The Invitation: Come Unto Me — Rolfe Barnard

The scripture that was read this morning before I say that, the Mother of Israel, I forget her name, says I have to sing tonight, and so I'm going to do that, if you can be a testimony that we love. We had before us the scripture this morning from the 11th chapter of the gospel of Matthew, and from that scripture I desire to speak this morning, and if you'll turn again to it, I should like to read the text, having given the subject, we'll speak to a subject this morning, and the subject is the Savior's invitation.

Christ’s Invitation to the Weary

The Savior's invitation, and the invitation is verse 28 and 29, "'Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'. The better rendering, I will rest you. The next verse tells how he'll rest you.

"'Take my yoke upon you.'. If you're a hard-working man, you've found out long since that the thing that'll rest you is not to sit down, but to change what you're doing, do something a little different that relaxes you and rests you.

And so the Lord Jesus said, "'Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I'll rest you,' how? By putting my yoke upon you. "'Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I'll rest you.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me.'. As an inducement to someone to accept and to receive his invitation, he says, "'For I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke, man's got to wear a yoke, and mine's so much more easy than he'll find anywhere else.'".

It's not a question of whether a man will wear a yoke or not, that's already been besettled. If you're a human being, you're wearing a yoke this morning, you're in bondage to sin or to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Man can't say, "'Well, I'll not bear, I'll not be asleep,' that's something that's not optional. And the Lord Jesus says, "'The way I'll rest you is to give you a different yoke. You enter my school and learn of me.

My yoke is easy,' isn't that precious? "'Blind men cannot see it.'. If I speak to somebody who's not blind any longer, there was a time when you could not see it. But if you can see now, you've learned that the Lord Jesus tells the truth.

The Law of First Mention and the First Gospel Invitation

My yoke is easy, oh, that easier than the yoke of sin, isn't it? And my burden is light, glory, hallelujah.". The Bible teachers talk to us about the law of first mention, and I believe they lead us rightly when they tell us that if you, in this day when every creed and every doctrine and every position is fortified by scripture, that if you would come out of the confusion of this hour in pretty good shape in the matter of studying God's word, and not to be smart, but to practice it, for the only way to study God's word is on your knees, not to learn something, but to learn something so that you can obey it, and that you pay strict attention to the law of first mention the first time a truth is found in the word of God, there the key is given, and that truth, wherever it shows up throughout the rest of the Bible, will mean what it did in the first instance.

And this law of first mention comes with particular power and emphasis and importance when we remember that the verses that I've just read to you are the first constitute, the first invitation the Lord Jesus gave to individual men and women to come to him.

This is the first gospel invitation. We must face very squarely every child of God must, for you are called to be a preacher, and you are a witness, and you are a yoke-feller of the Holy Ghost here, and you must see to it that two things do not happen as you minister wherever God leads you to somebody to speak to it.

You dare not add to this invitation, but please, God, wouldn't it be wonderful if we quit giving a lesser invitation than the dear Lord gave? Any gospel invitation that adds to this is unscriptural. Any gospel invitation that gives a sinner a part of this invitation, and not all of it, will not honor God and will further butcher up this religious confused generation that are going to hell with their names on church rolls, who have accepted a part and have not yet been confronted with and vowed to, not a divided Christ, but the Son of God as he is presented.

Sin, Repentance, and the Need for a Physician

This scripture also, this invitation, will have no special meaning for anybody unless it is read and received from the background from which it is given. We say up and down the land, quoting the scripture, that they that are not sick don't need a physician.

You have to interpret a little bit there, in other words, they that are not sick. There's nobody, as the Lord looks at that, that's not sick, the whole head with sick. It means that a fellow doesn't believe he's sick, he's not likely to be dangling the telephone and running around trying to find the doctor.

They that are not sick have no need of a physician. In that same wise, the Lord Jesus will say, I came not to call the righteous to repentance, and there he's not saying that some of you nice people are righteous and you don't need me, but what he's saying is, I didn't come to call people who think they're righteous, but I did come to call sinners to repentance.

And if you read this invitation in its background, as we're going to do just now, and you don't balk at the scriptures and the setting of it, and you face the fact, it might be that the Holy Spirit will find somebody here this morning who'd be anxious to hear the Savior's invitation.

So let us read this text again in the light of its awful setting. It's a setting twofold, of the awful wrath and judgment of God, and of the awful sovereignty of the redeeming Lord. Let's look at this context and see the awful judgment of God.

Christ’s Rejection and the Judgment of the Cities

The Lord Jesus, as cataphor, presented himself to the elect Jewish nation as the God-sent Messiah. He's come with all the credentials of which the Old Testament said he would wear when he came. And he has presented himself to a nation, the Jewish nation as such, received Jesus Christ as Messiah, King.

They would have found in him salvation, that if an individual will submit that Jesus Christ as his absolute Lord, he'll find in the Lord a Savior. He'll find salvation. Salvation. But the Jewish nation, through its leaders, for people usually haven't got time to think for themselves.

If they're in legal trouble, they'll hire a lawyer. If they're sick, they'll go to a doctor. If they're in trouble, they'll go to a preacher. But this generation plunges on its road to hell, not knowing anything for certain about things spiritual, believing the last preacher they heard.

And through the leaders, the Jewish nation has looked the one who claimed to be God's anointed. They've looked him over, and they've said, this one will not do. And so in verse 20, the Lord Jesus, for the first time, turns to the bitterest, most blistering words perhaps in the entire Bible, and pronounces woe upon the nation as such.

Then, not till then, when the cup was full, when the dive had been cast, when morally responsible men had been left without excuse and had made their decision about the claims of the anointed one, then, not till then, but then began he to upbraid the cities, strangely the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done.

And he upbraided them, not as people have been pitted, but he upbraided them because they repented not. And he pronounced these terrible woes upon these cities, and says that if the mighty works which were done in you had been done long ago in the cities of Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

And he says, I say unto you, it be more tolerable for them at the day of judgment than for you. And then in the city, they say, Jesus loved most and all wherein his greatest works had been done. He turned and said, Thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, thou shalt be brought down to hell.

For if the mighty works which had been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee.

Holy Wrath, the Cross, and the Good News

Of course, if a man will not accept the first message of the cross of Jesus Christ, he will not be interested in the second. And always and eternally, the first message of the preacher who will preach the cross is the message of God Almighty's holy wrath and his unalterable holy nature, and the demands of his holy law that drove the nails in the flesh of the Son of God and kept him hanging there in somebody's stead.

This generation has been offered a Savior of which it feels absolutely no need, and that's true because we have just absolutely been in such a hurry to get people to move what we call make a decision that we haven't had time or the courage to preach.

Every drop of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ calls out that God is holy, that his law must be satisfied, vindicated, exalted, and magnified, that God, if given the choice, will send every human being to hell before he'll violate his own holy nature, that it was an awful necessity from the nature of God that drove Jesus Christ as his sacrifice and the believing sinner's substitute to die on a holy cross.

And if I speak to somebody this morning who's not a victim of the ease of believism and the nice goody-goody stuff they call the gospel today, if I speak to somebody who's had a little time to face the implications of the Son of God hanging on a cross while on earth did he hang there, it might be that you would be glad to hear one more time, and maybe for the first time, for the first time, any human being ever hears the gospel as gospel, he'll be saved just like that.

And if God's good news ever comes to you, and you say that's good news, and if you're in trouble, if you're feeling the sting of the whole immoral character and demands of a holy God in your utter inability to produce what he requires, ah, to come along with God's remedy for people in that shape, that'd be good news to you, wouldn't it?

You might be glad to hear him invite you to come to him. You say, that's for me, boy, that's for me, that's for me, that's for me. And then look at the sovereignty of God. Oh, against this background, what does the sovereignty of God mean?

It simply means that God's God. That he's very God. Doesn't mean he's a monster, just means he's God. Our Father said he's God. You can trust him, brother. You can get into his hands. Ah, that bank's not going to go broke.

He's holy in the heavens and on the earth. Look at the sovereignty of God. In connection, laying the setting for an invitation, and the people who go around the country trying to get people to accept Jesus and ignore the holy nature, the awful judgment of God, are doing sinners wrong.

And the people who go around this country trying to get people to take a Jesus they feel no need of, who ignore the fact that God Almighty is utterly very God, and absolute sovereign even in the matter of salvation, are doing sinners an injustice.

The Sovereignty of God in Revelation and Salvation

Let me read scriptures that if I could understand the depths of them, I expect my spiritual hair would grow straight up. I've read them hundreds of times. I've prayed over this passage of scripture. My little brain can't encompass them.

But oh, they bring a hush on me. And the easy familiarity of what they call Christianity today goes out the window. For it is also commonly true that the folks who know nothing about the Lord God are the folks who are on such familiar terms with him.

That's right, my friend. That's right. One of the greatest curses of what they call Christianity today is the common familiarity we have with a majestic God. I want you to hear me. I hope a holy hush might come on somebody just before my Lord turns to give his first gospel invitation to the Father, verse 25.

That time answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth. Be called prudent, and hast revealed them unto me. Smart Alec, goodbye. Go on to hell. I tell you this evening, smart Alec, a sovereign God has hidden the truth.

A little weak, somebody in desperate help. Be a good chair, my friend. The sovereign God will reveal it to you. Imagine the Lord Jesus Christ thanking the Father because he's hidden these things from people who are wise in their own estimation.

If I speak to somebody to whom he's revealed it, this little old babe, not so smart, amen? But God does that. Do you believe it? You better. You're in the hands of a God who not only can but does hide.

That's the only place for you, Mr. Jeremy, like a little old baby at the foot of a sovereign God saying, Lord, if you will, you can. That's about the only safe place I know for this cocky generation. But to make it still worse and to provide an atmosphere so somebody either get them a club and try to beat hell out of God or I take that place, the only safe place for a subject not demanding but in subjection at the good pleasure of the sovereign.

You are God's... I read the next verse. Even so, Father. Good. Don't expect you can take that, Mr. Jeremy, but God says, all right. That's what you want to do. You want to hide these things from the wise and prudent and reveal them to babes.

Even so, Father. I wouldn't want you to think I'm blasphemous but it looks like in his humanity the Lord Jesus almost says, Father, this is just a little too deep for me but it's bound to be all right if it suits you.

Reverence Before the Majesty of God

Now, even so, I give a darned heck to cow and calf if we could have a revival of preaching today that would take some of the cockiness out of this generation of church people. You know, it took your grandpa about 30 minutes to get ready to address the deity.

And when they go to England to be presented before the Queen, they go by invitation and they spend months the ladies do getting a dress and learning how to curtsy and all of that business, you know. So they won't be embarrassed in the presence of a sovereign.

Oh, Father. Good. It gets worse. Look at the next verse. There's somebody who goes against the very atmosphere of this religious generation that uses God as a milk cow and has lost all conception of His glory.

The Lord Jesus utters these words. They are the most challenging. For so it seemed good. And it just gets worse. Look at the next verse. There's somebody who goes against the very atmosphere of this religious generation that uses God as a milk cow and has lost all conception of His glory.

The Lord Jesus utters these words. They are the most challenging. Verses I've ever... This is the most challenging verse I've ever faced. I do not begin to pretend to be able to take it. It kills everything about the flesh.

Read it one more time. Even. All things. I mean the things of my Father. It delivered unto me who gave unto the Lord the Father. If He ever gives you an invitation come to Him. I think that'd be my nice one.

You'll pay a little attention to that. Oh yeah. This one. Into whose hands things have been delivered. All things are delivered unto me of my Father. Man. The Son. I won't go as far as you like. It's in the Bible, beloved.

I mean I can understand it but there it is. My heart bleeds. I'm not being pious. I've got to face people with the judgment to whom I've preached and had an opportunity to preach and you have too. The cockiness of what they call Christianity.

They break the heart of the devil if there was one. This blasphemous stuff of putting God down in the dust and ascending man upon the throne putting God in the hands of billions of men and women tell you when they're saved but wouldn't know Jesus Christ and the Holy Walk with Him even if they met Him in the road.

That as far as my little responsibility is concerned I had the brain power and the heart power of God instead of bow to Him to seriously face the fact that the only one who can ask you an invitation to anybody to be saved by coming to Him is the Son except the Father the Son and Him whoever the Son.

W-I-L-L. If we could have a revival in Sunday school churches classes and over the radio and in pulpits and then printed generation where the fact is in the hands of a sovereign Redeemer who alone can make God real to you and He reserves the right to reveal the Father to whosoever He will.

If we could have a revival of that instead of fight it you'd see things happen all over this country you'd see men get in their clubs and try to get rid of God that'd be good you'd see some others bowing down and say Oh God if Thou wilt have mercy on me.

Whichever you do I'm in your hands. I'll never know lest the Son reveals unto me you know what I'm saying and I'm gonna quit on his business and get me a club a shotgun and try to get rid of him. I'm gonna take my place as a subject with no demands pleading mercy out of the background like this for a sovereign Redeemer who alone can reveal God to men.

What condescension power back of it. What responsibility placed on those to whom it's given. If the invitation comes from a futile Christ needs help. That's one thing. But if it comes from a sovereign Lord in whose hands all has been delivered and who alone can make God real to men and women he said the only way to God's come to me he said I know a Lord that can reveal the Father to you give that grace of the air.

You've rejected the invitation of the sovereign Lord of Glory and won't be able to make hell hot enough to fit your awful blasphemous sin. Interesting that the cross is to be preached to all the Lord and the gospel.

The Universal Call and the Thirsty Sinner

And that in mighty grace and condescension the messengers of the cross are bitten to go and plead with men to be reconciled to God. What grace that is. It is a blessed truth that there is one sense in which all men are invited to come to Him.

But it is also true that in a deeper sense most men are not invited to come to Him. It is true that men do the limited. But nowhere in the entire Old Testament is it known to say now violated fit to come into the presence of the eternal Son of God.

That invitations qualify. Just like it is here Adam flew in and fallen raised. Doesn't say that to have a nice little no show salvation make you see without having to walk with Christ. No it don't say that.

It does say here. Do you see it. There is nothing but judgment and damnation for self sufficient people who get along fine. Thank you. Go away and say the preacher said Christ doesn't invite everybody.

There is a sense where He invites everybody and that none are excluded. Where all the invitations come. Right back to this. You make this decision now young man you laboring under the burden of your failure and sin.

Are you scared of dying and tired of living under God. Are you crushed under the burden of your lonesomeness. No I am getting along just fine. Well we are not talking to you. You don't want Christ to rest you and the master.

For sin is personified in the Bible and is called a sovereign. There are just two sovereigns sin and Christ. And you and your master get along fine for their pleasure in sin. And we invite you to come unto the Lord Jesus till the blood and the faith will have just as much success with you as the fact that you can lead a horse to water.

There is no way on God's earth. You can get him to drink unless he is thirsty. Come unto me. Ye get it. You are well reminded. You are people with every kind of a God. And you can have me and them too.

No no. Come unto me. All you who are weary and heavily laden. How you do it Lord. You'll get a new master. See if you are a member of Adam's race. I know that's smart about you. Just by looking at myself.

You were born to be ruled. The government shall be on his shoulder. And you are under the rule now of personified sin. We hear a lot about the freedom of the will now. And if you mean the fact that a man is not a robot and that he is responsible and so forth.

Alright. But the scriptures talk a great deal about the bondage of man. They are not free to do lots of things. And my Lord said he that committed sin is the bond slave. You are made to be ruled and ruled.

You will be I S I in sin personified in the hands of Satan by the Lord Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 55 and 1 the picture there is a caravan of camels and their drivers coming from a long journey through the desert.

And some kind hearted man has gone to the spring and loaded up some barrels full of fresh spring water. And just as the camel drivers are coming off their hot journey he's camped out there by the side of the road.

And as they come in the caravan he puts his hands to his mouth and he says HO! HEY! Everyone that thirsty driver says thank you. I'm not thirsty. But he said I didn't address you. I said ho everyone that's thirsty.

Christ’s Call to the Thirsty in John and Revelation

John's Gospel chapter 7 just a little while before the crucifixion where the Lord Jesus is in the midst of the people who hated him more. Right. In the temple he turns after they turned thumbs down on him and they parted for his death.

I think to his mouth and stands in the temple says if any man in the temple crowd killing if any man thirst. But if any man thirst let him roll up his sleeves and spit on his hands and plow through the satanic atmosphere all about him and the opposition of all hell itself if he must.

If any man thirst let him come to me and be all I am catering. In the last chapter of the book of the revelation watch it very carefully. It is blessedly true that whosoever will may come to Christ. But having said that the scriptures don't use that kind of language now that power and feet down.

The Bible says whosoever will may come. But the Bible don't. The Bible just don't do it. It's so. And by here this morning willing to take the yoke of the Lord Jesus on nobody to hinder you. And what.

Sometimes maybe in dealing with souls which is very important we ought not try to improve on the word of God. Let me quote it like it's written not like how it's used. What is it. The seventeenth version.

And the spirit and the bride say come and let him. That heareth say come. And whosoever will may come. No I didn't. What says that. Whoso is what a sir isn't that. What says that. What are the next three words.

Somebody read it. Whoso is a thirst. Let him come. And now thirsty people amen. Don't feel any need in us thirsty invited to take. Don't think they can't do. They can't buy can't deserve it. But bless God.

They can take it. The water of life where you lay. May I close this morning by asking you if you'd be so kind to turn to the gospel of John on Wednesday this morning. But I want you to see here in the gospel according to John at verse 40 I want to read you the most pessimistic the most pessimistic verse in the entire Bible.

Scripture Without Christ and the Call to Come

I think it's John 6. John 5. I'll get right here. John 5 and 40. John 5 and verse 40 there is an awful verse of scripture because it tells the truth the Lord Jesus said in verse 39. And I think the reading of it is this.

You're constantly searching the scripture. He told a bunch of Bible readers and Bible students and Bible teachers here Old Testament. He said you're constantly searching the scripture. That's fine. But then he puts the finger on a terrible thing said the reading.

You're constantly searching the scripture is in them. Ye think ye have eternal life. But eternal life is not in the scripture. He says day of age which point to the one where life is. But said you never.

The next verse and the literal Greek of it. Ye desire to come to Christ. They found life somewhere else. They found it in the scripture. If you got life you don't need anymore. Do you. If you're well you don't need a doctor.

Do you. You just had a great big drink of cool water. You don't need a drink. Do you. You just had a great big t-bone steak. You're not tickly hungry. That's you people these people the leaders who finally led to the crucifixion of Christ.

They studied the bible and put the Christ in the word therefore had no desire to get in the bible union with in contact with him that the word talks about. And that is said I think of B .B. Warfield a great Presbyterian theologian.

The folly of preaching the gospel of whosoever will in a world of whosoever won't. Mr. Ernie Riesinger leave it up to man to who will come to Christ. And the answer is what nobody nobody nobody. Now I go over reading you the most optimistic passage in the word of God to this preacher verse in the 6th chapter.

Divine Drawing and Hearing the Word of God

Verse 44. The 6th chapter verse 44 I said John 5 for it is pessimistic. Paints the picture of every human being. Why haven't you come to Christ. You've already dug out a cistern. You're drinking water from it.

Getting along fine. Thank you. See you don't need for anybody to give. Give you water out of the real. Well see what I mean. Why didn't these Jews come to Christ. They didn't need and they'd already got what they wanted in the scriptures.

See what I mean. And they had no need to come to him upon the scriptures. See. No man will. But thank God. Here's a note of optimism. Verse 44. John 6 chapter. No man can come to me. This isn't pessimistic.

This isn't telling people they can't get to Christ. Just shutting the door and showing them where it is. No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him but bless God. He does that.

That is where the optimism is. Who's coming to Christ. Nobody nobody except the Father draw him. But the Father does draw him but see how he draws him. Verse 45. Here's how the Father draws men to the Son.

It is written in the prophets. They shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father. What will he do. Come in. There's our hope. Why do we keep preaching.

Was the Youth for Christ. Director I believe was recognized. Why do we have Youth for Christ. Why do we get on the radio. Why do we have Evangelist Campaign. Why do we preach. Why do we teach Sun School.

Why do we get out track. Why do we do everything. Faith cometh by hearing. Thus start listening to what God says. Hearing the word of God. How does God draw men to come to Christ. Sit down go to school until some day this book will become the testimony of a living God.

You see that's what God said. Act on what God said. Amen. I'm not going to take your word for it. I'll take what God says about it. Faith cometh by hearing. Hearing by the word of God. Everybody's got time to go to school to almighty God in the text books.

Right here folks. No man can come except the Father draw men. But the prophets told us they shall be all taught of God. Never man that has heard the testimony of God.