Phil Beach Jr. emphasizes the importance of coming to Jesus Christ as the source of rest and transformation in our lives. He warns against the spirit of lawlessness and rebellion that distracts us from knowing Christ, urging believers to adopt a posture of humility and brokenness. By coming to Jesus, taking His yoke, and learning from Him, we can find true peace and overcome the burdens of life. Beach highlights the necessity of trusting, delighting, and committing our ways to the Lord to experience His rest and to cease from anger and wrath. Ultimately, he encourages believers to abide in Christ, who is our hope and victory amidst a chaotic world.

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. Now, beloved, let's just look at this for a moment before we, God willing, get into the message that we're going to be ministering on tonight. If the Lord permit, we're going to be dealing with part three in our message that we've been preaching on in relation to beware of lawlessness, beware of the spirit of rebellion. But before we get into that, I just sense the need to just exhort a little bit regarding this important, important aspect of our Christian life. It's not just an aspect of our Christian life, beloved, it is our Christian life. Jesus Christ is our Christian life. Apart from Christ, there is no Christianity. Apart from Him, there is no Christianity. And I would like to suggest to each one of us tonight that we are living in a day and we are living in a time when you are not encouraged to get to know Jesus Christ. You are not being encouraged. You are not being compelled. You're not being exhorted to get to know Jesus Christ. But rather, the spirit that is controlling this world, controlling this nation, controlling the nations round about us is a spirit of lawlessness, a spirit of rebellion who is inspiring the world and all who will listen to get to know the drugs of your own human heart. In other words, the spirit that is being let loose in the world today is a spirit that is compelling men and women to delve into the dregs of their human heart and discover the abyss of sin within it and without any sense of conscience or any sense of shame or any sense of right or wrong, delve into it and go for it. It's a smorgasbord, a free-for-all. And this comes out of hell. This is from the pits of hell. The spirit of rebellion and lawlessness that has literally taken over our cities and our countries and is infiltrating the religious system of today. It's infiltrating the religious system of today. And all we would have to do is just begin to think about the various different influences that are creeping in to our homes and into our thought life and into the things that we do. And we can discover and trace at times that some of the influences that are even prompting and inspiring us come from the very smoke of hell itself as it ascends in this ungodly generation that we're living in. But we need to hear the message of Jesus Christ. First of all, He is addressing men and women who He considered to be babes. Now, to be a babe is to have a posture. We have preached on this many, many times, but we can't get away from it, because this is the key, this is the central key. To be a babe is to have a heart posture of humility and brokenness and contriteness before God. Let me tell you that a babe is not necessarily a spiritually immature person, although a babe can be a spiritually immature person. But here Jesus is not so much singling out immature Christians as if they were the ones that God is going to reveal Himself to, as much as He is speaking of a babe, meaning, as He mentioned in another place, unless you become converted and become like little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of God. So, to be a babe in this context, and not just in this context, but in the whole frame of biblical truth where God reveals Himself to people, it is to have a posture of humility, a posture of brokenness, a posture of weakness before the Lord. So, Jesus is addressing babes here, and He says that God the Father hides Himself from the wise and the prudent. That is, the things of Christ, and the communion with Christ, and the unveiling of the riches of Christ, and the grace and the changing, transforming power of Jesus Christ is hid from a heart that has become wise and proud and hardened against God. That's what Jesus is saying right here. A heart that is hard and proud and hardened against the Lord, calloused against the Lord. The Bible says that the Lord hides Himself from such a posture. And now Jesus is addressing here in verse number 28, He's obviously addressing the babes. He's addressing the broken. He's addressing those who have cast themselves upon the mercy of God, and who are trusting in Him. He says, "'Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'" The central figure of this invitation is Jesus Christ Himself. "'Come unto Me.'" Christ Jesus, in this portion of Scripture, reveals Himself as the resting place for the weary soul. Christ reveals Himself as the oasis of living water for the thirsty, dry, parched soul. Jesus Christ. Listen, it's not something about Jesus now that we're talking about. It's not, come to this doctrine, or come to this teaching, or come to this certain frame of mind, and you will find rest. No, it's, "'Come unto Me,' Christ says. "'Come unto Me, all ye that are labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'" Now, verse 29, "'Take My yoke upon you.'" So, first of all, we see that Christ invites us to come to Him. Then, He invites us to take. So, what He's suggesting here is there is a response to God's Spirit when He calls us, and that is we go to Christ, and then once we go to Christ, we take upon ourselves His yoke. Now, to take is to respond to God in His presence by calling out upon Him, by crying out to Him. There's a Psalm in the Old Testament. It's Psalm number 37. Psalm number 37. We can turn to that Psalm if you like. And here is just an example here in the Old Testament as to what it means to take from the Lord, as He says, His yoke upon us as we come to Him. See, many times, Christians will come to Christ, but then they will fall short of the taking that God invites us to partake in. Now, in Psalm number 37, we can just begin to read verses 1 through... Let's read verses 1 through 8. "'Fret not thyself because of evildoers.'" Now, the word fret there is a word that suggests becoming anxious and worried and upset. "'Don't fret because of evildoers, neither be envious against the workers of iniquity.'" I have been ministering to a certain person who has allowed Satan to sow into their heart a spirit and attitude of envy against people who are prospering financially. This person can't understand why God is not allowing a greater monetary income to come into their life. And this person is looking at various different people in their life who are not Christians, but are very stable financially, and they have a lot of money, and they have a lot of benefits, and they have incredible retirement plans. And this person has become envious toward these workers of iniquity and has said to me, "'Phil, why is God doing this in my life when these people are prospering, and they are comfortable, and they have not only enough for themselves, but they have enough in order to heap it upon all of their pleasures and all of their desires? Why, Phil?' And what I did was I prayed, and the Lord said, "'Give them Psalm 37 and tell them to chew it real good and read it real good. "'Fret not thyself, beloved, do not become distressed.'" Thank you, dear. "'Do not become distressed when you see evil men prosper and when you see workers of iniquity begin to go up the ladder of success in the world because it is only a temporary success, but someday all of those things will perish.' But the Bible says, "'But he that doeth the will of God shall abide forever.'" Beloved, don't fret. Verse 2, "'For they,'' Now, who is they that the Scripture is referring to? Evil doers and workers of iniquity. "'For they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb.'" Now, verses 3-9, God begins to speak to His people. And remember, what we're doing is we are interpreting verse number 29, chapter 11, Matthew. We are interpreting it by going to Psalm 37 and we are discovering what we take from the Lord. What is it that we take from the Lord when we come to Him and find rest for our weary soul? Number one, trust in the Lord and do good. "'So shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed.'" Number one, as we come to the Lord Jesus Christ, we are to take and find in His presence the element and posture of trust. Trust in the Lord. The word trust there suggests a dependency upon, a leaning upon, lean upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And the result? "'So shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed.'" So, number one, we trust in the Lord. Number two, verse four, "'Delight thyself also in the Lord and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.'" So, next, in the presence of God, we learn to delight ourself in the Lord. Now, to delight yourself in the Lord is a very remarkable thing. The word delight here, it's a word that means to find satisfaction and pleasure in. To find satisfaction and pleasure in something. So, the idea here is to delight yourself in the Lord is to ultimately be satisfied and delighted and fulfilled in Him and by Him and through Him. The soul that learns to delight itself in God is discontent, dissatisfied, distressed, weary, and very troubled when it is finding delight in something other than God. Oh, that God would teach us to delight, to find satisfaction in the Lord. "'And He shall give thee the desires of thy heart.'" Beloved, when your soul finds satisfaction in Christ, the desires in your heart will only be those desires that seek to please God. And that's why He will grant you the desires of your heart. So many times Christians have abused this and they have said, well, do you love the Lord? Alright then, whatever's in your heart, do it, and God will prosper it. Not so. Not so. What the Scripture is saying here is as your soul learns, and I say it's a learning process, as your soul learns to find cheap satisfaction in God alone, the result will be an incredible desire, see, He'll bring about the desires of your heart, the result will be an incredible desire to please God. And then the desires that are created in your heart as a result of finding satisfaction in God will be brought about because they will be pleasing desires. So we seek trust, this is what we take as we come to the Lord's presence, delight, something that we find in the Lord's presence, and then verse number 5, "'Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.'" Now, the word commit there is a word that means to roll upon, to roll upon. So here's the picture that God is painting for us that is something that we can experience when we come unto Him. First of all, we learn to trust, then we learn to delight, to find satisfaction in Christ, and then something else begins to happen that is simply remarkable. In the presence of God, we begin to discover the power to literally roll or commit, roll our burdens and our concerns and all of our plans, we roll them onto the Lord and trust that He will bring them to pass in His time. How many here desire to learn the blessed lesson of entering into Jesus' presence and rolling your cares upon Him, like a big boulder? Just rolling them onto Him. The idea here is if they roll onto Him, they're not on you. They're not burdening you down and troubling you and causing inner despair and inner turmoil and fits of anger and fits of rage and unkind words and snappy attitudes Normally, these things are in us because we're not committing something to God. We're not rolling our burden on God. We've taken it upon our own back and we have tried to carry it ourselves. And oh boy, I tell you, the most miserable Christian in the world is the Christian that is carrying the load of his burden and the load of his way upon his own back. Oh, you can't find peace. You can't find peace that way. So what do we do? Trust, delight, and commit. And after we commit, verse 6, and He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noonday. And then verse 7, rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Beloved, if you learn in God's presence to trust, delight, and commit, guess what the result will be? Rest in Jesus Christ. You will learn how to rest in God. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Fret not thyself because of Him who prospers in His way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. And then lastly, verse number 8, we see cease from anger and forsake wrath. Now beloved, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. Listen carefully. Please, let me have your attention. Listen carefully. It is not happenstance, it is not coincidence that God puts in His Word the mention of anger and wrath in the same context of worry and fret. It is impossible to be free from a temper and wrath and bursts of anger when you have not learned to trust the Lord and cast your burdens upon Him. The reason why verse 8 closes by saying cease from wrath and anger is because the absence of trust and delight and committing ourselves to God and rest, the absence of these things is the presence of anger. It's the presence of wrath. But the presence of these things will overcome and will subdue wrath and anger so that there will be a cessation of those things in our life. How many here recognize the real temptation to experience, almost on a regular basis, outbursts of anger and wrath and fury? Now, I'm not saying that you're going to manifest it in a very demonstrative, boisterous way, but you know wrath and anger have very, very slippery ways of manifesting. Some people are full of wrath and anger, but you know what they do? They turn it inward and become bitter and they become introverted and they just close their mouth. But really, what they're doing is they're angry as anything, but they have turned it inwardly and they go into a state of depression or they'll give you the silent treatment. How many have ever had the silent treatment? A lot of times people who put the silent treatment on think they're controlling their anger by not letting it out, but in reality, they're not coping with the anger. What they're doing is turning it inward and just zipping up and it's festering inside like a cancer, like rust. I can promise you by the authority of God's Word tonight that if you would honestly go before the Lord and walk through Psalm 37 verses 1-7 and ask God to show you areas in your life where you are not delighting or committing or trusting and as God begins to bring healing in those areas and you enter into Christ's presence and take these godly virtues and find them in Christ, I promise you that your anger and wrath will begin to leave your life. You see, many times people want to deal with anger but not go to the root problem of what causes the anger. Anger is only a manifestation of a sin, but usually the sin is a lack of trust or a lack of committing our burden to God or a lack of delighting in the Lord. There might be an area in our life that is yet finding satisfaction apart from the Lord, apart from something that's pleasing to Him. And you can trace a bad temper many times to that area in your life. And as God brings that area of your life back under the government of the Holy Spirit, back into union with the Word of God, then you're going to find that inner anger will begin to get under control, not through willpower now. See, it's not willpower. It's not, I'm going to do it. No, it's through God's Word finding a place in your spirit and in your heart. You see? So, cease from anger and forsake wrath. Fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. So, there you go. Verse 29. Take my yoke upon you. Now watch. And learn of me. Chapter 11, Matthew. Here we find again, the central theme of this little portion of Scripture is learning of who? Of Jesus Christ. Now remember, beloved, we are living in an age where there is a spirit of rebellion and a spirit of lawlessness. And this spirit of rebellion and lawlessness does not drive people to learn of Christ. What it does is it drives people to delve into the abyss of their own sin and play with it and get acquainted with it. You see, God doesn't want us as Christians to continue to get acquainted with the old man. The Bible says that God has pronounced us dead in Christ. See, and the whole purpose of this little message here and teaching tonight is to show you that you have a new identity as a Christian. That new identity is Christ in you. You are no longer a helpless person without any hope. But you have been given hope that hope is a person whose name is Jesus who lives in you by the Holy Ghost. And this person, this presence, this incredible hope in you can now become your new identity. But now see what needs to be done? Come, take and now learn. Come, take and learn. How much of what we do revolves around learning about this new person that has taken up residence in our spirit versus how much of what we do is yet causing us to stay acquainted with the old man that is in God's eyes to be reckoned as dead and buried and forever reckoned powerless. Are you learning of Christ? Now watch what happens. Jesus says, learn of Me, and now He begins to describe some of His attributes. This is what's going to happen when you run into Jesus and you discover Him. Listen, I'm not talking about discovering Jesus a million miles away somewhere. I'm talking about discovering Christ in you. In you. He is there to be your ever-present victory in every situation. Wow! Now watch what you'll discover. 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. Come, take, and learn. Trust, delight, commit, rest, wait, and cease from anger and wrath. Jesus invites us to learn of Him. He invites the babes, the humble, to learn of Him. And discovering Him and His marvelous ways will become the ever-present solution to every dilemma and problem and question that you can ever have as a Christian in this world. All by coming to Him and discovering Him. 1 John 3, beginning in verse 2, Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure. Beloved, this hope is the hope of being like Jesus every day. Beloved, God does not give you this desire to be like Jesus and then leave you absolutely unable and without the tools that you need. He has given you a desire to be like Jesus and He has put Jesus right in your bosom. Jesus is closer to you than any human being can ever get to you. You think you're tight with somebody, husband, wife, mom, dad. Let me tell you something. That's nothing compared to where Jesus is with you. He is so close to you right now, He is discerning and understanding the very depths and intents of your heart that the one next to you has no idea about. Oh, there might be a little inclination because we get to know each other, but let me tell you, nobody understands like Jesus. He's not some far off place. He is right there in the bosom of your spirit. Listen, seeking to be discovered by you, waiting to be discovered by you as your new life. And in Him, you can escape the corruption that's in the flesh and find purity, holiness, joy, a feeling of cleanliness, uprightness, righteousness, and none of it's yours. It's all His. Lost in Him. Look what it says. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. And you know that He was manifest to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin. Now listen, whoever abides in Him sinneth not. Beloved, people have stumbled over this scripture for so many centuries, but yet there's no necessary, there's no need to stumble. To abide in Him is to be yielding to His life. To abide in Him is His life expressing Himself through us. And beloved, when His life is expressing Himself through you, you are not sinning. You're not sinning. For if it is no longer I that liveth, it is Christ. Now listen, be very careful. I did not say you cannot sin. I did not say you no longer are able to sin. But the scripture says that as long as you abide in Him, you will not sin. That is, you will not willfully transgress the law of God. Listen, our problem is not Christ. Our problem is ourself. And when we're not in Him, then what? We sin. So the secret is to find an abiding relationship with Him. Verse number 9, For whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. Beloved, the seed of God dwells within us. That is Christ Himself through the Holy Ghost. And He cannot, does not, will not sin. He cannot produce a corruptible life. He cannot produce that which is evil. You can. But in Him, you will not. So the key in closing tonight, to be free from this rebellious, lawless spirit that is literally molesting an entire generation of people, both religious and non-religious, the key is to come unto Jesus. Take what He offers and learn of Him. Abide in Christ. For in Him, there is peace. And He is our victory tonight.