A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Evening, January 14, 1872, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.  

Thus says the Lord; “You have broken the yokes of wood; but you shall make in their place yokes of iron.” (Jer 28:13)

1. All through the book of Jeremiah you will observe that the prophet taught the people not only by words, but by symbols. At one time he took his mantle and hid it in the earth until it was soiled and ruined, and then taught them something by wearing it. At another time he took a clay pot and broke it in their presence. And on this occasion he put a yoke on his own neck as the sign that Israel would be subdued beneath the power of Nebuchadnezzar. This was a strange method of teaching. I have sometimes heard complaints made by those who are fond of criticizing things they know nothing about — when a teacher expresses a truth very plainly, if he shall, as it were, act out what he says, he is upbraided at once as being theatrical. I do not know what ungenerous words are hurled at him. Yet after all, this was what Jeremiah did. He taught the people by signs and symbols. So, too, did our Lord himself. I do not doubt, that when he uttered those words, “Consider the lilies,” he stooped down and picked a lily; and when he said, “Consider the ravens,” he pointed to the ravens flying overhead in the sky. At any rate, we know that once he took a little child, and set him in the midst of them. What an outcry there would be if I were to take a little child and set him here and preach about him! If we were to use any kind of symbol, to what ridicule we should expose ourselves! The fact is, we might do much more good if we had less regard for the general public opinion, and dared to do strange things, so that the truth of God might come home in any way to a slumbering generation, and the Word of God, which must be learned by them or they must perish, were made to impact their minds. The prophet Jeremiah, though exceedingly faithful in his mission, which he discharged as God would have him discharge it, with many tears in great love and deep anxiety, nevertheless had a great obstacle in his way. He was met by false prophets who opposed and contradicted him to his face. It was not so very surprising either. It must always be expected that it will be so. If God shall speak by any man, there shall always be someone else who protests that God speaks to the contrary. If there is a Christ, there will be an Antichrist; if there is a Simon Peter, there will be a Simon Magus, if there shall be raised up by God a Luther, there shall be an Eckius, or some other controversialist who shall seek to resist and overthrow him. Let no man’s heart then fail him if he is flatly contradicted when he bears testimony for God. Let him rather expect it, and go on never caring, for the fact is, the truth will outlive error, and in the long run that Word of God before which all other things are as grass and as the flower, the perishing flower of the field — the Word of God shall endure for ever and triumph over the ruin of all the words of men. Do not tremble, you feeble adherents of the truth, who fear lest your weakness should make the truth itself weak, and the strong logic and the powerful rhetoric of its adversaries should overturn the oracles of God. It cannot be. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the gospel, mighty though they are both in power and in sophistry. The truth shall endure; the right shall prevail; for God is faithful, and Christ must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet.

2. With this, by way of preliminary observation, we will now come to the text, and endeavour to make some use of it for ourselves. Hananiah took off the symbolic yoke, the wooden yoke, from Jeremiah’s neck and broke it. Jeremiah comes again, and says, “You have broken the yoke of wood, but God has commanded that you shall now wear yokes of iron.” They were not benefited, therefore, by the change, but the opposite. This is suggestive of a broad principle. From the symbol, which was applicable in one case, we draw a general truth. Whenever men say of God, “Let us break his bands asunder, and cast his cords from us,” they may do so if they wish; but instead of the yokes of wood they will be sure to get yokes of iron. If they will not submit to the government of Christ, they will have to submit to the tyranny of Satan. They will have to wear some yoke, and if they reject the easy yoke of the Christ of God, the wooden yoke as it were which he puts on men, there shall be made yokes of iron for them, which they shall neither be able to break off nor even to carry.

3. So our thought will run this way. First, that men must wear some yoke or other; and, secondly, that the yoke of Christ is a very easy one; and, thirdly, that when it is refused, it is inevitable that men should wear a heavier one.

4. I. MEN MUST WEAR SOME YOKE.

5. It is naturally so. There is no stage of life in which this is not the case. The child must bear the yoke in his youth. He is an unhappy child who is under no control. Probably there is nothing so ruinous for a man as to be allowed to have his own way, while his judgment is not yet mature enough to guide him. And when we advance into youth, we are usually placed in some position of life where we are under obligations to some superior, whether it is a parent, or a guardian, or an employer. Nor if we become what is called our own employers, does it make much difference. As things go now, I think there are no people that are their own employers, for the employers are bound to yield to the terms which the workers dictate; and this condition of things is getting more and more rife. I shall not discuss the right or wrong of this, where questions arise between capitalists and skilful labourers, but I will say that if the employed claim liberty, the employers might very well be allowed a portion of that choice prerogative. As it is now, I am sure he who says, “I am an employer,” is as much under the yoke to his workers as the worker is under the yoke to his employer. That a man who lives in the midst of society should hold some relationship to all around him is indispensable. But men are always for changing their forms of government. Some nations have a revolution almost with every moon, but for all that there is still a yoke upon them; and if it were ever to come to anarchy, to mob rule — ah, I warrant you, it would be a yoke of iron, and of red hot iron too. May God save us from it. No yoke is so hard to bear as that yoke which a people put upon themselves when they reject all order, break through all law, and will not submit to any principle or any government, however just or righteous. You cannot get along in this world without a yoke of some kind. None of us are going to wear a tyrant’s yoke. Let lords and lands have what masters they wish: in this land of ours we will be free, and still our own masters; but the selfishness of individuals or of classes must never determine the boundary lines of power or of privilege; for we can only maintain our freedom by each of us paying that proper obedience to the law which is due from every citizen, if we would promote equally his own comfort and the common good.

6. Away from those lower grounds into higher spheres — it is certainly true that we must wear the yoke. God has made us, and not we ourselves; and God has made us to be his servants. We daily depend on him for the food we eat. If any man shall say he is not dependent upon God, I will at least reply to him, “You are dependent for the air you breathe and the power to breathe it. The life that is within you hangs upon a thread, and that thread is in the hand of the Most High.” Every moment each one of us is most certainly sustained by God. And in return for this support, there is something asked, namely, that we would submit to his will; that we would obey his law, which is perfect, and just, and right, and that having sinned against him we should rebel no longer or continue to be his enemies, but be reconciled to him. We are made dependent creatures, and from that very fact we must wear a yoke of God.

7. Moreover, dear friends, we are all so constituted as creatures, with such passions and propensities, that when we break one yoke, the yoke which it is proper that we should wear, and do not serve God, we at once yield our necks to another yoke and begin to serve something else — we serve ourselves, and oh, the slavery of serving one’s self! He who makes his belly his god, and bows down to the lusts of the flesh, serves a tyrant indeed. We must serve something or other, not only because we are dependent creatures, but also it seems to be stamped upon us that we must follow some great principle, and must yield ourselves to some spiritual influence. We must submit to a yoke of some kind or another. The man who shall say, “I am perfectly free, and I live for nothing but myself,” is so base an animal, that he is hardly worthy to be called a man. In his boasted exemption from all regard for his fellow creatures and for his God, he sets himself up, in his own esteem, and that after a diabolical model, alone and apart in his awful selfishness, like an iceberg to melt away, and may be to crush others as he moves along in his course. What is he except a beacon, against which all are to be warned? Sir, the yoke fits the human neck, and the human neck was made to wear it. We must have some God, we must have some ruler, we must have some principle, which shall master us, and may it be ours in God’s name to choose the right and the best master, or else, woe be to us.

8. II. Not to dwell longer upon our first point, I proceed to notice THAT THE YOKE OF CHRIST IS AN EASY YOKE. It is, as it were, a yoke of wood. Let us dwell upon this for awhile. May God grant that some who have never worn that yoke may, by the Holy Spirit’s power, be led to carry it.

9. If you become a servant of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the man of Nazareth, he asks of you nothing but what is absolutely right. His life, which is the Christian’s law written out in living characters, is perfection itself. His precepts which distil like dew from his lips, are all pure and good, just and kind. It ought to be enough for a man, and would be enough for him if he were not fallen, to know that all rule is right, and to submit to it at once. When God gives a man a noble spirit, he pants to enlist in honourable service. He craves a post in the council or the camp. His heart’s enquiry is, “Where can I find a leader who will always lead me properly? Where shall I discover a law which will never lead me into evil, if I obey it? Where can I discover an example, which I may imitate in its very jots and tittles, and yet never be found in any other way than I ought to be?” I commend to such spirits, Jesus the Christ of God, for there is nothing in his precepts or his practices, in his profession or his life, that is not consonant with righteousness of the highest order, majestic in its scope, and scrupulously minute in its obedience.

10. The yoke of Christ is framed in our interest. The law of Christ is drawn up and dictated by our Councillor for our welfare. If man were infinitely wise, and could draw up a code for himself, which would involve no hardship, and entail all that was happy, he could devise no regulations more healthful, more profitable, or more pleasant than those of the Saviour; he would discover that to believe in Jesus was the highest wisdom; to repent of sin, the most delightful necessity; to follow after holiness the most blissful pursuit, and to serve God the greatest delight. Service and sovereignty blend here, as when Joseph became Prime Minister of Pharaoh he was lord over all the land of Egypt. To serve God in very truth is to reign, and to become a servant of Christ, is to be made a king and a priest to God — to be ennobled with as much dignity as human nature can bear. Jesus Christ, if he forbids you anything, only forbids you what would harm you. Do any of you say of sin — “It is sweet?” Ah! and so are many poisoned things. Your nature goes after it. Yes, and many a sick man’s nature craves for what would be his poison. The Lord Jesus denies to those who take his yoke nothing except what would be injurious to them. His is a blessed yoke, because it is the yoke of righteousness, and it is the yoke of personal benefit.

11. Moreover, Christ’s yoke is not exacting. If he takes from us with one hand, he more richly endows us with the other hand. He in his grace always gives to us from his bounty what he asks of us as our duty. Under one view of divine truth, faith is man’s act. The Holy Spirit never believes for anyone. A sinner must believe for himself. It is a personal act. But yet in another phase of it, it is the Holy Spirit’s work in the man — he gives the faith which the man exercises towards God. If then faith in Jesus is required, it is not a hard thing, because the Spirit works in men the very faith which Jesus requires from them. If to repent of sin is thought to be difficult — how shall we get tears out of a rock? — the reply is, true repentance is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and when it is sought from the Lord, it is never denied. Christ is exalted on high to give not only the pardon for sin, but to give the repentance which comes before the pardon. To give repentance and remission of sins is the very office of Christ. If, then, the precepts should seem difficult, the difficulty is removed, because the virtues and graces which are a matter of precept are also a matter of promise. What is commanded in one Scripture, is conceded in another as an absolute gift of God according to the covenant of his grace. It is an easy yoke, then, sinner. Do you say: “I cannot believe?” Have you asked for faith? Is your heart hard? Have you asked to have it softened? If you cannot come to Christ with broken hearts, come for broken hearts, for they are his gift. He will give you all — all that his gospel demands, for he is Alpha and Omega, the author and the finisher of our faith. It is an easy yoke, then, since he gives what he requires.

12. That the yoke of Christ is easy, I might call to witness all those who have ever proved it. Never did a man wear it who did not love to wear it. I think I have heard that Queen Elizabeth I carried the crown in the procession of her sister Mary at the coronation, and she remarked that it was very heavy, but someone standing by told her it would not be heavy when she had to wear it herself. So the precepts which some men only carry in their hands seem very heavy; but when a man comes to know Christ and to love him, those very precepts become light and easy. “I could not,” one says, “be a Christian as I am: it would be very harmful for me: I should have to give up much that I have learned to prize.” Ah! but suppose you were made a new man in Christ Jesus, there would be nothing irksome at all about renouncing old habits. Here is a raven, to teach it into living cleanly, it must forego all carrion, it must feed upon these sweet and pure grains. The raven might pine and repine at this as a hardship, unless by some transmuting influence the raven were turned into a dove. Then it would be no hardship to forsake the carrion, which its new nature would loathe; nor would it be grievous to feed upon the clean winnowed grain, for its appetite would crave it. And, oh beloved, the life of the true Christian is not a life chafed and galled with vexatious prohibitions, because pursuits which, to the unchristian heart are distasteful and repulsive, to the renewed heart are a matter of intense delight. A man shall carry a bucket of water on his head and be very tired with the burden, but that same man when he dives into the sea shall have a thousand buckets on his head without perceiving their weight, because he is in the element and it entirely surrounds him. The duties of holiness are very irksome to men who are not in the element of holiness; but when once those men are cast into the element of grace, then they bear ten times more and feel no weight, but are refreshed by it with unspeakable joy. Christ’s yoke is easy, for the new heart rejoices in it.

13. The yoke of Christ is rendered easy by the bright example of Christ, and by the blessed fellowship with him to which his people are called. Christ himself carried it. Have you never read in Greek history — I think there are one or two cases to the point — how the Greek soldiers on their long marches grew exceedingly weary, and wished that the war was over: they felt so dispirited. But there was a man whom they almost adored as a god — Alexander himself — and they saw him always sharing their toil. If the road was rough, the monarch walked with them: if they were short of a draught of water, Alexander would share their thirst. At the sight of him every man grew strong. Oh! it is grand for the believer to feel that, if there is a trial or a difficulty in Christianity, Christ has borne it, and Christ is with us, still bearing it. Not like the Scribes and Pharisees, who laid heavy burdens, grievous to be borne upon men’s shoulders, and they themselves would not touch them with one of their fingers. Our Lord has taken the load himself and carried it, and he now says to the disciples, “Take my yoke upon you — the very yoke I carried — and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart: I have borne the trial which you have to bear and endured to the end, as you shall do through my grace.”

14. There is one remarkable fact about the yoke of Christ which I should like to mention. All who have borne it have always had grace given equal to the weight of the burden. I have never yet discovered one cross bearer among the children of God who ever expressed regret that he become a Christian and took upon himself the yoke. I have been familiar with deathbeds: I have witnessed strange scenes, for the bony hand of death pulls back many curtains and tears off many masks from faces that were accustomed to wear them. One thing however I can solemnly say I have never seen. I have never seen a Christian weary of his Master’s service. I have never heard from an aged pilgrim a word of complaint against Christ, or against his yoke. There have been a great many Christians beyond all suspicion of fanaticism, of whom no one would suppose that they strove to act a part inconsistent with their true character, yet not one has had to regret that he served Christ. You know the words so often quoted by him who regretted that he had not served his God with half the zeal that he had served his king; but I never remember, nor do any of you ever remember having heard of one who, in life’s last hour, bemoaned his allegiance to God, or bewailed the ardour with which he followed Christ. Surely, if remorse had ever fostered such a thought, someone would have been bold enough to utter it. And, truly, truly, if such an incident had ever occurred, there would have been no lack of historians to record it.

15. There is another thing I think which strongly speaks in favour of this yoke of Christ. The servants of Christ are always anxious to get their children into the same service. Often I hear men say, “I do not want to bring my boy up in my trade; the work is dirty, the hours are long, and the pay is poor.” I have heard them say, “I should not like see my boy in our office; there are so many temptations,” and so on. Did you ever hear a pious man say, “I should not like my boy to be a Christian?” Did you ever hear a godly matron say, “I should deeply regret to see my daughter become a follower of Christ?” No, but what they have possessed for themselves they have longed to have for their children. I remember well hearing my grandfather’s earnest prayer for all his household. It always lay near his heart that his children and his grandchildren might fear the Lord. I have vivid memories of his devotions. My father, whose prayer you heard just now — how often have I heard him pray for his children; and I can truly say the prayer that is nearest to my heart is for my sons, that they may serve the Lord. There is nothing I desire so much beneath the skies. Now if Christ’s yoke were hard, we would not wish to bring our children under it. We have natural affections and common sense as well as you, and having tried Christ so long ourselves, that is our desire for our posterity. I have tried him now (what shall I say?) these twenty years. Had I found him a hard taskmaster I would not beguile you or betray my own conscience. I speak the truth, there is no lord like Christ, and no service like Christ’s. I wish that every young man and every young woman here believed in his name and submitted to his authority, and that they would take upon themselves, through his grace, his easy peace-giving yoke.

16. III. If not, what then? THOSE WHO REFUSE TO WEAR THE EASY YOKE OF CHRIST WILL HAVE TO WEAR A HARDER ONE. “You have broken the yokes of wood; but you shall make in their place yokes of iron.”

17. Observe! Adam wore an easy yoke in Paradise: he broke it. He and his posterity have had to wear yokes of iron ever since. Death has come into the world with all its train of woes. I need not enlarge, enough that it is a case in point. Whenever a child of God, a true child of God, under pressure of temptation, turns aside from the right path, he is always made to feel that after he has broken the yoke of wood, he must wear a yoke of iron. John Bunyan’s illustration will serve me well here. The two pilgrims, Christian and Hopeful, when they went on their way, came to a place where the road was full of flints that cut their feet, and there were thorns and briers in the way; and by and by one of them said, “Here is a meadow on the other side of the hedge, and if we were just to pass through the gap we might find a shortcut: it would be sure to come out in the way again, and so we should be certain to avoid the rough places.” Bunyan well describes how, when they got into Bypath Meadow the night overtook them and they came to a river, and they wished to find the road again — longing for it, rough as it had been. But Giant Despair laid hold of them, took them to his dungeon, and beat them within an inch of their lives, and it was only by mighty grace that they escaped. Take care, Christian, take care, though you shall not utterly perish, you may often have to go with broken bones because of a sin. David — ah, you remember his sin, his repentance, and his life of sorrow — how he went to his grave still limping as a consequence, a reminder of his crimes. Do not, therefore, shrink from Christian duty because it is onerous. Never, oh Christian, turn aside from the straight road, the highway of rectitude, because it threatens you with shame or loss. That first loss will be vastly less than the later losses you will incur by seeking to avoid it. Jonah wished to resist the word of the Lord that came to him, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh,” but he had to endure the perils of a voyage, to encounter the fury of the tempest, and at length to sink to the bottom of the sea, and yet he must go to Nineveh after all. If you shirk a duty you will be still have to do it, but it will be with bitter pain. Do not be as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near you.

18. The principle of our text is very applicable to all backsliders. We have known men who apparently set out on the road to heaven — made a profession of being Christians, but after awhile they tired and fainted, and walked no more with us. Christianity was to them a yoke, and they put it off. I wonder whether they have improved their condition. I do not believe so. I will single out a person here — may his conscience single him out. When you lived in the country, every Sunday you went with your wife and family to the house of God. Were you a Methodist then? Never mind: you were very earnest, whatever place it was you attended. And you and your little family were very happy too. But you came to London, and after awhile the general idle habits of our London people in the morning overcame you. You were content with one service a day. You did not seek Church membership, nor seek fellowship with God’s people. By and by it was not one service a day you attended, it was none at all; or else you called it religion to go and hear the music and see the religious theatrics in certain large churches in London. I do not know if you called that worshipping God when you were only whiling away the hour with sensual gratifications. And at last you gave up all pretence of being a Christian or of frequenting places of worship. Now I will ask you a question. You have gotten rid of the yoke of wood: how about your shoulders now? Your Sundays, are they very pleasant? Your family, is it very happy? Your mind, is it very much at ease? Oh, no! I know while I am talking to you, you wish yourself back in the little village again listening to the minister’s voice once more; for your Sundays are distasteful and comfortless, and your weekdays, when you think about your condition, are wretched and reproachful, and your children are not growing up in the way you could wish. Ah, sir! I pray God to make that yoke of iron very heavy for you. Do you long to get rid of that and come back and take the yoke of wood again? May God in his infinite mercy, bring you back if you are his child, or if you are not part of his family may he put you among his children and teach you to walk worthily.

19. We have known those who have backslidden in another way. Here you are now. Perhaps you used to be a professor of religion, but the little shop was located in a neighbourhood where a good deal of business was done on Sunday; you heard it said by the neighbours: “I do not know how it is you can close as you do.” The wife did not like it, nor the husband either: it was, however, done by slow degrees, and now it is always done, and you cannot both come together: there is only one who can come, and the other must tend the shop. Well, you have given up Christ’s yoke; and Sabbath keeping seems to be too hard a thing for you. Are you better off? Are you really better off? Are you happier? Are you really happier? Something in your soul answers my question; you know you have a yoke of iron now, instead of a yoke of wood. May God help you to break away from your present slavery; and may you become a true heir of heaven.

20. It may be I have here before me one who was led into backsliding by a very common occurrence. Young woman, I knew you once, when your face was radiant with happiness, while we preached Christ, and sang the hymns of Zion, but you married, and your marriage was not in the Lord. An unbelieving husband was your choice. You thought the yoke of Christ was hard when we reminded you of the precept, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” You rejected the yoke of Christ. How have you found it since? I have seen a great many such marriages, and I have only seen one — I have seen one, it is fair to say that, but I assert I only saw one — in which I could get anything like an acknowledgement of happiness from the unmatched pair. Here and there it has happened perhaps, that God has forgiven the fault, but it frequently leads to alienation of heart, and to utter departure from the living God, and too often to disappointment and heart breaking, and to wretchedness such as I shall not attempt to describe. Those who break Christ’s yoke and become backsliders, shall find an iron yoke given in its place.

21. To take another class of illustrations, there are those in the world who will not have the yoke of Christ in the matter of religion — they prefer another. For example, there are superstitious people who are not satisfied with the Bible, they want tradition. They are not content with the teaching of the ancient church of Christ, as we find it in the Acts of the Apostles, but they hanker after those modern upstart churches, that call themselves catholic and apostolic, and amuse themselves by raking up the grotesque fashions of the middle ages. What is the consequence? Do these perverts, who cast off the yoke of the true Christian religion, find an easier yoke? Ask them. Their penances and their mortifications; their fast days and their festivals; their comminations, (a) and their celebrations — oh, what do they get for them all? Is there one of them who can say he is saved? It is usually one of their cardinal doctrines, that no man can know he is saved, so that the only position they achieve in this life, is to slave on with a dim hope and to die with a grim rite, and according to one faith to go — even if it were the best man in the church — to go to purgatory. Ah, cheerless prospect! If I were a Roman Catholic, I would become a heretic, in sheer desperation, because I would rather go to heaven than go to purgatory. I cannot see any advantage that is offered to a man: if he gets all he can get, it is not worth having. Who among you would slave his life away in voluntary humiliations, buoyed up with the cheering faith of purgatorial fires at the end of your days? Where is its gain? And there is no church under heaven, except the true church of Christ, that says to men, “Believe, and live: lay hold on Christ, and you are saved.” We present to you in Christ’s name the greatest blessing beneath the sky, and other churches dare not pretend to offer it. They will only tell you that you may get into a state in which you may be saved perhaps, but they do not know quite certainly: it may be you shall fall away and perish after all, but concerning an absolute certain salvation in perpetuity, received by an act of faith, they do not know what it is. They put on a yoke of iron grievous to their necks.

22. And look at self-righteous men and women who try to work their own way to heaven. The Pharisees of old — what a slavery their life was! Any man who is seeking to be saved by his good works makes himself a slave. He must know in his conscience that his good works are imperfect, and therefore he has no title, no sure, clear title to heaven. Only the man who takes Christ to be his wisdom, his righteousness, his justification, his redemption, his all and in all — knows that he is saved; but he who has Christ has all that God asks of him, he has his sins punished in his Saviour, he has had the law fulfilled by his Saviour, and so he is saved. Those who will not have Christ, put on their necks a horrible yoke. Oh, beware of superstition; beware of self-righteousness! These are iron yokes indeed.

23. But what appeal shall I give to the unbeliever, who says: “I shall believe nothing: I am a sceptic. I will not bow my neck to revelation?” Well, sir, you will be sure before long to bow your neck to some tremendous absurdity. If you can once get a sceptic to tell you what he does believe, you will generally find that his credulity is on par with his infidelity. What he relishes he feeds on without question; what he dislikes he rejects, because someone shrugged his shoulders about it. I have sometimes tried to muddle my way through chapters of German neology. Thank God I have felt this is not the way of life, or else certainly I would never find it, though I had a doctor of divinity on either side to assist me. It is too hard and difficult for any intellects, except if they happen to be of the German type, to be able to find a way through its labyrinths, and I am afraid they miss it. The men who do not believe in God, believe that this world was not made at all, but grew. If you were to sow some mustard and cress in your garden, in the form of the initials of your boy, and it came up as A or B, and you took him into the garden and said: “Now, no one ever sowed that seed; it grew there in that way,” you could not make him believe it. But these philosophical speculators believe that this big world, and sun, and moon, and stars, came into existence without a creator. They can believe anything. You cannot convince the simplest boy in the street that somehow or other he was developed from an oyster, or some creature inferior to that, and yet these profound thinkers bow themselves down to such a belief as this! Truly, it is fulfilled in these days as of old, professing themselves to be wise, they become fools. He who will not believe the simple revelation of God, will presently find himself committed to systematic misbeliefs, which distract reason, oppress the heart, and trammel the conscience. He wears a yoke of iron instead of a yoke of wood.

24. Still giving only a word for each case, we have hearers who, when they listen to the word, are haunted with reproach, but never softened with repentance, because of their sins. They go on hardening their necks and persevering in their iniquities. Impenitent sinner, remember this. The day will come when inasmuch as you have rejected the easy yoke of repentance, you will have to bear the iron yoke of remorse. A man under remorse in this world is a dreadful sight. Horrified with the past and alarmed with the future, yet having knees so stubborn that they will not bow, and bloodshot eyes that will not weep; because, alas! his heart is like adamant that cannot feel. Of all the pangs convicted and repentant sinners bear, there is nothing so dreadful as the gloomy torment of remorse. I could unfold scenes that I have witnessed with my own eyes, paint the visage, and repeat the expressions of men dying in dire despair, but I will spare you. May God grant that you may never have to endure that foretaste of hell upon earth, for that is what it is.

25. And what shall I say to the lover of pleasure? There are those who say, “I shall not bear the yoke of Christ: I shall live in pleasure.” Pleasure in some cases means lust, and gaiety means crime. Have you never seen the young man who was respectably brought up in his youth, after leading a life of pleasure shivering at your door in rags? I knew one whom I had often clothed; I supposed that he was dead. But I saw him return loathsome in his filthiness, squalid and tremulous, he came begging yet again, stranger still to virtue and to shame. The poor soul still lives — a life more like death than life — a prodigal whom no one can help because he does not return to himself, nor desire to return to his Father. London’s dens have in them many hapless profligates who are terrible warnings that men who seek their own pleasure put upon themselves a yoke of iron.

26. Oh, what revelations the infirmaries of our hospitals, and the wards of our lunatic asylums might disclose of men who have lived lasciviously and rioted in sin, and have worse than a yoke of iron on their necks now! Oh, if there should have come into this house some fallen woman, on whose neck there is that yoke of iron, that she rejected a mother’s precepts and disdained a father’s counsel — sister, that yoke of iron may still be taken from your neck; but beware lest it grow heavier still! There are those who would help you escape from your sin in the Christian church. Arise, and flee from this evil that has made you captive, for there is still hope. The Christ of God is willing to receive the foulest of the foul. Do not persevere in your criminal course, or that yoke of iron will grow heavier and heavier and heavier, and be riveted to you, until at last you shall perish in it — perish, and that for ever.

27. All unholy people who break the law of God, and break away from the gospel’s holiness, in the long run get a yoke of iron on their necks. There are those in this place, perhaps, who once used to sit with us at the Lord’s table, having made a profession of religion, but they gave way to drink. I know that if they could break away from that habit now they would. If it could be done with a resolution they would do it at once, for somehow they love this house, and slink in still; and when they pass me in the streets, half ashamed, they still remember him for whom they still retain a love, and who retains a love for them, and would gladly see them back again. But ah! you drunkards, when you once fall into this sin, how seldom are you restored! May God help you! May the eternal God deliver you; for this, this iron yoke, is often hard to break. Resolve now, and pray also in God’s name that you may be free. Be finished with the accursed thing. God can enable you to overcome it. May he do so now!

28. Another form of the same evil not often spoken of, but quite as bad, is that of avarice. We have known those who professed to be Christians, who succeeded in business and from that time they grew greedy. The gold they had stuck to their fingers burned into their flesh, yes, into their very souls and turned their hearts to steel. They have no pity now for the poor, and little care for the church of God. Ah, sirs; what an iron yoke avarice puts on a man’s neck! You see a man grown old still keep scraping, still yearning for more, afraid that he shall lose what he has, trembling in the night lest the burglars should make a forcible entrance, and fearing we do not know what. His heart is in his iron safe, and is as hard as the iron of which it is made. Oh God, forgive! for the covetous man can no more enter heaven than the drunkard. The covetous have no place in the kingdom of God. There is a mark set upon the covetous man. Covetousness is idolatry. It is a heavy burden — the burden of avarice. Happy are those who wear the yoke of Christ, for all their givings are a delight, and what they sacrifice is no loss for them, but becomes true storing — the laying up of treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupts.

29. Enough of this. The general principle running through every case is, that he who rejects the yoke of Christ bows his neck to something far worse. Notice this! The day comes — I do not know how soon — perhaps as here I stand and talk of these mysterious things. Soon this hand may be stretched, and the mouth dumb that lisps this faltering strain. Before this service is over, the sight of the Son of Man may be seen in the clouds of heaven, and the trumpet may ring out loud as that of Sinai of old, “Awake, you dead, and come to judgment. And you living sinners, come also; for the great white throne is set.” And in that day the yoke of Christ will be a chain of gold around each believer’s neck. To have served Christ will be our honour and our delight; but ah, the sin that once was pleasure — how it will turn to misery! How the rod of your joy will become a serpent and seek to devour you! How will you flee away from yourselves, and what you courted and you loved, to ask the hills to hide you, and the rocks to engulf you, so that you may not see the face of the Redeemer. Come to him now, before that last tremendous day dawns. I lift him up to you now. Whoever looks to Christ shall live. Jesus the Son of God has died, and he who trusts him shall not die. There is life in a look at the crucified One. Pardon and peace come at once to the soul that trusts the Saviour. May you now trust him, before you leave this house, and God shall have the glory for it, both now and for evermore. Amen.

(a) Comminations: Liturgy. A recital of divine threatenings against sinners; in the Anglican Liturgy, forming part of an office appointed to be read after the Litany on Ash Wednesday and at other times. OED.