Matthew 11:25-30 At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
We live in a day where the world glories in its knowledge—its great discoveries and universal secrets. We reach out for eternal life in our own making as we reach for the stars and other galaxies, thinking there is no limit to our abilities. Jesus said to his Father, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. We boast about our much learning, about our ability to use the computer to further our knowledge of truth and reality. Jesus speaks of understanding reality and acknowledging the truth of existence, Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do, to reveal to the immature, the uninformed, about the hidden understanding of life and the reason for humankind. Of course, all knowledge, all wisdom exists with the Father God and is found in his Son. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; WITHOUT HIM NOTHING WAS MADE THAT HAS BEEN MADE. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. (John 1:1-4) As men we stand in our minds as the pinnacle of success in evolution. We are the most educated and knowing of the animal kingdom. But God said that we were made in his image to glorify him, made to be in intimate relationship with him, given language to communicate with him. Nothing exists beyond his creative hands. He made everything as He desired. No “oops" in the Creator’s design, no mistakes, no mishaps. The omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God has a purpose behind every design, every entity, every existence. All of this He reveals to the children of faith, the little ones of faith. To know anything about the truth of existence, one must accept Jesus as Lord for He alone has been with the Father. This faith step is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. The world with its expanding chest of truth, with its taxonomy of facts and information is considered by the God of the Bible as being foolish. Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile. (1 Corinthians 3:18-20) Knowledge and wisdom are not bad: they help us to navigate this world successfully. When man’s understanding and facts line up with God’s knowledge, it is good, but nothing can be substituted for knowing the God of all reality and the truth of everything through faith. Jesus says, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. He says, I will satisfy your desire of knowing what or who you are, and I will give you a purpose in life. I will give you rest in your soul. The turmoil that you wrestle with about living will be quenched when you place your lives in my hands. I will give you rest, just as a little child rests in his or her confidence of safety in a parent’s arms. Jesus’ cry to all humans at all times is, I will give you rest. But as humans, we generally resist this call, for our hearts are hardened with our grandiosity: we will decide our fate, not God.
The disciples wanted to know why Jesus spoke in parables instead of speaking more plainly to people. Jesus replied, Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. (Matthew 13:11-12) Jesus and John the Baptist knew the people’s hearts were hardened. The people were used to slavery, just as the Israelites were used to slavery in Egypt; they could not conceive of any other way of life. What they were living was their reality of life. Because of that understanding of life, the Israelites during their Egyptian slavery rejected Moses as their leader and his way out of slavery. As the Israelites of old, the Jews of Jesus’ time rejected Jesus’ leadership out of bondage to the world’s system of slavery to sin. Because of their blindness to a better way to live, Jesus spoke in parables. He quotes Isaiah as Paul does later to the Jews in Rome who rejected his message of deliverance. You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them. (Matthew 13:15) Jesus knows the Jewish culture and society of his time would never open their ears to hear clearly his message of redemption. He knew their rejection of him would be so complete that they would eventually glory in his murder. Even though He would become their Passover lamb out of slavery, they would not be able to know that because their hearts were hardened by their false thinking. Their knowledge and wisdom was foolishness to God. But Jesus had twelve disciples and other followers who had begun to see him as the Messiah, the Redeemer of Israel. Jesus said to them, But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. Matthew (13:16-17) The Spirit of Light, the Holy Spirit, is within every Christian; He sensitizes our eyes and ears to see and hear of things that have been hidden from the foundation of the earth. Jesus spoke in parables because He would have been throwing pearls to those who would not want to see or hear clearly. Their hearts were hardened, just as the Israelites hearts were hardened in Egypt. When Moses broke up a scuffle between two Jewish slaves, one of the Israelites demanded, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” (Exodus 2:14) Jesus faced the same hardness of heart from the Jewish leaders and priests: who chose you to be our Messiah, and are you going to replace our leadership roles with you as the leader? If Jesus would have spoken more clearly of his coming role, He would have faced violence even sooner, for they would have trampled his pearls of knowledge as the Messiah in the dust. Their hearts were hardened to that message. But for the disciples and his followers, Jesus promised them an abundance of knowledge about God’s purpose on Earth. The secrets of the kingdom would be given to them liberally. As little children of faith, they would know the purpose of their existence and would understand their coming relationship with God the Father as his adopted children. Sadly, as we read in Matthew 13, Jesus said to those whose hearts have been hardened by the thinking of this world, relying on the knowledge and wisdom of the regime of flesh, making a mishmash of spiritual understanding, even what they have will be taken from them.
We who are the temple of the living God should live with the responsibility of telling the world that the Messiah has come. The world has no answers to eternal life or even for why we exist on this earth. The best people can do is to duplicate God’s blueprint of life as they read it. We will design hearts, organs and other forms of organic life to perpetuate our existence—all of that can be considered good. In the coming decades and centuries, man will try to wiggle out of his finiteness, not necessarily bad either. But we will not be able to replace God with ourselves. Jesus tells us to stop our struggle to know ourselves, but literally to come to him in faith. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. (John 6:37) Then we will have an abundance of God’s purpose on Earth. And because of that we should propagate the word of life, not death. Life, goodness, and eternal life rest in Christ. What a message of deliverance! Moses led the people out of Egypt. Jesus is leading us to a new world, a new existence, known as the Kingdom of God. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. We are to learn of Jesus, to know his heart and his ways. We are not to run around the tree of temporal existence, continually trying to please God through our works of righteousness. We are not to attempt to please God; we are TO PLEASE GOD THROUGH Our RIGHTEOUSNESS that comes from cavalry’s tree. Jesus said, take this cup of wine in remembrance of me. This cup represents the blood I spilt on the cross. This cup of my blood ushers in the new covenant that God the Father has made with mankind. This covenant is not maintained by the blood of animals that had to die continually to cover the sins of men, to withhold the judgement of God on wayward men. This is my blood, Jesus said. I died for sinful man. My blood is always before the Father God, confirming my death to make people right with God. His wrath towards sin has been eternally satisfied by my work on the cross. Christ died on the cross for us to be delivered forever from the slavery of the evil one. We are free, free indeed, forever in the household of God. Jesus in the flesh is the first fruit from his sacrifice. We are followers of that destiny, to be with God forevermore. We are God’s own, known as his children, joint heirs with Jesus, the ONLY BEGOTTEN, ETERNAL SON OF GOD. If you are weary or burdened, come to Jesus, and He will welcome you into his loving arms and give you rest.
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