Gooding, David: 3 - Criticisms of our Lord's Authority

Matthew's gospel, chapter nine, verse two. And behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven. And behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, this man blasphemeth. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, wherefore think you evil in your hearts? For whether is easier to say, thy sins are forgiven, or to say, arise and walk? But that you may know that the Son of Man hath authority on earth to forgive sins. Then says he to the sick of the palsy, arise and take up thy bed and go unto thy house. And he rose and departed to his house. But when the multitude saw it, they were afraid and glorified God, which had given such power, such authority unto men. And Jesus passed by from thence and saw a man called Matthew sitting at the place of toll. And he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him. And it came to pass, as he sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your master with the publicans and sinners? But when he heard it, he said, They that are whole have no need of a position, but they that are sick. But go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. God give us good understanding of his word. On our past two evenings, we have been considering together what Matthew has to tell us about discipleship. And we saw that his first concern was to tell us of the authority of our Lord Jesus, so that we might then understand that authority to which we as disciples bow and follow. And so we fo- saw on the first occasion three stories that help us to grasp the nature of our Lord's authority, the gospel of his authority. As he uses his authority to put his strong shoulder under our weaknesses of whatever kind they are, and carry our weaknesses as our weaknesses and infirmities, and bear our sorrows. Then last week we found Matthew put together another series, a little series of stories concerned with a journey that our Lord Jesus made, and made on purpose so that he might d- teach his would-be followers something about the path of discipleship and the lessons that can only learn, uh, that can only be learned as we are prepared to follow and travel that path of discipleship with the Lord Jesus. Now tonight we start another series, a little series of three stories. They will, of course, continue the same theme, but now they will revert to the question of our Lord's authority. Once more, we shall hear Matthew describe the gospel of his authority. We should never forget this emphasis. It is all too easy for preachers to give the impression that our Lord's authority and the question of discipleship is something terribly stern and so demanding that it takes the guilt, so to speak, off the glory and the wonder of the gospel. The very opposite is true. So now, again, Matthew will bring us to see something of the wonder of the gospel of our Lord's authority. But then, in these stories, he will begin to introduce us to criticisms that people made of our Lord's authority, and subsequently of his disciples. And in these first stories, we shall hear people complaining that our Lord's authority was too lax. It was too easygoing. It allowed people too much liberty and freedom. And it wasn't strict enough. And it didn't come down on sin strongly enough. We shall hear people criticizing our Lord's authority. And then later, perhaps if we have time, we shall even hear some believers criticizing our Lord's disciples for that same reason that his discipleship was too easy going. You may have noticed, however, and this will help us to put the thing in focus, that at the beginning of each of these little groups of stories, Matthew compares our Lord and his authority with other authorities. It was so, wasn't it, in chapter seven twenty nine? The multitudes were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. Our Lord, in contrast to the authorities, the Jewish authorities of biblical exposition, the scribes. So it was last week when we began in chapter eighteen, the second little set of stories where our Lord is shown talking and insisting on his authority before a c- a a scribe. Now tonight, as we begin this third set, here come the scribes again and the great doctors of the law. And their criticism of the Lord Jesus is, uh, vented on the occasion when, as we read, a s- sick man was brought to him, sick of the palsy, a paralyzed man. And our Lord Jesus, looking at him, said, your sins are forgiven. And the scribes objected to such a pronouncement of the forgiveness of sins. Now we should note, if we would catch the full import of this criticism and this story, we should note, of course, that scribes and Pharisees were quite used to the idea of forgiveness of sins. They were instructed to tell the people that every time the people brought their sacrifices, then if they brought the sacrifices in the right way, their sins were forgiven them. What they are objecting to here is the authority that our Lord Jesus had to pronounce himself forgiveness of sins. You notice he doesn't say, in the name of God, I forgive you. He doesn't say, my son, God has forgiven you. He just says your sins are forgiven, and the people accuse him of blasphemy. Oh, what a wonderful thing this is, isn't it, that our Lord Jesus is able to do for us. He has the authority on earth to forgive sins and to pronounce that glorious word of forgiveness, the gospel of our Lord's authority. And there are many, are there not, even in our own city here, uh, that need to hear it. They hope one day, perhaps when they arrive at heaven, they may discover that their sins are forgiven. Oh, how they need to know him who on earth has the authority to pronounce that our sins have been, all of them, that is, forgiven. But now our Lord answers his critics. How shall he answer them? How shall he demonstrate that he has the authority to forgive sins? Easy enough for anybody to say so, isn't it? How will you prove it to a critic? So we notice what our Lord says, tell me whether it's easier to say thy sins have been forgiven or rise, take up thy bed and walk. Isn't it delightful? He doesn't say, tell me which is the harder thing to do, to say thy sins be forgiven thee or rise up and walk, but which is the easier to do? How shall he demonstrate that he has the authority to forgive sins? Easy enough for anybody to say so, isn't it? How will you prove it to a critic? So we notice what our Lord says, tell me whether it's easier to say thy sins have been forgiven or rise, take up thy bed and walk. Isn't it delightful? He doesn't say, tell me which is the harder thing to do, to say thy sins be forgiven thee or rise up and walk, but which is the easier to do? And then to demonstrate the point that he had the th- authority to forgive sin, he said to the paralyzed man, get up and walk, and he took up his bed and he walked. And as that once time paralyzed but now forgiven man walked straight down the street carrying his bed, he became the living evidence that our Lord Jesus has the authority to forgive sins. And my dear good brethren, that's how it should be now, shouldn't it? How could I ever prove to anybody that Jesus Christ has the authority to forgive sins. Well, in the first instance, if he's forgiven mine. To demonstrate that fact by my ability to walk straight. For our Lord claims the power to not only to forgive, but as the old hymn has it, to break the power of cancelled sin and set the prisoner free. Here, I suspect we should try to maintain a balance. It is, of course, the fact that it is the gospel that sets men free to walk to the glory of God. That is a fact we should never forget. Religion does not do so, even though it were the honored religion of Jew- the Jewish law. Look, for instance, at Saul of Tarsus in his unconverted days, up to his eyebrows in trying to keep the law, lacking completely this assurance of forgiveness that Christ can give. Ah, but a bigot still. And a terrible persecutor. And he was that while he thought that you had to earn salvation. Isn't that curious? While he still thought you had to earn salvation by your works, he was a terrible bigot and a persecutor and a blasphemer and a cruel man. It was when he discovered that salvation is not by works, and that you can have forgiveness free and for nothing, that it turned him round. He didn't persecute anybody after that ever. And instead himself bore persecution and suffering and loss, that he might bring the message of the gospel to others. It was this gospel of forgiveness, free, gratis, and for nothing forgiveness, in the name and authority of the risen Christ, that broke the power of sin in Paul's life and began to set him free. And of course, he tells us in the Roman epistle, doesn't he, how our Lord empowered him to walk. He's far from claiming that the night, the day he got converted and thereafter he walked absolutely perfectly thereafter and didn't put a foot wrong. Far from it. He's the man that bemoans the fact, oh wretched man that I am. Nonetheless, he does communicate to us the fact that our risen Lord has power not only to forgive, but to set people free. We rejoice in the wonders that the gospel has done, whether it be the Oka Indian having discovered free forgiveness and the marvel that forgiveness does in a society of that sort. When we've noticed that, then let us notice that we who profess to have received this forgiveness, let us give attention to that power that our Lord has to make us walk straight, for if we appear not to walk straight, the world will come to question the authority of Christ to forgive sin. And so Matthew now, what a happy man he must have been, is able to write one little paragraph consisting of one verse that further illustrates this point that Christ has power to make a man walk straight. For he tells us that he was sitting at the place of Tor, a hated collector of taxes, making his living by an occupation that, uh, was obnoxious to the Jew, first on the ground that he was collecting taxes for the hated, uh, forces of occupation. He was a kind of a quizzing in the eyes of many a Jew, and secondly, because in this trade so many tax gatherers cheated the people, made much more money than they should, and swindled a lot of others. And therefore, in this time, so publicans were excommunicated from the synagogue. And here was Matthew, so to speak, chained by his love of money to his tax inspector's desk. Isn't it good that tax inspectors nowadays are altogether better breed? But, uh, there he was when our Lord walked by and said, follow me. And that power was broken. The love of money gone. And he walked free and never went back again. A genuine conversion. Let us notice the sequel, that Matthew is modest enough to tell us it wasn't he that did it. Other gospels will tell you it is Matthew or Levi, his other name, that made next this great banquet for a lot of other tax gatherers and sinners. Matthew just says that he happened to be, uh, Christ happened to be in a house. Well, it was Matthew's house, of course. Because he wasn't without a penny or two, was Matthew? And on this occasion, when he threw this dinner party as a way of introducing people to Christ, you should have seen the Rolls Royces lined up outside the door, because there were a lot of tax gatherers there. And there was a tremendous amount of criticism. Why does your Lord eat with tax gatherers and sinners? They were a very doubtful lot where our Lord sat at dinner. And the strict Pharisee of the time criticized the Lord Jesus, therefore, for what he did. I notice how our Lord replies. Notice, first of all, what Matthew was doing. He himself had left his, uh, unlawful way of making a living. Although he had left it himself and no longer practiced it, he had a heart of concern for the men he had known in his daily job. And the question was, how did you bring the gospel to them? You couldn't bring them to the synagogue. The whole bang lot were excommunicated. And to bring them to the synagogue would have been difficult anyway, wouldn't it? It would have appeared as though the Christians were mocking the serious discipline of the synagogue and telling the world it didn't matter how you behaved. You should accept everybody along in the synagogue, like some advanced clerics now and again hold services in St. Paul's Cathedral for the cast of disgustingly immoral players. Bringing no crowd of men into a synagogue will surely have been a very serious mistake. The world needs to know that Christians stand against sin and against social sin and every other kind of sin. The gospel doesn't say it doesn't matter how you behave socially. But that's only one side of the story, is it? His men were sinners, and rot was a lot of them. The question was, how did you get the gospel to them? And Matthew didn't attempt to bring them to synagogue, he made a dinner party in his own home and brought the Savior along. What a lovely thing it is. I'm not suggesting that our friends who meet with Hazel tonight are publicans and sinners, far from it. And how often a meeting in a home is more appropriate than trying to get sinners even into gospel halls. Though get as many there as you can. And our Lord answered the criticism of the Pharisee. They that are sick, of course, have no need of a physician. No, sorry, they that are well have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. Of course, if somebody's got the smallpox, you don't send your teenage daughter to look after them, because that could be a very risky thing to do. But somebody will have to go and look after them as they perish. And if the medic isn't prepared to go where the victim of smallpox is, then the man will die. Isn't always the wisest of things to send a young convert into the midst of certain types of sinners. But if nobody goes and sits where they sit and offers them friendship, how shall they hear the gospel? And then our Lord Jesus reminded his critics of what God really prefers. He's saying good critics were assiduous in offering their sacrifices to God. They didn't take the trouble to find out first of all before they started what God really prefers. He's not against sacrifices, but over and above and beyond sacrifices, he would prefer mercy. For that is what God is like, a great God of authority, as he is interpreted on our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. The authority of God that condemns sin prefers mercy to our sacrifices. So then the gospel of authority, this time as we see it at work in the attempt to reach out to save sinners, its message forgiveness of sins, its power to set the sinner free and to enable him to walk straight, and what it will ask of the converted sinner to go and seek other sinners, and with the authority of the Lord to bring the Savior to meet them and them to meet the Savior. Of course, it's not the last time that evangelicals have been criticized by what you might call the high church. You'll see. When, uh, Spurgeon preached in the Crystal Palace, there were those who thought this was the extreme of ungodliness. What, not preaching in, in a, in a... holding meetings in a place that wasn't consecrated. Wow. You'll see. So did the Pharisees feel about our Lord. But it isn't only folks who have had no experience of the Savior that will sometimes criticize our Lord's discipline. For now, look what happens next, and in the next series of stories, they begin with a further criticism. There came the disciples of John, now they were believers, weren't they? And they didn't, uh, like, uh, do you see, uh, uh, they didn't apparently, as you noted, they didn't join the Pharisees in criticizing the disciples for going among the unconverted and bringing them to Christ. What they did criticize our Lord for was that he appeared to be too easy on his converts, once he got them converted. Say, dear disciples of John, why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but thy disciples fast not? In other words, the disciples of John felt our Lord let his own disciples off too lightly. And of course, anybody perhaps can get converts if you're not prepared to, uh, insist on the rigor. What if you, if you make it a little bit easy, well, you'll get more converts, won't you? John made his converts fast. Why didn't Christ make his converts fast? How interesting it is, how many people of different kinds thought our Lord Jesus was too easy going. We shall find presently that isn't true. It wasn't as easy going as some people think. But for the moment, his answer to that criticism, eh, eh, is as follows. First of all, well, why should you fast? Why would you fast? Fast. For instance, he said, can the sons of the bride chamber, that's old fashioned Hebrew, that is, isn't it? For can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is still with them? Would be odd thing to do, wouldn't it? I don't often make it a habit of going to weddings, but the most I've been to, it would be decidedly odd, wouldn't it, if all the guests refused to eat anything on the wedding day while the bridegroom and the bride were still there? What an odd thing. Quite inappropriate, you say. Yes, you see, fasting isn't a thing to be done just for the sake of doing it. Fasting to be any good has got to be done appropriately, in appropriate circumstances, and for adequate reasons. Just doing it for the sake of doing it is useless. So what is it then that's going to determine whether I fast or not? Our Lord indicated that it's a question of his own presence or absence. Can the children of the bride chamber fast, that is, the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is still with them? Of course they can't, but the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then will they fast. And the end of that sentence indicates, doesn't it, that our Lord is now using the thing as a analogy and a parable. I have the sense of, let's start with the apostles, if they had the Lord Jesus actually with them and all the joy of his company, how they fast. There would come the days when he would be taken away, and the sense of his absence and the sorrow of it will give them occasion to fast. And I suspect, I don't know, but I suspect we may, um, apply it to ourselves, may I? You get a man, he's just found the Lord, and he's heard the Lord's word of forgiveness. Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. But he feels like jumping for joy and throwing his hat up into the air and saying hallelujah for Jesus or some other such remark. What would be the sense of trying to make him fast in that moment? Sense of the Lord's presence and the joy of forgiveness filling the man's heart. Nonsense. Try and make him fast. We know, you will know, from your young long years of Christian experience, that the whole of Christian life isn't like that. There will come moments when the Lord seems to be a long way off. And then fasting can be appropriate. Mark, I said it can be. Even so, it's not always appropriate. Depends what the cause of the, of the sorrow is, isn't it? And if the cause of the sorrow is overwork, pray don't go fasting. When Elijah got very downhearted through excessive overwork and ran away from Jezebel. Anybody would do that, I suspect. Ran away from Jezebel and lay down exhausted in the desert and prayed that God would take away his life, he felt so bad. The last thing on earth that God allowed him to do was to fast. He sent an angel with his breakfast and told him to take an extra day, told him to take an extra day or two in bed, fed him well, to get over his exhaustion. But there do come times when a sense of the Lord's absence and the problems of his work will naturally call the believers to fast. And fasting isn't just going out, uh, going without a little sugar and a few hot cross buns is eat, either. Fasting is going without not only food, but otherwise legitimate things. For the sake of the Lord and his work. Uh, and then our Lord gave another reason, uh, why. No man putteth the piece of an undressed cloth upon an old garment, for that which should fill it up taketh away from the garment, and a worse rent is made. Here's the field where the ladies are expert, but as I understand it, if you get a piece of unwrought, uncarded cloth, you wouldn't mend a patch on your trousers, gentlemen, by trying to sew it over, because the one bit will pull away from the other and will make it worse. Similarly, if you've got new wine, you'll put it into new bottles. These are, as we know, skins, and in the ancient world, when a skin was new, it was pliable. And then when you put your new wine, not you perhaps, but other folks, put their new wine into the old new skin, and the new wine fermented and was pushing all over the place, the skin would give a bit and then keep it back, give and keep it back, and so you preserve both the skin and the wine. If you try to put new wine into an old leather bottle, the old leather got as hard as anything, it had no give in it, and the new wine just burst in. And our Lord is talking about new wine, new converts, isn't he? New raw bits of ra- rag, excuse me, if there's any new convert here, uh, you'll see, uh, excuse the metaphor, won't you, but it's one the Lord used. Uh, a bit of unwrought cloth, new wine, you'll see. And you must take, uh, your spiritual, the spiritual discipline, uh, for these folks, bearing in mind their spiritual state, mustn't you? It's all right for some of us old folks like Mr. Boyd and me. You'll see, got old and leathery with the, well, I don't know about him, but me, got old and leathery with the years, you'll see, and settled down to disciplines that are grave and I hope are mature and dignified. Not necessarily a lot of give left in me. You get the young convert bubbling over with joy, unspeakable and full of glory at the forgiveness of his sins. He'll need some discipline. He'll need a skin, so to speak, to contain the old wine. But he'll need a skin that's got a little give in it, and then we'll bring him back again. Allow for the giving, and that shall keep him and the skin. And how could Judaism cope with the converts of Christianity? Well, Judaism was never made to contain that kind of joy. They did have some joy in the Old Testament, didn't they? But not the kind of joy that Christians know. It was a good discipline, about the exuberance of the presence of the Messiah among his people, bodily among them, announcing such forgiveness of extent and greatness that they'd never known before. The old disciplines of Judaism couldn't begin to cope with it. You needed a new skin, a new discipline. And as we read it, we perceive how down to earth, how sensible, how practical, how understanding of the human heart was our blessed Lord. Even as he said these things, I wonder, did you notice when you last read it how Matthew tells you his story? While he was still speaking these things to the disciples of John, and they thought he was terribly lax, far too lax, that he didn't make them fast. He wasn't rigorous enough in his discipline. There came a ruler and said that his daughter was already dead. Would he come and lay his hands on her? And he went, and as he went, there came a woman, and she had, uh, an issue of blood. And what does this tell us? Oh well. The ruler was a ruler of a synagogue. A responsible position in the synagogue. I tell you about him, he had a daughter, nice old, twelve years old. As dead as dead could be. What good your fasting now? What good all your discipline now? So you can have all the rules of discipline in the world, like the Pharisees has, but if the young folks in your synagogue did, what do you notice we're on a journey once more? How interesting, isn't it? That's what happened to us the first time. We got interested in the succession of three stories, and how presently, before we know, we knew where we were, we were off on a journey into the deeper experiences of the path of discipleship. Now we've come back, and we've been talking theological theory, uh, we'll say in practical evangelism, and now before we know what's happening, we're off on a journey again. Following our Lord, uh, to meet cases of deeper need, and sometimes need that you didn't even know was there. They criticized him for not making his disciples fast. They said he made life too easy. Oh, but wait a minute. Here was a deeper problem in the ruler of the synagogue himself, a young person. What next? By there was a woman, and according to Jewish understanding, wherever she went, she bought defile. And in a hidden weakness that she could not master, and I repeat, according to Jewish notions, it brought to fire. Surely the things are parables. What's the good of a synagogue full of dead young people? You'll need something more than fasting to get rid of that, and that our Lord now does. He gives the guy life. And you know, it's possible for us as Christian churches, isn't it? I've been talking about this woman that had a hidden weakness and carried defilement wherever she went. Just let me remind you of what it says in Hebrews. Lest there should be among any one of you spring up a root of bitterness, and many be thereby defiled. Defile. Or what about my hidden weaknesses of envy and jealousy and revenge and spite? What about my hidden unsoundness in doctrine, in attitude of the world, and in goodness knows what, that wherever Wherever I I go go, spreads space unwitting. unwittingly defined amongst the people of the Lord. Ah, the path of discipleship will mean for me, as for these two people, Jairus came, the woman came, knowing their weaknesses, and besought the Lord to follow. Thus does he invite us tonight. You have a weakness. I have a hidden weakness you don't know anything about. And beneath my refined exterior, so it be, would spread defilement of gossip, of malice, of envy, of character assassination. Oh, sometimes we can't stop gossiping. Spread defilement. And our Lord waits for us now to come and ask him to follow us while we take him to where the weakness is. Yes. This is advanced discipleship. And when he dealt with those two cases, there came a couple of blind men, and they followed him into the house. They came crying after him, but for some reason our Lord didn't take any notice, or appeared to. And so the blind men followed him and eventually came to the house into which he'd entered. And he gave them their sight. Ah. Tell me, is not that also a spirit- a parable for us spiritually? What's the good of a synagogue for folks blind? Can't see a thing. Part of all levels, couldn't we? But we've got a congregation, and when you quote John three, the first notion, you can't see anything in it. What? What about us believers? Paul used to pray for his converts that the eyes of their heart being illuminated, they might know what is the hope of his calling, what the exceeding riches of his inheritance in the saints, and what is his power towards us. If my eyes are closed to that kind of thing, and I know nothing of such illumination and, uh, the Lord's purposes in my life, what use? It'll be a funny dead congregation, won't it? And there were these blind men, but they didn't get it the first time they asked, and they went down the road. You just imagine. They heard his voice, they followed him, they cried out, he made no reply, then suddenly the voice went silent, they didn't know where he gone to. Tested their determination to follow him, didn't it? You'll see there are some things in the spiritual, by that illumination of which I speak, you don't necessarily get it the first time you ask for it. For these are spiritual gifts that demand in us the intention to persevere and keep on asking and keep on following. If you continue in my word, then you shall be my disciples indeed, said our Lord, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And the final stage on this little journey of ever deepening experience of discipleship. They brought to him a dumb man. Yeah, well, I can tell you a way of making a synagogue a very dull place. That's where everybody's dumb. It will also make a prayer meeting dull, and the Lord's Supper dull. And it will be a sorry thing, will it not, for the gospel if I'm dumb and can't speak to anybody about the Savior at appropriate levels. What can our Lord do about that? And they brought in the dumb man, and he cast out the evil spirit and set the dumb man free. Dumbness is a funny complaint, isn't it? And I speak with feeling for those who are physically dumb. It's not their fault, but a dumb man is an exceedingly frustrating thing to be. But God made man to speak. And you know, man's ability to speak is one of the most marvelous things in the universe. Animals have a few noises, they can't, many of them, manage to say much. In man, creation becomes articulate. In man, creation is able to speak back to its creator. Oh, what a wonderful thing that is, however humble the man or woman. A creature of God with that tremendous gift of being able to talk back to the creator. Yes. Yes. And this man was dumb. What a frustration. Both for God and for man. And though he made us to show forth his praise, we haven't all to be preachers, have we? But he made us to set us free to talk to him, and then to talk out his praise. Am I dumb? Well, on the further reaches, so to speak, of the pathway of discipleship, the Lord shows us that he can cope with our weaknesses, be they death or bla- or or defilement or blindness or darkness. This is what the real thing is about, and not just a few rules and regulations. The Lord bless his word.