Quiet Talks On Service

Just now we want to talk together over this little three-worded sentence from Jesus' lips, "Take My yoke." What does it mean? Well, that word yoke is used in all literature outside of this book, as well as here, to mean this: surrender by one and mastery by another one. Where two nations have fought and the weaker has been forced to yield, it is quite commonly spoken of as wearing the yoke of the stronger nation. The Romans required their prisoners of war to pass under a yoke, sometimes a common cattle yoke, sometimes an improvised yoke, to indicate their utter subjugation. These Hebrews to whom Jesus is speaking are writhing with sore shoulders under the galling yoke of the Romans. One can imagine an emphasis placed on the "My." As though Jesus would say, "You have one yoke now; change yokes. Take My yoke."

There is too a higher, finer meaning to this surrender when by mutual arrangement and free consent there is a yielding of one to another for a purpose. And so what Jesus means here is simply this -- surrender. Bend your head down, bend down your neck, even though it's a bit stiff going your own way, and fit it into this yoke of mine. Surrender to Me as your Master.

And somebody says, "I don't like that. 'Surrender!' that sounds like force. I thought salvation was free." Will you please remember that the principle of surrender is a law of all life. It is the law of military life, inside the army. Every man there has surrendered to the officers above him. In some armies that surrender has amounted to absolute control of a man's person and property by the head of the army. It is the law of naval service. The moment a man steps on board a man-of-war to serve he surrenders the control of his life and movements absolutely to the officer in command.

It is the law in public, political life. A man entering the President's cabinet, as a secretary of some department, surrenders any divergent views he may have to those of his chief. With the largest freedom of thought that must always be where there are strong men, yet there must of necessity be the one dominant will if the administration is to be a powerful one. It is the law of commercial life. The man entering the employ of a bank, a manufacturing concern, a corporation of any sort, in whatever capacity, enters to do the will of somebody else. Always there must be the one dominant will if there is to be power and success.

And then may I hush my voice and speak of the more sacred things very softly and remind you of this. Surrender is the law of the highest form of life known to us men. I mean wedded life. Where the surrender is not by one to the other, but by each to the other. Two wills, always two wills where there is strong life, yet in effect but one. Two persons but only one purpose.

And so you see, Jesus, the Master, the greatest of earth's teachers and philosophers, is striking the keynote of life when here He asks us to surrender freely and wholly to Himself as the autocrat of our lives. He asks us to bend our strong wills to His, to yield our lives, our plans, our ambitions, our friendships, our gold, absolutely to His control.