His Yoke is Easy
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BY J. W. BRANAM.
THERE are a great many people in the world claiming to be children of God, who, if you ask them whether they are Christians, will put on a very sober face and answer, “Well, I hope I am a Christian; I have been trying to live right for several years, but I have a very hard time, and a great many ups and downs;” and from their talk you would suppose they were serving a very hard master, and no doubt they are, but not the one they are professing to serve. What encouragement does a sinner have to serve God when he hears a professed Christian talk like that? He perhaps is having a degree of pleasure in sin, and he sees nothing to induce him to change his condition where he would only have a “hard time” continually.
It has always been the design of Satan to make the people believe that the Lord’s service is hard, while his own is easy, and if he can deceive a person that is in his service, and get him to believe that he is in God’s service he has accomplished his purpose. In the parable of the slothful servant (Matthew 25: 14), when the lord came to settle with them, the one that had received the one talent answered and said, “Lord, I knew thee, that thou art an hard man,” (master), trying to blame his master for his slothfulness. How many professed Christians serve the Devil all the time and then try to lay the blame on God, and talking about having such a hard time to live a Christian. The Lord Jesus says, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11: 28. The Devil’s service is hard and bitter, and his yoke is galling to the neck that wears it, but the yoke that Jesus lays upon his servants is light and easy and is an ornament of grace, and as chains of gold about the neck.
The real secret of a happy life is found in Psalms 37: 4. “Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” To delight in anything is to be happy in doing it. Some people go to meeting, and pray and testify, like if they were at the funeral of some dear friend. God wants us to take a great delight in his service, delight in prayer, delight in testifying for him, delight in searching his Word, delight in doing deeds of kindness and love, in ministering to the needy and suffering. Oh, blessed service, full of peace and joy. Truly we can say with Jeremiah, “Thy Words were found, and I did eat them; and thy Word was unto me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart.”- Jeremiah 15: 16. “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”- Romans 14: 17. “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”- 1st Thessalonians 5: 16. No time to complain of hard times; no time to murmur or fret; the whole life is swallowed up in God, and the “joy of the Lord is their strength.” “Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.”- 1st Corinthians 10: 10. When God sent deliverance to Israel, and brought them with a high hand out of Egyptian bondage, for a time there was great rejoicing; but after a while they forgot the loving-kindness of God, and murmured, saying, “Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full, for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”- Exodus 10: 3. God was angry with them, and because of their unbelief, he sware in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest (i. e. Canaan). Take heed, brethren, lest any of you fall after the same example of unbelief. Now let us notice the promise God gave to Israel if they would be faithful.
“Therefore shall ye lay up these my Words in your heart and in your soul, . . . and ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou rises up. . . . That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth.”– Deuteronomy 11: 18 to 21. Some people are expecting to be happy and enjoy salvation when they get to heaven; but in this promise God tells the children of Israel that if they would obey him he would multiply their days, as the days of heaven upon earth. Heaven begins when we get salvation; the very elements of heaven are implanted in our souls, which is purity, holiness, love, peace and joy; our days become days of rejoicing and gladness, and are appropriately described by the expression, “as the days of heaven upon earth.” Some one may ask, Do not Christians have temptations and trials? We answer yes; but the Word of God tells us to rejoice in tribulation also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, etc., “And they departed from the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.”- Acts 5: 41. Although the servants of Christ may be persecuted, and have their names cast out as evil, yet in the midst of it all they can rejoice and give glory to God. A religion without joy is a Christless religion. May God help people who are struggling along with a profession and bemoaning their hard lot, to come to God, repent of their sins, and get an experience wherein they have the real peace and joy of salvation. “Let Israel rejoice in him that made him; let the children of Zion be joyful in their king. . . For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people; he will beautify the meek with salvation. Let the saints be joyful in glory, let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a sharp two-edged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishment upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgments written: this honor have all the saints. Praise ye the Lord.”- Psalms 149: 2 to 9.
“His yoke is easy, his burden is light,
I’ve found it so, I’ve found it so;
His service is my sweetest delight,
His blessing ever flow.”
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