So my question again is this, do you want to stay in your sins again another day?
Do you want to remain lost, do you want to remain condemned before God in light of eternity, in light of heaven and hell? Do you want, do you love your sin that much that you will stay in your sin another day?
With the possibility that you could die today on the trip back home, in your car, on the highway, or the Lord Jesus could come, can you imagine if He came right now? How many seats would be emptied in a flash?
And how many seats would remain filled? And who would be dotted in different sections? Maybe some in this section, to look over at some in that section, or to look in the middle, at those left behind.
And what the Lord Jesus says here, come unto Me, now can never be true. You can never come unto Him now. A person to come to now. A problem to take care of for life. When I think of sin, it's not your typical problem.
There are problems that we go through. Brother Joel was just talking about a dry mouth as he takes medication. As we get older, there are problems. As you go on in years, there are problems that you will have that you don't have as a young person, say, of 5, of 10, of 15.
You don't have car problems as a young person. You don't have marital problems as a young person. You don't have health problems as much. You certainly don't have gray hair or no hair, but you do have a problem.
It's the biggest one of your life. And it will haunt you and hound you all through life. And there is absolutely nothing you can do to shake it, to change it. And it's all yours. And while it is universal, for there is no man that sinneth not, it is unique with each individual person because it is your sin, and God holds you accountable, responsible, condemned.
It's the greatest problem. When I think of that, I think of the contact of sin. We talk about looking into outer space and reaching out, far reaching, whether it's the Hubble telescope or satellites that are launched in.
If we could just make contact, if we could just see something that's so far away, and men are trying to make contact. Here is something that will last for eternity if you stay in your sins, and it will take you farther than the furthest reaches of this galaxy, because it will take you into eternity farther and farther away from God.
It is your sin, and it has made contact. As soon as you were born, as soon as you were conceived, the idea of sin is there. Men go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. David says, in sin did my mother conceive me.
Sin has made contact, and it has caused you to really have no rest, to have no peace. It has taken away the ability. Do you understand this? It has taken away the ability for a human being, for you, to ultimately have rest.
That's why the world is in such shape it's in. That's why bigger, better, bolder, more, amusements, the thrills, everything possible, you name it, from video games to amusement parks to things that people do, because it just doesn't fill the void.
There's nothing there. There's unrest in the heart, in the soul of men, and you have to admit it. The Lord Jesus says here, come unto Me. All you that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. I will give you rest.
Isn't it a wonderful thing? Did you catch that? I will give you rest. You don't have to pay anything for it. He gives it. He's done all the paying. He's done all the suffering. He does all the providing.
I will give you rest. Sin has taken that away, the contact of sin. I think of the carnage of sin. Look around in this world. Look, we're sitting here. I'm looking at a very nicely dressed, neat audience.
You're all listening, and at least most of you are listening, and I think about what's out there, what sin has done, that the contact that sin has made upon lives that are blighted, that are burned, that are burdened, and you might think that you are light years away from the alcoholic that we were hearing about or the drug addict or or the homeless person on the street as you look at.
I remember an individual. It just comes into my mind now. We were going down in New York City in an area called the Bowery, and there are people there laying on the streets, homeless people. What areas of their body that were exposed you could see were marked and marred, dirty and filthy and bruised.
I was with another group of Christians. I was taking them around in New York as we often did when we lived in New Jersey, and I remember one man as he was laying down there on the sidewalk, and you know, some of these men, many of them, were actually doctors and lawyers, people of tremendous ability, and they shot their lives.
Sin shot their lives, and I remember one man. He was laying there, and he had a paper bag in his arm, and in the paper bag was a bottle of whatever, alcoholic, and I went up to him, and I put a couple dollars there, and I put a gospel tract right there, and he just looked over, and he grabbed the money, and he pushed the tract away, and he clutched the bottle, and I thought the one thing he really needed, he pushed away.
The one thing you really need, are you pushing away? The one person you really need, are you pushing away? How many times? How long? Why? When he says, come unto me, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest.
Lives that have been destroyed, the carnage of sin that it's called, the confusion of sin. Sin confuses the mind, the thinking of people. Sin puts a permanent twist in the thinking, and reasoning, and logic of men.
Didn't we catch that last night in the verse? Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord, and as God presents His argument to the people, the people will argue differently, and God will tell you tonight as He does, you are a sinner, you are lost, you are condemned, and you look back, and you think in your heart of hearts, I'm not that bad.
Really, I'm not as bad as other people. I've got a suit and tie on tonight. I've got my own Bible. I'm not like them. You read about Israel time and time again, how they rejected the Lord, how they went into idolatry, and all of these.
You're not like them, right? But they didn't have the Lord Jesus there Himself. They didn't have someone who had actually died and paid the price, and you do. A problem to take care of for life, a possession to have forever.
I think of this, the Lord Jesus says, I will, I will give you rest. He didn't quite say it. God didn't quite say it in creation, but very, very similar. Let there be, let there be, that would be the equivalent of, I will.
I will. Let there be light. I will. And God, in the greatness and the grandeur of creation, made those statements. I will. Life, I will. Light, I will. The universe, I will. And God, by divine fiat, created things from nothing.
I think when it comes to a leper, and in his goodness, the Lord Jesus says, I will. Be thou clean. I will. We heard earlier, God is not willing that any should perish. God is not willing that you lose your soul.
God is not willing that you die in your sins. God is not willing that you drop into hell. God wants you to come to heaven. God wants to save you. God wants to save your life, as well as your soul. He wants you to live a life that will not be wasted.
Do you know every moment you've lived right now, if you're not saved, if you're lost in your sins, every moment that you have lived is an absolute waste in light of eternity? Wasted? Building up instead of blessing, building up burden.
Every step you take, every day you go by, every moment of the tick of the clock, that you are building more and more against you. I think of the statement, I will. I will give you rest. It's a guarantee.
When God says He'll do something, He does it. Nothing's going to change it. And He says, I will give you rest. As I close, I just thought of this word, rest. There's a lot of…. The Bible has a lot of different ways of giving us the terms of salvation.
We have forgiveness, salvation, eternal life, the reconciliation, justification. There are a lot of different…. But you know, rest. Rest. You're going to go home tonight, hopefully. Hopefully you'll make it, by the grace of God.
And you will go to sleep at night, and you'll rest. But you'll wake up tomorrow, but this rest, this lasts forever. You know, I was thinking, Brother John, where he comes from originally, Yonkers, that area, if you move up just a little bit, there's the Catskill Mountains.
And in the Catskill Mountains of New York, there is a legend of a man, I don't know if you'll know his name or not, but his name is Rip Van Winkle. And Rip Van Winkle went up into the mountains one day, and he fell asleep for 21 years, and then he woke up.
That's a long rest, 21 years. When we used to drive to go on vacation, I remember seeing a statue of him that was just cut out of the mountain on one of those mountains in the Catskills, and you could see that great granite statue of Rip Van Winkle.
They say that was the place he fell asleep. I don't know. Twenty-one years is a long time. How would you like to have rest forever? How would you like to have peace forever? Not 21 years, not 21 centuries, forever.
To never know what it is to have unrest. You know, the Word of God says that the wicked are like the troubled sea. They stir up dirt and mire. There's just an unrest, wave upon wave. That's like the human soul.
But what the Lord Jesus gives eternally is rest. You know what touched my heart to think of this? The one thing He says He will give is the one thing in His life that He seemed to have so little of. Isn't that something?
Very rarely do you read of the Lord Jesus resting. On the hinder part of a ship, tossed to and fro with the waves, He was asleep. And then again, on the cross, He bowed His head, dismissed His spirit, bowed His head.
Rest. It's finished. He gives rest. Rest. Rest from sin. Rest from judgment. Rest from fear of meeting God. Would you be honest right now this afternoon and admit if you died in your sins right now, if you had to meet God right now, does that not put fear into your heart?
Does that not strike terror and reality into you? If you were called right now to stand before God, you would have no rest. You couldn't. And He says, come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden.
You know, that's not just religious people. Sin does that. Sin puts a burden. And I will give you rest. I will take away the burden of your sin. I will give you peace. You know why? Because He says, come unto Me.
I will give you Me. And that's what He does this afternoon. He offers Himself as the Savior to save you from your sins. Let's pray. Father, we thank Thee for the Lord Jesus. We thank Thee for His great work.
What a person! As He stood there that day, He would speak to the multitudes and tell them that He would give them rest. People that were so full of their religion and works, we think of even how the very next chapter of this gospel, we read of the Sabbath.
And in their minds, He violated the Sabbath, that which would speak of rest itself. And He could say so rightly, that which is echoed in this verse, that the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. He is greater than any rest that could be given through anything else, for it is eternal.
It goes to the heart and conscience of men. And we thank Thee for everyone here this afternoon that we have rest through Christ. We have peace. But we pray for those who are lost and in their sins. And if they died, and if the Lord Jesus came today, if they died in those sins, they would never have peace.
And the words of the Savior, come unto me, would go forth in a rapid paradox, that they would be brought to Him in judgment, and then they would depart from Him forever in their sins. Oh God, we pray, awaken, speak, reach and save as we thank Thee for this weekend and pray Thy blessing upon all that has been spoken.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.