d ye shall find rest unto your
souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

There are two invitations here, "come" and "take." There are two sorts of
people. Those who are tugging and straining at work, and carrying heavy
burdens, and then those who have received rest, and are now asked to go a
step farther. There are two kinds of rest, a given rest, and a found rest.
The given rest cannot be found. It comes as a sheer out gift, from Jesus'
own hand. The found rest cannot be given, may I say? It comes stealing its
gentle way in as one fits into Jesus' plan for his life.

Many folks have accepted the first of these invitations. They have "come"
to Jesus, and received sweet rest from His hand. But they have gone no
farther. At the close of that first invitation there is a punctuation
period, a full stop. Some of the old schoolbooks used to say that one
should stop at a period and count four. Well, a great many people have
followed that old rule here, and more than followed. They have stopped at
that period, and never gotten past it. I want just now to ask you to come
with me as we talk together a bit about this second invitation, "Take My
yoke."

Jesus used several different words in tying people up to Himself. There is
a growth in them, as He draws us nearer and nearer. First always is the
invitation "Come unto Me." That means salvation, life. Then He says,
"Follow Me," "Come after Me." That means discipleship. "Learn of Me"
means training in discipleship. "Yoke up with Me" means closest
fellowship. "Abide in Me" leads one out into abundant life. "As the Father
hath sent Me, even so send I you," means living Jesus' life over again.
And then the last "Go ye" is the outer reach of all, service for a world.

Surrender a Law of Life.

Just now we want to talk together over this little three-worded sentence
from Jesus' lips, "Take My yoke." What does it mean? Well, that word yoke
is used in all literature outside of this book, as well as here, to mean
this: surrender by one and mastery by another one. Where two nations have
fought and the weaker has been forced to yield, it is quite commonly
spoken of as wearing the yoke of the stronger nation. The Romans required
their prisoners of war to pass under a yoke, sometimes a common cattle
yoke, sometimes an improvised yoke, to indicate their utter subjugation.
These Hebrews to whom Jesus is speaking are writhing with sore shoulders
under the galling yoke of the R