Gooding, David: 6 - Learning about the Son

Let's begin to read this evening, shall we, in the Gospel of Matthew again, and chapter eleven. Chapter eleven of the Gospel of Matthew, verse twenty: Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which were done in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. How be it, I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted unto heaven. Thou shalt go down unto Hades. For if the mighty works had been done in Sodom, which were done in thee, it would have remained until this day. How be it, I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee. At that season, Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes. Yea, Father, for so it was well pleasing in thy sight. All things have been delivered unto me of my Father, and no one knoweth the Son save the Father, neither doth any know the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him. Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Chapter twelve and verse forty six: While he was yet speaking to the multitudes, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, seeking to speak to him. And one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, seeking to speak to. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and said, Behold my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother. And it will take very little observation for us to notice that in the first passage, we are introduced to the unique Son. No one knoweth the Father, but the Son. All things are delivered into my hand. And in the second passage, we are introduced to the model son, who does the will of his father, which is in heaven, and all who do that will, along with him, he counts as his mother, brother, and sister. But now, last week, we were thinking together, were we not, of John the Baptist in prison, and how our blessed Lord comforted and stabilized that man in the time of his grievous doubt. Not rebuking him for having the doubt, but supplying to John the evidence that John so sorely needed in those hours and days when, as a result of his imprisonment and his disappointment in the Lord Jesus, his faith began to wobble. Now this week, let us go on to notice, first of all, very briefly, our Lord's treatment of the crowd when the messengers of John departed. For John, in his doubt, there was comfort, there was evidence, there was consolation. Now for the crowd in their doubts, there was nothing but stinging rebuke. For there are two kinds of doubt, aren't there? There's the doubt of the honest heart that is puzzled and disappointed because Christ does not seem to come up to his expectations. There's the other kind of doubt that is the dishonest doubt. People hiding behind their doubts and criticisms because they don't really want to believe. And now for a moment, therefore, let us think about that crowd to whom our Lord addressed his remarks in chapter eleven and verse 7. These were the multitudes that when John the Baptist had been preaching on the banks of Jordan and had been baptizing, they had gone out to John in their thousands and had made a great show and a great splash as they had got themselves baptized by him. Now, a year or so later, they didn't quite want to know and were very embarrassed and had all sorts of doubts that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. Some of them had violent criticisms, both of John for being a man, as they put it, that had a demon, and of our Lord because he was a wine bibber and a friend of publicans and sinners. And our Lord begins to deal with them. Verse seven, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, what went you out in the wilderness to behold? Well, that was an embarrassing question to ask to start with, wasn't it? Tell me, said he, I believe now I'm right in saying, am I not, that about a year and two months ago, some of you went out into the wilderness, didn't you? Well, if I say I'm right, I think quite a lot of you went out into the wilderness now, if I remember rightly. Vast throngs of you went out into the wilderness. Tell me, exactly was it, what was it you went out into the wilderness to see? I mean, obviously people just don't go out into the wilderness in thousands for nothing. You went out to see something, didn't you? I know what. You went out into the wilderness to see a reed shaken by the wind, didn't you? That won't quite do, will it? Of course not. Whatever man in his senses went out into the wilderness to see reeds shaken by the wind, you might see millions of them. And who would go to see a reed anyway? I mean, that won't do. Oh no, that's no good. Of course not. But you went out into the wilderness, didn't you? Must have gone for something. I know what. You went out to see a man clothed in fine raiment, didn't you? Well, no, hardly. I mean, they that wear fine raiment are in king's palaces, and you wouldn't expect to find a man in royal robes out in the middle of a waste howling wilderness, of course not. Ah, I see. So you didn't. But you did go out. You must have had some reason for going out into the wilderness in your thousands. What was it? Embarrassing now to remind them, wasn't it? You went out to see a prophet, didn't you? Yeah, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. You went out because you heard of that voice crying in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make his paths straight, and your hearts were moved and your consciences were searched. Could this really be what Isaiah had prophesied in his fortieth chapter? As you went out to listen to him, and as you heard John thundering out his appeal on the basis of God's moral law and calling on you to repent, your consciences were stirred, weren't they? Some of you got yourselves baptized, and you had a right to be stirred. For I say unto you, of all the prophets that have ever arisen, there has not arisen one greater than John the Baptist. Indeed, if you will have it, this is the Elijah that, according to Malachi four was to come. Yes, they had gone out. And what had gone wrong since? Why hadn't they gone on and believed in the Lord Jesus if they thought that John was a forerunner? For John had pointed to the Lord Jesus, and they had professed to be moved by John, but were not prepared to believe in Jesus. Ah, well, they said, you know, yes, yes, but in the end we came to the conclusion that John was, was mad, you know, and a demon. Oh, I see. Well, look at the way he dressed, they said, they're dressed up in that odd gear in the middle of a desert, I mean to say. Ah, yes, camel's hair. And listen to him shouting at the top of his voice about hell and damnation and the lake of fire and talk all in people violence and things. That must be off his head. Oh. I see. That's why you haven't gone. That's why you haven't professed faith in the Savior. That's why, in spite of those, uh, experiences when your conscience was moved and you professed repentance and you were going to get ready for the coming of the Messiah, now it's all gone. Oh, I see, that's your excuse, is it? You don't like, uh, preaching about hell and judgment and sins and repentance. You think that's all a little bit unbalanced. Yes. What would you like? Nice preaching. All full of the love of God and forgiveness of sins and that. The Son of Man came eating and drinking. Oh, how lovely were the words he preached. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. And when they heard him, of course they said, this is, this is it, isn't it? Now this is it. We didn't like that old damnation hellfire preaching stuff. That was crude. But now this love of God, oh, marvelous. Do you know what? You can have eternal life, and you can have it free from nothing. And God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son. Isn't it marvelous? Now this is the stuff we like. Oh, they. They didn't like John the Baptist because he preached no fire. They said he was a little bit emotionally disturbed and had a demon. And they didn't like Jesus Christ either. Said he was loose and he was lax and he was a wine bitter and a friend of publicans and sinners who've been with that lot, you see. And he's got the cheek to tell us that some of them have been saved, if you please, but contrary to us, and we've been religious all our lives. And then, to make matters worse, they say they're sure of salvation. And here's us, been serving God all these years, and he never gave us so much as a hint of assurance. I don't like it. This nasty little evangelicalism and people being, what's he call it? Born again. So they wouldn't have John with his preaching of law, and they wouldn't have Jesus with his preaching of the Messiah. And now, over these long centuries, perhaps we begin to see what lay at the back of that. They couldn't see that Jesus was the Son of God. Oh, couldn't they? Why couldn't they see it? Our blessed Lord, with the infinite skill of the divine medical practitioner, diagnoses their hearts. He said, you're like a lot of children. You'll either have it one way, you'll not have it the other way. You'll neither have the mourning nor the dancing. You just want a nice little religion that will be respectable. You're neither interested in salvation, neither interested in repentance nor salvation. You won't have it either way. Doubt is a thing that has to be properly diagnosed, isn't it? And if in our personal work we would help people who are in doubts about the person of Christ, then we shall be wise to seek the Lord's wisdom to diagnose why they've got the doubts. If they're real doubts, genuine doubts, then the answer to that is more evidence. Sometimes they can be doubts that are not real doubts, merely a scream or a determination not to repent and not to believe the gospel. And then we thought last week, didn't we, about our Lord's answer to John's problem. For John's problem was the problem of evil. Why didn't Jesus, if he was the Messiah, why didn't he deal with evil? Interestingly enough, this week I had another Jew tell me the very same thing. Your Jesus can't be Messiah, he said, you see, because the Old Testament says that when Messiah came, he would put down evil, and your Jesus did not do it. How could he be the Messiah? And we saw last week what our Lord's answer to that problem is. He isn't intending at this moment to put down evil, not intending to root up the tares. He is allowing evil to grow to its full extent, and by the time the end of this age come, the harvest of evil will be indescribably devilish. God is going to let it grow till harvest. Then the judgment shall come. Then the dragnet brought- brought in. Then the bad fish sorted out from the good. Then the tares rooted up and cast into the burning furnace, and the wheat gathered into the garden. Until then, Christ is not trying to put down evil with the sword of politics or force. What he is doing is going forth like the sower to preach the word of the kingdom, that people might believe and be saved. So, not the judgment until the end of the age. That's one side of the story. Now tonight, let us look for a moment at the other side. There are two sides to this story. The judgment doesn't come until the second coming of our Lord. The other side is the judgment is now. The judgment is the judgment, says the fourth gospel, that light has come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Whosoever believeth on the Son is not judged. Whosoever believeth not has been judged already. And this day may be in Belfast, there have been men and women, and they have settled their eternal judgment today. For they have met the Savior, and they have come to their final decision. Now, what a serious thing that is. And you think of the final judgment as some long, long, long way ahead, and forget that when they come face to face with Jesus Christ, their attitude to him here and now settles their eternal judgment. That being so, what a solemn thing this matter of evidence is, isn't it? You see, God himself never asks anybody to believe blindly without any evidence, because if God asked us to believe without evidence, well, we could just as easily believe the devil as believe God. How would you know the difference? God will give the evidence. And one of the things that will be held up to men in the great day of judgment is this: what did you do with the evidence? Not all men have equal evidence, and these verses that we read remind us of that. It shall be more tolerable for the men of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than it will be for the men of the towns of Chorazim and Capernaum. Why? Because the men of Chorazim, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, they had evidence. The blessed Lord himself bodily among them, speaking with them mouth to mouth, and with the evidence of that kind in front of them, they rejected he. More horror over the men of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment from the. Why? Because in Sodom they had witness, yes. The witness of Job, fitful though that was. Finally, the witness and warning of angels, but not the incarnate Son of God. One of the principles of the judgment is, what have we done with the evidence available? While we're on that topic, let us notice, uh, skipping across some verses, another slightly different, uh, rendering of that theme. Our Lord says, do see in chapter twelve, he said, the men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here. Yes, what have you done with the evidence? Secondly, how keen were you to hear the evidence? Queen Sheba, way down there, way across the hills of the desert in Sheba, and she heard of Solomon. Could only have been a rumor. But so keen was she on hearing wisdom and finding true wisdom, she came all the way from Sheba, right the way to Jerusalem to hear Solomon. She shall rise up in the judgment of them. There's some people in Belfast, they wouldn't cross the street to hear the gospel. They couldn't bother their heads to open a Bible. Yes, in our compassion, we must go to them. Hey, let us not forget the other side. They are responsible to God. What rumor they hear about God's truth being about the place to stick it. Seek ye the Lord where he may be found, is the command of the prophet. Man will not be able to sit on his seat, when the final judgment come, say, well, God, nobody came knocking on my door, nobody came into my room, so they didn't. They couldn't come and saw. And this generation, why they shall suffer, because the Queen of Sheba will rise up and judge them. And while we apply the lesson to the unconverted, uh, shall not the same principle be used at the judgment seat of Christ? Have you not heard missionaries say, uh, in Angola, when they went and they preached at a conference and expounded the word of God, there came believers who had walked for three days and their shoes were in bags. What for? To hear the word of God expounded. How far would we go? How keen are we to hear? But let me, while we are on this theme, before we turn to pleasanter things, but then you see these things are very important, aren't they? Let me remind you of what our Lord did in chapter twelve when the Pharisees took counsel to destroy him. So we are told that, uh, uh, uh, when our Lord did a miracle, chapter twelve verse twenty two onwards, the Pharisees heard the people saying, is this the son of David? Can this be the son of David? When the Pharisees heard it, they said, this man doth not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the prince of demons. And so they came to their conclusion that Jesus was not the Messiah, could not possibly be the Messiah, they said. He was, in fact, in collusion with the devil himself, and they were not going to believe. You say that's terrible. Fancy anybody saying that Jesus Christ was of the devil. It has no good talking to men like that. Just leave them! Leave them in their folly, get on and go out and preach the gospel. Ah, yes, but Christ didn't leave them that quite that soon. Here were men on the verge of committing the unpardonable sin. It would damn their souls for eternity. They are so determined to reject the gospel and the word of Christ that they'll call Jesus Beelzebub. Before Christ leaves, he'll have five or six things to say to these men. He will expose them inside out and show them that in s- rejecting the gospel and saying that Jesus is in league with the Elzebub, they are being as arbitrary as they can be. They are going against their own standards of conscience and judgment, and they are being deliberately and perversely wicked. He will not allow them to hide behind their supposed intellectual doubts and difficulties. It's one of the solemn, most solemn, uh, parts of scripture, isn't it? I find myself thinking that perhaps something like this our blessed Lord will do when he sits on the great white throne. In that day, we are told he shall judge the very secrets of men. So that when a man comes before him, a man who has deliberately rejected the gospel and says he's got strong reasons for obj- rejecting it, uh, our blessed Lord will open that man's heart, memory, and conscience and show that man that in order to reject the light of God, that man deliberately and perversely went against his own moral judgment and his own moral standards and his own intellectual standards as well, and believed, and refused to believe, not out of honesty, nor out of an excess of intellect, but through moral purpose. God will never let anybody go down into the lake of fire imagining that it was his intellect that took him there, or it was his, he was so clever, of course, he couldn't bring himself to believe like those humble folks around a corner. He was so marvelously clever. No, God won't have it done. God will show every man who is lost the real reason why he refused to believe. So you say, gentlemen, do you, that I cast out this, uh, demon by the prince of demons? Now that's very interesting, said he. Because you see, um, every kingdom divided against itself falls, doesn't it? Every city or house divided in itself, against itself falls. It can't possibly stand. So Satan is now in the business of casting out demons. So Satan is about winding himself up, isn't he, gentlemen, according to you. How marvelous. Satan has decided to destroy himself. Is that what you believe, James? Tell me, he says, uh, I hear that your sons cast out demons sometimes, don't they? Pray tell me by whom do you t- you imagine they cast out demons? That was a potent question, wasn't it? Why? What was the difference? They cast out demons, and you say that's okay. I cast out demons, and that's the devil. What's the difference, gentlemen? Well, it's what their sons didn't claim to be Messiah, and Jesus did. Their sons cast out demons, and their parents and uncles and aunts could say, oh, what bonny boys. And when the boy came around and says, yes, aunt, I want your donkey, or I want ten pounds from my gospel mistress, oh, no, no, no, no. Well, when Jesus cast out a demon, he claimed to be the Messiah and demanded people's repentance and faith and freedom. That they weren't prepared to do. And because they were not prepared to believe that he was Messiah, for all it would personally entail for them, then they had to find out some excuse, and the only excuse they could think of was to say that the power of him must be the devil. Uh, what about doing a burglary or two, or making a raid on some, uh, stately home and getting out all its treasures. Righto, let's have a go at that. Not you, I mean, it's hypothetical. Mm. What do you suppose you'd need to do if Lord Ponsombe has a beautiful art, treasures, and everything like that under the sun, and you're going in to to rob the place? Well, you've got to put Ponsombe out of action to start with. Bash him on the head, tie him up to his chair, and his wife likewise, stuff their mouths, and then cut the telephone wires and goodness knows what else, and said, please don't hear of it for the next, uh, hours. hours before you make off with the loop. He pros upon something himself will help you out and load your Half car for boy you with was the a loop. Luke. And I delivered this man from the grip of satanic evil. And you have the nonsense to say I'm in league with the devil himself, do you? Therefore I say unto you, every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven, except that spoken against the Holy Spirit, it shall never be forgiven. What's more, gentlemen, I tell you that of every idle word that men speak, they shall give an account in the day of judgment. For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned. All the terrible power of words, eh? Because they tell out our hearts, and finally our attitude to the Savior is shown by our words. That's in the final chapter. Let us not stay for time's sake any more of that. These are solemn things, aren't they? But you see, we want to be reminded of the solemnity of preaching. Our blessed Lord has gone. We are sent out to be sowers as he was, to sow the word of the kingdom. And let me say again how we do need to feel the responsibility upon that word that we speak by God's grace, man's eternity ends. Men settle their judgment here and now by their response to that word. But if, but if our eternal destiny depends on our response to God's word, on our perceiving that Jesus is the Messiah. It does, doesn't it? How can I, how can I come for certainty to the knowledge that he is Messiah? My eternal destiny depends on it. So now our Lord turns to speak. At that very season when he had been obliged to denounce the people of Bethsaida and Chorazin for their rejection of the evidence of his miracles, now he turns and says some delightful things. I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and prudent, and reveal them unto babes. Why, he'd just been talking, hadn't he, about the na- the crowd being children and reproaching them for being children. Now he commends those that are babes. Let us take these lovely verses, enough for a whole series of sermons for six weeks on end, but let's, uh, just pick out some of their major points. First of all, the sovereignty, the complete sovereignty of the Father. I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thou hast hid these things from wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good, uh, in thy sight. Principle number one. If we would know God, then we are all together shut up to God showing himself to us. The absolute sovereignty of the Father. He hides these things from the wise and prudent, and when God hides something, you'll never find it. And he reveals them to bay. And I can hear my Calvinist friends behind me rejoicing and thinking I got at last converted to Calvinism. If I'm going to know God, it will be because God reveals it. Yes, it will indeed be. But then it is for this reason, isn't it? Do you know, I could never get to know you. Unless you chose to reveal yourself in the eye, didn't I? And you're not God exactly, not omnipotent, but that is a fact about you. Oh, I could get to know a lot about you. I could go and ask your schoolmaster and your parents. I could go and ask your manager at work or your employees. I could go and ask your wife and your children what you and bacon candlesticks make. I can ask the priest if need be. I can go and ask a lot of things. I can get the medics to take X-rays and scanners of you and know you inside out and upside down. And if you didn't choose to reveal your inner thoughts and heart to me, I should never know. Why? Because you're not just a molecule of soup. You are a person. Oh, you can know a bit about daffodils, you can analyze them in up hill and down dale, and you'll find out their very last secret and the very last atom and the nucleus and all the protons and neutrons, and you know all about them. Even then, you might know the energy of which they are made. Never mind. When it comes to people, simply because they're people, will only know what they please and they know. And God is a person. Not a set of theological doctrines. You can't get up one morning saying, I'm going to know God this morning because I've got enough brains to do it, and give me half an hour and I'll work out the, the, the evidence and I'll come to my algebraic conclusions, and cuity I know part you never will. Because the Almighty isn't like that. He's a person. And he is the Almighty person. Oh, what a privilege it is. Pray, haven't you thought of it? That he deigns to let you know something about him. You go and ask Her Majesty and say, Your Majesty, excuse me, I'd like you to tell me, uh, what you were thinking, she would say. Did I ask you to speak? For you never speak to Her Majesty unless she first speaks to you, unless you want a stinging rebuke. And that the Almighty Creator should let himself be known by tiny mites in cheese like we are. All now. You come to him with all your great wisdom. I'm not, I'm not criticizing your great wisdom. Have as much wisdom as you can get. But if you think you're coming because you are so colossally wise, philosophic, or ma- uh, uh, or what have you, and so you're going to know God, you'll find yourself disappointed. He will hide himself from you. He isn't that little, he isn't that small that you could just work him out so long as you have brains big enough. He is a person, but he's prepared to reveal himself to babes. Ah, the wonder of it, that he should condescend to such lowly people, personalities, minds and hearts, and let them know about himself. And then when we thought of the sovereignty of the Father in making himself known, then we think of the exclusive rights of the Son. All things are delivered unto me of my Father, and no one knoweth the Son save the Father, and no one knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son is willing to reveal. There has been nothing ever known about the Father, the transcendent Lord. There's never been anything known about him, but what the second person in the Trinity, the Son of God, made known. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath told him out. And if you want to know what God's ideas are in color, well, go to creation, but remember it was the Son of God who made the creation. If you want to know what God's idea on music are, well, go to creation and the human ear, but remember it was the Son of God who made the human ear. No one knoweth the Father, save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son is willing to reveal him. He has, forgive the term, this is not commercial, the exclusive monopoly of the knowledge of God. Oh, in these days, when Jesus Christ, even by Christendom, has whittled down to being just a man for others, or a bright prophet, or a Jew in advance of his day, pray that we remember the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ our Lord. He has the exclusive monopoly on the revelation of the Father. Pray what he says. Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. It doesn't even first say go search your Bibles, does it? Good as that is. For the one who makes known God is a person. Come unto me. That is true, we preach it to the young. Let's preach it also to ourselves. Not first my Bible, but first the Lord's. Using that, that you see not the book without the person, but first the person and then the book. So that even as I come to read his word as a believer, let me always remember I'm not coming to a philosophical document or a theological system. I am coming to a person. What a blessed thing that is. He says come to me, and I will give you rest. All you are burdened and heavy laden, be it with religious rites and ceremonies, or with the ha- with the responsibilities of the law, or wrestling with your great theological problems, or your doubts and difficulties, how can you make sense of it like John Baptist in prison? Oh, what a labor sometimes it can turn out to be. And the blessed Lord sends, he who has the monopoly of making God known, says, come to me, I'll take the burden out of you. I'll take the distress out, and I will give you rest. For ultimately, it is he who is responsible for you, my brother, and you, my sister, making known the transcendent Father to you. He has that responsibility. Ultimately, none other. He uses all sorts of people in his service, but ultimately the God whom none has seen nor kept has committed to the Lord Jesus the communication to you of the Father. It is personal responsibility. Come to me. And in the end, I take the labor out of it, the overhired labor, the distressing toil, and I will give you. The terms, take my yoke on it, and earn me. The yoke, of course, is a symbol of government. He speaks as a king. If I come, I must be prepared to do what he says. He speaks as a teacher. Jewish rabbis, when they expounded the law and laid down their, the rules and regulations, they talked of it as their yoke, and our Lord speaks as a teacher. He asks that we be prepared to accept his government of our lives so that he may teach us. Sooner or later, he will do it. Knowing God is not just an academic exercise. Or if I'm serious in knowing God, then the Savior will put his yoke on me. And in his government of my life will bring me through such circumstances as I need be brought through, so as to appreciate and know the Father. And you shall find rest to your soul. If I can believe that all of life is under his control, and its circumstances are being controlled by the Lord of heaven and earth, to this blessed end that Christ may teach me the trial. Is it not so? Why am I here in this world? Why this great world and universe? Oh, how many are the problems that on earth we shall never solve? He has them in his hands. He's Lord of heaven and earth, and the whole thing is geared that the Father might make himself known. My work is easy, he said. My burden is light. And in two Sabbaths consecutively, he gave evidence to show us why, how it is that that burden is light. And I'm not going to repeat the whole parables, but ask you, or I'll suggest to you that you might care one of these days to look at the, not parables, the two incidents that follow on the two Sabbath days and see how they illustrate that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. The first one is the story how the apostles on a Sabbath day were going through the cornfields, and they rubbed the ears of corn in their hands, blew the chaff away at them, and according to certain Pharisaic interpretations of the laws of Sabbath, that was work, and they were breaking the Sabbath. Our Lord gave them a reply that had many details that we must omit tonight. Perhaps the the most delightful thing was this. He said, gentlemen, in the temple up the road, on a Sabbath day, the priests break the Sabbath, don't they? You'll see in the temple, work has to go on. Sacrifices have to be prepared, incense burned, uh, uh, show bread taken here and taken there, you'll see. So the work in the temple had to go on on the Sabbath. Outside the temple, it all stops, but in the temple it, it, it can't stop. Why not? Well, because, you see, the temple is God's residence, and man ceases from his own work, but man doesn't cease from the work of God. In the temple, the priests break the Sabbath, every Sabbath, but the service of God must go on in the temple. Isn't that so? When they do fasting, they teach them you that in this corn is one great... payment. Though it be but nothing is of corn, my disciples are doing it for me, who am greater than the devil. Christ greater than the devil. Ah, I begin to see. My work should be governed by what I think of him, how I value him. Shall I take his yoke? Shall I serve him today? You say the demand he makes is heavy. Wait a moment, just before you decide that. Finally, who is it? Eating the potatoes for the two thousand five hundred and sixty seventh time. Topping up the old accounts, and then all those bits of work that sometimes are pleasing and oftentimes are drudgery. Obeying it and doing it out of the heart for the Lord? Difficult to say. Yes, amen. Who is he? Who's But they he don't doing it at for? all. Or Who is is it it whose a joke yoke? you have about money? Whether you find the joke e- easy or find it vital depends on who you think Jesus Christ is. And who you value him. No, sir? He's coming home. Late as usual. I'm cooking dinner, and when he's eating it, you won't say thank you, and you'll see, ooh, what a drudger it is. And if the Queen's limousine stopped outside and the chauffeur says, Her Majesty's car's broken down, madam, could you give her a cup of tea? Oh, a cup of tea would be got. There would never have been such a delightful occupation as making this cup of tea, and we live on it for the next six months, if not six years or six, and grandchildren in thousand and fifty-six. will be told by granny how one day the Queen's car saw Christmas. She asked for a cup of tea. Great my bother, the best china was dusted in the china cabinet, and I was ready for it. What made the difference then for doing it for him, for hubby? What do you say? Well, but if that was only him, and this was the queen. And one greater than the temple is here. Why? And on the second Sabbath, they learned what he thought of them. For you see, there was a man there with a, a, do you see, withered hand, and the Pharisees were going to object to his being healed on the Sabbath. It was work according to them, and our Lord said then, what man of you shall there be that shall have one sheep, and if this fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it and lift it out? Well, of course they would. Like a sheep fell into a pit. I lift it out on Sabbath because the thing might die, and I mean to say, I mean with what with inflation and things, sheep are vitally valuable, are they? You can't have all that being religious, but you can't afford to lose an old sheep. Money. Oh, I see. A gentleman, he said, of how much more valuable, of how much more value is a man? Who is she? Of value to whom? Ah, there speaks the Son of the Father, Lord of heaven and earth, and he asks you to ponder. While Pharisees would make the man wait, the son says, no, that man mustn't wait because he's valuable. He's valuable to the father. Of how much more value is a man than a sheep? Can you answer that question? You say, how would I know how much more valuable I am to God than a sheep? Pray, consider the unique Son of God and how he taught you what, how at what level God values you. For the Father gave the Son to be the same of the world. What I think of him are greater than the devil. What he thinks of me are more valuable. That's when I put two together. I begin to discover what God is like and why the yoke of Christ is easy. He is the one that imposes the yoke, and he must be obeyed. There's no mincing matters here. He is the Father's only Son, the eternal Word. He's there to command, to give the orders, to be obeyed. What makes it easy to take orders from Christ? Why this? This you say, that before he ordered me to do anything, he first of all obeyed himself. And they came to him from the crowd, and they said, your mother is outside the crowd, here are your brothers and sisters looking for you. Said he, who is my mother and brothers and sisters? Well, he that does the will of my father, which is in heaven, he's my brother and sister. Now, why? What made the relationship? Well, you see, if they are prepared to do the will of his father in heaven, that makes them, uh, his brothers and sisters, unless what he said himself. What is a rightful king and what a delightful savior. God grants us evermore to come to him, take the gift, and learn from him, that he might find rest, we might find rest to our souls.