“Learn”

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me.”* (Matthew 11:29)

To come unto Christ is not merely to come near Him, or into His presence, but to come into Him—into His heart. To “learn” of Him is not to merely learn about Him, or even from Him, but to learn Him. The apostle spoke of the sad state of the ungodly Gentiles, and reminded the saints at Ephesus, “But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus.”* (Ephesians 4:20-21) Learning Christ changes things. The better we learn Him the more we are changed. Those who learn Him do not walk as do the Gentiles in the ways of the world.

Peter exhorts us to “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”* (2 Peter 3:18) This is the way up into the more abundant life. To be a strong, vigorous saint there must be a constant learning of Christ. We must ever be knowing Him better. To the soul that values its spiritual life, this is worth more than all else in the world. Paul says, “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.”* (Philippians 3:8) Keep this text in mind, for we will look at it again later.

To learn Christ is not to have Him revealed to us, but in us (Galatians 1:16). No one can learn for another anything of Christ. We may teach each other, but we cannot learn each other. Each must learn Him for themselves. You must put your mind and heart in such a prayerful, spiritual, receptive attitude toward God that the Holy Spirit can come and reveal Christ to you in the secret depths of your soul.

“There is a blest pavilion,
A sacred inner court,
The place of God’s own dwelling,
With all the world shut out.

“Oh, sweet and tranquil home
Where only God is known.”*

God can make Himself known to us only in the “inner court” of our own spirit. It is there and only there that the Holy Spirit can give you a sense of Christ’s purity; only there that you can have sweet tastes of His love; only there that you can behold His glory. O soul, it is there and only there that you can truly know Him; and to know Him is life eternal (John 17:3).

A sister gives this testimony of her experience as she sat holding the hand of a dying saint:

As her happy spirit took its flight, there came into my soul a sense of God’s glory and of His pleasure in the death of this saint such as I cannot describe. For several days I was constantly sensible of the presence of heavenly beings; and it seemed that the veil that divided me from them was exceedingly thin. I seemed to hear in my soul the songs of an innumerable company of angels as they welcomed this happy saint into her eternal home.

In this experience, this sister learned Christ as He cannot be learned in the seminary, the college, the correspondence course. It is not our purpose to discuss the advantages and the disadvantages of these different channels of teaching Christ and His Word, only to say that the general tenor of the Scripture tells us that these courses have a tendency to hide Christ, rather than reveal Him to the soul. Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but he must needs get to the backside of the desert to know God. Paul was schooled at the feet of Gamaliel, but he must needs spend three years in the desert of Arabia to learn Christ. It is only when the Spirit of the living God imprints Him on the fleshly table of our heart that we can know Him.

Let us study the words, “Take my yoke upon you.”* (Matthew 11:29) Jesus tells us that this is the way we can learn of Him. You can learn what Jesus is—learn His nature, His character—only by taking His yoke upon you. You may be told and you may read in the Bible that “God is love,”* (1 John 4:16) but you can only know this for yourself by taking Christ’s yoke upon you. What does it mean to take His yoke upon us? It means yokeship, and yokeship means fellowship. It means that we are to have a like nature or life with Him so that we can be fitly joined with Him, and pull with Him in all His interests. It means to work for Christ and with Christ to further His interests in this present world. Do you grasp the thought? You can learn Christ only as you pull with Him. As you yoke up with Jesus and pull with Him in His great work of saving souls, of healing the sick, of helping the poor, of spreading the Gospel, and leading the saints on to more abundant life—you will learn more of Jesus in one day than you could ever learn in theological courses. When a company of people are yoked with Christ, and all pulling with Him, they are all pulling together. This is the church of God. Every member in the church of God is yoked with Christ, and they are pulling together with Him, and pulling together in His ways. When one or more begin to pull their own way, then there is trouble and confusion. Every project of any importance has some organized system of association to further its interests. Just so, Jesus has organized His church for the purpose of furthering His interests in the world among men. Please make a note of this. To learn Christ is to learn His interests, and to work heart and soul with Him in fulfilling them. As we learn more of Him we learn better how to serve Him.

“I am learning how to serve Him,
With my hands, my heart, my feet;
And each day my Master’s service
To my soul becomes more sweet.”*

When we enter the church of God we leave self-interests on the outside and then shut the door to them. There is no living to self in the church of God; it is all for Christ. We no longer live unto ourselves, but unto Him who died for us. He died for us; we live for Him.

Now the devil has been allowed to set up his kingdom in the earth, and he has a great number of interests. He also has many who are working in his interests. A surprising thing is that many are working in his interest who fancy that they are working in the interest of Jesus Christ. They think they are working for Christ, yet all the while are endeavoring to have God’s people distrust Him.

Most everyone has an interest in something. The primary interest of the saint is to further the interests of Jesus. They live to this end. This is their meat and drink. The deeper their interest the harder they work. The truly devoted saint goes to bed thinking and praying how he can advance the cause of God. He awakes in the morning with the same thought in his mind and prayer in his soul. This is what makes for more abundant life. When you thus live for Jesus you will taste a glory the world knows not of, and a divine glory will shine forth out of your life that can be found nowhere else in all the world. When you get to living in the interest of Jesus with all your soul, you have found heaven on earth. Show me a man who lives in word, thought, and deed in the interest of Christ, and I will show you a man who can teach others the right ways of God more perfectly than all the doctors of divinity.

It would require a large volume to express all the thoughts given us on the subject of learning Jesus. But before we leave this subject, let us briefly study one trait in the nature of Christ: His separation from the world. He makes the positive declaration, “I am not of this world.”* (John 8:23) This is a very simple statement, but who comprehends the depth of its meaning? In what sense and to what extent was Christ not of this world? To get any good conception of Christ’s separation from the world, you will need to get into some solitary place, close your closet door, and in the hush of your soul, get in the Spirit. You will truly need to shut out every earthly thing from your mind and soul, and invite the Holy Spirit to come into your spirit and there give you light to behold the life of Jesus. “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.”* (Proverbs 20:27) God by His Spirit must come into your spirit and light the candle that you may see the nature of Christ. Multitudes of professed followers of Jesus are talking of Christ’s and the Christian’s separation from the world, yet they have but little real knowledge of what it means. We might be able to tell you something of what it means, but unless the Spirit gives you understanding, you will still be in ignorance.

God loved the world, and Jesus loved the world—meaning the souls of men. Jesus never loved any material, earthly thing. He never loved money or anything that money could buy. While doing His Father’s business in the body, He did have need of a few earthly things, but, oh, how few! Can you find anywhere in His conversation that implies any concern or any affection for material things? He had meat to eat that the world knew not of. His meat was to do His Father’s will (John 4:32,34). When He looked upon any earthly thing, He did not see that material object so much as He saw what it typified in the spiritual world. When we look on earthly things and see nothing of the unseen things which they are meant to represent, we have not fully learned the precious secret of Christ’s separation from the world. When Jesus looked at a vine and its branches, He saw the church of God. When He looked at a field of grain ripening for harvest, He saw the harvest of souls. When He looked at the birds of the air or the lilies of the field, He saw His heavenly Father’s care for His people. When He looked at the water the woman came to draw, He saw the “living water.”* (John 4:10) When He saw a flock of sheep, He thought of His own flock. When He saw a hen gathering her brood under her wings, He thought of gathering His people under His wing. His conversation and His life plainly show that He was concerned in the unseen things rather than just the seen. If He had seen someone in a fine car, He would not have admired the car, but thought of the way a soul may ride gloriously to heaven. Alas, how prone we are to see only the seen things!

We must close this subject, but let us close it with a “hard saying,” and “who can hear it?”* (John 6:60) Jesus, in all His teaching, preaching, work of healing and going about doing good never desired any earthly compensation. You as a follower are to be as separate from the world as He was from the world (John 17:14-16). He took no heed of the praise of men, nor of their criticisms. A mountain of gold dollars would not influence Him one iota from His path of duty. Instead of seeing the mountain of gold, He would see the riches of God’s grace. He never used banquets and sight-seeing trips as a drawing-card to His religious gatherings. Those who require compensation or charge for their Bible teaching, whether by preaching or correspondence, do not see Jesus in His separation from earthly things. Instead of seeing the glory of the material temple, He saw its destruction. Instead of admiring the world or anything in it, He saw its destruction, and admired only that which was to endure forever.

Do not be hasty to condemn the above words, but go into your secret closet, and with the door shut ask God to reveal to you Christ in His separation from the world. Since it is the poor who are to have the Gospel preached to them, how dare we make a charge?

In your learning of Jesus, study His prayer life, and seek to live in that same spirit of prayer. God’s people need a greater spirit of prayer. They need to walk in the atmosphere of prayer.