Gooding, David: 2 - Matthew’s Gospel—Further Major Themes

What I have tried to establish in the first part this morning is that Matthew has very carefully arranged his gospel material, uh, into certain packets, so to speak. We've been investigating one of them. We followed two of the words that occurred at the very beginning. One, the Lord's authority, and two, the corollary of that, the multitudes followed him. And we were trying to establish, therefore, that this is one of Matthew's major themes, the authority of the Lord as king and teacher and so forth, uh, to which we respond, if we respond rightly, by following him. Then we took id- uh, examples of how that authority works on his side, what he can do with his authority, and then the requirements he will make of those that follow him as his disciples and the lessons he put them through. Thirdly, we made the point that Matthew alternates his collection of material. That is, he will stress on this occasion what the Lord can do, then he will lay down the uh, demands that the Lord makes. Now, I mustn't, uh, give way to my, uh, weakness. Some people have a, a besetting weakness. I have a half a dozen besetting weaknesses. But, uh, you'll see, one of them is to preach when I shouldn't be, and that's a veritable sin, you'll see. Uh, and I'm not meant to be preaching to you this morning, but sharing some ideas that you, if you, uh, cared to on any time that found them useful, could use and develop. So that I propose to say rather little more about this particular section. I said enough to sketch in how I think that what subjects this section is dealing with. I want to pass on to another couple of sections, actually, so that I can give some idea of the scope of themes that are dealt with, major schemes, by Matthew in his gospel. But just let's notice now how verses, uh, uh, chapter nine and verses ten following still continue this theme of our Lord's authority and of, uh, our reaction by following him in true discipleship. Verses ten give us the criticisms, uh, from the Pharisees, and verses fourteen onwards, the questionings that came from the disciples of John. So our Lord, having demonstrated his authority to forgive, his authority to break the love of money, so to speak, in Matthew, now is criticized, uh, by John that his disciplines that he imposes on his disciples are not strict enough. Behold, uh, many publicans, uh, sorry, the Pharisees first, their criticisms that his disciplines are not strict enough. Behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your master with publicans and sinners? In other words, eh, they're saying, oh, this cheap gospel of his, he goes around announcing that he's authority to forgive people, and he forgives people their sins, and they can know it. Look at his behavior. Hey, what ho? Wouldn't have people like that in the synagogue, and here he is breaking the discipline of the synagogue by eating Republicans and sinners. That's cheap religion, that is. You'll see. Undermining the standards of the synagogue. We have disciplined those people because of their outrageous antisocial, uh, and anti-moral behavior. And he goes amongst them preaching this forgiveness, he can forgive people and never mind anyway, and welcome them to his table fellowship. And this is pseudo. And our Lord's answer to it. One, uh, well people don't need a doctor, but sick people do. Powerful argument, that is, isn't it? If people have smallpox, in the days when they had smallpox before it was er- er- eradicated, of course you put them in quarantine and you kept them away from everybody else. That was sense, wasn't it? But if the doctor didn't go to them, they'd die. Would you suppose the doctor is, is compromising his profession by visiting a smallpox patient? That the doctor is on the side of smallpox if he goes anywhere near a smallpox patient. No, of course, even the patient must be isolated so he doesn't inf- infect the rest. But the doctor is not, um, compromising with smallpox by visiting the patient. They that are whole have no need of a doctor. Those that are sick do, and the doctor must go where the sick people are. He is not compromising. Actually, if you'd attended, uh, that house party where Matthew and people like him made a big party, Matthew here doesn't tell you he's got more Christian grace than to tell you it was he who put on the big party, uh, do you see? And if you'd have gone in there and all the Rolls Royces and uh XJY Jaguars, uh, were parked outside and all that one, you know, the people outside saying, oh, those pips and mafia type and made huge sums of money, and this is this Jesus going there, hobnobbing with them. I expect he expects his pockets to be lined when he comes out, you see, and it's all in the name of religion. Yeah, but if you'd attended the party, you and everybody else present at the party would have gathered what he was there for by the time you came out. Yes. Anyway, look at the advertisement Matthew was. He was once a tax gatherer. He'd left it. This is the doctor at work. He's not letting the side down. He's not compromising with sin. The question, uh, the, uh, the, the disciples of John raise is a somewhat different sort, not to be confused, for the que- the, the pe- uh, John's disciples, as well as John himself, were very seriously minded people, weren't they? John believed in evangelism of a kind. He preached repentance, didn't he, to prepare people for forgiveness of sins. John certainly didn't go soft on sin, but his disciples had a bit of a problem. Christ didn't make his disciples fast. John did. Christ didn't, does he? And therefore, John's disciples, very politely, but they did suggest that perhaps Christ, uh, was a bit too easy on his disciples, not rigorous enough. You know, they'll produce very flabby troops, eh, go on like that. And what answer did our Lord have to that, that his discipline was too easy upon believers? One, can the sons of the bride chamber mourn? That's very old English, that is. That's a funny expression, sons of the bride chamber. No, wedding guests, so friends of the bridegroom, it means. Eh, can the friends of the bridegroom mourn so long as the bridegroom is with them? That would be daft, wouldn't it? To be invited by the bridegroom as a special friend of his to go to his wedding and not partake of the food because you're fasting. The fast would be inappropriate to the occasion and inappropriate to the presence of the bridegroom and the joy associated therewith. Can the wedding guests of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? That wouldn't make any sense. Fasting to be valid has got to make sense and be appropriate. No sense just in doing it for its own sake. Days will come when the bridegroom is taken away. They'll fast then. Yes, discipline must be appropriate to the occasion. No man puts a piece of undressed cloth upon an old garment. Neither do men put new wine into old wine skins, else the skins burst and the wine is spilled. For time's sake, let me deal with the second of those. In the ancient world, as you know, you didn't have glass bottles for wine, you had leather bottles. And, uh, you didn't put, uh, new wine into old bottles. Why not? Because the old bottles, being leather, would have become hard. With the new wine inside fermenting, the new wine would split the bottle, and you lost both the bottle and the wine. So, uh, you, you, you can't have wine without bottles. It's very difficult storing wine without bottles. Come now, you've got to have a bottle of some kind. Our Lord isn't for doing away with bottles completely, is he? But the bottle must be a new bottle to cope with the new wine, because a new bottle being new leather can have some give and yet still hold the wine. Yes. And these were new converts. These were the first converts of Christianity. The old rules and regulations of Judaism were very good, given by God, but they got rather hard down the centuries and unyielding. And anyway, those, uh, bottles of Judaism had never been designed to cope with the joy of folks who had found the Savior and had got forgiven and had found the power of Christ in their lives. Wow. The old bottles of Judaism couldn't cope with that, do you see? And you must have a discipline that's appropriate to the new wine. Oh yes, it would settle down outwards. And some of us that have been Christians a long while, we're pretty hard bottles, aren't we? I mean, well, not you, but some of the rest of us, I should say. But the discipline, you must have discipline. You can't have wine without any bottles. The discipline must be appropriate to the stage of the wine. Common sense analogies from nature, actually, from daily life. This is our Lord justifying the principles of that he lays down for his discipline of his disciples. And then there came a lot of other people. Jairus came to the Lord. He was ruler of the synagogue, but in his house, a dead child. Sad for a synagogue leader, wasn't it? Our Lord did a literal physical miracle and raised her from the dead. But just as in all cases in Old- uh, New Testament, the physical miracles have a spiritual lesson to, to tell us. If we apply that rule here, what a situation it is. Ruler of the synagogue, responsible for its service, service, but a dead daughter. He comes to bring the Lord into the situation, and the Lord grants a reviving, a revivification of the dead daughter. And then there followed him two blind men, and they haven't got any sight. And they want sight, and they keep following the Lord until he gives them the sight. The further reaches of discipleship. There are synagog- synagogues still of various kinds, Jewish and Christian, and they've got rather a lot of dead people in them. Can the Lord bring life, new life? And there are dear folks, and they follow the Savior, but their trouble is the eyes haven't been opened. They can't see anything. Hand them a bit of scripture, it means nothing to them. They don't see anything in it. More than that, of course. We can ourselves be believers, can't we? We still need to be prayed for and to pray ourselves that the eyes of our hearts shall be enlightened, that we may know. Yes? That is the ongoing work of the Lord, constantly and evermore to open the eyes of our hearts. Ephesians chapter 1 and Paul's great prayer. And for this purpose, the two blind men, realizing their blindness, they followed the Lord. He didn't at once answer their prayer, you'll notice. He kept them following and following and following. And you get the impression they got their gift of sight, eh, you'll see, because of their faith, their faith being expressed in the fact that they kept on following and wouldn't be put off and wouldn't give up until the Lord had granted them sight. And at this level of discipleship, that is the fact, isn't it? If we are to have our eyes opened, as Ephesians chapter one talks about, the eyes of your heart being enlightened, you'll have to keep on praying it and praying it and praying it and praying it and going on praying it to the end of your days. In that sense, it depends on our faith, and our faith is expressed by the fact that we keep following and crying out to the Lord for it, and we shall never say, you've done enough now, Lord, not until we get home to glory, and it's doubtful even then if we shall say it's enough. All right, I mustn't preach, I resist that temptation. Uh, all I've tried to maintain is that there are is in this section dominant themes. One, our Lord's authority, and two, the obverse of that, are following him, and what that means. This is a course in discipleship through all its various stages. And with that demonstrated, the apostles were set on their evangelism. That was a wise sort of thing, wasn't it? And chapter ten s- uh, summarizes here various instructions that our Lord gave. He may have given some of them at different times, but Matthew summarizes them here in chapter ten. Uh, you'll see they were to go out on their evangelism. Notice chapter ten verse one. he called, uh, unto him his twelve disciples and gave them authority, delegated authority, as they went out on their evangelism. And what he said is, uh, pooh, some of it's sizable, isn't it? Look, for instance, verse fourteen of chapter ten. Whosoever shall not receive you nor hear your words, as you go forth out of that house or that city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city. Yes, as he sent them out, he gave them authority, and what is more, he made them aware that when they went out to preach, they are preaching against the backdrop of eternity. They are preaching against the backdrop of the final judgment. It doesn't simply say, whosoever shall not receive me nor hear my words, but whosoever shall not receive you nor hear your words. Not because the apostles had any inherent authority in themselves. It was because they were sent by the Lord, and the words they preached were Christ's words. Upon those words and people's reaction to them, their very eternal destiny would depend. It's a solemn thing, isn't it? This chap here gets up and preaches, and the words he actually says because they are Christ's words given him to speak. If folks hear those words and receive them, they will be saved. If they hear those words that he spoke and reject them, they could be lost forever, couldn't they? It's a solemn thing, isn't it? You just imagine someone arriving before the great white throne, and our Lord, to whom is committed judgment, brings them before him. They're condemned for not believing the gospel. Their name is not in the book of life. And the man said, whenever did I hear the gospel? And he says, this man here, stand up, you. You heard him preach at such and such a time, Ballynuar or wherever it was. And as he preached in your heart, you knew, didn't you? Wow, to have delegated authority like that is enormous responsibility, is it not? Yeah. Well, I've said enough. I must give up the preaching, you see. Temptation besets me, and I can't get free. But let's turn now to the, uh, next section, and if we can, in the time, have an hour, uh, uh, uh, uh, time, see if there are other dominant themes and what they might be. Watching the dominant themes and noticing how they are developed in each section is a very profitable thing. It opens up a gospel to us. So look at chapter eleven verse one. Here comes another of the great division markers. 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. Now that section is going on, we noticed, until you come to chapter thirteen verse fifty three, which says, and it came to pass when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence. So this is the section through which we at which we shall be looking to see if there are any dominant themes. Let's do what we did the first time. Look at that introductory phrase to see if we get any hint of what the prom- uh, uh, prominent theme would be. Eleven one again, 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, you say, well now, sir, Mr. uh, talker, you. Um, that is such a general statement, is that you can't say that's a dominant theme of any particular section, can you? The Lord was for everlasting preaching and teaching, goodness me. That is a very general statement, surely that isn't a, a dominant theme. Well, it is though. Because if you care to look to the chapter thirteen— chapter thirteen that ends a section is a compilation of our Lord's parables. It is nothing other but teaching, yes? Well, so are all the sections like that. But now look at the special thing that stares us in the face at the beginning of chapter thirteen. When he spoke his first parable, the multitudes were gathered unto him, great multitudes, so that he entered into a boat and sat, and all the multitudes stood on the beach, and he spake to them many things in parables, saying, Behold, the sower went forth to sow. That tremendous parable is a parable about... preaching. Yeah, humbly. Yeah. It's a parable about preaching. Yeah. And the importance of the parable about preaching, we shall eventually see. But here is our Lord talking about his own ministry. In fact, you'll find he's justifying it. And the great parable is a parable about the importance and the effect of preaching. And the necessity for preaching. And the results that accrue from preaching. Parable on preaching. So it is not merely, uh, chapter one, uh, chapter eleven verse one. it's not merely saying that our Lord preached and, and, uh, taught. Of course he preached and taught. But what he taught in this section eventually is going to be, he taught about teaching and the importance of teaching. And this could be important. It is going to uh, uh, pull our, uh, address our minds to the fact of our Lord's technique for setting up the kingdom of God on earth. How? By preaching and teaching. We can take that immediately as an important lesson. Sometimes one thinks that in the modern church we got afraid of preaching and teaching. And we think that the church is established by better by other means. Well, preaching and teaching is not the only means, but listen to our Lord on preaching and teaching. It is the way par excellence of setting up the kingdom. It will take some faith, you know, to believe it, and then to practice it. Ah. I'm old and crotchety, well, at least when you're over seventy, you're allowed to be old and crotchety anyway, so I mean, nobody's got the right to be crotchety if the seventy years old haven't. And sometimes I fear that we've lost our nerve. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. We go to the stake for it and burn to cinder. We believe in the inspiration of scripture. All scripture is profitable for teaching. Not Chronicles, surely. And Leviticus is doubtful. You couldn't accept anybody to listen to them, did it, dear? You'll drive everybody away. Oh yes. So we go to the stake for the fact that this is inspired, but whether all of it is profitable and should be preached. I was going to say hands up when you heard the last set of sermons on the one and second Chronicles. I won't do that, that would be silly and it would draw us away from the main point. Anyway, this is our Lord. He not only preached and he taught, but he preached about preaching. And what led him to do that, and what is the situation? Well, let's notice the first story that follows the introductory remark. This is eleven: following. 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 cometh, or look we for another? Now, there have been many that rushed to the defense of John the Baptist. They say, beware how you interpret his question. Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? Superficially, that might, uh, seem to suggest that John the Baptist was having some doubts about whether Jesus was the Messiah or not. And they said that is impossible to think that he had any such doubts, you see. Uh, he was the forerunner, prophesied i- of in Isaiah forty, a voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. In some sense, he was also the fulfillment of Malachi, I will send Elijah, you'll see. How could such a God sent, God ordained, God anointed, great forerunner of the Messiah ever have any doubts about whether Jesus was the Messiah or not? They said it's impossible to believe it. No, he didn't have any doubts, uh. Oh. Well, he did say, art thou he that should come? Or do we look for another? Yes, people say the trouble is this, you know, John was in prison, hmm? And, uh, he was expecting the Lord to come and set up his kingdom. Now, he had no doubts that Jesus was going to set the kingdom up. It was just that, um, it wasn't, well, how should you say? He wasn't, um, getting on with the job very quickly, you see. Ah. There was this Herod that had put John the Baptist in prison. He was a candidate for the, uh, the judgment of the Messiah, he surely was, and the Lord wasn't getting on with it fast enough. In fact, when he healed some people, he told them to go away and don't say anything to anybody. It was a little bit odd. Anyway, John saw a way of, um, you know, just giving the Lord a a gentle nudge to get on with the job. He'd wait till the Lord had got a great multitude around him. He'd send an a po- a a a messenger or two to pop the question in the hearing of all the people, are you really the Messiah, you see? That would make the Lord admit it, wouldn't it? That would settle the question. If you feel you need to give the Lord a nudge and he's not doing things, uh, strictly as he should. Isn't that a doubt? Mm. Yes. The situation, of course, was serious. Here was John the Baptist, and he'd come proclaiming that Jesus was the Messiah. And among the many things John, uh, said was this, he called upon the people to repent, to get ready for the Messiah who could forgive their sins. He said the kingdom of he- heaven was at hand, and they better start because it was very near. He said, in fact, the axe is laid to the root of the tree. Goodness me, if you're walking through the park and you come across a tree and there's an axe with the metal against the root of the tree at the bottom of the tree. You say, well, you can see what's going to happen here. Where, where, where, where's the gardener chair? Um, we can see what he's intending to do. He's going to cut this tree down, you tree, you better look to it. The axe is laid to the root of the tree, he said, and the sire has come. He's going to, uh, uh, gather the wheat into his garner. He shall thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor, another great metaphor for judgment. Uh, you'll see he shall cleanse his threshing floor, he shall garner the wheat into his garner, and the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire. Wow. That's what the Messiah was going to do. And John, preparing for the Messiah to come and do that, you see, turned around and had a caught sight of Herod, who had taken his brother's wife. It was a scandal of everybody. He turned round and put his prophetic fust- fist in his face. Said, you know who I am? I'm the forerunner of Messiah. The Messiah has come. I call on you publicly to get rid of that and repent. Uh, do you know Salome didn't like that? And she got Herod to put him in prison. Well, it wasn't that he was in prison for speeding on his way to an evangelical meeting. Nothing like that. He was in prison for what lay at the very heart of his message, and as he understood it, the message of the Messiah. The Messiah was come, among other things, to bring down the judgment of God upon unrepentant sinners. And in the name of the coming Messiah, he had told He- Herod to repent, or God would cut him down. And now John was in prison. What must Christ do now then? They say, he'll have to come and get John out of prison. That's what he'll have to do. If he doesn't act now, well, of course, the whole public will see through it. There's nothing in this whole business of the Messiah if he doesn't deal with Herod now and cut him down and set John out of prison. To have Herod defy the Messiah's forerunner and carry on sinning and get away with it. Well, in John's estimation, that denied everything he'd preached about the Messiah. So Donald's in prison, expecting the Messiah to come any minute, deal with Herod and get him out. There came some footsteps down the, down the prison passage. Where's the Messiah coming? No, it's the jailer with his bread and water. And the Messiah didn't come, and didn't come, and didn't come. So he sent some messengers to ask him, are you really the Messiah that we were looking for? Or have we got to look for another? But the Lord didn't come. He sent a message to John. He didn't come himself. Ah. As the next section will tell you, there came some footsteps down there. Ah, this is the Messiah coming down the passage. Let me out. When the doors opened, it was a man with a sword. And the sword flashed, and John's head fell and was taken to the riotous banquet, the triumph of Herod's supposed wife over this prophet and the word and the preaching of John. Tell me, where was Messiah? And what's the good of his going around preaching, preaching, preaching, preaching, if he doesn't deal with situations like this? How is this for setting up the kingdom of God? And ladies and gentlemen, Matthew isn't afraid to tell you this. Because, do you see, if he's going to preach to you that Jesus is the Son of God and the Messiah. Then people will want to know. They wanted to know it in John's day, they want to know it even more nowadays. How can you say Jesus is the Messiah when he does not put down evil? The problem of evil, in other words. That is a huge problem. How can you, I repeat it, how can you say Jesus is the Messiah if he doesn't put down evil? And of course, the problem goes further. How can you say there's a God Almighty in heaven if he doesn't put down evil. That's the question, of course, we ask, is that likely that Matthew would raise any such question? Are we on the right track? Is it true to life? Of course it's true to life. If you're going to get up on your hind legs and preach that Jesus is the Messiah, and there's a God of justice in heaven, sooner or later somebody's going to ask you, and you'll have to answer it, then why doesn't he put down? Has Matthew any answer? Has Christ any answer? What is the answer? Well, a whole lot of answers, and we haven't got time, do you see? I want to call attention to what is a very tiny word, uh, do you see, but um, uh, it is at the heart of one of the answers. Look at chapter twelve, if you will. Verse nine: He departed thence and went into their synagogue, and behold a man having a withered hand. And they asked him, saying, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day, that they might accuse him? And he said unto them, What, uh, 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? How much then is a man of more value than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day. Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thy hand, and he stretched it forth, and it was restored whole as the other. But the Pharisees went out and took counsel against him, how they might destroy him. Wow. So here we find the opposition. Not out into the world amongst the scurrilous sinners, but here you find the opposition right in the synagogue itself, in the place where God was worshipped. And here comes the opposition to the head when Christ heals this man. They plot to destroy him, determined to destroy him. This is pure, unadulterated evil. And Christ said, you evil men, you've gone past at this time. And he lifted up his rod like Moses and struck them dead. Or he didn't. And Jesus perceiving it? Withdrew. Oh, withdrew. What kind of a Messiah is it that in the face of evil like that would withdraw? We, we have to be careful, don't we? We've so long revered Matthew as an inspired writer, believe every word he said. You imagine the Jews of the first century who got hold of this Matthew, and he's advertising Messiah. And this is a Messiah who, in the face of evil, withdraws. Dear, dear, dear, dear, dear. How will you defend a Messiah like that? Well, Matthew is his first answer here, look. Our Lord, uh, withdrew from thence. Many followed him. He healed them all and charged them that they should not make him known, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall declare judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive nor cry aloud, neither shall anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoke in flaks shall he not quench, until he send forth judgment unto victory. Do you notice that until? Matthew telling you, look, Messiah is not weak-kneed in the face of evil, giving up, running away with a few bes- uh, bedraggled disciples in some holy huddle, not facing the question of evil. The Messiah is acting precisely as God, through Isaiah the prophet, said he would act. He shall not strive nor cry aloud. Bruised reed shall he not break, a smoking flax shall he not quench, until there is a timetable in the divine program, and our Lord is adhering to that timetable. Let's pass on to the parables. First, there comes a great parable of preaching in chapter thirteen and then comes the second of the parables. Verse twenty four: Another parable set he before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man that sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went away. But when the blade sprang up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. And the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? Whence then hath it tares? And he said unto him, An enemy hath done this. And the servants say unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? And he said, No, lest haply while you gather up the tares, you root out the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. And in the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, gather up the first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them. Gather the wheat into my barn. The exposition of that is given us later on by the Lord himself. Uh, verse forty, as therefore the tear, uh, sorry, verse thirty nine, the enemy that sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the world or the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Therefore the tares, as therefore the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be in the end of the age. The Son of Man shall send forth his angels. They shall gather out of his kingdom all things that cause stumbling and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire. There shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Our Lord, then, was not running away, says Matthew. Will you please observe he is fulfilling, uh, the tat strategy and the tactics laid down by God through Isaiah. He shall not cause his voice to be heard, break the, uh, broken flax, the bruised flax, and so forth, the bruised reed, and so forth, until. This parable of tares and wheat is saying the same thing. Pluck up the tares now? No, wait until harvest. The Messiah had no intention at his first coming to exercise the judgment of God and cut down evil. That is not his answer to the problem of evil. When will Messiah cut down evil men? Well, here it tells you straight. At the end of the age. And not till then. That is the Christian position, ladies and gentlemen. We're not talking about God Almighty and his providential government of this earth. That's another thing completely. We're talking about Messiah and what Messiah was sent to do and what the program for Messiah is. The kingdom of God, said Daniel, rules in the kingdom of men, and if Nebuchadnezzar gets upish, God cuts him down to size. But you mustn't confuse that kingdom of God and God's providential government of the world with Messiah's mission. The mission of Messiah in the world was what? To execute the judgment of God, not at his first coming. When will he execute the judgment of God, the Messiah Jesus? Well, he will not exercise the ju- execute the judgment of God on sinners until the end of the age. That is an exceedingly important pro- uh question- thing to get hold of. Because in the course of the centuries, the church forgot it, didn't they? Hence the Crusades. Many other such things in the name of Jesus. Taking out the armies to cut down evil, and what a scandal it has been. You say, is this, uh, credible? Can you believe in a Messiah that will come into our world and, uh, not put down evil? What kind of a use of the Messiah is that? What, what, how useful? A fellow student of mine who was a Jew, whose parents, uh, were destroyed by Hitler in the gas camps. I remember him vividly saying to me, but David, your Jesus cannot be the Messiah, David. I said, why not? Well, he said, the Old Testament said that when the Messiah came, he would put down evil, and your Jesus has done no such thing. Well, Jesus can't be the Messiah. He said, and don't you start talking about as he set up a spiritual kingdom. That's a little notion that you Christians invented when you were disappointed by the fact that Jesus didn't set up a literal kingdom, and so you invented this notion of a spiritual kingdom. But that won't wash. The Old Testament talked of Messiah coming and pouring out the wrath of God on the heads of the, um, bombers. You try and tell, what is the Prime Minister of Israel at this present moment, that Jesus is Messiah, the Jewish Messiah? Doing nothing about the bombers. You try and tell a Jew that Jesus is Messiah, and that Jesus didn't do anything about Hitler either. Your Jesus, said my friend, cannot be the Messiah. And Matthew is writing presumably for Jews, isn't he? This is a question that Matthew has got to answer if his gospel's going to be credible. I didn't know, stupid me, but then the extent of my ignorance couldn't be exaggerated, you see, even now, but it was a little bit worse even then. But what scripture said, I would have said to my Jewish friend, had I had the sense to know it and do it, is to say, but wait a minute, old chap. According to Psalm hundred and ten, Program for Messiah was this. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make thine enemy the footstool of thy feet. There was the program. Messiah was to be invited by God and elevated and sit there to the right hand of God. There would then be an interval, the until period, until his enemies were made the footstool of his feet. That was the program. And you'll find the early Christians talking about this in almost all the epistles, quoting Psalm one hundred and ten one. It was vital for the early Christians and their testimony, particularly to the Jews, that this period, the until period, was foretold in scripture, and things are going to plan. Christ to be elevated by the ascension to the right hand of God, and there to be seated until God will give the command, and Messiah shall come, and his enemies shall be made the footstool of his feet. Why the until? Well, ladies and gentlemen, uh, our Lord tells you in chapter thirteen what his tactics are going to be. The kingdom of God is like this. How will he establish the kingdom of God? Well, not first by brandishing a sword and cutting the heads off the ungodly, or wielding a few thunderbolts and consigning them to perdition. The kingdom of God is going to be established, says Christ, by preaching. That's the importance of preaching. Here is Messiah on his own methods to establish his kingdom. The sower went forth to sow the various results that attend the preaching, and he, through his servants, will go on sowing the seed until the day comes for the harvest. If you think about it, of course, it is realistic, isn't it? Some people have a very naive idea of how you would cure the problems of the world, don't they? Communists did, do they? What you do is simply you gather all the baddies in one group and all the goodies in the other group. You say, which are the goodies and which are the baddies? That depends who you are, of course. If you're a communist, the baddies are the capitalists and the goodies are the communists, if you could believe it. Or if you're a capitalist, the goodies are the capitalists, and the baddies are the communists, and so forth and so on. That's all you have to do. Put the baddies in one group and the goodies in another, and then you get a sword and you cut the heads off all the baddies, and you're left with the goodies. Marvelously effective, isn't it? Except there's a trifle difficulty in deciding who are the goodies. And if Christ had come to execute the judgments of God, how many heads would have been left on his shoulders? And if he did it now? That is a naive notion of how to establish the kingdom of Messiah. That is not to deny judgment. Judgment will one day come. But if God is going to save anybody, and he starts from the premise that all have sinned, and God in his mercy offers a time of salvation until. That is the program that Isaiah outlined. That is the program that Jesus enunciated. Of course, there's a lot more in that, those, that section, isn't there? I'm not going to develop it. All I'm concentrate on, uh, concentrating on is the first big issue that is raised by John's question, are you really the Messiah, or do we look for another? And the c- the conditions and the situation that made John raise the question that the Lord Jesus, being the Messiah, wasn't proceeding to put down evil and let John out of prison. That is one sample of the huge question, the problem of evil. And how does Jesus deal with it? What is the program for it, and why? There is evidence of galore. Are you the Messiah that should come? Can we believe this story anyway? About this until period, can we believe still that Jesus is the Messiah? Well, of course, these chapters are chock full of the discussion of the evidence that Jesus is the Messiah. And what evidence he offered to his contemporaries, and the evidence he said that would be held against them at the day of final judgment. And we haven't got time this morning to go into all that. Those chapters are full of the evidence that even though he's not proceeding to cut heads off and to consign the wicked to the lake of fire forthwith, there is evidence upon evidence upon evidence that Jesus is the Messiah. I want to proceed in my last half hour to pointing out what one of the major themes of, uh, the next section would be. I conceive of it as perhaps the best thing I can do as my little contribution to helping you this week is to suggest major themes like this and leave you to work out, if you care, the detail. If you find that not helpful, complain to the management, and they will give me fewer biscuits tomorrow for my break. Let's look at, um, chapter thirteen then, verse fifty three. And it came to pass when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence. So here comes the phrase we're getting used to, marking the end of one section and the beginning of another. It came to pass when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence. And now we're going to keep our eyes skinned for the hint as to what one at least of the main themes of the passage is going to be. And coming into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and they said, whence has this man this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas and his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence hath this man all these things? And they were stumbled in him. Couldn't make a head and a tail of him. How did he have all these powers? Um, when, well, they couldn't think because as far as they knew, he was, um, the carpenter's son. Notice how Matthew brings that in there. Not now they were amazed simply at his authority of his teaching, but the question raised, whose son is he? Let's look through the passage that follows now. The next divider mark is going to come at chapter eighteen— sorry, nineteen verse one. So it's going to be a very long section. Came to pass, says nineteen one, when Jesus had finished these words. Section goes, therefore, from thirteen fifty three to nineteen one. Let's look through its many paragraphs and see whether there are any more references to the sonship of our blessed Lord. Mm-hmm. So look down to chapter fourteen, and from verse twenty two onwards is the story of our Lord's crossing the lake, and the wind was contrary, and Jesus comes walking on the sea. Well, the other gospel writers have that story. Do you see John has it and so forth, Mark has it, you see. And, uh, our Lord straightway spoke to them saying, be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid. Now Matthew has what nobody else has. We shall notice it's a story about Peter, and it is a- ends with a confession of the sonship of our Lord. Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee upon the waters. And he said, come. And Peter went down from the boat and walked upon the waters to come to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and took hold of him and saith unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And when they were gone up into the boat, the wind ceased, and they that were in the boat worshipped him, saying, Of a truth, thou art the Son of God. Only Matthew has that. And Matthew has it in this section, which begins by raising the question, is not this the carpenter's son? Or let's go over to chapter sixteen. Matthew has this in common with all the others. Our Lord inquires, verse thirteen onwards, whom do men say that I am? Peter eventually answers, verse 16, Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And now you notice something that Matthew has and nobody else has. It concerns Master Peter, and it concerns this confession of Jesus as the Son of God. I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then charged he the disciples that they should tell no man that he was the Christ. Mm. Peter, and then the sonship, Jesus the Son of God. This, the second time in this section, Peter and Jesus as the Son of God. From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed, and the third day be raised up. And Peter began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall never be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan. Yes, and after dealing with that matter, he took them up the mountain of transfiguration. And up the transfiguration there appeared Moses and Elijah and Peter, if you please. Wow, he was always doing something and saying something. And Peter answered and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here. If thou wilt, I will make the here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah. While he was yet speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud saying, this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear him, Peter, and the sonship of the Lord Jesus. Look at verse twenty four. Now, this is a story that only Matthew has. When they were come to Capernaum, they that received the half shekel came to Peter and said, does not your master pay the half shekel? Yes, he said, of course he does. And when he came to the house, Jesus spoke first to him, saying, what thinkest thou, Simon? The kings of the earth, from whom do they receive toll or tribute? From their sons or from strangers? And when he, that is Peter, said from strangers, Jesus said unto him, therefore the sons are free. But lest we cause them to stumble, go thou to the sea, cast a hook, take up the fish that comes up. When thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a shekel, that take and give unto them for me and thee. That's not only, that's not the only occasion that Peter appears in this particular section of, of Matthew. But notice the twin theme, Peter and the sonship of our Lord. Then notice the other thing peculiar to Matthew that we have read, and that is Peter and the church. Only time in the Gospels that I'm aware that our Lord talks about the church, here in this section, and his building of the church. That in in Matthew, not in Mark, not in Luke, not in John, but here in Matthew and in this part of Matthew. It's not inappropriate, is it? If you look at it, uh, time-wise, John the Baptist said, are you the Messiah? Why don't you get on putting down evil, and Herod in particular, and his wife? And our Lord said, no. The program is that I should go out and preach first. There will be this until period, and then the judgment. And what shall fill the until period? You say the preaching, and what will that produce? It won't produce a Christian church. The order of the topics raised in Matthew, of course, is significant. Mm. The Christian church, you must have to, you must, uh, look at this, if you can, for a moment, through the eyes of Jews and unconverted Jews. When this first hit the world, Moses didn't establish a church, not that I ever heard of, did he? And Elijah didn't establish a church, nor did Ezekiel, nor did David. Solomon built a temple, but when our Lord talks about building a church, he's not talking about building a building, is he? Church is a congregation of people. What on earth was this Jesus talking about? He was going to build what? We've taken it for granted. That must have sound very curious to his contemporaries. Build, what did he mean? A sect or something? What is this Christian church business? In a gospel that's written by one Jew, Matthew, to another Jew, uh, to lots of other Jews, and written very early on, one of the earliest, if not the earliest, of the gospels, as some scholars now think, perhaps written as early as AD fifty five. What was this new phenomenon of a church, and what is it built on? Is it going to be just one more sect of Judaism, like perhaps the Essenes down at Qumran somewhere, or the Pharisees or the Sadducees, he's going to build another Jewish sect? Or is it going to be something completely different? And what is it? This building of a church that is going to fill the until period. What is its foundation? What is it built on? What is absolutely essential thing at the heart of it? How will it distinguish itself from the rest of Judaism and the rest of the world, for that matter? And the answer is, of course, the deity of Jesus Christ. The sonship, Jesus being, in the fullest sense of the term, the Son of God. It is this, of course, that to this very present day distinguishes Judaism from Christianity, is it not? The deity of Christ. Let me emphasize it without any party spirit in my heart, if I can manage that. Used to be clear in Christendom that the deity of Christ was the absolute foundation of the church, for which the church must stand. Judaism will not have it. On that count, they crucified Jesus, of course. And the apostles replied, but there's no name under heaven given among men whereby you must be saved. The church, Christendom, I would better say, in some centuries went to the extreme and persecuted Jews, didn't they, terribly, to the everlasting shame of Christendom. Haunted by that evil thing and the gas chambers of Hitler's Germany, large sections of the church now are saying that Judaism is an equal way to God as Christianity is, and that you mustn't try and convert Jews. As one scholar put it, to talk about converting the Jews in the light of Auschwitz, out- Auschwitz is, uh, uh, is, what did he use the word, uh, is, um, obscene. Judaism is an equal way to God, and you don't have to accept the deity of Christ. The modern theory of missions embraced by the Catholic Church is a series of concentric circles, with the Pope, of course, at the point at the middle, as you might expect, and the Roman Catholic Church around him, the first circle, the next circle, the Protestants, the third circle, Judaism, the fourth circle, uh, Islam, the fifth circle, Buddhism, I'm sorry, Hinduism, uh, the next circle, Buddhism, then come the animists, a series of concentric circles, and the modern theory is, even in Catholicism, you don't have to convert anybody from one circle to another. In nineteen sixty eight, the Jesuits were recalled from India to retrain in their mission work, under the understanding you no longer try to convert Hindus, so long as they are sincere in their faith, that will do. Even if they have heard of Jesus, that doesn't matter. All religions are like a set of concentric circles, and the center point is the Pope, of course. His Royal Highness Charles, which is now to be described as not the defender of the faith, but the defender of faith. There never will be an age, there never has been an age like this one will turn out to be since, um, the first century, when the whole idea of the deity of Christ is in danger of being ditched by Christendom. Liberal scholarship has long since not accepted it. Jesus was but a window into God. If you hold that view, you might as well be a Hindu, because they have their avatars that come down and manifest God. The bedrock of the church, without which it disappears, is, as Matthew points out to you here in this section of his book, the deity of the Lord Jesus. So, if I've got it right, you can see how the thing is advancing. We talked first of that first big section of the authority of Christ, yes, and the, uh, uh, response to that in the disciples following him. The authority of Christ will lead you to the question, well, what about the problem of evil? If he has all authority, why doesn't he put evil down? Matthew has got to face it if his gospel is going to be credible, preached to a Jewish world that is expecting the Messiah to come and execute the judgment of God. And Matthew has the answer, you'll see, this period of interval and why that must be. And in the interval, the kingdom to be established at its spiritual level by preaching. There will eventually come the day of judgment. The next section goes on and now fills out what is going to be the until period. What will Christ be doing now? He'll be building his church. And on what will it be built? The confession of Jesus as the Son of God. Of course, Matthew doesn't leave it in those bare bones like I must do, but in these chapters offers you a tremendous lot of evidence, and very interesting evidence it is, isn't it? When, uh, uh, uh, our Lord asked Peter, whom do men say that I am? And they had this opinion and that opinion and the other opinion. It was useful to have those various opinions voiced because, um, it gave the op- our Lord the opportunity to show he was not satisfied with them. Mm. It's not just one prophet among many, nor even the best of the prophets. When Peter said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, our Lord said, blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to thee, but my Father which is in heaven. Very good. To believe that Jesus is the Son of God, you have to have it revealed to you by the, by the Father in heaven. How do you suppose that revelation worked? Was it so that one morning, Monday or Wednesday, whenever it was, Peter woke up, and as he woke up, a voice from the blue said, Peter, yes, Lord? I want you to know, Peter, that Jesus is my son. Peter says, well, I believe that, Lord, if you say so. But excuse me, who is Jesus? I don't think I've ever met him. Well, of course not. Matthew will tell you some of the striking incidents in Peter's life, where Peter and the others began to get the notion that Jesus was more than the carpenter's son, as Josh McDowell puts it. What was that evidence? See, we believe that Jesus is the Son of God. We're Christians, aren't we? And our grand, grand, grand, grand, grand parents are all Christians. Right? Be interesting, oh, how I would love it to go around and ask you each one, why do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? What convinces you? Mm-hmm. An important question, wouldn't it, Waho? Sometimes there's so much preaching to Christian churches that we forget to raise the absolute fundamentals, why we believe he's the Son of God at all. We take that bit for granted, as though everybody believed it and had a right to believe it, and don't know why they believe it. Then the old liberal comes along and kicks the whole pack of cards down. We don't know why we believed it in the first place. So much of our theology in many a university, being an academic Wissenschaft, is based on criticism. And the theologians, many of them, frankly, in their actual work, don't proceed on the assumption that Jesus is the Son of God. The new revision of the NEB, I was going to buy it, I was in Hereford in in the in the uh SBCK, I think it was, or Mulberry's or somebody's bookshop in Hereford, having visited the cathedral and saw upon the bookshelf in the bookshop the new revised NEB and was going to buy it. It's going to cost me twenty quid, but I was prepared to sing in the street to, uh, you know, get the money to buy it, you see. Uh, I thought I'd just look to see how it translates of Philippians two and the famous verse 5 and six. and it had for instead of he thought it not robbery to be equal with God or something of the sort, it has he laid no claim to deity. Wow. Wow. That being sold as a Bible in a Christian bookshop. Wow. Oh, my dear brothers and sisters and fellow workers in the kingdom of God, we must equip ourselves, mustn't we? We must make sure our young folks, if they're believers, are not just entertained. They need to know why they believe Jesus is the Son of God. Not take it for granted. What was the evidence that made Peter and his other chaps, uh, begin to think that Jesus was the Son of God? Well, Matthew is trying to tell you, he's nudging you in the ribs in all directions, saying things that the other evangelists don't say. And Peter, and Peter. Why Peter? Why all the fuss about Peter? Well, Peter was the fellow who confessed the Lord on that occasion, wasn't he? Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And on that, the church is built. This is the distinctive of the church, without which it falls completely. How did Peter then, and the others, come to think that the man that was riding in the boat with them, walking down the road with them, sitting at a meal with them, was the Son of God? Well, Peter will tell you his experiences, and the mighty great lessons they have for us, haven't they? Oh, reasons why I believe in the deity of Christ by Saint Peter himself. How would that do for a series of sermons? You'll see. There was that night on the boat, wasn't there? Where the Lord came walking on the water. And, uh, they all cried out, thinking it was a spirit, you know. Well, that's logic, isn't it? Spirits are pretty unsubstantial. I mean, if you were to try and grasp one in your fingers, it would go through, wouldn't it? Like so much fog, isn't it, spirits, I mean? Um, and they walk easily on water. Well, they were a bit scared at seeing a spirit in the middle of the night on the sea, but they thought it was a spirit. What else could it be? The voice came back, don't be afraid, it's I. What, Jesus? Well, he was a solid man, flesh and bones and things. Uh, he walking on a s- a man walking on the water? Peter, I don't know how his brain worked. I don't know how you think his brain worked, but sometimes he jumped five, six steps in logic. He said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me to come on the water. What was the logic behind that? That was Jesus walking on the water. What on earth and how did that lead Peter to think he could? Well, you must work that out yourself. Some people hold the view that was, uh, Peter being, uh, uh, like he always was, saying things out of turn, a silly chap, and launching out in faith, if you please, and being heroic and so on, when he ought to have kept in the boat. That won't do, will it? Because the Lord said to Peter, come. And it was a response of faith to the Lord's invitation that he got down out of the boat and started to walk. And what happened next, you know. But when they got in the back in the boat, they said, truly this is the Son of God. Is that all just past history? Or like other miracles, does that convey a lesson to us, how we may discover that Jesus is the Son of God. Of course, Peter, with all the marvelous lessons that there came, including the Transfiguration and the voice from heaven, which was historical, you know, which voice we heard, says Peter in his second letter. We haven't followed myths. This is not the myth of Christ incarnate, as the liberal theologians talked about. This is reality, says Peter. We've not followed myths. We were on that mountain. We saw the majesty, and we actually heard with our two ears the voice come out of heaven. We heard the direct voice of Almighty God. As clear as the Jews heard it around the Mount Sinai in the Old Testament. That's a great historical event, of course. Uh, do you see? So Peter heard that on the, um, Mount of Transfiguration. For all that, he wasn't always consistent, you know, in working it out into practice. So, um, there came those that collected the temple tax, and they said, doesn't your master pay tax, Peter? And he said, of course he does. Oh, yeah. And when he got back to the house, the Lord said, Peter, I'd like to put a question to you. The kings of the earth, whom do they take tribute of, their sons or strangers? Oh, he said, strangers, of course. Oh, the sons don't have to pay tax then? No. Oh, didn't you just say that I have to pay tax to the temple? Happens to be my father's house, Peter. Oh. Hadn't worked that one out, had he? Sometimes, you know, even in Christian service, we can go along, and while we technically believe Jesus is the Son of God, sometimes we can approach our scripture study or our work for the Lord as if he wasn't. We haven't got quite into the way of thinking yet.