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Well, it's very pleasant to be with you. I'm looking forward to this week and getting to know you, hearing about your work. Eh, let me say that the general scheme is, uh, that I should, uh, help you by coming in and rowing alongside of you, so that, uh, i- in this good democratic society, uh, I, uh, your voice is supreme, and it for you really to tailor this course how you, um, wish it to go. So don't be afraid, uh, today and this morning, uh, uh, and in the subsequent days to voice your opinions. If you don't like to do that to me, eh, though I'm pretty thick-skinned, have a word with our commander-in-chief on my right here and tell him in which way you would like the, uh, days to go, and he'll have gentle words in my ear, full of diplomatic, uh, sensitiveness, and we can arrange so that you find it, uh, helpful. I'm aware that you are investing quite a large amount of time in this particular week, and therefore I want to help you to to, uh, make the maximum benefit from this time that you are investing. So I shall be starting off today, but, um, if you find the kind of thing I'm doing, uh, not to be too helpful, well, do please say so, and we can, uh, uh, uh, order the remainder of the course more to fit you. Now, I believe you were brought up here under somewhat unforced pretenses with some grandiose title, like a survey of the whole of the New Testament plus apocrypha or something, and uh, that of course is quite impossible, you'll see, but that's the way of advertisers. Uh, you'll see. What I shall propose to be doing is, uh, i- i- if you just give me free rein, that is, is to take, uh, perhaps, uh, one gospel today and another gospel tomorrow as representatives of the gospels. Then on the Wednesday and Thursday, uh, to take an epistle on each occasion as representative of epistles. And then perhaps if we have time, and there is a Friday this week, uh, we shall deal with, um, uh, the revelation, do you see? And what I would int- attempt to do is to not to give an outline of these books. Eh, outlines there are available to us all, and you long since have read many and forgotten all about them, I suspect. Do you see? Outlines can be very superficial things. What I would like to do is to, uh, suggest one or two approaches to the Gospels and look at the kind of thing the Gospels themselves are saying. Uh, the Gospels are historical books, and therefore it is perfectly legitimate for us to take any fact or incident in the Gospels and to make of it what we will, because the Gospels are fact, you'll see. And therefore, uh, if you like to take the phrase, for instance, that our Lord said to Peter, the cast out your nets into the deep, and you say, well, the Greek for nets is such and such, and that corresponds to, uh, our drag nets nowadays, and the thing about drag nets is that fishermen use them, and they should be the right size, uh, and not take too small a fish and so forth and all that, and make whatever you like of drag nets. Well, yeah, that's perfectly true. Some of them were drag nets, you see, and some weren't. Uh, there's no reason why you shouldn't. But what I shall be attempting to show is that the gospel writers themselves are interested in certain themes, and if we can determine what those themes are, then those themes will come to us with all the greater authority, because it is not a question of our taking a passage and making something out of it as we see fit. It is rather determining what the original gospel writers intended to convey, what they are, to use a broad term, discussing, do you see? Now, of course, one man's perception of these things will differ from another's, uh, uh, and therefore you may say, well, thank you for your contribution, but that, of course, doesn't begin to exhaust, uh, all the intentions of a gospel writer, and you see some other things. Well, that's perfectly true, and in that spirit I go about my comments this morning, uh, putting into the pool of your thinking, along with all the other host of things that you have thought and will thought, and the way you come at scripture, just to put in a contribution, uh, of mine to see whether that is helpful or not. So on that basis we proceed, and I, I thought this morning to begin at the beginning and look at the gospel by Matthew. Matthew. And we'll spend just a few moments talking about the way Matthew has organized his material. He was, as you know, before he gave up his, uh, profession for full-time work for the Lord, he was in the income tax, uh, duty, and presumably used to keeping records, if not doctoring them. Eh, and uh, you'll see, uh, and he has sh- he shows his characteristic in the way he has organized his material in his gospel, doesn't necessarily follow chronological order, but has large groupings of material i- in his book. Let's look how that happens, if we could take our Bibles in hand and look at Matthew and turn the pages quickly. There's the story of our Lord's birth, chapter one, and then Herod's reaction and so forth in chapter two. Then there is, uh, the story of John the Baptist, chapter three, and the baptism of our Lord at the end of chapter three. an account of the temptation in chapter four. and after the temptation, the beginning of our Lord's ministry, Four seventeen, from that time began Jesus to preach and to say, repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and his calling of his disciples to follow him and join in the work. So four chapters of, uh, virtually nothing other but narrative. Some little preaching from John Baptist and so on, but largely narrative, concerned with the birth of our Lord and then the beginnings of his ministry. We come to four four twenty three and we notice that there comes a very general statement, not a particular incident, but a very general statement, summing up our Lord's ministry. And Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness among the people. And the report of him went forth into all Syria. They brought unto him all that were sick, holden with divers disease and torments, possessed with demons and epileptic and palsied, and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes from Galilee into Keapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and beyond Jordan. So that's a very general statement of his ministry. Now, in chapters five, six, and seven, you notice at once the change in the character of the contents. Here it is not narrative, that is narrative of individual incidents, but a tremendous block of teaching, five, six, and seven, commonly referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. That is of one type of te- of of of of of contents, uh, teaching, moral, spiritual teaching. Then at the end of seven, a typically Matthew thing, you probably have noticed it in your own readings, verse twenty eight, and it came to pass when Jesus ended these words, the multitude were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes. Now notice that phrase, because that's a phrase that Matthew will use. It's a method he has of organizing and grouping his material. We shall come across it several times later on. We shall find that it brings to an end a section of his book. As you notice now in chapter eight, we go back to narrative incidents, the leper, then the man with a paralysis, and then the woman with a fever, and so forth and so on. Some teaching involved, but the teaching very much interspersed with narrative incidents. And that goes through until the end of chapter nine. Follows chapter ten, which is altogether given up to teaching. Not incidents, but now chapter ten containing the commissioning and briefing that the Lord Jesus gave to his apostles before he sent them out on their missionary journeys. At the end of that passage of teaching, chapter ten, you see, uh, you come naturally to chapter eleven and look at verse one. It came to pass when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to preach and teach in their cities. So here comes this phrase again, when Jesus had ended something or other. Let's flick the pages now and notice how that reoccurs. Chapter thirteen and verse fifty three: And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence. And once more, i- if we just look back to the, uh, beginning of chapter eleven, in chapter eleven, uh, you'll see there are incidents, some teaching intermingled. So in chapter twelve, do you see, some preaching and teaching intermingled with incident. But when you come to thirteen, you have a whole chapter devoted to nothing other than teaching. The famous set of parables of the kingdom. The pattern is repeating itself. And then at the end of that, uh, chapter of teaching the seven famous parables of the kingdom, thirteen fifty three, and it came to pass when Jesus had finished these parables. He departed thence. You hear the ringing of the bell, don't you, as each class finishes and the bell goes off, do you see? Ha. Uh, Matthew is organizing his material. Flick the pages again, if you care, and come to chapter nineteen verse one. And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these words, he departed, uh, from Galilee and came into the borders of Judea beyond Jordan, and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them there. Same phrase again, when Jesus had finished. And we just look back to what he'd finished, and it was on a chapter full of teaching, eighteen. In this group, incidents largely have prevailed in the earlier chapter, uh, earlier chapters, but it finishes once more with the bulk of teaching in chapter eighteen. Flick the pages once more, and uh, we come to twenty six, uh, one. and it came to pass when Jesus had finished all these words. We don't need to, to stay longer, therefore, to notice that Matthew is very carefully organizing his material for us. Now, if we choose to say that's very nice of him, but uh, uh, we want to make something different of it, it's open to us to do it, you see. You buy packets of tea from the grocer, and they're nicely organized, and the Chinese tea is kept in a separate packet from the ordinary Aswan- Assam tea and the Indian tea, and they both of them are kept separate from the bag of flour. Do you see? When you get them, well, it's open to you to mix them all together if you want to, the currants with the sultanas with the self-raising flour and whatever you like to do. You mix them all up and make a cake. Okay, that's perfectly legitimate, and you may decide that that's what you prefer to do with Master Matthew. He has neatly packaged his material. Well, that's kind of him, but now you're going to undo the packages and use it as you will. Well, God bless you. As you see, we shall be inquiring this morning, uh, a little bit more deeply into what Matthew was doing. Was this simply to, to, to reduce the material to, uh, easy, easy, uh, pieces, you see, to handle? Or could it be that in each of these particular parts there is, or there are, dominant themes or theme that Matthew himself is interested in. And I'm going to take one of those sections now, and perhaps two others later, uh, to suggest, yes, there could be dominant themes that Matthew himself is concerned with. And if there are, and we can see how he deals with the themes, we have, ladies and gentlemen, some ready-made sermons. First to preach to ourselves, and then, if need should require, to preach to other people. Chapter seven then, and uh, the verse twenty eight. You will notice that whereas in these uh, phrases, when Jesus had ended these words, uh, that phrase is more or less the same, when Jesus ended these words, or when Jesus has ended these parables, or what have you. They are all the same, but what follows is very often different on each occasion, and therefore it's wise to listen to Matthew, pick up our ears, and notice what he says next on each occasion. And on this occasion it is, when Jesus had ended these words, the multitudes were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. So the multitudes are astonished at his teaching, and what in particular struck them was the authority with which the Lord Jesus. Now, if we take the hint from Matthew and look at the occasions upon which he repeats that word authority in this particular section of his gospel, we come up with the following. Seven twenty nine, he taught them as one having authority. Eight nine, This is the centurion speaking to the Lord, and he says, for I also, also meaning as well as you, I also am a man under authority, and I say unto this, having soldiers under myself, and I say to this one, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and he cometh, to my servant, do this, and he doeth it. Eight nine nine six. But that you may know that the Son of Man hath... I better inquire of you, what do you read next in your Bibles? Power. One volunteer. Anybody got anything else? Authority. Authority, you've got. Yes, you've got an expensive Bible, I can see, has got it right. Um, uh, anybody else? Yes, it is the same word at any rate. It is true that the Greek word exousia can mean power in some sense, but, uh, its basic meaning is authority, and it were better to keep it as, uh, uh, here, but that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. It's a question of power. You don't need power to forgive, you need authority. Power in the English sense that you might be empowered by your church or by your organization. You are empowered to represent them, meaning you can act in their name. Power in that sense then. That comes to authority, doesn't it? Authority to act. That the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Nine six. Verse eight, but when the multitude saw it, they were afraid and glorified God, which had given such authority. Same word again, to men. Eight nine, uh, sorry, nine uh six and nine eight, and again in our section ten one. Eight and nine have been the narrative incidents. Now comes ten with its teaching, the briefing of the apostles. Notice how that is introduced. Chapter ten verse one: And he called unto him his twelve disciples and gave them authority. Now let's just check on ourselves. Uh, you say, isn't authority such a common word that you would expect it to turn up anywhere at all in a gospel like Matthew's? Well, according to the concordance, this Greek word for authority, its first occasion in Matthew is chapter seven twenty nine, as we have just noticed. It occurs, therefore, in this particular section, one, two, three, four, five times. Seven twenty nine, eight, nine, nine, six, nine, eight, ten, one. It doesn't occur again in Matthew until chapter twenty one, verse twenty three. You'll see. It would seem, therefore, that this is no accident. Matthew is interested in authority. Is that to be expected? Is that reasonable? Well, by all and common consent, Matthew is concerned to present our blessed Lord to us as king, isn't he? And one of the things that mark out kings is that they have authority. Presently, the question will arise, what is the nature of Christ's authority? Mm-hmm. But then if we could go back to seven, uh, uh, sorry, to eight:one, we could pick up another theme that is a dominant theme in this particular part of Matthew. Notice, uh, how the sweep of the narrative goes then. Seven twenty eight, when Jesus had entered these words, uh, the multitude were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes. And when he came down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. That is very natural, of course, if they were struck by his teaching, and particularly by the authority of that teaching, it is understandable that they would, uh, follow him. Now, with that comes a number of references to this question of following. Let me read them for sake of time out of the concordance. Eight verse one: great multitudes followed him. Eight verse ten: and when Jesus heard it, he said to them that followed. Eh, Eight nineteen. there came a scribe and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou wilt. eight twenty two. Jesus said unto him, Follow me and leave the dead to bury their dead. And eight twenty three, and when Jesus, when he was entered into a boat, his disciples followed him. Nine nine, the famous call of Matthew. And as Jesus passed by thence, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the place of toll, and he said unto him, follow me. And he arose and followed, twice over in that verse. 19, uh, most unusual reversion of the situation, when Gaius came to ask that he come and heal his daughter, verse nineteen, chapter nine, and Jesus arose and followed him. That's an interesting, uh, turnaround, isn't it? And then again in nine twenty seven, two blind men followed him. And finally, in our section ten thirty eight, in the briefing of the apostles, and he that doth not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. A tremendous outcrop of the occurrence of this particular verb, following the Lord Jesus, in these three chapters. And again, if you were to use your concordance, you would sure see that later on in Matthew there's another section where following becomes important. But this is, uh, one of the two sections in the book where following is particularly emphasized. Now that, of course, is not unnatural if we put the two things together. On the one side, the Lord's authority, and on the other side, the reaction of people, they followed him. That is normal, of course. It is teachers that can speak with some authority that are going to get following. If you have no authority, you won't get followed. But you notice here how Matthew, in his gospel, starts off with the idea of following as simply a physical thing. When he was come down from the mountain, that's physical, isn't it? Walked down the mountainside, and multitudes followed him. Well, they came along behind. So that's just a physical thing. Following the Lord Jesus. By the time we reach the end, following has become something very much deeper, hasn't it? In that, uh, pa- verse in chapter ten verse thirty eight, and he that doth not take his cross and follow after me. That's not necessarily physical, is it? Doesn't just mean following Jesus Christ on earth around from this city to that city. It's rather the verb that we would associate with discipleship. You follow the master. And of course, it is no surprise to find that it is in this section of Matthew that we have those famous verses in chapter eight, eighteen uh, to twenty three, when there came people volunteering to follow the Lord Jesus. And the question arises, in what sense do they mean it? Just follow him physically? But then, on this occasion, you couldn't follow him physically without following him in the deeper sense. So here is Matthew then, and his job in his gospel, of course, as we all can see, is to present the Lord Jesus as king. That will inevitably, uh, raise the question of his authority. That will, of course, lead on straight to the question of discipleship. There are two sides to the same coin, aren't they? The Matthew presents our Lord as a, a king, uh, we discover, for instance, in the famous verses of chapter eleven, Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. That metaphor of taking a yoke is variously interpreted, isn't it, by the great preachers, you'll see. Let me diverge for a moment, uh, and preach you a little sermon, uh, on yokes. How marvelous is the yoke of Christ. You know what a yoke is? A yoke is a bit of wood, and it's shaped so it goes over the necks of a couple of animals, you'll see. In the ancient world, not horses, they didn't plow with horses, they plowed with bullocks, you'll see. And therefore the yoke went on top of the neck of a bullock. Whereas, uh, if you get a horse, uh, uh, his, um, whatnot that goes around him, he pulls by his chest, do you see? Uh, because a horse's got a head that sticks up, yes, his neck sticks up. You wouldn't put a yoke across the back of a horse's neck, do you see? Uh, but if you're doing with an oxen who's got more or less a flat, uh, a flat back and neck as well, do you see? He couldn't pull, uh, that way around. Uh, do you say a horse, uh, on his chest, so you put the yoke across his back. Well, anyway, there it is, piece of wood, goes across the back of a, of an ox, and that's how he pulls the plow, or he pulls the thrashing sledge, or whatever, or whatever. And the farmer stands behind, of course. Now, hear me, I'm going to preach, oh yeah, I was preaching a sermon about the yoke. And isn't it a lovely yoke, uh, Josie, uh, because, um, you take one side of it and the Lord takes the other. Yes, and he pulls and you pull. Isn't that a lovely combination? You never have to pull the thing yourself. Is what our Lord, is that what our Lord meant? Well, I suppose it's open to preachers to say what they will about it, whether that is what our Lord meant. I wonder whether he was at that stage proposing himself to be under the yoke. Let's look how ancient kings taught, and this I'm diverging. I'll come back to it, uh, before coffee at any rate. Let's look, uh, you'll see, back to one Kings, uh, twelve. One Kings twelve is the story of how when Solomon died, his son Rehoboam was to come to the throne. One Kings twelve one, and Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king. And it came to pass when Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it, for he was yet in Egypt, uh, do you see? Verse three, they sent and called him, that Jeroboam and all the congregation of Israel came and spake unto Rehoboam, saying, Thy father made our yoke grievous. Now therefore, make thou the grievous service of thy father and his heavy yoke, which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee. So here was Solomon as king, and he put a yoke upon the neck of the people. Does that mean that Solomon was in one half of the yoke and the people were in the other half? I doubt it. Not Solomon. Solomon was not in the yoke. Solomon drove them. If you want to keep the metaphor, Solomon was the farmer. Solomon was the plowman. Solomon was the man with the reins in his hand. The people that were under the yoke, not the king. And the people here complain that Solomon made our yoke grievous, meaning his government was very oppressive, made us work so hard. So the people have a proposition to put to King Rehoboam. You make the yoke that your father put on us, you make the yoke lighter, and we will serve you. They're not saying, please, Rehoboam, uh, we, uh, you know, we're fed up carrying this yoke by ourselves. You come and join us and take out the place in the side of the yoke. No, no, but you make the yoke lighter, your government less oppressive, and we will serve you. Rehoboam took, uh, uh, advice, first of all, from the old men, and they said, yes, Rehoboam, you'd be wise to listen to the people and make the yoke lighter, and they will serve you. Then he took, uh, cu- counsel with the younger men, and they said, nonsense, you want to be tough, make it ten thousand times harder. And that's how Rehoboam, the silly chap, decided, you'll see. When the people came the next day, he said, it was my, uh, uh, my father whipped you with whips, I shall chastise you with, uh, scorpions, you'll see. My little finger will be thicker than my father's thighs, you'll see. Wow. The yoke? A symbol here of kingship. It's not the king under the yoke. The yoke is the government the king puts on the neck of the people. Hmm. Come unto me, says Christ, and take my yoke upon you. Unashamedly. Christ offer, and this is not an offer of a super duper deluxe, uh, course that is open to the really powerful amongst the believers. This is the first message of the gospel. To be converted means to take the yoke of the king, his authority. Matthew writes his gospel, doesn't he? You should never forget when you're reading Matthew and hearing what the Lord says to other people, that Matthew, in recording it, has got his eye on you, you know. It's a very uncomfortable thing when you wake up to that. He's got his eye on you because he's supposed as an evangelist, you see, to preach to you, get you converted, and uh, he's preaching Christ as king, and he wants you, of course, to take the yoke of Christ. We notice, therefore, as we stop, that when Jesus ended these words, his moral teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, the multitudes were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes. And when he came down from the multitu- mountains, multitude followed him. Ladies and gentlemen, let me observe, you'll get nowhere with wishy-washy compromised teaching. The human heart, in the end, is looking for authority. I was in Jordan recently and had many a conversation with, uh, Muslims of various kinds, and mostly, uh, uh, medical people, because the friend I was staying with was a Christian doctor. And one of these, uh, Muslim medics said to me, as he took me out to lunch to talk about Christianity, he said, you know, we don't know what to make of your Archbishop. I said, what's wrong with him? He said, I mean, he says he's a, he's a, he's ambivalent in his attitude, uh, in his sexual orientation. We can't stick that, not out here, says he. We need to be told what's right and what is wrong. So it all goes down the road, doesn't it? The multitudes follow someone with authority. But what is the nature of that authority? In these delightful chapters, we shall see examples of our Lord, uh, uh, uh, exercising his authority. So, the first incident is that of a leper. There came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he stretched forth his hand and touched him, saying, I will, be thou clean. And straightway his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said unto him, see thou tell no man, and as for the priests, bother them. They were a pretty useless lot, so don't go anywhere near them from now on. You don't need to. Is that what he said? Don't you think not? He said, don't tell anybody, but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony unto them. Did you say, isn't that a bit odd? I mean, all those ceremonial ablutions when, um, lepers, or rather people with certain skin diseases, were cured, and they had to go to the priest, and the priest had to, uh, go through all these sacrifices, two little birds, uh, one of them killed and over running water and the blood sprinkled upon the chap, and then another living bird, uh, dipped into the water with the blood and then let go into the face of heaven at the beginning of the week, and then at the end of the week, a whole gamut of sacrifices had to be offered. They all say, well, hadn't that all done away with? Didn't Christ come to do away with that kind of thing? Isn't that what the Epistle to the Hebrews says, that all that ceremonial stuff, you'll say it's done for. Well, you're perfectly right. It's now done for. Wasn't done for then. Christ hadn't died then. And here was a man with this skin disease. We'll call it leprosy. It probably wasn't leprosy, but that's in our text. Let's call it leprosy. It was the priest, under instructions from Moses, whom the Israelites believed to have been inspired, and I hope you do too, the priest that has been responsible before God to keep Israel clean. It would have been the priest that had examined the leper, or one, uh, priest like him, and pronounced him to be unclean, and prescribed that he had to be separate from the community. I don't know what your attitude to that would be, narrow-mindedness or something, or exclusivism, or goodness knows what. Well, in the end, it will come down to what you believe about the inspiration of Old Testament and the authority of Moses. Our Lord obviously took Moses as authoritative, as the inspired word of God. The priest's duty, among other things, was to keep the nation clean. They had standards to maintain of not only hygiene, but ceremonial cleanness. We'll say. And since the tabernacle and God's presence on earth was all hedged around by things physical, then people who were ceremonially unclean could not enter that holy place, must be kept from it. And they must also be con- kept from contaminating other people, and us, and us, and us. The priest stood for cleanliness. Of course, now with the coming of the Son of God himself, there came a something new. The priest could never cure a leper. He could pronounce it unclean and take the necessary prescribed precautions. He couldn't cure it. If ever a man was cured somehow or other, then he had to come to the priest to be ceremonially cleansed. Priests couldn't clean it. What attitude would Christ take to this whole business of cleanness and uncleanness? What do you say, oh, city priests, what could they do? Bother them. Uh, do you say, I can, I can clean you. No, no. He did clean the man. He could do what the priest couldn't do. But it wasn't going to undercut the authority of that priest. The priest stood for cleanliness in the community, and Christ's power to cleanse was not meant to undercut that priest's authority. Christ wasn't going to say, doesn't matter whether you're leper or not leper, silly old nonsensees, Moses and all that stuff. All that's bygone, narrow-mindedness. Socially and ethically, we're beyond that nowadays. No, no. Christ would maintain the standards of cleanliness. But at the same time, he would announce his presence and his power to save, his power to make people clean. And first to the priest. Man wasn't to go around talking elsewhere, he was to go to the priest. And what a message that was to the priest. Because if the priest was all for cleanliness, huh, he'd have to welcome Christ, wouldn't he? That was the rub of it. You can't be for cleanliness and against Christ, can you? That's a bit of a job if you try to be that. And once more, when the leper turned up now cured, here was evidence in front of the priest's eyes that they had come a par far beyond anything the priest could do. I hope he didn't get jealous. Some do in those circumstances. This was Christ advertising himself and advertising his authority. He had just preached the Sermon on the Mount with its tremendous standards of moral and spiritual cleanliness. Now, with this leper, he gives the nation an example of his power to cleanse at this physical level, and of course it becomes a parable of his power to cleanse at the higher level. Yeah. What a gospel this is, isn't it? We don't tell the homosexual that his homosexually, homosexuality doesn't matter, and that Jesus is so kind and loving that all kinds of immorality are okay. We must maintain the standards of the law like Christ maintained them. But what a message, that in Christ has come one who can not merely say, be clean, but make you clean. Cool, what an authority. The authority is not something to be run away from. The fact that he has the authority is a glorious gospel message, is it not? Mm. He taught them not me- he not merely taught them as one that had authority, but demonstrated the authority, not merely command be clean, but the power to make people clean. That is gospel. Similarly, with the next story. There came, uh, uh, he entered into Capernaum, there came to him a centurion beseeching him. His servant was lying at the house sick of the paralysis, grievously tormented. And the centurion, uh, he, uh, our Lord said, I will come and heal him. And the centurion answered and said, Lord, I'm not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man under authority, and I say to this one, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and he cometh, and to this man, do this, and he doeth it. Yes, the centurion was a man under authority. His authority was a little bit limited, I must confess. There was one chap in his house, uh, grievously sick of the paralysis, and the centurion could have stood there all day long and say, go here and come here and do this and do the other, and the chap couldn't. Nothing wrong with the centurion's command, but the poor chap couldn't carry it out anyway. Oh, rejoice in the authority of our blessed Lord. He has the authority to command, but the power and authority, uh, to give us the strength to do the command. Isn't that the gospel? And if I were a theologian, I'd start off now on a tangent and expound to you. Seven and eight, and I don't know what have you, but I must resist all such temptation, do see. This is authority in action. Uh, do you see, but to take the details of the story as they come, and when Jesus heard it, he marveled and said to them that followed, verily, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel, do you see? So So the the, uh, story of the centurion, illustrative of our Lord's authority. Verse fourteen to seventeen. He came into Peter's house and saw his wife's mother lying sick of a fever, and he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose and ministered to him. The contrast is between her fevered state when she couldn't serve anybody, not even her illustrious guest, and being, uh, a good lady and the senior woman in the house, she would have been very distressed at being unable to serve the eminent guest that was now in her house. You'll see, what a gracious touch that was, literally, wasn't it? Didn't just say, get up, woman, but he touched a hand, and the fever went. This is the blessed Lord whose authority can calm the fevers that so disable us and stop us from serving, and raise us up to serve again. This is followed by a delightful verse, uh, you'll see, that tells us they brought unto him many possessed with demons, and he cast out the spirits with the words and healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, himself took our infirmities and bare our diseases. Now, these verses have been the topic of some discussion and dispute, have they not? And sometimes the claim is made that here are these verses telling us that healing, physical healing, is in the atonement, because this is a verse that is cited from Isaiah the prophet. Cannot be here referring to the atonement, can it? Because the atonement hadn't yet been made. This is in the course of our Lord's earthly life, and he is carrying their sorrows. In what sense? Well, you see him coming alive, alongside people, not just telling them how to behave, as he did in the Sermon on the Mount, but putting his shoulder, so to speak, his almighty shoulder, under their burdens, carrying them. With that, I must resist the temptation to preach. You are better preachers than I am, but, uh, let's see how the story carries on. It takes a change, like a, a, a, a, a train going over the points just outside the station, you know, and you can hear it changing direction by the clatter, the different sound the wheels make as they go over the point. Yes. Hitherto, uh, Matthew has been collecting stories that illustrate our Lord's authority that can banish the uncleanness, that can empower the paralytic, that can restore the fevered to their ministry. This is all gospel. This is what Christ does. This, if you like to say, is the easy side of the gospel. There comes a change now. Uh, when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave depart- a commandment to depart to the other side. How very odd. I thought preachers' job was to be popular and collect the multitudes, and the more multitudes, the better. Didn't it begin by saying he taught with such authority that when he came down from the mountain, the multitudes followed him? Well, surely that's congratulation. Don't you build on that initial success and get even more multitudes? What was our Lord doing when he saw the multitudes running off? Very odd. Was he? Well, what was he doing? Well, let's notice what happened. He gave commandment to depart unto the other side, and there came a scribe and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee. The crowd had been following, physically following, interested, like the children ran after the pied piper. But there comes a point, if that following is to be turned into real discipleship. Discipleship. Then our Lord will have to relieve the multitudes and see who is prepared now to follow him wherever he leads. So now what you're going to get are those that come to follow, and very strict and and very challenging conditions are laid down on what it means to be a follower, and how the Lord's authority affects the matter of following and discipleship. Now, when Jesus saw great multitudes, then he departed, he gave command to depart. There came a scribe and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. Marvelous profession of willingness to be a disciple. And our Lord pointed out the difficulties. The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests, and the Son of Man has not where to lay his head. Are you prepared for it? Now, I don't need to preach you a sermon. You've doubtless preached it in your courses on discipleship many a times. You're the experts on it. All I point out now is how the, uh, uh, the theme of authority on the one side and our following as disciples is being developed. Here the train crosses the points to be of any use. They who accept the gospel are simultaneously, uh, expected to prepare themselves for a life of discipleship, following. And these are its costs. And similarly, uh, to a, a, a man who said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said, follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead. He must be first. You don't come to the Lord and say, Lord, I follow you but first, do you? Remember sitting in, uh, home in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia once, and my host, who was a Christian man, believer of some standing, had, uh, quite an eminent Chinese businessman who he thought, uh, grateful if somehow the Lord would lead it so that I could be talking to him, you'll see. And anyway, the man came, very polite Chinese, as all Chinese are polite, and he presently explained to me that he'd like to become a Christian, but he couldn't become a Christian yet because his elder brother was still living. I said, well, what is that then? Well, he said, you see, in our society, you know, we have to consider not only what our parents say, but our first brother number one, that is the oldest brother, uh, do you see, we must always consult him in everything we do. That was true of their culture. It's breaking down now, of course, but it was true, particularly in Malaysia at that stage. Uh, do you see? Elder brother number one was an authority almost equal to the parents, if not sometimes more. And no junior member of the household must take any decision, uh, small ones like getting married or big ones like going into business or anything at all, uh, do you see, without consulting elder brother number one. You didn't ever call him by his Christian or his first name. That would be height of rudeness for any lesser member of the family to call elder brother number one by his, his personal name. Wow, you had to address him as my, my elder brother number one or something, you'll see. And you must bow to what he said. I can't become a Christian, he says, until my elder brother dies. What a hope. Well, perhaps, uh, English people are not so outspoken. They have their own priorities. Mm-hmm. There can be no priorities. And this isn't, uh, a second layer Christian an- antianity, is it? This is not a deluxe course. There isn't a gospel that says that Christ can take your burdens and you're free to do as you like, but if you would like to engage in the advanced course, you could become a disciple. Is there? If we don't see that Christ has authority and we must follow him first, there's no other priority, no other higher authority. Then we haven't seen our need of salvation, ladies and gentlemen. Christ isn't a, a, a, a, a tradesman come to repair your dishwasher, but then if next week you found you got a better offer from the electrical supply company, when it came to the closed machine, you'll get another man in or do it yourself. He is sovereign Lord. Wow. And, uh, here's the course that was for them, verses twenty three to twenty seven. Prepared to commit themselves to him and to this flimsy boat to go across the sea. Here's the journey story and the lesson he put on in the journey that proclaims him master of the physical elements of the universe. We mustn't, must we, interpret this story to mean that no believer will ever be drowned. Remember being at the Lord's Supper years and years ago in my youth, I uh, and after the end of the session, a stranger got up. I was also a stranger in that place, just visiting, and this good man got up, very brown-skinned he was, though obviously English, and it was very interesting. Some good man had, uh, that morning, uh, given a great sermon on the storm on the lake and how the apostles were greatly afraid, and our Lord had rebuked the storm, the boat didn't go down, says he. And he sat down, this other chap got up. He said, I have to tell you, my dear brethren and sisters, sometimes the boat does go down. I have just received news that my five missionary colleagues have been killed by the Auca Indians. Yes. The story isn't there to tell us that no man will, a Christian will ever be lost at sea, never die in an airplane crash, never be involved in a car accident or something. What is it there to tell us? That the boat wouldn't go down because Christ happened to be taking a nap and wasn't aware of what was happening. If it goes down, it will go down with his full knowledge because he permits it. But it does mean waking up to see who he is, doesn't it? So that we might have personal experience of the authority of Christ and come to believe it in our hearts that the Lord we s- we serve is the Lord and Master of the universe, Lord of all the physical powers, and we follow him on the great journey where on which he leads us, which is from this little old world out into... Ah. And into what vast dimensions he is in process of leading us. That's magnificent to contemplate, isn't it? But with all the powers, the principalities, powers, mights, and dominions, height, depth, and any other creature, and is lord of them all. And the next story that follows is his authority over the spirit realm. The storm is the physical elements, isn't it? The next story is the spirit realm. And again, I don't propose to preach you a sermon. You've preached it many times. What I'm developing is the notion that Matthew is collecting these incidents very deliberately. These chapters are about our Lord's authority, and the converse are accepting that authority and following him. There's the first, what you might say, the initial things of his power to cleanse the leper, give power to the paralyzed, uh, strengthen the fevered, and so forth, and bearing our sicknesses and putting his shoulder under the weight of our burden. But now this is the next bit, the course of discipleship and the lessons to be learned on it that we can only learn on the path of discipleship. One thing to sit in a study room on very comfortable sofas, and uh, theorize about the fact that the Lord is Lord of the universe. It's another thing in life, as we follow his demands, to find ourselves up against the hostile powers of the universe. And they're pretty callous, aren't they? It's lovely to talk about the God as the God of the flowers, isn't he God of beauty and the little lambs being born? But it's a hostile universe, isn't it? It's Lord of it. We only learn that on the path of discipleship, actually involved. Now notice a, a, a, a heart-chilling thing about his authority. He got, uh, they came to the other side, unto the country of the Gadarenes. They met him too possessed with demons, coming forth out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, and this is the Matthewan comment that nobody else makes, so that no man could pass that way. The very devil's agents there to stop this path of discipleship going any further. But our Lord, uh, dealt with the demons and cast them out. And made a way through. Satanic opposition notwithstanding. But now notice a heart-chilling thing. Verse thirty three: and they that fed them fled and went away into the city and told everything and what was befallen to them that were possessed with demons. And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart from their borders, and he entered into a boat and left. Really? The Lord that can command the physical elements of the universe. The Lord before whom demons have to fly. But when human beings say to him, go, he goes. Really? Can a human being say no to God Almighty? Well, yes. God is no tyrant. The awesome things of be- thing of being a human with a free will. You can say to God, go. And hence the doctrine of eternal punishment, of course. With that, chapter nine now gives us, we're going to cross the points again. He comes back after the journey. Now we come back to illustrations of what I call the easy side of discipleship. For there's the case of the paralytic. Once more, a paralytic. It demonstrates the Lord's authority. Verse six and again verse eight. And, uh, he says to this, uh, uh, uh, paralyzed man, the first thing he says, verse two, all thy sins are forgiven. The scribes objected and said within themselves, this man blasphemes. That, uh, should alert us to what is actually the situation in this room. If Jesus had said, be of good cheer, my son, God will one day forgive you, the scribes would have had no objection. I'm sure God will be merciful to you in the end, old. No, well, they would have had no objection to that. They hoped that themselves. But here was a man, as far as they could see, no more than a man, a man saying, your sins are forgiven. What on earth authority did he think he had? You'll see. To their mind, he was usurping the authority of God to forgive, and what is more, not waiting till the final judgment to, but delivering the verdict now, here on earth. That is, in fact, what our Lord was claiming. As you may know, that the Son of Man has power, has authority on earth, not merely at the final judgment, but on earth to forgive sins and to tell people their sins are forgiven here on earth. That was the demon. So he has authority to forgive. But of course, that authority to forgive being questioned, our Lord now demonstrates it's real by giving the man strength to walk. And we're back to this question of testimony, aren't we? When he cured the leper, he sent him to the priests. Now, when he cures the paralytic, he makes him an exhibition to the theologians, that is the scribes. Uh, to understand the gospel in its finer points, the gospels in their finer points, we must picture in our minds the difference between the priests on the one hand and the scribes on the other. Priests weren't normally scribes, and scribes weren't normally priests. Priests were the fellows that had to do with the sacrifice and the temple and the incense and chanting the prayers and the services in the temple and that kind of thing. The scribes were the students of scripture. They were the ac- the theologians. They were very few of them academics. They could have been butchers or grocers or candlestick makers, but they were serious students of scripture and became authorities in scripture as distinct from ritual and ceremony, do you see? So now, uh, whereas the leper was sent to the priests who had concern about cleanliness and ceremonial cleanliness and so forth, the paralyzed man is made an exhibition to the theologians. And this is a very important thing, isn't it? Our Lord's authority to forgive, um, sins, um, that's seen to the scribe blasphemers. Yes, but it is shown to be genuine. Do all say hello there. Uh, do come in. Uh, and demonstrated to the theologians as to be genuine by imparting to the man ability to get up and walk, and walk straight. If you transpose that to the argument of the Epistle to the Romans, the question of forgiveness and justification by faith that Paul, uh, uh, deals with in chapters three and four and the first bit of five tell us that we can be forgiven and justified and have peace with God and have it here and now and have it on earth and be utterly sure of it. Now, it's no secret that that upsets a lot of theologians. They say, goodness, if you could be sure of forgiveness and justification like that here on earth, and you're saved by faith, as you call it, you could go out and live as you like, couldn't you? Your doctrine must be wrong. The answer to that is not to say, oh yes, I didn't mean you could be sure of salvation here on earth. No. The answer is, but this works. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, says Paul. It's the power of God unto salvation, do you see? It works. And, uh, chapters three and four and the first part of five of Romans that tell us how we may be justified, forgiven absolutely by faith and not by works, are followed by an exposition of God's power that enables those who are forgiven to walk. We need to be able to that demonstrate that, don't we? Still. The authority of Christ not only to forgive, but to empower us to walk straight. Yeah? Good. And, uh, what is more? Forgiveness, yes, but look at, uh, verses nine, uh, verse nine. Um, standing here, one verse. Some people have likened it to a great painter who paints a vast picture, puts his signature at the bottom. This is Matthew putting his signature to his book. Delightful, isn't it? Jesus passed by from thence. He saw a man called Matthew sitting at the place of Tal, and he saith unto him, Follow me, and he arose and followed. Follow, the command to follow, it's obviously a conversion word. This is not some, uh, second stage Christianity. This day Matthew was converted hitherto with his tax gathering. Now, tax gatherers, as you know, were dubious. Not that there was anything wrong in the government exacting taxes of its citizens. They all have a way to exact too much, I know, I'm sympathetic with you, but, uh, um, governments have a right and a need to exact taxes, do they not? Why the, uh, Jewish tax collectors were so hated was, one, they were working for the imperialists who were the oppressors, so they were hated by people who, uh, long for political independence. But more than that, the tax collectors took more from the people than they were entitled to, and thus oppressed the people and got themselves very rich, do you see, in their demands from the people, do you see? And for their extortion they were hated. And yet there were some men like Zacchaeus and Matthew that were so engrossed in making the money that they were prepared to put up with the social hatred that came their way. They were excluded from the synagogue because of their antisocial behavior. What will Christ do with his message of forgiveness? Say, yes, you're forgiven and you can carry on extorting. Well, no, indeed not. But this wonderful story, according to Matthew, giving his personal testimony in his one verse, when the Lord came by and said, follow me. That command brought with it a power that broke the chains of the love of money. And Matthew got up and left it. Would be necessary, wouldn't it? That is the Christian gospel. Doesn't say there is forgiveness, but you can carry on cheating.