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Among the collection of manuscript army sermons preached by Robert Lewis Dabney which we have at Log College Press (courtesy of Union Seminary in Richmond, VA) is one preached in August 1861 at Centreville, Virginia titled “The Happy Service.” It is based on the words of Jesus from Matthew 11:28:
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.
In this sermon (which was republished by Sprinkle Publications as a stand-alone booklet), Dabney offers some counsel to those who might chaff at these simple, yet profoundly true words of our Lord and Christ.
Although Jesus was not clothed in kings’ garments when He uttered those words — words which even a Roman Emperor could not utter in truth — yet as both man and God, He was and is able to fulfill the promise given.
First, Our Peace is to be found in embracing Christ and his service by faith…
Who is this, then, that calmly stands up and announces to his dying race this audacious proposal? “Come one, come all, to me; and I will give you rest.” Is this the Nazerene, the carpenter’s son; the man who “had not where to lay his head”? How dare he pledge to suffering mankind, he, in his beggary, a relief which Caesar, upon the throne of imperial Rome, with all the legions of her armies bowing to his sceptre, and all the nations of the civilized globe pouring their tributes into his royal treasury, would not presume to undertake?…
Be assured, my brethren, that the holy Jesus would have been incapable of using this language had he not been conscious that he was not only man, but God. It was because he could claim: “I and my Father are one”; “It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell.” “He hath set him at his own right hand in heavenly places, and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church.” Unless the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, and infinite attributes of omniscience and omnipotence, he cannot give peace to mankind. But he is both God and man.
Dabney continues by highlighting the apparent paradox of finding rest in taking a yoke.
Second, We read assurance of our peace and blessedness in Christ in the nature of the yoke which we are invited to receive. “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.”
Here, again, there appears to the unbeliever a still greater paradox; he is invited to look for rest in assuming a yoke! It is when the yoke is unbound and the wearied ox is released to follow his own will pasture-ward, that he finds rest. So the perpetual delusion of the unbeliever is, that he can find his preferred happiness in the emancipation of his soul from the dreaded restraints of Christianity, and in this alone….
But I repeat, no man is free, or can be; all who do not bear the yoke of Christ, groan under that of sin and Satan. Such is the testimony of the Scriptures. “Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin.” “Thou art in the gall of bitterness, and the bond of iniquity.” They are “taken captive by the devil at his will.”…These are but instances of the pinching of Satan’s yoke.
…it is not apathetic indolence or sensual ease which Christ promises, but rest for the soul. It consists of peace of conscience, harmony of the affections, and the enjoyment of legitimate and ennobling exercise for all the powers….He who bears the right yoke, or, in other words, has assigned to him the proper activities, is the man who truly enjoys his existence.
Then Dabney reminds us that Christ is the very “Lamb of God,” meek and mild to His beloved children. This is He who promises rest.
Third, We may expect rest under the yoke of Christ because of the character of our Master. “He is meek and lowly in heart, and we shall find rest unto our souls.” He is a gentle, kindly, tender master. A merciful master makes an easy service. His benevolence makes him watchful of the welfare of his servants, and considerate in dealing with their infirmities. His lowliness of heart ensures that he will never sacrifice the happiness and lives of his subjects in reckless and ambitious enterprises. He is not a tyrant to drag his wretched subjects, like an Alexander, or a Tamerlane, through frozen wilds and burning wastes, and to pour out their blood as a libation to the idol of his fame. He is the prince of peace, whose sceptre is truth and meekness and righteousness, and whose law is love. To his own people, he is the “Lamb of God,” who loved them and gave himself for them. How, then, is it possible that he, in regulating the lives and services of his ransomed ones, should impose on them any other law than one which conduces to their truest well-being? To dread the yoke of Christ is guilty mistrust and unbelief….
If, then, we would find rest to our souls, let us learn to imbibe the temper of the meek and lowly Jesus, and to bear his yoke with that devoted spirit with which he fulfilled his Father’s will in living and dying for us.
Among Dabney’s concluding remarks, he summarizes what is offered here by Christ to sinners. Let sinners and saints consider the blessedness of embracing and entering into Christ’s promise.
But now remember the blessed truth already established from the Scripture: that when a believing soul embraces the cross, Christ “crucifies the enmity thereby”; that he engages to take away the stony heart out of our flesh and give us a heart of flesh; that when he reconciles God to us by his atonement, he also reconciles us to God by our effectual calling, and sheds abroad his love upon our hearts. Then, as the regenerated sinner considers this amazing love and condescension of a Redeemer God, stooping to death to rescue him from unutterable ruin, a new-born gratitude conspires with adoration for his excellences, and he begins to say, “I love him because he first loved me.” Then the love of Christ constraining him becomes the spring of a joyful obedience; and he sings with devout delight, in the language of David, “O Lord, truly I am servant: I am thy servant and the son of thy handmaid. Thou hast loosed my bonds.” This is the way, O sinner, the yoke is made easy and the burden light! Cannot you apprehend it?
On the Lord’s Day, when the Son of God rose from the dead to conquer death and sin, and loose us from the bonds of iniquity, may His promise of rest to all those who take on His yoke by faith be an encouragement to you who are weary. Dabney’s sermon reminds us that it is a “Happy Service” indeed to be one of Christ’s precious saints walking His holy ways.
