Now is the time for weary, heavy-laden sinners coming to Christ to get their guilt removed, and obtain renewing and refreshment for their souls. How well adapted to our condition is this precious invitation!

Fourth, the invitation is for all. Further, it is a general invitation to sinners laboring and heavy laden: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” There is no want of compassion in our Lord Jesus. He is calling lost sinners with a general invitation to come to Him that they may be saved. But, as we have said, none will embrace the offered mercy but those who are conscious of their miserable and burdened condition. The exhausted are the persons who value rest; and the whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. It is a great matter to know that all the spiritually weary and heavy laden may come to Christ. All the sick who chose might come, or be brought to Him, when He was on earth, and get all their diseases healed; so all the spiritually diseased may come now with the assurance of being made whole. All may come; all are invited; and he that comes will be in no wise cast out.

Poor sin-tortured, heavy-laden one, here is good news! The Master is come and calls for you. Be of good cheer; arise and go to Him. He is moved with compassion for you. Ah! Tarry not; linger not. You are called, and called by Christ Himself, as truly as if you had stood among those who surrounded Him in the days of His flesh, when, with His living voice, He gave this divine invitation near the sea of Gennesaret. You are disquieted greatly, and sore troubled. He has a loving word of invitation for you: “Come unto me, and I will give you rest.” He will give peace and refreshing rest. He will bestow upon you rest, and joy, and comfort, of which you could have no conception.

As He is drawing near and speaking to you, so draw near to Him and speak. Let out the whole cause of your sorrow and trouble - tell Him all. Call upon the name of the Lord, and tell Him in your own words that you are come for His freely offered rest. Keep not silence. Confess your sins (1 John 1:9). Seek pardoning mercy. Lie at His footstool in your deep sorrow and implore Him to heal and bless your soul, and you will not be sent empty away. Come all, is the God-like invitation!

Fifth, the invitation is unconditional. We would desire also to impress it upon your mind that this invitation is entirely unconditional. It is given freely: it is not burdened with conditions. The gospel of the grace of God comes to you with an unutterable freeness. It requires you to do nothing either to merit it, or to qualify yourself for receiving it. There is a desire on the part of awakened sinners to get mercy upon certain terms; but God’s mercy is given to all who will, “without money and without price.” “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters!” (Isaiah 55:1). One would think that nothing could be more unconditional than such an invitation; and yet men have tried to turn even this into something meritorious. Repeating the large-hearted call of God, we would encourage sinners to come to the waters and drink freely, for the refreshing of their souls. “Ho, everyone that thirsteth!” is the word of unconditional grace; but the legal heart, from misapprehension or perverseness, or both, fixes on the thirsting, and complains of want of thirst, or thirst of the proper kind, as if this were to form a price by which the price- less waters could be purchased. The call does not run thus, “Ho! Everyone who has genuine spiritual thirst, come ye to the waters.” No, the persons called are such as are expostulated (argued against with strong disagreement) with for spending money for that which is not bread, and their labor for that which satisfies not.

If you have been fixing your thoughts upon the “Come” of the Savior’s invitation, and asking - “How am I to come?” remember this proceeds from a legal state (which is the condition of all men apart from true faith in Christ) of the heart. Resist the devil: he would have you to look at your coming, and neglect the glorious Emmanuel Who invites you. “The Holy Ghost,” as has been well said, “has used a variety of expressions in order to prevent this error; and yet men will fall into it. For example, it is said in this place “come”; in another place it is said “look”; in another “believe”; in another “hear”; all to prevent your fixing on the act of your own mind, and instead to fix all your attention upon the object, which is Jesus Christ. It is Christ Who saves you. It is Christ Who gives you rest - not your coming to Christ. Faith is not a condition of salvation, or else “grace is no more grace.” It is true that we are to come to Christ for salvation, but our coming is not to form the reason why we should be saved: we are to come because, in the very nature of things, it cannot be otherwise. It is of faith that it may be by grace. Faith is one of God’s gifts, and surely it cannot be that the possession of one of His gifts should merit the bestowal of others: “For by grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Romans 11:6; Ephesians 2:8). 

Sixth, the invitation is to be accepted now. The last thing to notice about this invitation is that it may be accepted now. Any burdened one might have pressed through the crowd and come to Jesus as soon as the words were pronounced, and asked for himself the promised blessing. There was no time specified; and no doubt He meant it, and they understood it, that they should come to Him that very day. This is the case still. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” It is not tomorrow, or at some future time, you are exhorted to come to Christ. It is “today, if ye will hear His voice.” Are you sinking under your burden? Are you weary and in need of immediate rest? It is good news, surely, to be told that Christ will ease you of your burden today! You cannot be so insensible to your own soul’s advantage as to wish Christ had been giving His invitation for tomorrow or some future day. “Ye know not what shall be on the morrow.” “Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” You are called now. You are exhorted to believe in Jesus now, to the saving of your soul. Christ calls you to give you present blessedness. He will lift off your crushing burden today, and give you immediate par- don and peace. O weary sinner! Press through the multitude with your load of sin, suffering, care, sorrow, and pollution, and you will find Him graciously inclined to “give you rest” (2 Corinthians 6:2; James 4:14; Proverbs 27:1). 

Questions for personal reflection

1. What results from sin?
2. Why will God not simply clear the guilty without the just penalty being paid?
3. What did Jesus do for sinners?
4. Compare Jesus’ nearness now with that during His earthly
5. How is the work of God through Christ different from “fleshly religions”?
6. Describe the person who professes Christ but still loves his
7. Compare the rest that Jesus gives with the rest that the world
8. Describe the invitation that Jesus extends to lost
9. The rest Jesus gives is said to be “threefold.” Describe each
10. How might it be a blessing to feel heavy laden with sin?
11. What is your personal response to Christ’s invitation?

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