Works (Vol 4) - Newton - XV - Sermon XV (Messiah's easy yoke)

Required reading
The Works (Vol 4) of John Newton (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Sermon XV (Messiah's easy yoke).

My summary
This week Newton preaches on '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.' (Mat 11:29-30)

Newton teaches us the advantages of being Christ's scholars.  This great teacher:
(i) can give the capacity requisite to the reception of his sublime instructions;
(ii) teaches the most important things;
(iii) can influence the heart;
(iv) has disciples that are always learning;
(v) knows his students weaknesses and so prevents their fears.

What grabbed me
I loved the point about Jesus' patience: 'Men who are otherwise competently qualified for teaching in the branches of science they profess, often discourage and intimidate their scholars, by the impatience, austerity, and distance of their manner. They fail in that condescension and gentleness which are necessary to engage the attention and affection of the timid and the volatile, or gradually to soften and to shame the perverse...But Jesus, who knows before-hand the weakness, the dulness, and the refractoriness of those whom he designs to teach, to prevent their fears, is pleased to say, Learn of me, 'for I am meek and lowly'.' With what meekness did he converse among his disciples while he was with them upon earth ! He allowed them, at all times, a gracious freedom of access. He bore with their mistakes, reproved and corrected them with the greatest mildness, and taught them, as they were able to bear, with a kind accommodation to their prejudices; leading them on, step by step, and waiting for the proper season of unfolding to them those more difficult points, which, for a time, appeared to them to be hard sayings. And though he be now exalted upon his glorious throne, and clothed with majesty, still his heart is made of tenderness, and his compassions still abound. We are still directed to think of him, not as one w ho cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, but as exercising the same patience and sympathy towards his disciples now, which so signally marked his character during his state of humiliation.'

Who wouldn't want to be Christ's student?

Next week's reading
Read Sermon XVI (The lamb of God, the great atonement).

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.