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It is a pleasure to see you, my good friends, brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the third and last of a mini series of talks in which I was asked to s- give some introductory studies to the Gospel of Matthew. I suppose it is good for our spiritual muscles from time to time to attempt the impossible, do you see? It makes for strong muscles if you don't faint. Of course, it was absurd on my part to suppose that in three talks I could give an introduction to the whole gospel.
What we have been trying to do is to take some of the narrative sections of the gospel and to show what are their dominant themes and how they hang together. So that we took chapters one to four and studied their contents and tried to show that they were not just haphazard choice of individual things that just happened to happen, but like beads or jewels on an, on a sophisticated necklace, they were put together so that each should contribute its color and brightness and shape to the overall effect of the narrative passage in which they are put.
Last week we went on to study the narrative section that lies in chapter eight and nine and found that one of its dominant themes, at least, was the question of discipleship. A topic that lies at Matthew's heart, of course. It is he that records that from the mountaintop from which our Lord ascended, he charged his apostles to go and make disciples of all the nations.
So that it is not strange to find that Matthew has devoted two chapters, eight and nine, to incidents that, uh, s- describe, that analyze, that show us the meaning of what discipleship is and what it involves. Last week, as we studied those chapters eight and nine, we only managed to get halfway through. I think I have said enough, at least I hope I have, to show that one of its dominant themes is the question of discipleship.
I must move on, however, without attempting to complete that section of narrative, otherwise we shall get nowhere in particular. Tonight I want to attempt an equally impossible thing. I want to take, first of all, the, uh, narrative section that extends from chapter eleven, verse one, to the end of chapter uh twelve. And then I want to say something very briefly on the next narrative section that begins in chapter thirteen, verse fifty three following.
Fairness, righteousness, and justice oblige me to warn you that I shall probably be speaking for an hour, at least till a quarter past nine. But the normal safeguard applies that anybody who finds the seats intolerably hard after the first half an hour is free to get up and exercise as you please. You won't disturb me, uh, you'll see, except if you walk out, do you see, and then I shall become, uh, frantically disturbed, do you see? But here we come to chapter eleven. and in verse one we read, and it came to pass when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and preach in their cities.
That is not an unnecessary remark, because as we should find, uh, if we were to study the teaching section that belongs here, that is chapter thirteen, the array of parables, that our Lord enunciates in those parables what is said here, that his immediate way for setting up the kingdom of God was to teach and to preach. And the significance of that will become further clear as we now consider some of the problems raised in the narrative in chapter eleven onwards.
The first problem is the doubts that John the Baptist had about our blessed Lord. And I read with you from chapter eleven, verses two, three, four, five, and six. Now, when John heard in the prison the works of the Christ, he sent by his disciples and said unto him, Art thou he that cu- should come, or look we for another? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Go your way and tell John the things which you do hear and see.
The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached to them. And blessed is he whosoever shall find none occasion of stumbling in me. And I, in introducing the passage, have suggested that these are the doubts that John had about the Lord Jesus. And some of you may well object. We didn't come here tonight to hear heresy. What are you saying that John the Baptist, the divinely appointed forerunner of Christ, how could he possibly have had any doubts, do you see?
I see. So he didn't doubt Christ. Well then, what, according to you, did he do then? You say it was just this. You see, he had introduced our Lord as the Messiah, but somehow or other, our Lord didn't seem too keen on telling anybody he was the Messiah. I mean to say, if he were Messiah, wouldn't you have expected him to stand up and at the beginning of every sermon say to the crowd, now get this clear before I speak anything, I am the Messiah. But he didn't do that. In fact, he did the opposite. And we read more than once that when he healed somebody, he charged the person healed that they shouldn't tell anybody.
And John was getting a little bit impatient. He wasn't doubting Christ, of course. No, he was getting impatient, though. And he hit upon a scheme for getting Christ to, uh, to come out with the facts and tell the people that he was the Messiah. So he waited till there was a great crowd around, you see, the Lord, and sent the- these various disciples to pose the question to him, are you the one that should come, or do we look for another? And that would oblige the Lord to say, wouldn't it? He couldn't escape saying it, and he would have to confess, yes, I am, of course, I am the Christ.
I see. But that seems to me to be suggesting that he didn't approve of Christ's, what shall we call it, taking such a long time to tell everybody who he was. Who he was, even according to that, criticizing Christ. Let those of us who have never had any doubts cast the first stone at John. Pray, consider what he had preached and where he now was.
He had preached, Matthew tells us, with great power, that our Lord, you see, was the sent one of God. Utterly unique. He would baptize with the Holy Spirit, it surely must be God. The Holy Spirit is not some impersonal power like electricity. Holy Spirit is the third person of the divine Trinity.
And for Christ to pour out Holy Spirit, as Peter observed on the day of Pentecost, who then is Jesus? He shall, uh, baptize the people with the Holy Spirit and with fire. In what sense? Well, his hand is free, his fan is in his hand. He shall thoroughly purge his threshing floor. The wheat he will gather into the garner, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire. So John preached.
Wasn't a very modern preacher, you'll have to admit, preaching salvation and simultaneously judgment. And when the Pharisees came out to his baptism, then he got particularly vociferous and said, who's warned you to flee from a wrath to come? Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance, says he, for even now the axe is laid at the root of the tree. If you were one of these days to be walking through Botanic Park, and you saw a workman's axe laid near a tree, and the tree didn't look very healthy either, what would you suppose?
You suppose the, uh, workman had gone to lunch, but that they intended as soon as possible to cut the tree down, wouldn't you? The axe is laid at the root of the tree, says John. You better start bringing forth fruit meet for repentance, and hurry up about it. That's what he preached. But Herod's wife, well, if that's the right term to use of the dear lady, objected. Particularly when John publicly denounced the king for taking his brother's wife, that's who she was, made a story for Hello Magazine of the day, of course, she was that type.
And, uh, John had publicly denounced him, and, you know, she didn't like it. So with that power that some have, she persuaded Herod to arrest him and put him in prison. And if you had been John the Baptist, what would you have been expecting Christ to do? He'd come to bring salvation and the Holy Spirit to those that repented and trusted him. He'd come to execute the judgment of God.
And if John had been expecting the Christ now to show he was the Christ, and come and execute the judgment of God on Herod and his so-called wife, and deliver John. Well, if we found that that was true, I shouldn't be at all surprised. It's what he preached, wasn't it? We heard some footsteps coming down, coming down. That would be... the Christ. It wasn't. The jailer with his food. He heard some other footsteps later coming down.
It was the jailer come to slice off his head and put it on a platter to adorn the table of Herod at his birthday party, the piece de resistance. Are you the one that should come? Or do we look for another? It is the problem mentioned, of course, throughout the Old Testament and elsewhere in the New. And repeated thousands of times.
By the godly, of course. In times of persecution. O Lord, to whom vengeance belongeth, how long, O Lord, do you not rise up and avenge your elect? See that justice is done. Question asked many times by the unconverted. They used to say in the war, but then you're not old enough to remember it anyway, but um, eh eh eh in the war all those years ago, ungodly people would say, your Jesus is supposed to be the Son of God, isn't he?
Why doesn't he stop the war? I mentioned last week, didn't I, my fellow student, a Jew. He had escaped, but his parents had been gassed by Hitler. And he said to me one day, but your Jesus cannot be the Messiah. I said, how is that? He said, because the Old Testament said that when the Messiah came, he would put down evil, and your Jesus just hasn't done so. No good you're in talking about he set up a spiritual kingdom, said my Jewish friend.
That's only a story that you Christians invented when you got disappointed that he didn't put down evil. It's a real problem, isn't it? It is called the problem of evil. And our Lord, in his mercy, didn't rebuke John through his messengers, but offered him evidence. When we find fellow believers in serious doubt, if it's a doubt about the faith, then it is not wise to rebuke them, is it?
What they need is comfort and evidence. And our Lord gave evidence that he was fulfilling certain of the prophecies that prophets like Isaiah had made. Go your way and tell John the things which you do hear and see. The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, and the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached to them. That is evidence that our Lord was fulfilling what the prophets said the Messiah would do when he came.
John would know his prophets well enough to recognize the prophecies. They're scattered throughout Isaiah, for instance, and that Christ was claiming to be the fulfillment. But the problem arose, of course, because our Lord interprets the Old Testament to imply there would be two comings of the Messiah. Now we probably have been taught so often about the first coming of Christ and his second coming that we take it for granted.
As far as I'm aware, there is no part in the Old Testament that explicitly says there were going to be, there's going to be two comings of the Messiah. He'll go, he'll come, and then he'll go, and then he'll come again. If you know of such a passage, please correct my ignorance afterwards, Josie. Oh, you, if you had a modicum of intelligence, maybe you could have thought there were some, uh, there was one prophecy that said he would come, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, riding on a donkey into Jerusalem.
There was another prophecy said that he would come with the clouds of heaven. And common intelligence might have told you that that couldn't be surely the same occasion. What, coming on a donkey in the clouds of heaven? Ah, hardly. So, there must be two comings then. But the Old Testament nowhere said there were going to be two. And you remember the result when our Lord, according to Luke chapter four, preached his programmatic sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth. He quoted from the scroll, he read from the scroll, Isaiah chapter sixty one, down to the verse, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Then he rolled the scroll back up again, gave it to the attendant, and said, today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears. And preachers galore have noticed and said it with mercy, uh, with gratitude in their hearts, that our Lord stopped where he did. The very next phrase following the acceptable year of the Lord was the day of vengeance of our God. And preachers have gleefully pointed out he didn't quote that verse and then say, today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears. But then we should think a little bit about that.
When the people in the synagogue read the verse, the day of vengeance of our God, they weren't thinking of God's judgment on them. They were thinking of what the Psalm says many times over, that when a God would rise up, he would avenge his people. See that justice was done, and deal with the enemies that were persecuting them. And because they held that view, which is the true view of what the verse means, they were upset when he didn't avenge their, uh, them of their enemies.
Not revenge, avenge. See that justice was done. Why didn't Christ do it? How many Jews went to the gas chambers, crying in their hearts, O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, how long, O Lord, do you not rise up and see that justice is done? People sat still.
They don't like the idea, the atheist doesn't like the idea there's a God up in heaven. But presently, curious, isn't it? He wants there to be a God up in heaven and says, if there's a God up in heaven that cares for justice, why does he allow all the wickedness to go on in the world? People have a simplistic idea of executing judgment and putting the world right, don't they? They think it's a easy thing. What you do, if you want to clear the world of the unrighteous, is to get all the goodly peop- good people in one bunch over here, and then you get all the bad people over here in another bunch, take a sword and cut the heads off of the bad people, and you're left with the good people, aren't you?
And if God did that, do you mind my asking, which group would you be in? Our Lord is on record, therefore, saying, no, at his first coming he had not come to judge the world, but that the world through him should be saved. And when in chapter thirteen he gives a parable of the program of his work, he, he tells of a farmer who planted wheat and then tares in his field.
And when it became obvious that there were tares among the wheat, his servants asked him, is it your will that we root up the tares? And he said, no, lest you root up the wheat as well. Let both grow together until harvest. This was, of course, our del- our Lord's deliberate pur- uh, purpose, and he explained later on what the harvest was going to be and when it was going to be. The harvest is the end of the age. There were to be two comings.
You say, where do you get that in the Old Testament? Well, our Lord later on in chapter twenty two of this gospel is on record as pointing out to the Pharisees and others what Psalm 110, verse one says, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet. I've often kicked myself. Well, I do that for various reasons, but, uh, you know, when I thought about it, my Jewish friend all those years ago, I wish I had known that scripture then.
Do you see? How stupid we are not to know our Bibles, aren't we? If I could have turned around to my Jewish friend and said to him, but look here, old chap, your very God, your very Old Testament, your Tanakh, your Psalms indicate that there is to be a c- a coming of the Messiah, and then God would call him to ascend and sit at the right hand of God. Then there would be a period until his enemies should be made the footstool of his feet at the end of this age, of course.
That is Old Testament timetable. The very fact that our Lord is, is invited to sit at God's right hand, according to Psalm one hundred and ten verse one, shows that he was not always to be at God's right hand, yes? If you come home one of these days and find me sitting on the best seat in your lounge. You won't say to me, please sit down. I am seated. If I came and sort of visited your place, then you might well say, please sit down.
The very fact that God has to say to the Messiah, sit at my right hand, presumes there would be a time when he wasn't there. In other words, it was pointing to his incarnation and his ministry here on earth. Then summoned to sit at God's right hand until his second coming. So our Lord comforted John, that our Lord was fulfilling what you might call the gospel promises of the prophets.
But no more, not at this stage. And he allowed John at the end to be executed. We need to grasp hold of these things, don't we? Because many an atheist, if he's thinking about the possibility of trusting Christ, will, in my experience, come up with a question: but if there's a God all-loving, all-kind, who cares for justice, as you Christians say, why doesn't he stop evil men? We need some answer, don't we?
That is not our only problem. If you care and we haven't time to read it, to cast your eye down, uh, the next verses, from verse seven to chapter nineteen of Matthew eleven, we shall find another problem. And admire Matthew's honesty for recording it. Not only that John, the forerunner, had his doubts, but the people as a whole, the majority of the people, not only rejected John, but rejected Jesus as well. How do you get round that?
Or perhaps you feel you, you don't feel you have to get round it. But it is the historic fact, isn't it? That the people that knew him, heard him preach, crowded round him, the majority of them weren't convinced, refused him. How do you explain that to yourself? If somebody were to say to you, now look here, uh, you uh, living in the year uh two thousand and eight, that's two thousand years since Christ was here. And you are sure that Jesus is the Messiah, but what about the people who is his contemporaries who saw him, heard him, watched him?
They weren't convinced. How you c- how can you be convinced? What is the answer to that? You will notice that Matthew doesn't, uh, hesitate to tell us these are the facts. So when the messengers of John were departed, our Lord began to talk to the crowd and to the Pharisees about John. I mustn't, I suspect, attribute sarcasm to Christ. If I step over the line, you'll forgive me, I'm sure you will.
But these people needed a little reminder. When John first started preaching out in the desert, multitudes went out to hear him. Pooh, talk about a popular preacher. Thousands went. And some of them made a lot of splashing around in Jordan and got baptized by him. Did they not? Because when they first heard him, there had been no prophet in Israel for about four hundred years since Malachi. And Isaiah had prophesied that one day there would come a voice in the desert, crying, prepare the way of the Lord.
And here was this voice. Well, it set every ear in Jerusalem a tingle and in Judea and Galilee, and they went out in their thousands to him. They cooled off now, hadn't they? Like people who attend a great, uh, evangelistic rally and prof- profess all sorts of things, and then after a while you never see them again. So our Lord began to examine them. Now, says he, I believe you went out into the desert, didn't you? Not so long ago. Well, yes, they did, of course. Tell me, what did you go out into the desert to see? Perhaps it was a reed shaken by the wind, was it?
Well, that's not the reason why most people go out into a desert, there are thousands of them. Perhaps he meant it metaphorically. You want to see some spineless creature blown here and there by every wind of doctrine. Well, no, of course not. No, no, of course you didn't do that. But you went out, didn't you? There must have been some reason why you went out. Oh, I know, says Christ, did you go out to see a man clothed in soft raiment? Black jacket and tie, you know, tails and whatnot. No, of course not. People that dress like that are in kings' palaces.
Hmm. All right then, well, why did you go out? You went out, didn't you? You went out because you, at the time, believed that this was the prophet spoken of by Isaiah chapter forty, calling on you to prepare the way of the Lord. And if John was that prophet, Jesus was, of course, the one whose way John was preparing. Well, why didn't they believe it then? And why did they reject John?
And then why did they reject Jesus? Now our Lord becomes very stern. He says, gentlemen, you are like a lot of children, that's what you're like. Playing in the marketplace and saying, we piped you and you didn't dance, and we put the dyer on and you didn't weep. You wouldn't have it either way. John came neither eating nor drinking and pronouncing the flee from the wrath to come. Phew. They didn't like that. Wow. And suggesting that they were sinners and needed to flee from the wrath to come.
Oh, found it offensive. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they said, this is marvelous, now this is the stuff we like. No, they didn't. They said, behold, a wine bibber and a glutton. Wouldn't have it either way. Years ago, the church of which I was a member decided to have, uh, some evangelistic meetings in a tent in the outskirts of Cambridge. And so I went along to see what, how I could help, and so forth and so on. And I remember one night, uh, after the preacher preached, a friend of mine came, uh, to me and said, look, I got a lawyer friend here, he's come tonight, and he's pretty well upset.
Would you come and talk to him? So I went across, and there he was, he was upset, temperature at high toe. Do say, he said, just listen to that man shouting up there about the wrath to come. I'm one of those people that likes to draw people to God by the love of God, and here is he shouting at the top of his voice about the wrath to come. Well, he hadn't been, actually. He'd done it in very sober terms. And I, being a student and rather silly at the time, uh, I do say, I turned around and said, uh, what, in what kind of a voice do you suppose J- uh, uh, John the Baptist had said, flee from the wrath to come?
But that didn't help, really. I hadn't got the sense anyway in those days. Anyway, my friend who had invited him had invited him up to supper, you see, and the lawyer was going to come in his own car, and uh, uh, I, my friend went in my friend's car, you see. And on the way up, I suggested to my friend that when, if the conversation resumed, then we should not talk about the wrath of God whatsoever. We should talk about the love of God. Do you see? And the conversation did resume, and we talked about the love of God and how marvelous it was. God so loved the world that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life, and how you could know your sins forgiven and know you have eternal life.
No, you can't, said the lawyer. No one can know they have eternal. Oh, I said that's, I didn't know that. I mean to say the Bible says God is so loving that he sent his son that believing in him we might have eternal life. No, you nobody can know they have. Well, I said that's very curious, uh, uh, my good friend, because, and then I turned to one John chapter five. These things have I written to you that you may know that you have eternal life, you who believe in the Son of God. Oh, shut up that old book, says he. He didn't want the wrath of God.
He didn't want the love of God. He just wants a nice little religion. That, as I understand it, is what our Lord is saying to the crowd. That's why they didn't believe. If you say, is that true to life? Have you ever found that true in your own experience with your contemporaries? Well, I have to confess I have frequently. They prate about the love of God, and they don't like the idea of judgment.
When they're faced with the love of God, they don't like that either. They love religion so long as it leaves everybody uncertain as to what the results are going to be. Then our Lord began to upraid the cities in which he had done his mighty works. And said, woe to you, Chor- Chorazin and you, 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 into 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. Now you observe the balance that Matthew's record achieves. The Lord had not come to judge. Don't get the wrong impression. That wasn't because he didn't believe in judgment. He preached the day of judgment twice in these few verses.
There is going to be a judgment. And he says it shall be more tolerable for some than for others. So how does he know? Well, for the simple reason he's going to be the judge. That is an awesome thing, isn't it? You come and meet Christ. You are meeting the final judge. There is no appeal from his sentence. I'd like that, really myself, I must say, because the judge in John chapter five says, all judgments committed to the Son, he who hears my word and believes on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed over from death unto life.
And I'm saying, thank God that came from the lips of the final judge himself. There's no appeal against his sentence. Mark what he knows. He knows history. He has contingent knowledge. He knows what Sodom and Gomorrah would have done if they had had the witness that the northern cities have had. And he can say it shall be more tolerable for them of Sodom than for the people of Capernaum. The notion that there is one destiny for those who reject Christ is true, of course.
That is eternal petition. It's not true to suppose that the punishment will all be equal. It shall be according to people's works. And we mark the word that our Lord used. It shall be more tolerable for some than for others. The mixture, therefore, of our Lord not come to judge, but announcing the terms of judgment. And already announcing the terms of judgment on some of the people of Capernaum and Bethsaida.
Didn't come to judge. But as he's explains in another scripture, you see, his coming into the world is a judgment. When we meet Christ and respond to him, that is fixing our eternal destiny. Nothing less than it. You say it must have been very disappointing for Christ, though. Well, I mean to say, he'd gone around and preached and done miracles, and whew, he must have been very discouraged about a very few people getting converted, uh, and and uh, I just had a few disciples, about twelve of them.
One wasn't genuine, and the others, well, I must be careful what I say, but they weren't academics. Some of them were just fishermen, you see. God be thankful, fishermen. Do you see? You could starve if you had only academics. You wouldn't starve if you had fishermen, would you? Do you see? But they were. Our Lord wasn't disappointed. I thank thee, Father. And the words that he used means that I agree with you, Father, and thank you for it. That thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes.
Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. We must be careful not to misread it. That does not mean that some have no chance of ever being saved because they haven't been chosen. It does remind us that God is a person. Now, comparing tiny things with great. I'm a person, you know. Mm-hmm.
So now compare wi- me with an atom. You've got a little atom here, and if you've got the sense and the mathematics necessary and all that, you put a little atom in a machine and you bombard it with this, that, and the other, and the poor atom hasn't got a chance. It will split it up and I don't know what, and you'll find out all that is in the atom, except the whole tunnel gets overheated, but that's going to be repaired, uh, do you see? And, um, they're going to find out the very last word about atoms, you see, because atoms are only things after all. But you could put me in a machine, it would analyze every atom in my body and in my brain, what is more, and as a result, you wouldn't know me.
I'm a person, you know. You can know a lot about me, about me myself, unless I reveal myself to you, you won't know me. And God is a supreme person. He's not a subject that we do, like we do physics. He is the great subject in the sense that he is the subject of the verb. And he reveals himself.
But he uses his divine right, of course, to lay down conditions. To the, to the, uh, do you see, to the wise and prudent, that is, in their own estimation. He hides the things. If you take the position of knowing everything there is, and you will submit God himself to your little intellectual powers to decide whether he has the right to exist or not, you mustn't be surprised if God hides himself from him. He's a person.
He isn't the final conclusion of a philosophical, uh, reasoning. He's a living God. But he's prepared to reveal himself to babes. You can become a baby if you like. Indeed, our Lord talked about being converted and becoming as a little child, without which you'll not enter the kingdom of heaven. Before God, what are we anyway? Take the place of being babes.
Then he will reveal himself. All things are delivered to me of my Father, says our Lord. No one knows the Son but the Father. And no one knows the Father except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son is willing to reveal him. Forgive the term. Our Lord has the monopoly. I don't like the term. That's the marketplace, isn't it? The not- Christ doesn't sell anything. He doesn't need to. But he is the sole source of our knowledge of God.
He is the eternal word that spoke the very commands of God originally in the universe, sprang into its being. Every revelation of God has been made through him all through history. The eternal word. All things are delivered to him. It is marvelous, isn't it? Embows the heart in worship to see Jesus of Nazareth standing there on this earth, conscious that all things are delivered unto him of his Father, and no one will know the Father except he reveals the Father to them.
And then he adds the delightful words of his invitation. Come unto me, all, all that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. That is amazing, isn't it? If I confess to you some secrets of mine, I've known professors that you wouldn't dare to ask them a question, you know. They'd make you feel so small for ever asking it, that you wouldn't ask it in public. What's it like to come alongside the Son of God, who has absolute knowledge of the Father.
I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. Lovely word, isn't it? For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. And if we ask, what is his secret? How is it that when we take his yoke upon us and his burden, we find the yoke easy and the burden is light? Well, I want arbitrarily to take out of chapter twelve um and its first two paragraphs, one phrase from each story.
We haven't the time to investigate all the details and to expound them as they should be expounded. They are both Sabbath days. On both, our Lord did something that the Pharisees accused him of a breaking the law. It's how he answered them that interests us at the moment. For one of the answers on the first occasion was in verse five. Have you not read in the law how that on the Sabbath day the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?
But I say unto you that one greater than the temple is here. A statement of comparative. On the uh, other Sabbath, you see, there was a man there having a withered hand, and they asked him, saying, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day that they might accuse him? Verse ten. And he said unto them, what man shall there be of you 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? How much then is a man of more value than a sheep?
Wherefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day. As I say, arbitrarily, I want to select those two statements of comparative value. And my aim is partly to illustrate how the yoke that he offers us is easy. One greater than the temple is here. Of how much more value is a man than a sheep. One greater than the temple?
I suggest to you that that is what we are to think of Christ. One greater than the temple. In the temple, as our Lord pointed out, the priests on the Sabbath day in the temple broke the Sabbath, you know. Well, of course they did. The Sabbath was given that men might cease from work. Not that God shall cease from attendance. So on the Sabbath day in the temple, the priests had to work, and work quite hard, some of them. They were serving God, weren't they?
And therefore, it was right for them in the temple, because of what they were doing, to break the Sabbath. But as they walked through the cornfield, and his disciples began to pluck the ears of corn, and the Pharisees accused him of allowing his disciples to break the Sabbath. He reminded them by his claim, one greater than the temple is here, and my servants are serving one who is greater than the temple.
What do you think of Christ, my dear brother and sister? When the going is hard in the kitchen, when the business problems are difficult, sir. What a lovely thing it is to be able in one's mind eye to write over it, one greater than the temple is here by the kitchen sink, making a bed, doing the essay, whatever it is, the things that people do these days.
One greater than the temple. That's what we think of him. Of how much more value is a man than a sheep? Value to whom? And the answer, immediate answer is, value to Christ, of course. Value to God. How much value do you think Christ puts on you?
Do I hear you say, he put such value on me that he freely and deliberately gave his life for me. That's it. What we think of him, what he thinks of us. Putting those two things together, isn't it? That will make us find his yoke easy and his burden light. Sabbath, yes.
It's a good thing, isn't it, to have a Sabbath during the old weekdays so that the body and brain can rest. I would tell you what my Sabbath day is, but I'm not going to in case you come round with a few questions. To see. Don't always manage to keep it, you know, but nevertheless. But you see, the point of the Sabbath was you work six days for yourself, and then you kept the Sabbath for God. Is Christ letting down the standard? No, indeed not. If I come to see that one greater than the temple is here, it'll be seven days for him, won't it?
Not that he will drive us and abuse our bodies and minds, but even the Sabbath will be for him. And as for him keeping the Sabbath, oh yes, but this man, this poor beast had fallen into a ditch and couldn't get out. Well, any man would, um, go and rescue his sheep from that catastrophe. But what about my brother? The Pharisees wouldn't rescue him. He had a withered hand, poor chap. He wasn't keeping the Sabbath, you know, because he couldn't work with the hand anyway.
And so our Lord healed him. He didn't say, my good man, this is the Sabbath, and I'm God incarnate, you know, and you better wait. There is in the calendar these days, I've gradually become aware, a day that is called Mother's Day. And on that day, I'm given to understand, I don't know how reliable it is, but, uh, Father makes the breakfast and takes it up, and he encouraged all the six children to help, you see, uh, and uh, they've got to clear up the lounge and not let it be all littered, and there's got to be nice and polished for the mother when she does come down, do you see?
And uh, they are to be allowed to take up the sausages or whatever it is in this and other, you see, because this is Mother's Day, and we all serve Mother today, Mother's Day, you see. Yes. So four-year-old is attempting to climb up the stairs, trips on something and falls headlongs, bumpity bump bump bump, all the way down the stairs to the floor. And father lets out a cry, Jimmy has fallen down the stairs. And mother says, yes, but I can't, uh, I can't get out of bed. This is my day, isn't it? I don't do any work on my day. Bother the child.
What would you think of a mother like that? You say not worthy of the name. And the God who instituted the Sabbath for good reasons, a Sabbath to be kept unto the Lord, saw a, saw a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, and the divine heart went out to him, Sabbath or no Sabbath, to do the work necessary to restore him. And there's so much more in that section of Matthew, isn't there? For later on in that s- next chapter twelve, you will get a demonstration of what the final judgment will be like.
As Christ will not merely condemn the impenitent, but will demonstrate to them that they were deliberately perverse in their rejection of the witness and voice of the Holy Spirit. But I mustn't yield to temptation and attempt to expound it because you'll be so offended, uh, do you see, with the length of the sermon, and you'll have a word with the elders of this church, and they will never ask me again. And I had promised you that I was going to, um, talk about the dominant theme of the next section, but I can't in all good conscience make you suffer further.
So let's commit our study to the Lord. Our Father, we thank thee for thy holy word. These records of thy dear Son and what he said and did here on earth. The opportunity to walk with him and to receive by thy spirit impressions of him and the wonder of his person, his righteousness and holiness, his compassion.
We thank thee that there will be a day of judgment, and earth's wrongs be put right. But we thank thee before that judgment comes, thy dear Son went to the cross, that none need perish. Thy desire is that all should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Give us ever deepening understanding of thy dear son, his words and his actions, that we may please him, and that we may know as his representatives how to answer men and women who find this world a puzzling place and find it difficult to believe that there is a God.
Give us wisdom, and bless thy servants now, who in a few moments will go to talk shop, and help them in their witness for the Savior. And now we thank thee for the re- refreshments that we shall enjoy and our fellowship together, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
