FREEDOM THROUGH OBEDIENCE
Release from Autocracy of Sin
"COME unto me, all ye that labour 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." (Matt. 11:28-30.)
A blessed invitation indeed!
Seemingly faint at heart over the unbelief of the people, our Lord had sought strength in prayer. With the soulful eloquence characteristic of the anguish-laden communion which at recurrent periods He had with the Father, the Savior voiced His reverent gratitude that God had imparted a testimony of the truth to the humble and lowly whom He likened unto trusting babes, rather than unto men proud in their learning and arrogant in self-assumption.
Then turning to the common people, the multitude who had just witnessed His miracles and listened to His lofty yet simple precepts, He urged anew their acceptance of Him and His Gospel in one of the grandest outpourings of spiritual emotion recorded for man to read.
His summoning yet pleading call was addressed to priestridden and Rome-governed Jews. Many of them yearned for release from thraldom, but the national spirit had been so broken that most of them had become inured to vassalage and tolerant of bondage.
The priestly hierarchy was boastful of its status, and strove effectively to deceive the people into the belief that they were free while sweating under the burdens of unrighteous exaction.
What had Christ to offer in mitigation of their grievous state? Certainly not the emancipation for which false rabbinical precept had led them to look—the reestablishment of the throne of David as an earthly kingdom, destined to subjugate all other nations by force of arms and make supreme the scepter of rehabilitated Israel.
Christ's kingdom was not, is not, nor ever shall be a merely secular or political dominion. His throne and crown are not of earthly make.