THE SONFUL SERVITUDE
by John MacDuff - 1800s
"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said" —
"My yoke is easy, and my burden is light." — Matthew 11:30
Can the same be said of Satan, or sin? With regard to them, how faithfully true rather is the converse — "My yoke is heavy, and my burden is grievous!" Christ's service is a happy service, the only happy one; and even when there is a cross to carry, or a yoke to bear, it is His own appointment. "My yoke." It is sent by no untried friend. No, He who puts it on His people, bore this very yoke Himself. "He carried our sorrows." How blessed this feeling of holy servitude to so kind a Master! not like "dumb, driven cattle," goaded on, but led, and led often most tenderly when the yoke and the burden are upon us. The great apostle rarely speaks of himself under any other title but one. That one he seems to make his boast. He had much whereof he might glory — he had been the instrument in saving thousands — he had spoken before kings — he had been in Caesar's palace and Caesar's presence — he had been caught up into the third heavens — but in all his letters this is his joyful prefix and superscription, "The servant (literally, the slave) of Jesus Christ!"
Reader! do you know this blessed servitude? Can you say with a joyful heart, "O Lord, truly I am Your servant?" He is no hard taskmaster. Would Satan try to teach you so? Let this be the refutation, "He loved me, and gave Himself for me." True, the yoke is the appointed discipline He employs in training his children for immortality. But be comforted! "It is His tender hand that puts it on, and keeps it on." He will suit the yoke to the neck, and the neck to the yoke. He will suit His grace to your trials. No, He will bring you even to be in love with these, when they bring along with them such gracious unfoldings of His own faithfulness and mercy. How His people need thus to be in heaviness through manifold temptations, to keep them meek and submissive! "Jeshurun (like a bullock unaccustomed to the harness, fed and pampered in the stall) waxed fat, and kicked." Never is there more gracious love than when God takes own means to curb and subjugate, humble us, and to prove us — bringing us out from ourselves, our likings, our confidences, our prosperity, and putting us under the needed YOKE.
And who has ever repented of that joyful servitude? Among all the regrets that mingle with a dying hour, and often bedew with bitter tears a dying pillow, who ever told of regrets and repentance here?
Tried believer, has He ever failed you? Has His yoke been too grievous? Have your tears been unalleviated — your sorrows unsolaced — your temptations above that which you were able to bear? Ah! rather can you not testify — "The word of the Lord is tried;" I cast my burden upon Him, and He "sustained me"? How have seeming difficulties melted away! How has the yoke lost its heaviness, and the cross its bitterness, in the thought of who you were bearing it for! There is a promised rest in the very carrying of the yoke; and a better rest remains for the weary and toil-worn when the appointed work is finished; for thus says "that same Jesus,"
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, and you shall find REST unto your souls."
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