Two Journeys

In one of his most profound and triumphant statements in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said to Simon Peter, in Chapter 16:18, “I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.” It really is an astounding statement because it combines two images that don't ordinarily go together —that of an astonishing rescue and a magnificent building project. Now for myself, I love to read stories of heroism.  I was reading recently about one of the most incredible rescues that occurred toward the end of World War II January 30th, 1945. 150 rangers specially trained commandos from the United States Army went 30 miles behind the lines enemy lines, in the Philippines, where the Japanese were still fighting for every square inch of territory.  The US High Command was concerned that the Japanese might murder over 500 POWs held at the Cabanatuan POW camp, so they sent 150 rangers, 30 miles behind enemy lines to rescue 511 POWs. It was an incredible achievement. Then to lead them back over those 30 miles of enemy-held territory back to safety, which they did successfully — it was an incredible rescue. 

But even this daring rescue, I tell you in all of the daring rescues that there have ever been in history, does not compare with what Jesus Christ is doing every single day in rescuing sinners and bringing them to eternal life, through faith in Christ and using us to do it sending us into enemy territory to bring them back. He says the gates of Hades will not prove stronger than it, more about that later. He sends us into enemy territory, and yet here is this other image, the image of a building on this rock, “I will build my church.” There is erected inside our mind an elaborate glorious structure for worship. Like the Cathedral at Notre Dame, which took 185 years to build from the 12th century to the 14th century. All of those stones were quarried from gypsum right around Paris and built up. And for 185 years, expert craftsman, stone masons and craftsmen, and stain glass carpenters and architects erected this incredible structure which you've seen perhaps in photos, if not in person. The Cathedral of Notre Dame is a center of French culture, of French literature, of French history. It's even the zero-kilometer point of the entire nation, all the miles to Paris, are marked from a stone right in front of the cathedral of Notre Dame.  Certainly, the Cathedral of Notre Dame took exquisite skill to build, a lot of courage, a lot of money, some people died while building it. But I tell you again as glorious and majestic as it is, it doesn't compare with the Church of Jesus Christ, which is taken far greater courage, far greater skill, far greater investment of all resources that are valuable in the human race. Over 2000 years Jesus has been building his church. 

Now I have begun my sermon in a strange way. With two very different images and with a Mother's Day debut. You have these images coming together in this text of an astonishing military rescue and that of a building rising up to the glory of God. How do they fit together? Imagine, just in your mind's eye, the most incredible building project in history going on during the midst of the fiercest battle in history. The building materials for the church are over the walls and in enemy territory, and the skilled craftsmen that are going to be building that cathedral to the glory of God have to be commandos with military courage to go into enemy territory, quarry out the living stones, and safely get them to the building site where they are erected to the glory of God. You have a picture then of what Jesus is doing in Matthew 16:18 when He says, "I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prove stronger than it." 

Let's get our bearings here, in some context. Last week we looked for the first time at this section of Scripture. In Mathew 16:13-20, we saw the most important question you'll ever answer. Remember that Jesus had gone somewhat on retreat with his disciples to Caesarea Philipp. He wanted to spend some time with them, build into them pour into their lives, and so when He came there, he asked them the most important question. He began by getting a sense of a survey of opinions of popular opinions. “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”  That's Jesus, the son of man, and they replied, "Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah or Jeremiah and some, one of the prophets.” “But what about you,” he asked. “Who do you say that I am?” In a world full of opinions and a world full of questions, this one remains the most important question you will ever face as we mentioned last week. Who do you say that Jesus of Nazareth is? As we mentioned last week, the destiny of your soul depends on your heart-filled answer to that question.

Simon Peter gave the correct answer. He said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him, “This wasn't revealed to you by man but by my Father in Heaven.” The correct answer must be revealed to you by almighty God by the power of a spirit through the ministry of his word. That's how we discover who Jesus is. That was last week. But Jesus goes on from Peter's saving confession to make an incredible statement about the church. Look at verses 18 and 19, again, “… and I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 

So, we come to the question of the foundation of the church, on what is it build, and it's interesting that He begins by changing Peter's name. Now this had already happened, but he's reiterating the change that has occurred in Peter's name. A change of name, I think, gives a sense of ownership and a sense of the transforming power of Christ in the life of an individual. Jesus owns Peter, He rules over him, He has the right to change his name. It's just like what happened with Abram going over to Abraham, Sarai becoming Sarah, Jacob becoming Israel. The book of Revelation 2: 17 says, "To him who'll overcomes, I will give a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it." If we overcome by faith in Christ, we're going to get a new name. It's a sense of ownership and of a transformation of our very natures.  Made like him, we rise. We will become new creations completely, including our resurrection bodies. The change of name, I think in Peter's case, signifies a divine work of God's grace in Peter's heart. He will be a major part of the church, and Christ intends to equip him for it. He's going to prepare him to be what He wants him to be, for the history of the church.

However, these words have caused major consternation in the history of the church and a great deal of misunderstanding. “I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church and I'll give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”  For millennia and a half, the Roman Catholic Church has gone back to this statement by Jesus to the apostle Peter and said that Jesus was investing him papal authority and papal succession. In this moment, He gave him papal authority, the right to rule over all affairs, for the Christian church in Christ's place. The symbol of the Vatican is the Cross Keys. The keys, they're going right back to this statement in Matthew 16, a symbol of the Vatican and its authority and powers that Jesus entrusted to Peter, the keys. So, he has papal authority as the Bishop of Rome. Furthermore, there's also this idea of papal succession. That once Peter died, and went on to his eternal reward, he gave his earthly position to his successor, like a king on his death bed giving it to the Crown Prince. There is this idea of papal succession, so the present Pope has authority over all matters to do with the church in the entire world.  That is Catholic teaching. 

However, I believe that Jesus is not doing that here, I don't think that's what He's doing with Peter. He's not entrusting to Peter authority over all spiritual things, so that Peter would rule somewhat like an earthly potentate over the church. There's a play on words going on here. There are two different Greek words, very similar in meaning. Both of them could be translated “rock”. He says, "You are Petros and on this rock, Petra will build my churches... Changing the terminology slightly to show that there's not a one-to-one correspondence between Peter and the rock. So, for me, I want to know what is Christ's church built on? What is the foundation of Christ's church? Some has said it's Peter's confession and, on that rock, the rock of confession, you are the Christ, the Son of Living God, I will build my church. But I don't think so, although I do think it's essential that we all make that confession in order to be saved, but I don't think that's what He has in mind. I think it says Peter, and the other apostles, were to play a very significant and unique role in the history of the church, a role that we don't play. What then is the foundation of Christ's church? Paul the apostle puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 3:11, “No one can lay any foundation other than the one that is already laid and that is Jesus Christ,” so Christ is the foundation of his own church.

But in one sense, there's another truth to this idea of foundations and that is that none of us has access to Christ, except through the ministry of the apostles, and prophets. We must have the apostles and prophets tell us who Jesus is or we will never know him. Therefore, the apostles play a key role with the prophets in the foundation of Christ’s church. In Ephesians 2:19-20, the Apostle Paul wrote, speaking of God's household, that it's built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone. How are the apostles and prophets a foundation for God's eternal temple and how is that not contradictory to what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:11, "No one can lay any foundation except Jesus,”?  I think this is it. The fact is that the apostles and prophets testified of Christ for now twenty centuries. They’ve been testifying to us to who Jesus is so that we can put our faith in him, and believe and on that foundation, the apostolic testimony and witness to the risen Christ the whole structure depends.  It depends on the word of God through the apostles and prophets. This is how we know who Jesus is, and no other way. There's an intimate connection between Jesus Christ and his saving work, and this Bible. The apostles and prophets and their testimony to Christ. We can know a lot of things about God the Creator, by looking at what he has made by looking at creation, by looking at a magnificent sunrise, or a beautiful sunset, by looking at a majestic and powerful mountain, or experiencing a thunder and lightning storm, or feeling a soothing general rain or breeze, or hearing about a hurricane or tornado and its destructive power or watching an eagle soar on a thermal. All of these things give us evidence that there is a God, that He is mighty, that He is loving, that He is powerful, but they tell us nothing directly about Christ. We must have the scripture in order to know him. So, in this sense, “You are Peter, and you are going to testify to me, and on the basis of your testimony and that of the other apostles will the rest of the church be founded.” Therefore, we must know Christ based on the ministry of the apostles, and prophets. the Apostle John put it this way, in 1 John 1:1-3, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at, and our hands have touched, this we proclaim concerning the word of life. The life appeared, we have seen it, and testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father, and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us." 

Do you see the “we” in rhythm in 1 John 1:1-3?  The “we” is the apostles, I believe. That's a good interpretation of it because we haven't seen with our eyes or handled or heard with our ears. We were not eyewitnesses, but they were. “Those things which we saw with our own eyes, which we were eyewitnesses to, this we proclaim concerning the word of life, so that you also can have fellowship with us and go to Heaven.” In that sense, the church is built on the apostles and prophets. Peter put it this way in 2 Peter 1:16, "We did not follow cleverly-invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." Peter was the rock on which the church was built in that he was an apostle, and together with the other apostles, he began on Pentecost preaching that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, and that was the start of it all. On this rock I will build my church. 

Look at the progress of the church.  He says, "On this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prove stronger than it.” Let's begin with Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Christ who builds the church. “On this rock I will build my Church, I will build it.”  Peter did not build the church and neither did Paul or John or any of the apostles. Martin Luther did not build the church and neither did Calvin or Zwingli or any of the Reformers. William Carey did not build the church neither did any of the missionaries, however great their sacrifices might have been. Yes, Jesus used each one of these godly servants to build up his church, but it is Jesus who builds his church and each one of those godly people would have told you the same. “Jesus raised me up, and he used me to build this church, but it was Christ that built it.”

Notice also that sense of a promise, a sense of certainty. “I will build my church.” There's a sense of absolute confidence in this. I am putting my omnipotence behind this. "All authority in heaven and earth is behind this building project and it cannot fail. I will build my church.”  He never loses focus, never forgets what He's about, never gets distracted. There are no significant setbacks, everything is on schedule, everything is progressing for 2000 years. Notice also the sense of ownership, “I will build my church.” There is no one here who can make that statement, not about any local church, not any absolute statement about the church. Jesus alone is the ruler of the church, Jesus alone shed his own blood for her, He bought her with his own blood. We are his... “I will build my church”, a sense of possession.

That leads us to the question of authority — the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Many again have stumbled over these words, misunderstanding them. As I said, the Catholic Church Roman Catholic church focuses on Peter saying that he is Christ’s vice regent on the earth, able to make absolute statements and the church must obey. Sometimes the interpretation is given that Peter has the keys in terms of who gets in and who doesn’t and from that has come a whole genre jokes about Peters at the pearly gates — ask a series of questions and if you answer the question right, you'll get in and if you don't, you won't. You know what I'm talking about? The whole thing is based on a theological misunderstanding as though Peter has the right to decide who gets in and who doesn't. He has the keys and if he doesn't let you in, you don't get in.  Henry IV, in order to receive forgiveness from his papal magnificence, had to go and spend three days begging in the snow. Kneeling and begging and doing contrition in the snow before the Pope ordained to see him. When Henry was humbled sufficiently, he was brought into the papal court and there the Pope humbled him some more in front of everyone. Finally, he re-established him and took away the excommunication. Pope Gregory VII declared that the Pope has the right to depose kings and emperors, to make laws to require secular rulers to kiss his feet. He said that nobody has the right to judge the pope. Gregory also declared that because of the merits of Saint Peter, every duly elected pope is automatically a saint in their way of understanding. One hundred years later, Pope Innocent III said the authority of the Pope was like the sun, and that of all secular leaders like that of the moon, a reflected authority emanating originally from the pope. 

Let me tell you something, all of this pomp and arrogance does not come rightly from Matthew 16. It doesn't come from the keys, it doesn't come from the binding and loosing.   I know in the Greek; Peter does receive something directly. It is second person singular, "I'll give to you Peter, the keys of the kingdom of heaven." That is true, but he also links the keys to the binding and loosing. Look at verse 19, "Whatever you bind on earth will bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Binding and loosing, is a term used by rabbis, to make spiritual pronouncements and decisions like binding someone's lifestyle or someone's practices or someone's behavior or binding the church, concerning doctrine. It implies the power to govern spiritually to make decisions.  I believe this is what He gave to Peter, but we should not understand that Heaven was following Peter's leadership, as though Heaven didn't know what to do. "Tell us, Peter... What to do. The angels are wondering. We're kind of in a mish-mash up here, let us know what to do." It's not like that at all, there's perfect clarity in heaven. Heaven knows exactly what to do. The cloud is here on Earth, is it not? Even Peter sometimes got into the cloud, not dealing properly with Gentile converts and needed to be rebuked by the Apostle Paul, in Galatians 2.

So, it's not like heaven needs Peter's help in figuring out what to do. In Matthew 6:10 in the Lord's prayer, "May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." So, Heaven takes the lead. Actually, I think the problem is a translation one. I think that the translation would be better this way, "Whatever you bind on earth will be having already been bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth will be having already been loosed in heaven." That's the way it is and that's an accurate translation. Therefore, what is Peter's role of announcing what's been bound and loosed in heaven? We have the role and the responsibility of saying what heaven decides in matters, not doing it ourselves. And the binding and loosing is based on the Scripture. It's based on how God has revealed his truth, this is what binds us, this is what loses us, the scripture, and the binding and loosing He has given to all of his disciples.

 Turn over a few chapters to Matthew Chapter 18: 15- 20. There it's dealing with sin between brothers and sisters in Christ. As we have encounters with one another, we have issues from time to time. Look at verse 15 and following, “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. I tell you the truth, whatever you, plural, bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you, plural, loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in Heaven. For where two or three come together in my name there am I with them." Here in this passage, the binding and loosing is given to the disciples, it's given to the church and in this case, it has to do with church discipline. Notice in the hierarchy, the final court of appeals isn't Peter, it's the church. This authority of the church concerning binding and loosing, concerning sin and doctrine, this authority stands over every individual believer in Christ no matter how powerful they are in their secular responsibility. For example, it stands over a President of the United States. If the President of United States is a member of a church and commits adultery, the church has the responsibility to deal with it as they would anyone else. There's no difference. Doesn't matter what their position, doesn't matter if they're a king, an emperor. It doesn't matter who they are, if they have sin, the church has a responsibility of dealing with the sin in the same way they would with anyone else. 

But the church does not have the right to dictate secular policy to the President, and that's where the papal authority made its mistake, it got involved in secular affairs. The power of the church in the statement by Christ to Peter, and it's still in place, concerns spiritual ministry, strategy for missions, doctrinal statements and the issue of church discipline. The binding and loosing I think is especially connected to the issue of the forgiveness of sins.  The issue of the forgiveness of sins. Jesus, the day He was raised from the dead, appears to his disciples in John chapter 20 and, "He shows them his hands and his sides, and he breathes on them and says, receive the Holy Spirit, if you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." Again, we are not in the place of God. We don't sit on the throne and judge, that's not it. We are given the responsibility and the great privilege to announce based on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, based on the Word of God, somebody's spiritual situation before God, based on that.

Let's say you're doing some workplace evangelism. You've got a co-worker who's an atheist. You share the gospel with that co-worker, they don't change at all.  They might even mock a little bit. You get done with the encounter. I think it's your responsibility to tell him the truth. "I want you to know that based on your rejection of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you are still in your sins, and you're not ready to die." That may be uncomfortable, but I think it's our responsibility. “You're still bound by your sins. Jesus can release you; he can set you free. Every chain can be broken. Simply trust in him for the forgiveness of your sins, and you'll have eternal life. But if you don't, you're still bound by your sins and in that you will die, you'll die in your sins and you'll be condemned to hell if you don't repent.”  You must tell them the truth; they are still bound by their sin. Conversely, you share the gospel with someone, and they're moved. They're asking questions. You answer their questions. They're moved some more. After a while you start to know the spirit of God is present in that encounter. They want to accept Christ. What do I do? Act 16 says that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved." You tell them that, and they say, "Lord Jesus, save me from my sins." I think you have a responsibility to tell them that based on their confession of faith in Christ, that their sins are forgiven. Now we can be tricked. We can be fooled, and our approval of their faith doesn't mean much on Judgment Day, but I think as we share the Gospel with people, we have the responsibility to tell them, in Christ, their sins are loosed, and they can be forgiven. That's the binding and loosing. 

But then Jesus makes this incredible statement, "I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prove stronger than it." Now what does this mean? The gates of Hades? In Greek mythology, Hades was both the name of the King of the Dead and his dark realm where he reigned, the underworld realm where the dead went.  Hades was used either for the king or for his dark kingdom.  It was similar to the Hebrew concept of sheol, the grave. The dark kingdom of Hades in Greek mythology was across the river Styx and had powerful gates guarded by a three-headed dog named Cerberus, a vicious, vicious dog and there was no getting past the gates of Hades. However, in Greek mythology from time to time, famous Greek heroes would be able to pass through the gates on certain missions to be able to show their skill or their strength thereby. For example, Hercules.  One of his errands was to go down and actually capture Cerberus, the three-headed dog which he does by his supernatural God-given, in that mythology, strength. He's able to grab this three-headed dog and carry it up. King Hades wants his dog back and he eventually gets his dog back. But so, the story goes, it takes incredible strength.

Then there's another story of a sweet singer named Orpheus who I believe on his wedding day, lost his bride because she stepped on a poisonous snake. She was carried down to the realm of the underworld and Orpheus wants his bride back and so he... Through the sweetness of his song is able to charm King Hades and he allows Orpheus to bring Eurydice, his wife, back up through the tunnel, through the gates and back to the realm of the living, except on one condition. That is, he cannot turn around and look at her as they are departing. So, he's traveling up as he goes, he's not hearing anything behind him. Very concerned about this, right as he's approaching the gates of Hades, he turns around... She's there and then suddenly there is King Hades as well who takes her back down, and Orpheus spends the rest of his life singing sad songs.

How does Christ use this term, then, the “gates of Hades”? I think it represents death, and the one who holds the power of death, the devil, it says in Hebrews 2:14-15, "Since the children [that's us] have flesh and blood, He, Christ too, shared in their humanity. So that by his death, He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who, all their lives, were held in slavery by their fear of death." Christ is mightier than Hercules. He rescues all of his people from the kingdom, and He destroys the kingdom itself.  Christ is more skillful than Orpheus; He can look at us as much as He wants, his bride, and nobody's going to suddenly pop up and take us back to the realm of the dead.

Christ is the hero that rescues us from the gates of Hades. I’s so beautiful, because it says in Revelation 1:18, Jesus’ speaking, “I am the living one. I was dead and behold, I'm alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades." Jesus holds the keys. And this is the one that speaks and says, "I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prove strong within it." How?  I think in two senses, in the present age, and in the future, the gates of Hades will not prove stronger than the church. Notice He doesn't say, "I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prove stronger than me."  That's not what he says. He says, "I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prove stronger than the church." He's going to send the church on an assault mission and the gates of Hades don't stand a chance. That's the picture here. Now, in the present age, the gates of Hades, I think represent Satan's power of death that Satan holds captives in that power. That fear of death, they're captives. For most of military history, the safest place you could be would be inside a fortress, a walled fortress, like a walled city, or a castle or stronghold of some sort. That's where you wanted to be, until gunpowder blew that apart.  But that's where you wanted to be. The weakest defense are the gates, so that's where special military engineering went. They were designed to be gates of death really, where they'd let you in and then some portcullis would come down and arrows would rain down. It was diabolical and powerful. If you can take the gates, you can take the whole city, so the gates represent the whole walled fortress I believe of Satan's dark power of sin and death. 

Jesus says, "I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prove stronger than it." What's the issue here? It's a battle of power. You've got one captain, Jesus. You've got another captain, Satan. They are not equal in power, not even close. Jesus sends his church and they're going to win.  Satan is not equal power to Jesus, but Jesus said in Luke 11:21-22, "When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe but when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted, and he divides up the spoils." Satan is the strong man, Jesus is the one stronger and he strips Satan's powerful gates away, and he plunders Satan's dark kingdom.  Each one of us who sit here today, each one of us who believes in Christ today were rescued from the dominion of darkness. Colossians 1 says we were transferred over into the kingdom of the Son that God loves, we were rescued from Satan's dark dominion. 

Furthermore, we have become building materials. Remember I told you there's two images here. There's the image of a commando-raid rescue and then there's the image of a building. "I will build my church on this foundation," He says, "On this rock." Solomon's temple was built by stones that were dressed by Hiram, King of Tyre, floated down and then traveled inland, dressed off-site and then so no iron tool was heard on the work site there. Notre Dame was made, as I mentioned, from gypsum stones quarried from around Paris. It was very expensive to transfer them, so it was right nearby. St Peter’s Basilica in Rome was built in1499 out of marble from a specific quarry that Michelangelo later used to make the Pieta and other sculptures that were there.  What did Christ use to build his church? He built the church out of us. We are the living stones in 1 Peter 2, "As you come to him, the living stone rejected by man, but chosen by God and precious to him. You also like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." We're living stones set in the walls of this beautiful spiritual house. That's what we are. We are both commandos going over the wall, through the wall, through the gates to go get the living stones and we are also the living stones in the wall. We're both. We are given, therefore, a mission and the only way, friends, that we are going to accomplish our mission is to have unshakable confidence in Jesus Christ that we will be victorious.

The early opposition of the Jewish leaders couldn't stop the church. The persecution of the Roman emperors couldn't stop the church. Neither could the barbarian hordes that swept across. Neither could the Dark Ages. Neither could the Viking depredations stop the church. Neither could the Counter-Reformation stop the church. Neither could the Age of Enlightenment, or German higher criticism or the theory of evolution or two world wars, or the Cold War or communism stop the church, and neither will the self-indulgent materialism in which the United States of America leads the way, stop the church. None of those things can stop the building of the church. All of them have been satanic threats, but Jesus has overcome every single one of them by his sovereign power.

 Are you confident in that? Are you willing to risk it to do some evangelism? Are you willing to risk it, to go over the walls, and rescue some people who are perishing? Are you willing to do that? That is the present triumph of the church over the gates of Hades. What about the future triumph of the church? Our biggest test is yet to come. Someday it is appointed to every one of us to die, every one of us will die. Right before Jesus died, He said, "Father into your hands I commit my Spirit”, so you will do as well," and will Hades, those dark gates, be strong enough to keep your body in the grave? Can the grave hold you back when Christ summons you forth and gives you a resurrection body? Does the grave have the power to say, "No," to Jesus in that matter? I tell you it does not.

"I will build my church out of people who will have... resurrection bodies and the gates of Hades cannot hold them back," and glory to God for it. In John 11: 25-26, Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." Also in 1 Corinthians 15, "So will it be with the resurrection of the dead, the body that is sown is perishable, it is raised, imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body but is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there will be a spiritual body.” And “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true, death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” When Jesus raises you from the dead and you pass through the gates of Hades and you see them as nothing and the grave cannot hold you back, you will sing a triumph song and say, “Where O death, is your victory?" 

What application can we take from this magnificent passage? First of all, I want to speak to those of you that are here today, maybe your guests, family members, and maybe you've never trusted in Christ. I was speaking to you earlier. When I was saying that Jesus has the power to break the chains of sin. He has the power to forgive all of your sins, all you have to do is call on his name. He doesn't want your good works; He wants your faith. He wants you to just simply trust in him, turn away from sin. Turn away from wickedness, repent and turn to Christ, and He will welcome you. He will forgive you. On the basis of that I, and any Christian here, has the authority to tell you, "Your sins will be forgiven if you simply trust in Christ." If you've already made that commitment, can I urge you to be courageous for Christ? Don't waste encounters with non-Christians, not talking to them about Jesus. See yourself as a courageous warrior involved in a very powerful battle. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood. There are spiritually flaming arrows flying everywhere, bullets going everywhere, it's on. It's a tough battle, but this is what God has called us to do.

Our theme verse for the entire year, in Luke 19:10, Jesus said, "The Son of man came to seek and to save the lost.” Are you seeking, and are you an instrument in God's hand to the saving of the lost? Are you involved? This week speak to someone about Christ, invite them to church, talk to somebody at the workplace, bring these issues home to bear. They're not thinking properly, they don't see time properly, they don't see sin properly, they're not ready for judgment day. Please tell them the truth. If they repent, tell them the good news that their sins are forgiven. If you've already repented and trusted in Christ, can I tell you the good news, your sins are forgiven. We walk around defeated all the time forgetting that Jesus' blood is ample provision for our guilt and that we are forgiven people.

Shake off your chains and get up and get involved in what Jesus is doing in the world. Follow him. He's a courageous captain. He said, "Nothing's going to stop the building of my church." Can I also urge you to respect the authority of the church? The Church has the right to send out from its midst unrepentant sinners. Matthew 18 says, "We have that authority and that responsibility. Respect that authority." God also raises up leaders, elders who have the power and the authority to preach and to teach and to rightly divide the word of truth. I believe in congregational polity. The Church has the right to remove them from their position if they're found to be inaccurate and wrong in their ministry, but I believe that God raises up spiritual leaders and it's for the church to follow that leadership.

Respect the authority of the church. Finally, don't fear death and Hades. Their days are numbered. Jesus is going to throw death and Hades into the lake of fire, it says in Revelation 20, and there'll be no more death. No more Hades. Death and Hades are temporary, but your life in Christ is not.

In our text today we come to the central question of all human history, and I contend it's a central question of the history of your soul. All of us stand before this question, and we must give an answer. Who was Jesus of Nazareth? What do you say about him? Who was he? We have the person of Christ standing in the text and confronting us today. And we have also, a word of great blessing, the greatest blessing in my life. The blessing of being able to make Peter's confession, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  Jesus, speaking over anyone who can make that confession from their heart, "Blessed are you, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in Heaven." We have this great question and this great blessing.

Some time ago, James Hefley wrote a well-known paragraph, marveling over the person of Christ. It's familiar to some of you I think, entitled, “One Solitary Life.” He said, "Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30 and then for three years, he was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never traveled more than 200 miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness; he had no credentials but Himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of his divine manhood. While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. He was turned over to his enemies, he went through the mockery of a trial, he was nailed to a cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth while he was dying and that was his coat. When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Such was his human life. He rises from the dead. Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today he is the centerpiece of the human race. I am within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever were built, all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life."

Napoleon Bonaparte said this about Christ, "I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I have founded empires, but on what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love and at this hour millions of men would die for him."  Who was Jesus of Nazareth? Who was he? I can't actually ask the question that way. As a believer I have to say, "Who is he?" because I believe he's alive. But you have to answer the question for yourself. Who was this man, Jesus of Nazareth?  I say to you, it's the most important question you will ever answer.

Look at verses [Matthew 16]13 through 15 and try to understand what happens here in the text. "When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, 'Who do people say the Son of Man is?' and they replied, 'Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.' 'But what about you,' he asked. 'Who do you say that I am?'" We live in a world full of questions, some of them are trivial and inconsequential, some of them are very important. For example, if you go to see a doctor, he may probe with questions to get a diagnosis. Where does it hurt? How long have you had the pain? Are you taking on any other medications? Trying to gain information so he can make an accurate diagnosis. A 911 operator will ask what is the nature of your emergency? Is the break-in still in progress? That's an important question. Is the patient still breathing? Perhaps an even more important question. What is your address? Some of you are students, maybe you're about to face a professor's probing final examination and 50% of your grade will depend on your ability to trace out the sociological development of American industry after the industrial revolution and all of the ways that it connects to the 20th century and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I can't keep it going. 

 Some of you will, in the next year, be sitting for the SAT and you'll have to be good at math and you'll have to be good at English and you'll have to write an essay. Those will be important questions because it may determine where you go to college, or if you go to college at all. Somewhere in the Triangle region, a young man may get down on one knee and face a beautiful young lady and he may pop the question. For her that will end up being one of the most important questions she ever answers in her life. Will you marry me? A witness about to give testimony in a court room has to answer this: "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?" A very important question. There are deeper questions that face all of us day by day. Who am I, why am I here? What will happen to me when I die, is there life after death? What is the meaning of life? These are significant questions.

In the midst of all of these important questions, we live in a world full of opinions. I don't think you've ever been able to access other people's opinions so easily as today, all you have to do is go on the Internet and read a blog. There's something called the blogosphere. You can live there, and you can just marinate in other people's opinions on all of these questions if you want to spend your time that way. You can, actually even venture some of yours on it, and maybe some people will read them. You can have any question answered, if you type it into certain lines, they'll give you an answer. Should I quit my job? Should I refinance my house?  You can go to the internet and to get your answer.  But I say to you in this world full of important questions and swirling opinions, this is the most important question you will ever answer:  who do you think that Jesus of Nazareth was?  Or more directly from the text, Jesus stands in front of you, I believe, through the Spirit, and says, "Who do you say that I am?" According to the Bible, whether you spend eternity in heaven or hell depends on your heart answer to that question.

Now, look at the context. Jesus is in Caesarea Philippi. It's located 25 miles northeast of the Sea of Galilee, 40 miles southwest of Damascus. It's on a beautiful plateau near the head waters of the Jordan river. Nearby, a few miles to the north, is Mount Herman. Generally snow-covered, beautiful, over 9000 feet tall, dramatic. Caesarea Philippi was originally named Paneas, after the Greek god of nature, Pan, who according to Greek mythology was born in a cave nearby.  Caesar Augustus gave the region to Herod the Great who bequeathed it to his son, Philip, who named it after Caesar Augustus, and also after himself. Thankfully he put Caesar first, a good idea in those days — Caesarea Philippi. It's a few miles from the northern city of Dan, and therefore it's a bit of a crossroads where Jewish culture mingles with Gentile culture; therefore, cosmopolitan in its outlook with an ebb and flow of opinions. Jesus goes there, I believe, to retreat from the maddening crowd and from the increasing and the escalating pressures of his ministry. Huge crowds were constantly pressing him, yearning for physical healings. People wanted to take him, after the feeding of the 5000, by force and make him King. Herod probably wanted to kill him. The Scribes and Pharisees definitely wanted to kill him. It’s an escalating pressure, and Jesus backs off to spend some time in retreat with his disciples. We know that first he went to Tyre and Sidon, but that wasn't quiet for long, after Jesus heals the Syrophoenician woman, so he goes to this mountain retreat.

He wants to spend some quality time with his disciples, He wants to pour Himself into them. It was central to his strategy to build into the lives of these 12 men, so that they would take what they had seen in him and learned from him and preach it to the ends of the earth. He wants to spend time with them, and He gets right down to brass tacks immediately. Verse 13, "When Jesus came to the region Caesarea Philippi, He asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’” He's asking for a survey of opinions on this important question. “What are they saying about Me?” He uses this title "Son of Man”; it was Jesus' most common self-designation. As a matter of fact, He's the only one who calls Himself the Son of Man, but He called himself that frequently, over 30 times in Matthew's Gospel. I believe, definitely, He got the title from Daniel chapter 7, that magnificent Son of Man vision that Daniel had. In his vision, he saw one like a son of man approaching the Ancient of Days, Almighty God, and coming into his presence. He receives from him glory, authority and sovereign power and all peoples and nations and men of every language worshipped and served him. It's a vision of someone who is not the one seated on the throne but, like Revelation 5, comes into the presence, and he's one like a son of man.  I believe Jesus called Himself Son of Man to focus in on this perplexing issue of how one can be both Son of Man and receive this kind of worship in adulation and glory from Almighty God. It's the mystery of the incarnation and Jesus focuses on it with this title, Son of Man. The title emphasized both the deity and the humanity of Christ. 

There are wide ranging opinions. Some people said that he was John the Baptist risen from the dead, that's what Herod thought, a bit difficult since their lives overlap so much. It’s hard to be in two places at once and so that really is impossible. But there it is. They thought that somehow John the Baptist had risen from the dead. Others said he was Elijah, who as you know, ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire. The legend was that he would come back in, perhaps in equally dramatic way, and perhaps Jesus was Elijah coming back from heaven. Some people thought he was Jeremiah. A popular legend was that at around the time of the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, that Jeremiah hid the Ark of the Covenant and that at a certain point, he would come back and restore the ark and worship would begin again. There's nothing of that in the Bible, but there's a legend concerning that. Others just didn't know, one of the prophets, they said. It’s a wide-ranging base of opinions here. This is a common theme, that the answers fall infinitely far short of the truth. You see, Jesus is God the Son. Through him all things were made. He is the infinite God. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. He's the image of the invisible God, the first-born over-all creation. That's who Jesus is. But these answers all come short. They fall short of who Jesus really was. This is common, over and over. People want to praise Jesus faintly and say good things about him, short of that he's God in the flesh.  Benjamin Franklin, for example, said this, "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion is I think the system of morals and his religion as he left them to us, is the best the world ever saw or is likely to see, but I apprehend that it has received various corrupt changes over time. I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity. Though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it.” Friend, study it.  Study whether he's God or not, it's very important. Franklin said he never found the time to study it and it was needless to busy himself with it, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. Oh, he knows the truth. We ought to make this the study of our lives, friend. Who was Jesus of Nazareth? We have to find out whether he's God or not.

It is true that at a point everyone will see him, even those who pierced him. But at that point, all the nations of the earth will mourn because of him. Too late, as we've mentioned, for Benjamin Franklin. Albert Einstein put it this way, "As a child I received instruction in both the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus, his personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life." Well, those are words of praise far short of He is God in the flesh. French atheist Ernest Renan said this, "Jesus was the greatest religious genius who ever lived." That's not going to save your soul. German rationalist, Strauss, put it this way, "Jesus is the highest model of religion." John Stewart Mill, a philosopher, called Jesus the guide of humanity. Transcendentalist philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson put it this way, "Jesus belong to the race of prophets, he saw with open eyes the mystery of the soul. One man was true to what is in you and me, and that is Jesus. He is, I think, is the only soul in history who has appreciated the worth of man." Fine words. Mikhail Gorbachev said Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind. Most commonly people who don't believe in Jesus call him a good moral teacher. Jesus is infinitely more than a luminous figure, a religious genius, the highest model of religion, the guide of humanity, of the race of prophets, the first socialist seeking a better life for mankind or a good moral teacher.

C.S. Lewis, in his classic Mere Christianity, talked about this quite directly in his “Lord, Liar, Lunatic” trilemma. You've heard it before, but bears quoting again. He says, "I'm trying here, to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him. I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher, he would either be a lunatic on the level of a man who says he is a poached egg, [that's my favorite line] or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make the choice. Either this Man was and is the Son of God, or else he's a mad man and something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God but let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us; he did not intend to."

So, who was Jesus of Nazareth? Jesus forces us to declare, He forces us to study it, He forces us to make a statement about this issue. Now, our opinion doesn't change the fact either way. If you think he is only a great moral teacher, and not the Son of God, it will not change his nature and it will not get him down off the throne, but it's very important for your soul. Infinitely so. Other subjects we could study don't force this kind of a commitment. We don't have to learn and make a commitment on biology or geometry or ecology or any of these things, but Jesus forces us to fly, to fly our flag. Same is true of biographies. You can go through and study the life of Alexander the Great or Napoleon or any of these men that I've quoted and make a claim of commitment one way or the other, you can just study them and just move on. It's just a topic. 

Jesus brings you to a fork in the road. You must make a choice. You must either worship him as God or you must reject him entirely. He doesn't leave you a middle of the road option. The statements that C.S. Lewis is referring to are astonishing.   Jesus doesn't say, “I teach the truth,” or “I am a guide to the truth.” He says, "I am the truth." He says, "I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." More than anything, Jesus of Nazareth confronts us with his deity, and we must make a decision about it. His life is bracketed by two miracles: the virgin womb and the empty tomb.  Peter Larson once said, "Jesus entered or our world through a door marked, "No Entrance" and he left through a door marked,” No Exit." It's quite striking, isn't it? The twin miracles, the beginning and the end of Jesus' life, they proclaim his deity.

This is a question and there is a right answer. I know that some of us like Calvin in Calvin and Hobbs say, "All that emphasis on right and wrong answers, makes me feel stupid.” We want to say that every answer is the right answer. We're going to accept any answer.  Jesus doesn't accept any answer. We are a tolerant people, we delight in tolerance, but here is a right answer to this question, and Peter gave it. Look what it says in Verse 15 through 17, “‘What about you?’ He asked, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus replied, ‘Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man but by my Father in Heaven.’” In verse 16, we have the right and true answer, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God." This is Simon Peter's saving confession. Out of the fullness of his heart, Peter spoke, and he went far beyond all of these small current opinions about Jesus.  He had seen Jesus' astounding miracles, a river of them, one after the other. He had heard Jesus' astounding words. Earlier, he had said to Jesus, "You have the words of eternal life, you alone have the words of eternal life." So, he'd heard his teachings. He had seen the perfection of Christ's character, how he handled difficult encounters with hate-filled sinners one after the other and dealt with every single one of them with perfect love, perfect character, holiness, humility every single encounter. Every word perfectly spoken. He saw him dealt with issues with great courage, he saw his perfect character. With all of that evidence, even with all of that evidence he still needed a miracle. I'm talking about Simon Peter. He still needed a miracle worked on his own heart in order to confess that Jesus was the Christ, the son of the living God.

I don't want you to think that Peter's confession is like a magic word formula you have to say, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." It doesn't have anything to do with the words, it has to do with the truths behind the words. There are actually many such confessions in the New Testament. Nathaniel in John Chapter 1, said, "Rabbi, you are the son of God, you are the king of Israel." That's a saving confession. At the end of John's gospel, doubting Thomas is doubting no longer and he falls, I think, in front of Jesus and says, "My Lord and my God." That's a saving confession. Mark, 15:39, the centurion who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry, saw how he died and said, "Surely this man was the son of God." If he believed it in his heart, that's a saving confession. Even Peter had a different way of saying it at another time, "We believe and know that you are the holy One of God.,” a saving confession. The key element is a recognition that this man is God, that he is God in the flesh and no less.

As I've already mentioned this fact can only be believed by direct revelation of God the Father to your heart. It's the only way you will come to this conclusion. Look what he says in verse 17, Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man but by my Father in Heaven." Salvation is God's work from beginning to end, from first to last, he is the Alpha and the Omega of our salvation. He works it in us and, except a person receive direct revelation from God the Father, you will never make Peter's saving confession, it is actually impossible. Jesus did tremendous miracles in front of Jewish leaders and they never believed. Jesus healed people of paralysis and fed huge crowds of people, and they didn't believe in him. The miracles alone, the evidence of the miracles alone is not enough. Rather Christ must be directly revealed to your heart by God the Father.

It's interesting to me, that Jesus entered the world to reveal God the Father to us. He says in John 14, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the father. Don't you know me, Philip after I've been with you all this time?" You look at Jesus, you see the Father, but it's only by the administrations of the Father, that you'll see Jesus properly. Do you see it? It says in Matthew 11:27, "No one knows the Son except the Father. And no one knows the Father, except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Do you see the revelation? Jesus reveals the Father to us, the Father reveals Jesus to us. But I say this, without this direct supernatural work of God on your heart, you will never believe. Never. So, it says, "Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah." This is the greatest blessing in my life to have, Second Corinthians 4:6, "The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, shining in my heart and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot extinguish it." Amen. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God shines in the heart of any born-again person and regenerate person. It's a light that God kindles, God the Father concerning his own son. In Christ, we see the perfections of God, and blessed are you if that's happened to you. "Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah." What does “blessed” mean? It means happy, in a way you can't even imagine. Happy, like the world cannot make you happy. It means eternally, perfectly happy in the presence of God. You have just now the foretaste of the blessedness that comes from making this confession. This is the greatest blessedness that there is.

During the first “Great Awakening” Jonathan Edwards wrote a sermon with a typically obtuse and difficult title; something like this: “Divine Supernatural Light Revealed Directly to the Human Heart, a Rational and Correct Doctrine.” Basically, what it means is that it is right for us to expect God to reveal things directly to our hearts based on the word of God. He's coming right out of this text, "Blessed are you, for this was not revealed to you by man but by my Father in heaven." You must see in the face of Jesus of Nazareth, almighty God. God the Son. You must see it in this man who lived so many years ago, who lived that one solitary life, in order to be saved. The only way you can do it is if God the Father works it in you. I could preach for the next hour, I could preach with great eloquence. I could preach with great simplicity; I could stop right now. I could preach for another three hours. It wouldn't matter. The technique of communication doesn't matter. What matters is that God speaks directly to your heart, as you're hearing the Gospel preached, that's what matters.

Apart from this work, we are lost, we were dead in our transgressions and sins, without hope and without God in the world. This saving revelation saved Peter's soul, and it was the first clear revelation of Jesus' deity made in Matthew's gospel; a clear statement and an important moment. Next week with God's help, according to the will of God, if we have the opportunity, I'm going to preach on the church and the doctrine of the church. I want to give you a brief overview of what we're going to see now. Based on Simon Peter's confession, God has orchestrated a huge church. Look what it says in Verse 18 and 19, "I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." The foundation of Christ’s church is the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as chief cornerstone. In their testimony to the saving work of Christ, we find our salvation. We would not have the New Testament if it were not for these eyewitnesses, who had their eyewitness testimony written down. On the basis of this, we know Jesus, we hear the gospel, and we are able to listen and to believe. On that rock He founded the Church, but since then the church has been making progress. Jesus said, "I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prove stronger than it." It has progressed. There is now a multitude greater than anyone can count, from almost every tribe, and language, and people, and nation. That is the drive of the missionary endeavor in this world. That people from every tribe and language and people and nation, would confess that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, that is the church that Christ is building. And that church has authority, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth, will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." It has to do with the authority of the church within the walls of the church to deal with its doctrines, and its life, and its practices, appropriately, to order itself for mission and to deal with church discipline, to keep itself pure and holy. Outside the walls of the church, to proclaim based on this gospel whether other people sins are forgiven or not. What a grave responsibility that is. 

Finally, it says, "The gates of Hades will not prove stronger than it."  — future triumph, future conquest. The gates of Hades, I think, representing both Satan's wicked dark kingdom and its power of death, and then death itself, which will someday be thrown into the lake of fire. Amen and Amen. The death of death. Death will not hold us back, cannot bar us in but we will most certainly be raised to life, and we will live forever and ever. That is the nature of the future triumph of the church. It's not going to come lightly or easily. There's a march of suffering that's still ahead of us, but this is how Christ will build his church. You see that the foundation of it is an individual personal confession of faith in Christ. That's how the whole thing is built. Just as the universe is built out of atoms, so the church is built one living stone after another. Each one of them individually making that confession of Christ. 

Have you made that confession today? I prayed this morning that God would bring someone here today who had not made yet that confession, and that they would make that confession today, that they would see in the death of Jesus Christ, in his blood shed on the cross, an atoning sacrifice for sin their own salvation. That they would acknowledge that they have sinned, that they have transgressed the law of God, and that they have no hope of salvation apart from Jesus. That they would cling to Jesus, and they would see in Christ, deity. Not merely a good moral teacher, or a guide for humanity, but God, who willingly laid down his life. Are you that person? Have you made that saving confession yet? Don't leave this room without making that confession.  Confess in your heart, "Jesus you are Lord. You are my savior; I trust in you." For the rest of you who have already made that confession, do you realize how blessed you are? Do you realize that Christ's word of blessing for Simon Peter stands over you and blesses you too? Do you realize that you would not be able to make that confession if God had not worked it directly in your soul by the power of the Holy Spirit? Do you realize that He knew you by name, He called you by name and you are his and He will never let you go? I'm hoping that your problems that you carried into this place, this morning, are shrinking into insignificance as you listen to this. The blessing of God swallows them all. You're going to live with him forever and ever in his presence. You are his and he is yours. Blessed are you. Confess and say, "You know, it's not through my own good works, it's not because I'm such a good believer, or such a good repenter or such a good faithful person. No, it's because He was gracious to me, because God the father revealed it to me, that's why." All praise and glory go to him.

It is true that God intends for us to have a role to play. “How can they call on the one they've not believed in? How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?”  As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news?" Consequently, faith comes by hearing the message. The message is heard through the word of Christ. Let's be God's fellow workers, let's be his ambassadors, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. Find somebody at the workplace, find a neighbor who's not made the saving confession yet and share the gospel with them. God will use it. The whole time, you know that if it happens, it's only by the direct revelation of God the Father to that person's heart. Trust in him for that.

One final thing, do you realize that God isn't done? I'm speaking to you believers now; God isn't done revealing Jesus to you. Do you have enough of Jesus, have you learned enough of him? Can we close that file and put it aside and study something more worthy now? Can that ever happen? Will it happen in eternity? When you get to a point when you've been there 10,000 years, bright, shining as a sun, that you've learned enough about Jesus?  This is an infinite topic and infinite is the father's commitment to tell you about it. He will never tire of teaching Christ to you. For all eternity, you will study him and with Paul, you will continue to say what he says, in Philippians 3, "I want to know Christ, I want to know him." And as it says in Isaiah 9, "A great mystery of the increase of his kingdom and peace. There will be no end."  I mean to eternity. Forever Christ will be increasing within you. Look forward to it, you're blessed. Your blessings are still infinitely yet to come. 

They forgot to bring the bread. That was a big mistake. The scripture never resolves it. It's like an unresolved key on the piano, it doesn't resolve into a sweet chord. We don't know what they had for dinner that night, we never found out what they actually, in fact, ate. I do have a strong instinct that not one of them died of starvation. Do you have that sense? Not one of them died of starvation, but they did forget to bring the bread. It’s worthy of mention at least in the Scripture right there in verse 5, they forgot to bring the bread. I must tell you, and I don't think it's perverse I think it's intended by God.  I find pleasure in their failing, I just do. I find comfort in the fact that they were forgetful. I find consolation in the fact that God's grace can cover our sinfulness and our weakness, that we have a God who watches over us and providential cares for us, and that in this text, He’s calling on us to look above our earthly forgetfulness and our weakness and our failings to kingdom matters and focus on that and concentrate on that and let him take care of our needs.  I take consolation in that. I take consolation in the fact that the Bible is unfailingly honest about the failings of its great people. I mean, the apostles were great heroes of our faith.  They were chosen by Christ after a night of fasting and prayer. They were the human foundation of his future work. Their eyewitness testimony to Christ, to His life, His death, and His resurrection, was the foundation of the future generations of the church, which I think the later part of this chapter makes plain. Peter and the other Eleven stood up on the day of Pentecost. They raised their voices, and they proclaimed the Gospel with great courage and 3,000 were added to their number that day, in one day, what a great harvest. They would write down their eyewitness accounts, they would give us four Gospels, they would give us the New Testament.

We read it, and we derive great benefit from it. They would step out in faith and they would shape the course of church history, by their key decisions, by their lifestyle, they were great men. In the end, they would courageously testify to a hostile world at the cost of their own blood - at the cost of their lives - to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They were great men; they were incredible heroes and yet they were examples of weakness and failing and sin. It's right here you can read about it. They frequently misunderstood Christ, they didn't know what he was saying to them, they couldn't figure it out. They frequently displayed carnal attitudes and actions, like we do. They displayed selfishness, when they were indignant with James and John, who were asking to sit at Jesus' right, and his left at the Kingdom. They were indignant because they wish they'd thought of it first. They wanted to sit at the right and the left, not because of anything other than selfish reasons. They displayed unbelief when they couldn't drive out the demon from that boy when Jesus was up on the Mount of Transfiguration and Jesus said, “Oh, faithless and unbelieving generation.” He was talking about his own disciples, what a moment that was. They displayed cowardice when they all deserted him and fled the night He was arrested, “This night you will all fall away on account of me,” Jesus said. All of them, not just Peter, all of them fled. After the resurrection, they displayed unbelief when the women testified to the resurrection, the evidence that they'd seen with their own eyes and they wouldn't believe it.  They were foolish of heart and slow to believe all that the prophets had spoken.  They were like that. 

They were ordinary men, with ordinary sin patterns. In this one chapter, we have abundant evidence of both the godliness and sinfulness of the apostles. Godly, in that they'd left everything to follow Jesus; sinful in that they still can't seem to trust him to meet all their needs for the journey. They're godly in that they believe Jesus did those miraculous feedings by the great power of God, but sinful in thinking that doesn't apply to their present situation.  They were godly in that they were committed to following after Christ's character and becoming like him in every way, but sinful, in that they're bickering and arguing over who forgot to bring the bread. Godly, in that Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of the living God. Bu ungodly in the same chapter, when a moment later, he rebukes him concerning going to the cross. This chapter has ample evidence of the apostles. They’re a mixed bag. For myself, I think, this was written to give me comfort and consolation. How can both be true? How can we be as Martin Luther put it at the same time righteous and sinful? How can it be, even James wonders over that, out of the same mouth come praising and cursing? Out of the same heart come righteousness and sin, how can it be? How can it be? 

But indeed, it is true, and you know it, don't you? Out of the same life come praising and cursing, how can it be? The Bible's this way throughout, honest again and again about the failings of its great people. Like Abraham, who lied to save his skin at the expense of his wife's honor, not a good moment for Abraham. Isaac, you know the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, he did the same thing to save Rebecca, again, same pattern. Jacob is a conniver, a liar, a con artist, with all kinds of issues, played favorites in his family, not an ideal father in that regard at least. Judah sleeps with a prostitute and then tries to cover it over. Moses, you know, commits murder and then when he's called, at age 80, by flames of the burning bush, it's quite a sign, but not enough. “Send somebody else Lord.” He doesn't want to go. The Jews as a nation, consistently a mixed bag, consistently believing and not believing. You've got the two spies that believe, the ten spies that don't.

That's the way it is again with even the godly men and prophets. The great example is like Elijah standing before God and man on Mount Carmel, calling down fire from heaven and then, afraid of a woman [Jezebel] a few hours later, running for his life wanting to die. Laying under the broom tree, Elijah ’s ready to die. Both Job and Jeremiah accused God of injustice, both of them did. You can find it in the scripture. Both of them said that God was unjust, unfair to them. John the Baptist before he died, doubted whether Jesus was the Messiah. He was among those born of women, no one had risen greater than John the Baptist, and he's there doubting, right before his death, and Jesus does some miracles in front of John's messengers to persuade them, so that they can persuade, John. The scripture consistently testifies honestly to the failings of its great people. You know why, because Jesus said it this way, it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Ecclesiastes 7:20, says, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.” 

I believe it's Biblical to say that there's not a person in this room who's done being saved. All of us have to continue in faith, in godliness, in trusting in him. We have to continue in a lifestyle of repentance and trust and the Lord. By His Word and by His Spirit we are going to keep uncovering new issues. You're going to keep seeing new patterns of sin. You're going to be grieved over it, and what should you do? Follow the example of the apostles. Turn to God with tears coming down your face and ask for forgiveness. He will restore you and this act will continue the rest of your life.  I think it's a good thing when we come to passages like Matthew 16, and see the failings of great people and realize that we can fail too and still be in the family of God. Isn't it remarkable how Jesus can use his omnipotence, his great power to use people like us to build an eternal kingdom? He can use you. If you're a Christian, He can use you. It doesn't matter how many are your weaknesses and how great are your failings, He can use you. His grace is sufficient in the middle of your weakness, actually He's made glorious in weakness.  It's not perverse that I'm glad that they forgot to bring the bread. I guess really what it is, is I'm glad that they wrote about it, so that when I forget my cellphone or my wallet or my keys or I forget to call somebody back or forget to do something and I chide myself over my forgetfulness, this passage steps up and confirms that God's grace is sufficient to cover my weakness. And that's encouraging. For you perfect people, take the morning off, okay? But for the rest of us who need this kind of encouragement, I find it right here in this passage.

So, we begin with forgetfulness, and forgetfulness is covered by God's grace. Look at it in verse 5. When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread. At one level, it's a small failing, but at another level, a significant one. There weren't going to be supermarkets to quickly go to, this was a big deal. It's a steward’s job to see to it that God's people get their food at the appointed time. Someone blew it.  I can imagine how the discussion went, “I thought it was your turn.”  “No, it must have been yours, I got it last time.” This kind of thing, but one of them forgot. When people are counting on you to meet their needs and you don't follow through, that's a big deal.  I don't want to minimize it.  I believe that daily life forgetfulness is evidence of sin, evidence of the frailty of our nature when you promise to pray for someone and then forget to do it, and the next time you see their face brings to memory that you promised that you would pray for their situation, and you didn't. That's a sinful self-focus for myself because I'm prone to that kind of sin, I've learned to pray immediately when someone asks for prayer to stop and say, "Let's pray now".  But I think it's frailty when we are late in mailing a birthday card or forget to return a call or do various things. I think it's sin, it's self-focus. Our deal is more important than that deal. We’re not talking about physical reasons for forgetfulness.  My grandmother died of Alzheimer's. It was hard to watch her in those last few years as they forget their own name, they forget the faces of people they loved. That's very tough and its evidence of the sin that entered the world through Adam. Mental illness is therefore just one more physical effect of the disease of sin that entered the world at that beginning with Adam. But for those of us that don't have that physical thing I still think forgetfulness is just evidence of sin. 

The issue in this passage is what happens when you forget. Jesus is in the boat with them. The question I want to ask is, is it true that God helps those who help themselves? That's really what this passage is about, in terms of their forgetfulness.  “God helps those who help themselves.” It's an ancient proverb that Benjamin Franklin put in Poor Richard's Almanack in 1736. He didn't make it up, it’d been around a long time. The problem with the passage or with the proverb is it's not just that God helps those who help themselves, it's that God only helps those who help themselves. To say that God helps people who helping themselves leads to work salvation, doesn't it? Do you know that George Gallup did a poll and 75% of Americans thought that's actually in the Bible? It isn't. Actually, it flies in the face of salvation by grace. God is in the business of covering up our weakness. He's in the business of making up the difference. You know we say to each other as friends do, “I’ve got your back.” What does that mean, “I’ve got your back?” What it means is, “I’ve got you covered in your weakness, in your weak spot I'm watching out for you. You watch out for me too.” Well, God has our back, He's covering for our weakness and our failings. Fact of the matter is, we cannot completely care for ourselves, we certainly can't save ourselves, we can't even feed ourselves apart from His grace, we get our food from rainfall.  From sunshine, from a good harvest, from livestock multiplying over which we have no control. Then an elaborate food delivery system over which we have no control gets it to our favorite supermarket. That's what we depend on. Jesus, in this passage, is really rebuking our arrogance, and our self-focused and our confidence that we need to save ourselves, that we need to take care of our own needs. Jesus says in Matthew 5:36, “You cannot make even one hair white or black.” He says in Luke 12, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life since you cannot do this very little thing, then why do you worry about the rest? Why are you worried as though you're the king of the universe?” As though you need to take care of everything yourself? God has committed himself to caring for our needs entirely. Here's the confusing part. Sometimes he uses our labor and industry, and foresight and planning to do it, and sometimes He particularly doesn't use those things and takes care of us anyway. He humbled Israel and taught them to trust in Him by giving them manna every day for 40 years, which came down out of heaven, and in this way, He's humbled them, saying, what you need to do is to get a basket and go out and collect it. That's all. For 40 years. 

He humbled them and taught them this lesson. Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. It is by God's command that you live and move and have your being. Why did they need to be trained for 40 years?  He was bringing them into a fruitful land, a land soaked with the rains of heaven, a land where there were vineyards and crops planted that they didn't plant and houses that they didn't build. They were going to step immediately into prosperity, and when they stepped into that good land, immediately into prosperity, they would forget God, and forget how dependent they were on him. Is that not our failing also as a nation? We live in a good land, a land soaked with the rains of heaven, a land with good crops, a land where you can dig copper and gold and iron out of the hills. It's like the promised land in that regard, it's good land.  It's easy for us, in our prosperity, to forget that God gave it to us, and that we are dependent on Him every moment, every day.  God meets our daily needs, and they're met by God's grace every day. So, our forgetfulness is covered by God's grace. So next time you're at the airport and you start fumbling and you find that you didn't bring any form of identification, and you have an e-ticket, and now you have missed your fight. It's that simple. I'm just urging at that moment, trust in God, He has something big planned for you. Don't just imagine that those that didn't forget their passport and all that, are going to die in a fiery plane crash, and God was rescuing you. No, they just remembered to bring their identification, and they'll be fine. God has a different plan for you.  God can cover our weakness, learn to trust Him in those situations. Yes, plan ahead, please bring your passport and form of identification to the airport.  Got to have this, so I can get on the plane. Alright, I always check, but you know something, if for some reason I forget and then I must trust God. 

Secondly, we notice that arguing is covered by God's grace. Verse 6-8, “Be careful,” Jesus said to them, “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. They discussed this among themselves and said, “It’s because we didn't bring any bread.   That's why Jesus is talking about yeast.”  Aware of their discussion. Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread?”  One of the most natural things in the world when someone forgets to bring the bread is the blame game. Right? Have you ever done that? You get into that bickering situation, you know what happens, it's like... It's like river water that you just let sit for a while and it looks clear enough to drink, but then when you kinda jostle it a little bit stuff starts getting stirred up.  I think when there are these kinds of stressful situations, what's in the heart comes up and pride tends to come. This wasn’t merely discussion. There was an argument going on here, in Luke 9:46, the same word is used, it said, “An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest.” Now, that's an ugly moment right there. The sam is word used here. The disciples are bickering, and bickering is a great sin, so is blame shifting, pointing the finger, it's your fault, it was your turn. I brought it last time, all of that. None of that matters. We're commanded in Philippians 2:14, "Do everything without complaining or arguing." But you know what, arguing is covered by God's grace. Notice how gracefully Christ deals with it here. You can imagine them huddled in one side of the boat, not wanting to argue in front of Jesus, and Jesus in the other end of the boat, “What are you discussing among yourselves?”  He knows exactly what they're talking about. You know that all of our arguments are done right in front of Jesus, all of them. He knows exactly what we're arguing about, and yet, there He is covering it with His graciousness, covering it with mercy. He's pointing them to the things of the Kingdom. Thanks be to God that even these kinds of ugly disputes can be covered by His grace.

We notice also that hardness of heart is covered by Christ's grace. Aware of their discussion Jesus asks, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand?  Don't you remember the five loaves for the 5000 and how many basketfuls you gathered, or the seven loaves for the 4000 and how many basketfuls you gathered? How is it that you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread?” They'd already seen two great feeding miracles both centered around bread. They had already seen this feeding of the 5000 and the feeding of the 4000. Now Mark's Gospel gives us an insight here. Mark 8:14 tells us they actually did bring one loaf; Mark 8:14, “The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat." I think it's possible that Matthew didn't mention it because it was in the bottom of the boat where all that swill water is and maybe it wasn't edible. I don't really have any idea, but it clearly wasn't enough to feed the whole crowd. What were they thinking? Were they thinking, "Well Jesus, we know you need to have at least five loaves to do the miracle, and you only have one, so we're in trouble.”?  Jesus says, "You of little faith." He upbraids them. Friends, this is a very significant spiritual principle. There was an insight that came to me this week concerning this.  I believe with all my heart that faith comes from hearing the word, but apparently faith comes from more than just hearing the word, it also comes from living in God's world, and seeing his power. Because he says, "You of little faith, you should have known by living through these experiences, what I have done in the past." I actually think the two go together. I think the word of God interprets our experiences under God's sovereign grace, and they together give us faith. They should have known by living through the experience that Jesus can handle this, they should have known by living through it again, that Jesus can handle this. They shouldn't have been so doubtful; they should have trusted. Faith comes not only by hearing, but also by hearing and living in God's world, and seeing his mighty power by His Spirit. He says, “You of little faith.” There's a world of difference between being called, "You of little faith,” and “You have no faith." If you have no faith, then you have no forgiveness of sins, you're un-regenerate, you are lost, you're heading to hell if you have no faith. If you have little faith, what's happening is, the inside of faith that God has given you, you haven't learned yet to apply it to any and every situation.  You don't need more faith; you need the same faith applied over and over again. There is a God, He's a king, He loves me, He's powerful, He can handle it. It's the same thought, apply to every situation. Why did they have such little faith? Why did they still not understand?

Mark’s diagnosis is hardness of heart. Aware of their discussion in Mark 8:17-18, Jesus asked them, "Why are you talking about having no bread, do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, but fail to see? Do you have ears, but fail to hear? And don't you remember what I did?" Their hearts are hard.  What is a hardened heart? It's one that's resisting the work of God. We're not able to learn lessons, we've got stubbornness, we've got selfishness, pleasure-seeking, these things make it hard for us to learn Christ's lessons.  After Jesus fed the 5000 and then walked on water, Mark describes very clearly how hardness of heart was the reason they were afraid of Jesus. Remember they thought He was a ghost.  Mark 6:49 and following says, “When they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost, they cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified.” Immediately He spoke to them and said, "Take courage. It is I, don't be afraid." Then He climbed into the boat with them and the wind died down. They were completely amazed for they had not understood about the loaves, their hearts were hardened.

The reason we don't learn lessons that God sets up for us, how He orchestrates providentially circumstances, and we go through them and don't learn the lesson is our hearts are hard.  Hardness of heart hinders understanding. A hindered understanding means anxiety and problems.  Our eyes are like those of a blind person, our ears are deaf to God's still small voice. Our mind is like a sieve, like a bucket with 16 holes blown in it. We have to keep learning the same lesson, and just draining out, draining out, how inefficient. Isn't it amazing that God can build his kingdom with people like us? Isn't that incredible? But hardness of heart is covered by Christ's grace. Thanks be to God, He knows how to work with hardened hearts, He knows how to soften them. He knows how to work with them, He is gracious with people who have hard hearts. And above all, He is skillful at using his Word to transform our lives by the renewing of our minds, so that our hard hearts get softened by the Word of God. We start learning more and more, and we learn to trust Jesus, trust him for everything.

The real danger Jesus was getting at had nothing to do with bread. I hope you know that. He wasn't even talking about bread; He was using an analogy. He was talking about the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. It wasn't even about bread; it was just an analogy. Look at verse 6, “Be careful,” Jesus said to them, “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Frankly friends, all of that bread discussion was just a distraction. That's the whole point of this passage. We are distracted by things that don't matter. Do you realize that? You're going to get hungry about three times a day.  It is not the point of the Kingdom. God will meet that need. That's not what we're about here.  If it's feasting you want, you're going to have it in the kingdom forever and ever. We'll be in the presence of God, and as He sees fit in his beautiful way, we will feast with Him at His table, and what a magnificent thing is. But right now, we're about the kingdom, and Jesus is urging them to see through the distractions and know about the piece, the loaf of bread in the bottom of the boat. “I know about it; I know where we're at with that. Focus with me. Focus, concentrate, beware, be on your guard of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you as well. Don't worry about your life, what you'll eat, or drink, about your body, what you'll wear, is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes? So, do not worry saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the pagans run after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. Focus with me now, concentrate, beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Now what that yeast? It's false teaching. The context of this is an encounter Jesus had in verses 1-5 of this chapter, when the Pharisees and Sadducees came and wanted to see a sign from heaven.  He's thinking about them and said, "Watch out for those guys, watch out for their teaching." The yeast is the teaching and it's called yeast because it spreads, like gangrene, like the plague it spreads, it doesn't stay put. False teaching is deadly dangerous for the life of the church. So, “You Apostles,” He's saying, “You are going to be guardians of the mind and the doctrine of the church. Watch out for these two great perversions of world view. These are the two greatest there are: the yeast of the Pharisees, self-righteousness, religion through self-effort, thinking you don't need a savior, thinking that just by obeying a bunch of religious rules and regulations, you can make yourself perfect in God's sight.”   

Secondly, the yeast of the Sadducees: denial of revelation, denial of the resurrection of the body, thinking that this life is all you get, so you might as well have a good time and enjoy it and forget about all that religious stuff, but concentrate on here and now, and enjoy your life. These are the two great perversions of world view. Beware of them.  These teachings are going to crop up again and again; thinking that you can save yourself through your own efforts, or thinking that this world is all I've got, so live for my pleasures right here and right now. Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees, that's what he's getting at. 

Now, false teachers who do not repent are in deep trouble. 2 Peter Chapter 2 says blackest darkness is reserved for them; the most severe penalty there is for false teachers who don't repent. False teaching is the most deadly attack there is on the life and the mind of the church. But even false teaching is covered by Christ's grace, because Christ's sheep don't believe it, they don't follow it. They are aware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees; they know that they can't be saved by their own works. They know that this world is not all there is, that the pleasures of this world are vanishing. They don't mean anything, they know that. “My sheep hear my voice; they will not follow the voice of another.” You are God's people; you have an anointing an unction inside you and you know the truth. 1 John 2, “I do not write to you because you don't know the truth, but because you do know it.” “You're established in the truth. False Christs and false prophets [Matthew 24] will come and perform great signs and wonders to deceive even the elective, if that were possible, but it's no, because Christ's grace covers false teaching, and He will not let us be deluded. Instead, He gives us warning, He gives us patient careful teaching. We are ready when the false teachers come, and we say that is wrong. It's unbiblical. We're ready.  He's called them to the truth as leaders of the church, the very thing that Paul called the elders in the Church of Ephesus in Acts 20,” Be on your guard. Remember that for three years, I never stopped warning each of you, night and day with tears. Beware of false teaching. Beware, they come in like wolves with sheep's clothing on, watch out for them, watch out for these two forms of perversion of worldview, watch out for it, be on your guard.”

What application can we take from this passage? First of all, stop worrying about everyday life issues. Think about this last week, did you worry about anything this week? Do you worry about anything to do with your body, anything to do with your income, anything to do with relationships, anything to do with your future? Did you worry this week? Stop worrying about it. These earthly things are not the reason you live. Life is more than that. God's providence will take care of you.  I have to balance it because some of you are going to say, "I don't even need to look both ways before I cross the street. No, I told you to check to see if you have a passport and your self-identification, before you go to the airport. Proverbs 19:3 says, “A man's own folly ruins his life, but his heart rages against the Lord.” It's your fault God, I forgot my passport. No, it isn't God's fault. What I am saying is, do whatever you find your hand to do, pray, think about your trip, think about your day at work, plan as best you can, but understand this, God sometimes providentially will create blind spots so that you learn to depend on him more and more. You don't have to watch out for everything in your life because you can't, it's too big a job. It's just too big a job. Trust him, stop being anxious about your life. Focus on the kingdom. 

Secondly, focus first and foremost on the kingdom of Christ, it is what is happening in this world. May I speak a word to those of you that are here who have never trusted in Christ?  I'm urging you, don't be worried about your life, about your food, about your clothing, be worried about your soul. You may have come here today, and you don't know Jesus as Lord and Savior, you're not ready to die, you should be anxious about that. You should flee to Christ because His blood shed on the cross is sufficient for you. Trust in him, seek first his kingdom, his forgiveness, repent of sins, turn to him, turn away from evil, turn to God, and follow Him that you might know the forgiveness that only He can give. If you don't know how to do that, if you don't know what to say, if you don't know what to do, then talk to me after the service. It doesn't matter if eight people are waiting. Wait, it's worth it. Come and talk to us if you need to.  Don't leave this place not sure whether you're going to heaven or hell.

 But I say that those of you who have already made a commitment to Christ, seek first his kingdom as well. Seek it every day. You mean to do ministry, but Monday was crazy, Tuesday was worst. Wednesday, the car broke down. Thursday, your boss got all over you, Friday, the kids got sick, and 10 years pass by. Forget these things. Yes, you have responsibilities, but seek first His Kingdom, He's lying on your heart to do a ministry so do it. He's lying on your heart to expand your prayer time, to include unreached people groups, then pray for them. He's lying on your heart to memorize a chapter of the Bible. You thought of that four years ago, do it now. He's laying it on your heart to witness to your boss, or co-worker. You've been thinking about it for a year, do it this week, do it tomorrow. Seek first His kingdom, don't wait, don't put it off, pursue him. 

Thirdly, beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Don't think for a moment that you're not susceptible to those two perversions: saving yourself, self-righteousness, I don't need Jesus, I'm doing well by following rules and regulations, or this world really in the end is all we have, and we need to just get as much gusto and as much pleasure and as much fun as we can in this world. Those two things are going to be screaming at you the rest of your lives. Beware of them, watch out for them. Seek first His kingdom and let God meet your pleasure needs, and comfort needs, and love needs. Do his work and realize you need Jesus every moment for the forgiveness of sins, you can never save yourself. 

Fourthly, grow an active trust in the Lord. Just feed on His word, strengthen your faith. Faith comes by hearing, apparently from this passage faith also comes from living in God's world and seeing the hand of Christ at work.  I give pre-eminence to the Word of God to interpret our life experiences. But the two just go together, don't they? We see God be faithful, as George Muller saw God be faithful to feed 10,000 orphans over decades. His faith was strong thereby, he had learned how to trust God through all of those things. Grow in active trust in the Lord and daily life circumstances.

There are many astonishing things about the brief three-year ministry of Jesus Christ. It's really incredible to me how much He got done in three years, isn't it? Not traveling very far, yet in three years, He changed the history of the world, and you can focus it all on what we celebrated last week — the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. In one day, in one very brief period of time, his blood was shed, atoning for the sins of His people, from every tribe and language and people and nation, and every generation, centuries and centuries of sinners, in one afternoon atoned for. That's incredible, and then on the third day, by the power of Almighty God raised to life, living eternally. It's incredible.

Then look at the miracles of Jesus, the things that He did, the fact that He was able to speak to churning waves and to the howling wind, and it instantly obeyed Him, and became quiet and peaceful, just like that. The fact that He's able to walk on the water. The fact that He's able to raise a dead man to life who had been dead and buried four days, raised to life, simply by a command "Lazarus come forth." That He can do all of these things. These are all incredible about the life and the ministry of Jesus. But some time ago, I came across a different kind of marvel, and it is amazing to me that the Word became flesh and came to his own, but his own did not receive him. Now, that's incredible. That He could do all of these signs and wonders and miracles, and still, they would not believe. That's incredible. 

This was highlighted for me as I read the account of the man born blind in John chapter 9. Jesus heals him by spitting on the ground and making a paste, some mud and smearing it on his eyes, and he gets up, and he's led to the Pool of Siloam, to the pool, and he washes the mud often and he can see. Then the religious authorities arrest him and bring him in for what, I don't know, for now, being able to see... They bring him in, and they're questioning him, very closely about the man who opened his eyes, about Jesus, and they get to the point in the interrogation where they're really getting to the focus of who is Jesus. They said, "We don't know where this... We know where Moses came from. We don't know where this man came from," referring to Jesus, and the man answered to them and said, “You do not know where he's from, and yet he opened my eyes." An original language translation would be this, “Here is the amazing thing. He opened my eyes and you don't know where he came from, now that's amazing.” I say to you that unbelief is amazing in the face of all that Christ has done to show us that He is the Son of God. It's astonishing to me that still they do not believe.  I want to get very personal with you. What would it take for you to believe? What kind of miracle would it take for you to believe? Many of you are believers already. You can tell me what led you to faith in Christ, but this is a question for the unbeliever today. What would it take for you to believe? What test would you give Jesus? 

In today's text, we have the ugly unbelief of the Jewish leaders put on display, and we have also Jesus' incredible and dignified way of dealing with it. Unbelief was constantly putting Jesus on trial, and so we have it again. The Pharisees and Sadducees come together for a strange purpose. They are uncommon bedfellows if you could put it that way. Ordinarily, they despised each other. Ordinarily, they would have had nothing to do with each other. They fought against each other. We get this incredible encounter in the Book of Acts when the apostle Paul was arrested and he's brought in in front of the Sanhedrin. They're giving him a very difficult time and he might even be executed, but then Paul knowing his own people very well, shrewdly says, “I stand here today on account of the resurrection from the dead”, and immediately the Pharisees and Sadducees start tearing at each other like a bunch of wild cats. He just stands back and watches and then is led off and they never resolved his case. The Pharisees and Sadducees couldn't stand each other. Pharisees were usually working-class people, made a living like Paul did, sewing tents. They would work with their hands, they were conservative, and fundamental theologically, they believed in the supernatural, they believed in the resurrection from the dead, they believed in angels and demons, but as we have seen, they held that the Rabbinic tradition was of equal authority to the scripture. They were strongly separatistic. They zealously desired to purify Judaism from all Gentile influences and above all things, they held to their own righteousness by obeying the law of Moses. That was the Pharisees. Now, the Sadducees were different. They were generally aristocratic. They were made very wealthy by their corrupt involvement in the animal sacrificial system. They made tons of money over it, it was corrupt, and they made lots of money through the money changing and through the inspection of sacrifices. They were powerful. They cared nothing for the Rabbinic traditions or for the scriptures. They had no problem making religious, moral, and ethical, and political compromises; whatever it took to further their own interests. They were pragmatists. They were powerful dealmakers. They easily collaborated with whatever Gentile power was in charge. The core of all of this is that they denied the resurrection. If you deny the resurrection, then this life is all you have and if this life is all you have, then you need to grab for all the pleasure you can get and all the power and all the satisfaction because this is all you get. That was their fundamental error, but here they were, together, the Pharisees and Sadducees. What united them? I think it was a common hatred for the light, a common hatred for Christ. In John 3:20, it says, “Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”

 World War II had all kinds of strange alliances. For example, the Finns allied themselves with the Nazis because they hated Soviet Russia. The US and Great Britain aligned themselves with Soviet Russia because they hated the Nazis. Even in China, the nationalist movement under Chiang Kai-shek temporarily united with the communist under Mao Zedong, because they hated the Japanese and wanted to drive them out of their country. When you have a common enemy, strange folks get together and make alliances that ordinarily would have nothing to do with each other. We have it here with the Pharisees and Sadducees. The gospels record their common goal, and that was to murder the son of God.  Matthew 12:14, "The Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.” Who was it that actually affected it? It was the Sanhedrin dominated by the Sadducees, the chief priest, and his family. They are all Sadducees, and so a shared enemy makes these strange alliances. They come to Jesus in verse 1 with an unbelieving demand. They want a sign from heaven. Look at verse 1, “The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested Him, by asking Him to show them a sign from heaven." 

Now, what is a sign from heaven? They believed that the devil could do signs from Earth, but only God could do a sign from heaven. It's kind of strange because Satan is called elsewhere, the Prince of the Power of the Air. If you study the book of Revelation, the anti-Christ is going to be able to call down fire from heaven. They were wrong in thinking that if Jesus was going to do something like a sign from heaven, it definitely wasn't Satan that could do it, but they were looking for a sign from heaven. Like what? Let Christ call down a pillar of fire like Moses or a pillar of cloud during the day, let him do something like that. Or let him descend, let Jesus descend in a fire on top of a mountain, like at Mount Sinai. Or let Christ call manna down from heaven, feed them with bread from heaven. They want to see a sign from heaven.  Or maybe he can control the sun, the moon, and the stars like what happened in Joshua's Day and make the planet stop revolving, do something really big. Or maybe he could at least do what Elijah did on Mount Carmel, call down fire from heaven and some sacrifice. Elijah at least could do that. “Show us a sign from heaven.” 

What was their purpose? Was it because they're teetering on the edge of faith and if they could just have one more miracle, they'd come over to believe. Is that what it is? Not at all. Look what it says in verse 1, “The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested Him, by asking Him to show them a sign from heaven.”  They're testing Jesus, they really want to disqualify Jesus, not to believe in him. Later when they tested him again by asking him about paying taxes to Caesar,  Jesus called a spade a spade. He was very plain at that moment. Matthew 22:18, “But Jesus knowing their evil intent said, ‘You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?’” Then He dealt with the issue of taxation. He knows exactly what's going on in their hearts. They're not trying to believe. This is not an honest inquiry by some people genuinely seeking to know the truth and they just need a little more help.  “Just one more miracle, that's all it takes. Then I'll believe in Jesus.” It wasn't that at all. Now, doubting Thomas was like that. He wasn't there when Jesus appeared on the first day of the week. So when the other apostles told him about the resurrection, he said, "Unless I see the nail marks, nail prints in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, put my hand on the side, I will not believe.” A week later, Jesus meets his test.  That's because Thomas was an apostle, he was to be an eye witness of the resurrection, and therefore, the Lord Jesus granted him a special privilege to meet his test. Don't think he actually put his finger in Jesus' nail marks, I think, he was too busy on the floor, worshipping the resurrected Lord saying, "My Lord and my God." It was enough for him, it was an honest, genuine, test if he could see it, he would believe, and the Lord met it.

Others required even less, like Nathaniel for example. In John chapter 1,  Jesus said, “Now here is a true Israelite in whom there's no guile.”  “How do you know me?” Nathaniel asked. "I saw you while you were under the fig tree before they called you." He said, "Rabbi you are the son of God, you are the King of Israel." Jesus marveled at his belief at this moment. He said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under a fig tree, you shall see greater things than these. I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. I'll give you an even greater sign,” but that's all Nathaniel needed.

For these Pharisees and Sadducees, this is not an honest test. They're not trying to believe in Jesus, they're trying to disqualify him, to embarrass him if you can't produce a sign from heaven. Look what Christ does. First of all, He analyzes their hearts, He gives them an analysis [verse 2-3]. “He replied, ‘When evening comes,' you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,' and in the morning,  'Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’”  There's that old nautical saying, “Red sky in morning sailor take warning, red sky at night, sailor delight.” It has some kind of a foundation here in scripture. I looked it up on the Internet to find if it had any meteorological foundation. Apparently, it does. It says, “Picture yourself on a ship in the middle of a mid-latitude ocean. There’s the wind and the storm path is from west to east, it is morning and you're watching the sunrise, it is red. Since it is morning, you are looking east,  the red sky indicates that there is high pressure there. Because you're in the mid-latitudes, the high is moving eastward away from you, that could only mean that a low-pressure region is coming towards you and with it probably an associated storm, so, sailor take warning. Now, picture yourself watching the sunset from the ship and the western sky is red, that means the exact thing is reversed. An area of high pressures to your west, the westerlies are moving in toward you, and good weather is on the way, sailor's delight. That's how it works. There are many other weather predictions based on signs. 

Jesus is basically saying here that we have a common-sense observation, accumulation of information that enables us, somewhat, to predict the future. We can read the signs of the weather, we can read what happens just from everyday life, just from living here, we can accumulate things by our five senses, so they should have been able to read the signs of the times. What is He talking about “the signs of the times”? It has to do with Jesus' ministry.  It has to do with a river of signs and wonders that He's already done, an absolute river. [Matthew 4] “Jesus went throughout Galilee teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed those having seizures, the paralyzed and He healed them.” Matthew 9:35, “Jesus went through all the towns and villages teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.”  Matthew 12:15, “Jesus withdrew from that place, many followed Him and He healed all their sick.” Matthew 14:35-36, “…and when the men of that place recognized Jesus, they sent word to all the surrounding country, people brought all their sick to him and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed.” Do you not see the comprehensive healing ministry of Jesus? This was not one or two miracles. This is a river of signs and wonders. 

Now you might say,  maybe He didn't do any in front of his enemies. First of all, huge crowds were coming. He wasn't distinguishing between friend and foe. He was healing everybody, whether they believed or not. You don't just have to have faith in order to be healed by Jesus, but there's a clear account in Matthew 12 of how Jesus is in a synagogue and it happened to be on the Sabbath. Jesus was forever healing on the Sabbath, and I think He did it on purpose. There was a man there with a shriveled hand, and the Pharisees were watching him closely to see if Jesus would heal him on the Sabbath. He challenged them. He says, “One of you has a sheep and it falls into the pit on the Sabbath, will you not make an effort to lift them out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep?” Then He commands the man, "Stretch out your hand," and he stretched it out, and it was completely restored. Then they went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. They saw it with their own eyes.  They had no excuse. 

Now, what was the purpose of these signs and wonders? The purpose is so that we could believe in Him. Jesus did many other miraculous signs which are not recorded in this book, says John in   John 20, but “… these signs are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing, you may have life in His name.” That's why. John Chapter 5, "I have testimony weightier than that of John," said Jesus. "For the very work that the Father has given me to finish and which I am doing testifies that the Father has sent Me."  The miracles testified that the Father sent Jesus. To his own disciples, He says, in John 14-11, "Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves." The miracles were a solid foundation for genuine faith in Christ. They were proof that God was with Jesus of Nazareth in a way He'd been with no one else. More than that, they were evidence of Jesus' power to forgive sins and of his status as the only begotten Son of God. That's what the miracles were. 

They were effective for the elect. They were effective for those who would believe. In John 2:11, after He changes the water into wine, it says this, “The first of His miraculous signs Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee, He thus in this manner, He in this way, revealed His glory, and His disciples put their faith in him.”  You see the connection between changing the water into wine and their faith. Then there's Nicodemus, who comes in the next chapter 3. He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know that your teacher has come from God for no one could perform the miraculous signs you're doing if God were not with him." That’s the basis of Nicodemus' faith. In John 7:31, “Still many in the crowd put their faith in Him. They said, ‘When the Christ comes, will he do more miraculous signs than this man?’” So many believed in Jesus because of these miracles. 

Then there's that man, who is born blind; he has got to be one of my favorite figures in the entire New Testament. I mean he gives as well as he gets there in Chapter 9. You got to admit he's a courageous man, this is what you had to do to survive as a blind man. He's no shrinking violet, he knows how to handle himself, he's strong and courageous. He said, "You know, whether this man's a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know, I was blind, and now, I see. If you ask me my opinion. I think he's a prophet from God." In the end, they throw him out of the synagogue. He was the one who said “From the beginning of history, no one has ever heard of him, a man born blind, having his eyes opened. If this man Jesus were not from God, he could do nothing.” He's drawing his own conclusions, he is ready, he just doesn't know who Jesus is. He was blind, he never saw him. Jesus comes and he asked him a question. "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He knows his voice, he knows right away who he's talking to and says, "Tell me sir, so that I may believe in Him." He says, "I am the one who is speaking to you, in fact, you have now seen him." And he said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshipped Him just like that. The miracle was the foundation of that man's saving faith, that's why the miracles were given. 

However, the main point of this passage is the miracles are ineffective for those who do not receive saving grace from God. They're ineffective for those who harden their own hearts and who are spiritually blind. It doesn't matter how many miracles you see, unless God moves in your heart, you will never believe, never. So you may say, "Well, I set up a test. If God will do this if God will do that." Even if you were to do that, you still wouldn't believe, if you don't believe the testimony of Scripture.  It didn't matter how many signs and wonders Chorazin and Bethsaida saw in Matthew 11, they still didn't believe. Jesus said in Matthew 11, "Woe to you Chorazin! Woe to you Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the Day of Judgment than for Tyre and Sidon than for you, and you Capernaum, you saw all of my miracles, will you be lifted up to the sky? No, you'll go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day, but I tell you, it will be more bearable on the Day of Judgment for Sodom than for you."  River of miracles, still, they do not believe.

The clearest summary statement of this is in John chapter 12. After all of the public ministry in which John relates seven miraculous signs, seven extended teachings, he sums it up, concerning the unbelief of the Jews toward Jesus. Even after Jesus had done all of these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in Him. "This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet, “Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For this reason, they could not believe." Because as Isaiah says elsewhere, "He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts so that they could neither see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts, nor turn, and I would heal them." If somebody's heart is hardened by sin, willfully rejecting, turning away, and that's all of us, friends, before God's grace comes, that's all of us, not a special category of sinners, that's all of us. If God's grace doesn't come, we will never believe, it doesn't matter how many miracles God shows us. 

In the 18th century, there was a witty, clever Frenchman named Francois-Marie Arouet. He was able to defeat anyone in a debate, slicing people to ribbons with his wit, with his clever tongue, never once, never a single time, did he lose a battle of words. He was brilliant, he was incisive, cynical, sarcastic, he could lay people in shreds. It actually got him into trouble, he insulted one person too many and he got thrown in jail as a result. He was a thorough skeptic of all things religious and spiritual. He did whatever he could to mock the Christian faith and deride all aspects of the supernatural. He's better known by his pen name, Voltaire. This is what Voltaire said concerning miracles,  "Even if a miracle should be wrought in the open marketplace before a 1000 sober witnesses, I would rather mistrust my own senses than admit a miracle." That about says it doesn't it? Thank you, Voltaire, for making it that plain. "I could be standing, watching the dead body of Jesus, I could watch him rise from the dead, and I still would not believe." He's right, it's not enough to see the miracle. You have to have another miracle, a miracle of regeneration inside your heart, or you will never see what God is doing. It's not seeing is believing, friends, it's believing is seeing, and belief is a gift of God. 

Unbelievers exert this daily faith in saying, "When evening comes, it's going to be fair weather, for the sky is red and... " You know, he says, "You know how to do this. You interpret this all the time, you know how to predict the weather." I remember when I was living in Massachusetts, there was a very strong warning, a prediction of a coming hurricane.  People heard the reports and I don't know anyone that doubted them. I remember long lines at the supermarket,  flashlights, and batteries being bought,  canned goods. I remember people buying all kinds of stuff. I remember especially, duct tape in big X's on plate glass windows.  They knew how to interpret the reports of the meteorologists and all of the weather sources in the news, and they believed them. But when God says, "There's a coming storm known as Judgment Day and there's only one refuge, and it's Jesus,” they don't believe. Even if Jesus does a river of miracles, they still do not believe. They make preparations for a hurricane, but they do not make preparations for the storm that will destroy their soul for eternity; for that, they make no preparation, and how terrifying is that? 

Instead, it doesn't matter how much you show the unbelievers, they just daily harden their hearts. Instead of seeing God's awesome works around them, unbelievers daily harden their hearts. In Romans 25, it says, "But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed." Satan blinds the hearts of unbelievers, so they can't see the glory of God in the face of Christ. They can't see because Satan blinds their eyes. How many more miracles would Jesus have to do? Answer: Not one. How many more prophecies would he have to fulfill? It wouldn't matter. What more could he have done to prove himself to them, even still, they would not believe.

So Christ moves out in judgment, verse 4, "A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign but none will be given it, except the sign of Jonah, Jesus then left them and went away." First, He assesses them; they are, He says, "A wicked and adulterous generation." He marvels over their hardness of heart. Here they are for a second time in Matthew's Gospel, asking for another sign. Matthew 12, "He's shown them many good works from the Father, and yet they want to stone him.” Their hearts are perverse and apart from sovereign grace, they will never repent and never believe." "They are wicked,” He says. That speaks of internal defilement. They are adulterous, which means they should have been God's bride, instead they're running after, whoring after other gods or their other idols. They're acting in an adulterous way toward God and so He gives them a decree, no new signs. "None will be given it." He says. He will not be a traveling miracle show.  

You remember during his trial, King Herrod had him over, and he was hoping that Jesus would do some kind of miracle in front of him. Why? So he could repent and believe like the King of Nineveh, take off his royal robes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and mourn for his sin and wicked? No. Because they didn't have cable TV back then and He would have been a good form of entertainment. He just wanted entertainment, something to lighten the burden of living in this sin-cursed world, just entertainment, that's all, not ready to believe. So Jesus decrees that there'll be no new sign from heaven given, except one, which I'll talk about in a moment.

But then in his action, He ends the discussion. In Verse 4, "Jesus then left them and went away." When the judge's gavel goes down, the case is dismissed, it's done. He ends the discussion, it's finished, and He walks away. He has the authority to end the discussion, so He will do on Judgment Day, as well. It's not going to be an endless banter of our relative merits and his law, and all that, it's not going to go like that. He will make the final decision. To those who have not repented and believed in this life, He will say, "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." And that's it, there's no recourse, He is the final judge. It is finished at that moment, and so He leaves and goes away. Now, that final sign, He will give it, it's the sign of the Prophet Jonah.  The sign of Jonah we first saw back in Matthew 12: 39-41. He says, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it, except the sign of the Prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the son of man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." The empty tomb, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the resurrection was his final sign to a wicked and adulterous generation. This is an incredible display of the person and power of Jesus, power over death, over our final enemy. "No man takes My life from Me, but I lay it down of myself. I have the authority to lay it down and I have the authority to take it back up again, and you will see the evidence, the empty tomb.” No one else in history has had this power. It should have been enough, don't you think? Enough to prove his claim that He was God.

There's a second sign connected with it and that was preaching. Because Jonah came out of the belly of the large fish, and he went and preached, 40 more days and Nineveh will be overturned. So it wasn't just the resurrection, it was also the preaching. The Jews would have both the empty tomb, and the preaching of the Apostles. On the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up with the eleven, raised his voice, addressed the crowd, and preached the great Pentecost message, and the culmination is the evidence of the resurrection. In Acts 2:32, "God has raised this Jesus to life and we are all witnesses of the fact." In Acts Chapter 3, after healing the lame beggar, he preaches it again. Peter preaches in Acts 3, "The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed. You disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the holy and righteous one and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead and we are all witnesses of this fact."

Arrested for healing a lame man, the religious leaders bring him into the Sanhedrin, in Acts Chapter 4, and guess what? They preach the resurrection again. Peter says, "If we've been called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel, it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed." Over and over, they refer to the resurrection again in Chapter 5, "You killed Him, but God raised him from the dead." Again and again, they didn't just get the empty tomb, they also got the preaching by eyewitnesses that Jesus had risen from the dead. Was it enough? No, it was not enough. Jesus had predicted it wouldn't be enough in a story about the rich man and Lazarus.  A rich man got sent into hell and he's in torment there, and he wants to go warn his brothers, he wants to warn them lest they end up in the same place because they're going the same way he was. Do you remember what Abraham said? "They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them." "No, father Abraham,” He says, "That's not enough, the Scripture isn't enough." Now, that's a voice from hell. "It's not enough just to have the Bible, we need more. No, father Abraham, but if they see someone rise from the dead, then they will believe." Abraham said the truth when he said, "Even if they see someone rise from the dead, even still, they will not believe." So, what happened? In order to prevent the resurrection, the Jewish leaders hired some Roman soldiers and put them on guard duty in front of a tomb of a dead man. Can you imagine the little conversations going on among the Romans? "Why are we here?" "I don't know, Pilate sent us here. I guess this is just for one night." You know they're just talking among themselves, guarding a dead man's tomb. It was very routine until suddenly something happened on the morning of the third day. An angel came down and his clothing was brilliant, radiant, shining, and he by himself, moves the stone and sits on it, end of discussion. The Romans are shaking like dead men. I think they ran away once they came to.  The soldiers went to the Jewish leaders and told them what had happened, they told them of the empty tomb, they told them of the angel. Do you know what happened? They paid them off to lie and say his disciples came and stole him away while we were asleep. They paid money, even still, they did not believe. Do you think they went and saw the empty tomb, do you think they went and saw it? Oh absolutely, they went and saw it to say, "What are we going to do with this?" Pay money, even still, they would not believe.  

But there's a future sign coming, the final one, it's not a sign for salvation, it's a sign that Jesus is coming back. They wanted a sign from heaven, remember that? "Show us a sign from Heaven?" “Alright, you'll see a sign from heaven. It will be too late, too late, but you will see it.” Matthew 24, "At that time, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the clouds in the sky, and all the nations of the Earth will mourn. He will send out his angels and they will gather his elect from one end of the heavens to the other." The sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. Jesus spoke of this at his trial, before the Sanhedrin, before the high priest. The high priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God?" "I am." He said, "And in the future, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven, you will see that sign." It's a clear prediction of the second coming of Christ, but it's not a sign that produces salvation, it's a sign of impending judgment. Revelation 1:7, "Behold He is coming with the clouds and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all the nations of the earth will mourn because of Him, so shall it be, Amen." They'll see the sign of the Son of Man in the heavens, they'll see a heavenly sign, but it will be too late for them, you know why?  Jesus said to Thomas, "Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.” The only way you're going to have your sins forgiven, the only way is by believing something you cannot see. By believing it from the scripture, by believing that Jesus has risen from the dead, the evidence of His miracles here on the page, the evidence of his healings, the evidence of His fulfilled prophecies, the evidence of his teachings, the evidence of His person, the evidence of His resurrection are on the pages of scripture and nowhere else. Here is where you will find your salvation by repenting and believing the clear testimony of scripture and no other place. 

What will it take to get you to believe? If you don't believe by the clear preaching of the word, like this morning, for example, you will not believe. For God has ordained something called “today” and He set it up, calling it “today”, saying, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart." It says about today in 2 Corinthians 6:2, "In the time of my favor, I heard you, and in the day of salvation, I helped you, I tell you now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation." You may have come here today, never having trusted in Christ, not knowing how you're going to face Judgment Day, and now you've heard this kind of a sermon, now you're concerned, perhaps. You don't know how you're going to face Jesus as judge, you've never dealt with Jesus as Savior. Simply believe that Jesus's death on the cross, His blood shed on the cross is for you. The signs were to give evidence that He had the power to forgive sins. Hear what I'm saying, believe in your heart.

If you have any questions, if there's anything hindering you, if there's any lack of information, if it's an honest inquiry, come and talk to me after the service. You don't know who to talk to, talk to me. I'll talk to as many people as you want or any of the others that you've seen, any of those that have come and collected money, they'll talk to you. Any person here that's a believer will tell you how to have faith in Christ, or come talk to me. You don't need to walk anywhere or do anything to be saved, but you have to hear and believe, and if so, your sins will be forgiven. But if you have an honest question, you don't know what to do, come and ask, and the answer is given. If you say, "I'll believe if he does a miracle." No, you won't. The Scriptures already testified about that, He has given you all you need right here.

Now, I speak to those of you who have already made a commitment of faith, what does this text say to you? Thank God you believed. Thank God you believe, it's because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, give Him the glory, give Him the praise. Your faith isn't something you scraped up together and then you saw seven or eight things from scripture and then boom, you came over. It's a gift from God. This chapter, Matthew 16, will testify to that later, "Blessed to you, Simon, son of Jonah, this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. Give thanks and praise to God." And one more thing, don't give up on those hard cases that you think will never believe, don't give up on them.

 I'm talking about the relative, the mother, the father, the brother, the sister, the son, the daughter that just will not believe. God is able to take out the heart of stone and give the heart of flesh, it is His gift to give, so pray without ceasing, for the salvation of those loved ones. I'm talking about a co-worker, a neighbor, somebody who just doesn't seem to get it, that God will take away the blindness, and give them eternal sight.

Ordinarily on Easter Sunday, I like to somewhat put the people who are listening to me on a time machine and go back to that first resurrection day. I like to go to narratives that describe what it was like on that day, what it would have been like to go with the women as they went to dress the dead body of Jesus, worried about who's gonna move the stone, and to see the look on their faces when the stone's already removed and the angel gave the message: “He is risen. Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He's not here.” And just to be there and experience it, that would have been something.

Or to be with Peter and John as they heard the news and they ran toward the empty tomb, and they saw the physical evidence of the resurrection, the grave clothes laying there, perhaps in a cocoon, in the shape of the body of Jesus, the head covering folded up neatly off to the side, the stone, the massive stone removed from the entrance by a supernatural force, the whole scene just proclaiming he is risen from the dead. Oh just to be there and see the physical artifacts, that would have been something.

Or to be with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, wouldn't that have been something? Best of all, those personal encounters with the risen Lord. To be able to have a conversation with Jesus, they didn't even know it was him. And their hearts are burning as they hear the word of God from Jesus's own lips. And it's only when they sit down at table with Jesus and he breaks the bread, that their eyes are opened, and they realize that it's Christ, and instantly he's taken away from them. Just to sit with those two disciples, let's make it three disciples or five, and just be able to see the risen Lord, I would love to be able to do that 

And so that's how I like to preach usually on Easter Sunday, because I believe with all my heart, it really happened in space and time. There was a time, there was a body, there was an empty tomb, there were eyewitnesses. It all happened. He has risen. It actually occurred. And it's so important for us to realize that that is the truth, and that our faith is established on the unshakable fact of the empty tomb of the resurrection of Christ.

So I like to do that on Easter Sunday. But this morning, I feel led to take you on a different journey, perhaps one of the most incredible journeys that any prophet has ever taken. The Apostle John in exile on the Island of Patmos, having a vision on the Lord's day of the resurrected Christ in his glory, in a way they didn't see him while he ministered on earth, and to hear his voice like the sound of rushing waters, great power.

And then in Revelation 4, he sees a door standing open in heaven, and a command that it's absolutely impossible for us unaided by supernatural power to obey, but John got the command, “Come up here and I will show you what must take place after this,” and at once, John says, “I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.” That's the center of my life. That's the center of my theology, a heavenly throne and someone sitting on it. That is the Ancient of Days. That is the Almighty Heavenly Father. He's sitting on the throne. He is the God of creation in Revelation 4, and there are 24 elders surrounding that throne, and they are continually giving praise and glory and honor to the God who created all things. Revelation 4, the picture of God the Creator, the king sitting on the throne.

I wanna take you, not back in time therefore, but somewhat outside of time, and also mystically and prophetically ahead in time to the future. Outside of time and ahead of time, to see not what Jesus looked like the morning he was raised, but what he will look like when we see him in heaven, when he will be glorified before our very eyes, and we get to worship him for eternity. Because even then there was still work to be done, even that first resurrection morning, there's still a journey to be traveled. There's Mary holding on to his feet, and Jesus has to say, “Let go of me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. There's still some work to be done here.” But how about when there's no more work to be done? How about when Jesus is in his glory, when he's on the throne, and we get to be with him, with a countless multitude from every tribe and language and people and nation around the throne, giving glory and praise to Christ? How about then? Oh, how my heart yearns for that day. And I look forward to it. And this resurrection morning, the first one, that was just the most important step in a long journey that will be fulfilled for all of us by the power of the Spirit.

So let's go outside of time, let's go ahead of time, and let's see in Revelation Chapter 5, a picture of the resurrected and glorified Christ in prophetic perspective, a picture of Jesus on his throne. Four things focused our attention in this chapter. There is a scroll in the hand of Almighty God. Secondly, there is a proclamation by the angel about the scroll. Thirdly, there is a lamb receiving the scroll, and fourthly, there is honor and glory given by all creation to the lamb who receives the scroll. That's the four-part outline of this chapter, Revelation chapter 5.

Let's begin with the scroll. It says in verse one, “Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals.” That is the scroll described. The Greek word is “biblos,” could be just a book, but it's probably a scroll, rolled up.

And it's in the right hand of someone who's sitting on a throne. The one sitting on the throne is none other than God Almighty, the God who created heaven and earth. And so he sits on his throne in heavenly glory, and in his right hand there is this scroll. And the scroll must be a very precious thing indeed, for it's in the right hand of God, and it is the focal point of all heaven at that moment. All of heaven is focused on that scroll. It must be a very precious thing indeed to be in the right hand of God.

And it says that there's writing on both sides. We don't know how John could know this, but he knew it, just like you know something in a dream, you just know. And there's writing on both sides of the scroll. This implies that it's a complete and total record of full accounts, nothing more can be added, and because it is the writing of God, nothing can be removed. It is a perfect writing, perfectly complete. No room to add to it, and nothing can be taken away from it. This must be, therefore, the redemptive plan of Almighty God, culminating in the ownership of heaven and earth, the title deed of the universe with the plan to get there, it is the redemptive plan of Almighty God.

And it says that it's sealed with seven seals. Seal implies ownership and authority. It forbids anyone to break open the scroll and look inside if they don't have that right. There's a sense of punishment to any that break open the seal if they're not worthy to do it. Now, the seven seals, the number seven in the Book of Revelation is a mystical number, signifying deity, signifying the actions of God. It's a complete sealing of the scroll, and what's inside is a complete mystery. And so it's completely sealed. No one can pry up a corner and look inside, get a little glimpse. It's impossible. It's completely sealed.

And based on what happens in Revelation 6 through 8, when the seven seals are opened, the scroll, in my opinion, is probably progressively sealed, rolled up a little and sealed, rolled up a little more and sealed again, rolled up a little more until it is sealed seven times. And so as you break open one of the seals, a little more is revealed. And so it unfolds. Now, this scroll, as I've said, is the eternal plan for the redemption of heaven and earth. It is, as some commentators have called it, the title deed of the earth.

And as the seals are broken, this plan is unfolded before us in the Book of Revelation. And thus it is with God's sovereign plan written in his hand before the foundation of the world, it remains in the mind of God a secret until he chooses to reveal it. And so it says in Deuteronomy 29:29, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever.” And so here is a secret thing in the right hand of God. 

Secondly, we notice the angel's proclamation concerning the scroll. Look at verse two, “And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?’” Look at the nature of the proclamation. The task is entrusted not just to any angel, but to a mighty angel. Now, to us mortals, to us weak people, any angel is a mighty angel, but this must be a truly mighty being, to be entrusted with this job of proclaiming. He is a mighty and a powerful angel, perhaps more powerful than other angels. The proclamation is made with a loud voice so that it can be heard across all of creation. And the proclamation is a question, and the question rings out over all of time in history, “Who is worthy? Who is worthy?”

In one version of the legend of King Arthur, there's a story of Excalibur, the sword, and it's stuck in an anvil, which is in a boulder, in a stone, a sword in a stone, and there's inscribed on it, “Who so pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is right-wise born king of all England.” You know the story, how Sir Kay is going to a jousting tournament, he has a little squire named Arthur, and Arthur is forgetful, he'll do better when he's a king later, but he forgot his knight's sword. That's pretty big. You're going to lose any jousting when you don't have your sword. Because when you're both de-horsed and you're standing there with nothing in your hands, you lose.

So he's in trouble, he needs a sword, Arthur realizes he's in big trouble. He happened to notice, strangely, a sword sticking out of a stone. Goes out, pulls it out without any trouble and brings it into Sir Kay who recognizes it immediately. That's the sword that was in the stone. He said, “Where'd you get this?” He said, “It was just outside. It was in a stone somewhere. I don't know why it was there, but there it was.” Sir Kay is amazed. They go out, they put it back in, and Sir Kay is not able to pull the sword from the stone, neither is anyone else. Arthur does it easily and repeatedly. And thus it is identified that he is right-wise born king of all England. Now, that's a myth. It's a legend. It almost certainly never happened. 

This is no myth, friends. This is no legend. Whoever has the right to take this scroll from the right hand of Almighty God is right-wise born king of all creation. And the question is, who is worthy to do it? Who has the right to take it from the right hand of God? That's the question.

Now, there are many purposes for the mighty angel's proclamation. First of all, to display the greatness of the task of taking the scroll, breaking open its seals and opening it, it is a great task, and not everyone is worthy to do this task. The taking of the scroll from the right hand of him who sits on the throne implies the right to rule heaven and earth. The opening of the scroll seal by seal implies the right to govern the development of God's redemptive plan. Under whose hand can this plan develop? The one who can break open the seals and open it. The rights and privileges of taking the scroll and opening it are greatly dramatized by the pomp and circumstance of this cry by the angel: “Who is worthy?”

Secondly, the proclamation also displays very vividly the disqualification of all the rest of creation, of all of creation, disqualified. Look at verse three, “But no one in heaven or on earth, or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it.” Friends, this involves every single human being that has ever lived. All the mightiest emperors, from Alexander the Great through Caesar and Genghis Khan, Napoleon, right on through, none of them are worthy to take the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. All the wisest philosophers, whether Socrates or Plato or Aristotle, or Descartes, right on through, none of them are wise enough, none of them are worthy to take the scroll. All of the greatest scientists and inventors, whether Archimedes or Pythagoras or Einstein, Edison, none of them are worthy to take the scroll and look inside.

Even the humble unknowns, the humble servants, the ones that no one knows their name, the ones that have lived a life of love and service to their fellow men, all of them are disqualified. Not one of them is worthy. Whether famous or non-famous, none of them are worthy. Even among the godliest believers of the Bible, whether Abel or Enoch or Job, or Abraham, Isaac or Jacob, whether King David or Solomon, right on through the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, none of the Apostles of the Lamb, none of the great figures of church history, it didn't matter. Even the martyrs who shed their blood to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ, those that died in the coliseum in Rome, mauled by lions, or the reformers, they're all of them disqualified, every last one. Even John himself who gave us this book, the apocalypse, the Book of Revelation, he would not dare cross that space and go forward to the throne of God and take from his right hand the scroll. He wouldn't dare do it.

Let me get really personal. You are disqualified. I am disqualified. We're not worthy, not one of us. And why is it? For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We're all sinners, every last one of us. We have, all of us, this in common, and we are disqualified from taking the scroll. But we can go beyond that. All of the angels, holy as they are, who have never sinned, who have only obeyed God, even the mighty angel who's doing the proclaiming, the angels are all disqualified, all of them, because this must go to the Son of Man, who is the Son of God, and none of them are the Son of Man. They're all disqualified.

So the angel's proclamation heightens the sense of anticipation and also of grief. Look at verse four, “I wept and wept,” said John, “Because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside.” John is reacting, “Is there no one? Is there no one who can take the scroll?” And he weeps and weeps. And the proclamation therefore displays the greatness of Jesus Christ, does it not? Then there's a dramatic pause, and everyone that has ever lived is disqualified, and all of the holy angels and the 24 elders and the living creatures, all of them disqualified. And then up steps Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and he has the right to do it. Does this not display the greatness of Jesus Christ? Isn't that the purpose of the proclamation?

Look at verse five, “Then one of the elders said to me, do not weep, behold the lion of the tribe of Judah. The root of David has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.” He is able, he is able to take the scroll, he's able to break open its seals, he is able to govern history, 20 centuries of it and more, he is able to do it, and he is able to save your soul and mine. He is able to save us. And he is able to hold our attention for all eternity, so that we will be worshipping him forever and ever. As new waves of revelation come and we learn more and more about our great Savior, he is able to take the scroll and open its seals. And so we see this lion who has triumphed, victorious lion.

You think he would have some great appearance, some dreadful and terrifying appearance, but instead, he looks and he sees a lamb looking as if it had been slain. And so we have this vision of the Lion who is the Lamb, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Lamb looking as if it had been slain. This is the Lamb who is Jesus Christ. John's conquering hero throughout the Book of Revelation is a Lamb, and he's a Lamb still now. But first and foremost, he was a Lamb on the cross. This was God's plan. It was his purpose that his Son should become an atoning sacrifice for our sins, and this plan was made before the foundation of the world. God didn't make this up as he went along. He didn't have a good idea one day and come up with it. It wasn't like that. It's an astonishing thing about God, is that he has never learned a single thing, and he never will. Meditate on that. Doesn't that trip your breakers? He's never learned a single thing and he never will. Never been a new idea for God, never.

And so he is the lamb predestined before the foundation of the world to die on the cross. Revelation 13:8 says, “He was the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.” Jesus Christ was chosen before the foundation of the world to die on the cross for the sins of men and women and boys and girls. This plan was worked out before God said, “Let there be light,” this was a predestined, planned.

Secondly, he was the Lamb who was predicted. God didn't just work out the plan, he told us about it ahead of time, so that when it happened, we could see that he had told us ahead of time. This is something only God can do. We don't know what's gonna happen next week. We really don't. It's really humorous to me that the workers work so hard to get the air conditioner fixed so that we could be nice and cool this morning. Isn't that wonderful? I just think that's great. Are you cool enough? Maybe we can open some windows for you. What was it, 35 degrees this morning? We don't even know the weather, we don't know what it's gonna be like in a week. God predicted Christ thousands of years before he was born. He predicted it. And said what would happen. He is the Lamb predicted.

And so we have this idea of the lion of the tribe of Judah. Genesis 49 gives us the prophecy, it says, “Judah is a lion's cub; from the prey, my son you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion and as a lioness, who dares to rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” This is about 18 centuries before Jesus was born, spoken by Jacob to his son, a prophecy of Jesus.

So he's the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He's also predicted to be the root of David, that was in the mouth of Jeremiah the prophet, about six centuries before Jesus was born. Jeremiah 23:5 and 6, “‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I'll raise up to David a righteous branch, a king who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. And in his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord our righteousness.’” That's Jesus. He is the Lord and he is our righteousness. That's six centuries before Jesus was born, he is the root of David.

God identified him again and again through history, especially through the animal sacrifice. God set up a system of animal sacrifice whereby animals could represent the taking away of sin, and the priest would take his hands and put them on the head of the substitute of the animal, and he would confess onto the substitute the sins of the people. And then the substitute, the animal would die and its blood would be poured out before God on the altar. It was a picture of Jesus Christ. Every single animal sacrifice there has ever been is a prediction of Christ.

He was the lamb predicted. He was also the lamb presented. At the right time, in the fullness of time, God presented him to the world. Born of a virgin, he presented him. He said at his baptism, “This is my beloved son whom I love. With him, I am well pleased.” He presented him. And for 30 years, he lived in relative obscurity until the time came for him to be presented to Israel as the Savior of the world. And that happened when he was baptized by John the Baptist.

John was a prophet sent by God. And one day he saw Jesus coming toward him. And he pointed toward him, and he said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” That's a presentation. Everyone behold, behold Jesus. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. His death on the cross is God's atoning sacrifice. The only one there is for your sin and mine. There's none other available. Behold the Lamb. God presented him, it says in Romans 3, as a sacrifice of atonement. The one who takes away God's wrath through faith in his name.

He is also the Lamb punished. He's the Lamb punished. Four phrases in our text today speak of that. Look at verse six, “Then I saw a Lamb looking as if it had been slain.” Do you see that? Looking as if he had died, “standing in the center of the throne.” Look at verse nine, “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain. And with your blood, you purchased men for God.” Again, in verse 12, “In a loud voice they sang, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom, and strength, and honor and glory and praise.’” That's four mentions just in these 14 verses.

It's almost as if heaven just can't get over that Jesus died. That he was slain, that he died on the cross, that his blood was shed. It's really quite astonishing. This is the one before whom they hide their faces. He sits on the throne. He is powerful, he is the eternal son of God. What a mystery, Almighty God in physical human flesh, and yet he meekly and weakly submits to death, even death on a cross and does nothing. Does not lift a finger to save himself, though he has all power in his smallest finger. More than any of the potentates that have ever lived. He is omnipotent, incarnate. He could have stopped the crucifixion, but he didn't. It's really quite amazing.

How could he do it? How could he suspend his power so meekly and die so weakly? How could he do it? Why was he punished? Well, he was punished for us. Punished for us. Whenever I read or see depicted in some way the sufferings of Jesus Christ, I have learned to say, “I deserved that.” I did. Because I broke God's law. Because I'm a liar, because I'm a sinner, because I'm not godly, because I've sinned and fall short of the glory of God, I deserved that. And worse, because the Bible speaks of hell, it speaks of a place of eternal torment, and the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. And there is no rest, day or night for any that do not receive the gospel and believe it.

And I've come to train myself to say I deserve that, I deserve hell, and Jesus came as my substitute, to die in my place to take that away from me and from a countless multitude of people, from every tribe and language and people and nation, and all they need to do is believe. And so the prophecy is given in Isaiah 53, “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” The Lamb punished. I saw a Lamb looking as if it had been slain. That was Jesus.

Well, he is also a lamb who has purchased with his punishment something of great value. Look at verse nine, “And they sang a new song: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.’” This is the amazing purpose of the lamb's punishment, of his incarnation, of his coming to earth. Jesus had a purpose and it was to buy us back from slavery to sin, so that we would be God's precious possession. That we would be God's. Herein find your self-esteem. I am God's and he is mine forever and ever. Your soul can say that, he has purchased you for God with his own blood. That's his purchase.

And it's not a small number friends, and it's not narrow either, there will be people from all over the world. Herein ends racism and bigotry, and parochialism and focusing on our own little worlds, God is looking at the whole world. And there's gonna be people from all over the world at the throne worshipping Jesus for his purchase. And by his purchase he has made us, it says, “to be a kingdom of priests.” I think that's the best way to understand that we are priests who are kings, and we will reign with him forever and ever. How much did that cost? How expensive was that? Jesus paid it all. That's his purchase.

Well, that's how he's a lamb. How is he a Lion? It says, “He's the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” Well, everywhere throughout scripture, lions are portrayed as terrifying foes. It's an amazing thing that Samson is able to rip a young lion to shreds with his bare hands, only the Spirit of God coming upon him can do it. I don't care how big his muscles were, he loses, if the Spirit of God doesn't help him. Because lions are powerful beasts, 700, 800 pounds. Their roar can be heard five miles away. They're pictures of great power, they shrink back from nothing. They are fearless, terrifying, really. Their roar is terrifying. Their claws, their jaws are terrifying. A terrifying enemy is a lion, you don't want one as an enemy. Jesus Christ is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Look at verse five, “Then one of the elders said to me, do not weep, behold the lion.” So we have in John chapter 1, in the mouth of John the Baptist, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Here we have, “Behold the Lion.” And how can they both be true of one individual? They're opposite kind of creatures.

But this lion, it says, has triumphed. He has won a great victory. You know what he did? He took that lion-like strength and he ripped to shreds sin and death and the grave, and hallelujah for it. He's a Lion on our behalf, really. I've wondered about this because he's never called Lion again, ever. In the book of Revelation, he's never called Lion again. Isn't that interesting? So the sermon's a bit misnamed, sorry. He is the Lamb on the throne and the Lion on the throne, both at the same time. He's still Lamb

And I meditated on this. Why is it always lamb, lamb, lamb for the rest of the book? We never see lion again. Well, he's already done his lion work for us. When he roared like a Lion, “It is finished!” That's a victor's cry. And he has torn apart enemies we could not face ourselves. And he is the victor, he has won the victory.

And we see the power of the lion in symbolic form, difficult to visualize. So just understand it symbolically and prophetically. It says he had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. Seven horns, the horn symbolize strength, kingly power. The number seven, a number of deity, of divinity, of perfection. Perfect power is omnipotence. It says he had seven eyes, the eye is the lamp of the body. With it, we gain information about the world around us. Seven eyes is perfect knowledge, it's omniscience. It says here is “the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Where can I flee from your Spirit? Where can I go from your presence?" This is a picture of perfect presence by his Spirit. It is omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence. He is God. He is God, the Lamb is God.

And look at the position of the Lamb on the throne. Quite simply, he stands in the middle of the throne, again, a picture of Christ’s deity. Look at verse six, “Then I saw a lamb looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders.” Who can share this throne but God himself? Only God can share this throne.

Now, why is it for the rest of the book, we never see “Lion” again? Well, you know why? Because I think this book was written for us, it's written for us to read. It's to show his servants what must soon take place. It's for us, for us Christians. For us he's never a Lion. He doesn't treat us like a lion would treat. He is gentle with us. He's tender-hearted. He says, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest, for I am gentle and humble in heart.” Those are lamb-like qualities. That's the way he deals with his own. He is always a lamb to us.

He's always terrifyingly a lion to his enemies though. And so you get some anomalies in the book of Revelation, some oddities. Even when Jesus is doing mighty, powerful things against his enemies, he's still called the Lamb. And so it says very interestingly in Revelation 6, “Then the kings of the earth and the princes and the generals, and the rich and the mighty, and every slave, and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. And they called to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.’ For the great day of their wrath has come. And who can stand?”

The wrath of the Lamb is a bit odd. We would understand wrath of the Lion. But for us, he's a Lamb. It's the same one. All I'm saying is that Jesus is a delightful Savior, but he's a terrifying enemy. And oh, that we would not be included among those that are fleeing from him when judgment day comes. That we would be ready to face him unashamed, knowing that his blood was shed for us and toward us, he is gentle and welcoming like a Lamb is.

The passage ends up with universal worship, isn't it beautiful? The Lion and Lamb is worthy of universal and eternal worship. Verse nine, “And they sang a new song: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals.’” He is worthy of worship. He's the only one in history qualified to take the scroll. He is the only one that died on the cross for our sins. He's the only one that has been raised from the dead on the third day. He is the death conqueror. He is worthy of our worship.

And it's universal worship, notice, first the living creatures, then the 24 elders, then the 100 million angels, then every created thing in heaven and on earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, universal worship.

And it's also worship based on Christ's accomplishment. Look at verse nine and 10, “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because” - there's a reason he's worthy. Because he was slain - “because you were slain and with your blood, you purchased men for God from every tribe and language, and people and nation. And you have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.” 

And it is finally eternal worship. Look at verses 13 and 14, “Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them singing, ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the lamb, be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever.’ The four living creatures said, ‘Amen,’ and the elders fell down and worshipped.”

Don't you wanna be there? Don't you wanna see it with your own eyes? When judgment day comes, don't you wanna be forgiven for all of your sins by the blood of this lamb that I've talked about today. How did you get here today? Did a friend bring you? I say, the best friend brought you, it was Jesus that brought you. Maybe he used someone to invite you, but God brought you here today to hear this message. Because some day you're going to see this Lion, this Lamb, that he would be for you Lamb and not Lion, that he would be your Savior, that his blood shed on the cross would be full forgiveness for your sins. Do not pretend to say, “I don't need a savior like this. I'm basically a good person.” There are no basically good people. We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and we need a savior.

Oh, come to Christ. Come to this gentle savior. He is inviting you. As I've already said, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” And you'll find more than that, you'll find a door standing open in heaven and a voice will call come up here and I will show you my glory forever and ever, and you will be in the Spirit. And you will see his glory forever and ever. And you will never run out of things to say about Jesus. Come to Christ, worship him today. Trust in him for the forgiveness of your sins, that you might have eternal life. Please close with me in prayer.

In 1920, a 14-year-old farm boy in Utah was plowing a field back and forth. He went over the furrows again and again. Every time he passed by, the furrow got a little deeper. He'd done this many times before. He's a farm boy. But he's also a genius whose hobby was electronics. His name was Philo Farnsworth. As he went back and forth in these furrows, he got an idea, and out of that idea came television.  It works in the same way that he was plowing that field. Repetition, endless repetitions. The stream of electrons hits these phosphorus-coated glass. As soon as it hits and it moves on, it starts to fade. Then the stream comes back and refreshes it and then it starts to fade again. Is that like you? The stream of the word of God hitting you, and as soon as it moves on, it starts to fade. Sometimes quickly. We can be forgetful hearers of the word and not doers. We can read something in the Scripture, and as soon as we put the Bible up, it starts to fade quickly and we need a refresher course. Again and again and again, we need to be refreshed in the word of God.

That's the best sense I can make of why there are two feeding accounts so close to each other in Matthew's Gospel. As a verse-by-verse expository, I'm thinking, "What am I going to do with the feeding of the 4,000 that I didn't do quite recently with the feeding of the 5,000?" You may be wondering the same thing.  But what struck me is how God felt we needed it again and again and again and again. For this is the way we are, we forget and we need endless refreshment. We build up habit patterns for good or ill. It either moves us toward God and righteousness or it moves us away from Him towards sin and death. But these habit patterns are built up, it's the way that God designed us.

Someone once put it this way, "Sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow a habit and reap a character. If you sow a character, you'll reap a destiny." Every day you're taking a step toward heaven or hell, taking a step toward a righteous character or one that's unrighteous by what you choose to do by repetition, endless repetition. The Lord means to use this mechanism to use this tendency of the human soul for good. He means that we subject our minds to the word of God again and again, that we be refreshed and we be reminded of how powerful Jesus is. We could read again about Jesus's healing ministry and read again about his feeding ministry. We need this repetition.

The repetition is there. I've already mentioned that just back one chapter in Matthew 14, we have the feeding of the 5,000, five thousand men plus women and children fed with five loaves and two fish and they collected 12 basket fulls. This time, we have the feeding of 4,000 men plus women and children with seven loaves and a few small fish and seven large basket fulls of broken pieces collected. It seems very much like the same thing. Some have wondered if it's a lesser miracle feeding fewer people with more loaves, but I think not. Try to do either one and you'll see, either way, it's a great display of power to those of you that are mathematically oriented and you want to try to figure out the mathematics of a miracle. It's no less miracle. The question is, why are there two? And it's not just two. There's actually six miraculous feeding accounts. Because the feeding of the 5,000 is in each of the synoptic Gospels plus John and the feeding of the 4,000 is in both Matthew and Mark. So that's six miraculous feeding accounts. 

Why so many? In everyday life, we have these rhythms of repetition, the rhythms of life endlessly repeated. Is there any rhyme or reason? Is there any purpose to it? The Book of Ecclesiastes wrestles with this. In Ecclesiastes 1:5-7, it says, "The sun rises, the sun also sets and hurries back to where it rises again. The wind blows to the south and it turns toward the north, round and round it goes, ever returning to its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full, to the place the streams come from, there they return again." So that's the rhythms of repetition in nature.

We have the same thing in our everyday life. You have your rituals for breakfast, your rituals for lunch, rituals for dinner, rituals in your family life. I remember early in our marriage when we didn't have a dishwasher.  I've never forgotten to be thankful for the dishwasher because I remember the years that we didn't have one. And so I was thankful for that. But I remember I held up a dish, I forget what it was, a bowl, a glass. How many times have I washed this dish in the last year? The endlessly repeated rituals of life, washing this dish again and again.

Young children especially thrive on rhythms of repetition of rituals. I noticed that when I put little Daphne to bed, she's 18 months old, and when I put her to bed, I lay her on the back and she immediately starts sucking her thumb. She pulls her special blanket up toward herself and the hem is there. She works her way to the corner of the hem and puts the corner right near her cheek every single time. It's funny though, we're not much different than that. We have our own rhythms, our own habit patterns and we refresh them again and again every time that we do it. And so the Lord has taken this mechanism that He's built into the human personality and He's using it for good in sanctification. That we would use the repetition to build ourselves up in godliness.

The most important repeated habit of the Christian life is Bible intake, that you would take the Scripture in again and again and again, that you would feed on it, that you would be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you would take in the word of God, that you would read those familiar stories again and again. The call of Abraham, of Abram from Ur of the Chaldees, the sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah, Jacob's ladder and the angels ascending and descending, and the birth of Moses and how he is put in that basket and made to float in the Nile River and then his call at the burning bush. All of these are very familiar stories. You've read them before. There's always something new to be learned though and we're always in a little bit different place in our lives when we come to those stories. But they need to be refreshed, they need to be familiar.  I think it's wise to try to read through the Bible in a year, every year to keep reading the Bible and taking it in.  George Mueller is my hero in this regard. He did it 100 times in his life. If you think there's nothing much to that, you ought to try it sometime. That's going through the Bible about every six months. That's an incredible pace and to keep that up for 50 years which he did is remarkable. But how many times did he read this feeding of the 4,000? Again and again he read it. The repetition is essential to our salvation. Some lessons have to be repeated endlessly until we learn. That's how we learn to be sinners. We did it, then did it again,  then we did it again and then again and again until we became sinners like that. Habits of complaining or selfishness or conflicts or other things, we just do it through repetition. We learn how to do it.

In the same manner, God intends that we present our bodies to Him as servants of righteousness, the members of our bodies again and again, day after day to serve Him in patterns of righteousness. We must be reminded again and again. We need to hear the same things again and again. The Holy Spirit has been given to us for that very purpose. It's one of His main ministries, the ministry of reminding. In John 14:26, Jesus said this of the Holy Spirit, "The counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." The ministry of reminding.

The Apostle Paul had a very strong ministry of reminding. In Philippians 3:1, he says, "Finally my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again and it is a safeguard for you." What's a safeguard? The repetition of a simple message like, “Rejoice in the Lord.” But he's not done. In Chapter 4, Verse 4, he says,  "Rejoice in the Lord always." "Okay, we got it. It's twice now he said it." Oh, he's not done yet. "Again I say, rejoice." It's the endless repetition. We need it. How much more for something like the basic facts of the Gospel? Every year, we have Holy Week, we have Palm Sunday, we have Good Friday, the focus on the death of Christ. We have Easter Sunday. We celebrate the resurrection of Christ which we do year-round, but we focus on it because these patterns help us to remember the basic facts of the Gospel.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, he said, "Now brothers, I want to remind you of the Gospel I preach to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. For what I received I passed on to as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture, that He was buried, that He was raised to life on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Peter and then to the twelve.You know these things, it's not the first time you've heard it.” Why does he say it again? Because we need to be reminded.  Jesus died on the cross for sins. Jesus was buried and Jesus was raised to life on the third day. These are the facts of the Gospel. As Paul is training Timothy to be a good pastor, he says in 2 Timothy 2:14, "Keep reminding them of these things." In 1 Timothy 4, Paul says, "If you keep reminding, you'll be a good pastor and you'll save both yourself and your hearers." It's the ministry of reminding.

Peter had a ministry of reminding as well. In 2 Peter 1:12 and following, he says, "So I'll always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body because I know that I will soon put it aside as our Lord Jesus Christ is made clear to me. And I'll make every effort to see that after my departure, you will always be able to remember these things." It's repetition, friends. It's repetition. We forget quickly and we need to be reminded. Therefore we need to refresh our memories on basic doctrine. We need to read through the Bible consistently. We need to memorize Scripture. The endless repetition of the verses we’re memorizing helps us. It transforms your life by renewing your mind.

As you go through familiar experiences, you need to ask, "Lord, I've been through this before. Is there something you're trying to teach me here?" I remember for a stretch of time, I was in the habit  of misplacing my wallet. It just annoyed me. You know how what a big deal that is? You got your credit cards and your driver's license and all kinds of things in there. They're very difficult to replace. As soon as I would note that it was misplaced, I would kind of forget that there was a sovereign God for a little while. I would. I would become very difficult to be around as I single-mindedly tried to find that wallet. I went through this again and again. Then the Lord would answer my prayers and the prayers of many, and the wallet would be replaced. Then I would feel ashamed, and I would determine about the next time that I misplace my wallet, “Lord, I'm going to do better. I'm going to trust you more. I'm not going to get frustrated. I'm going to wait on you. I'm going to ask that you replace this in your good time. What lesson you're trying to teach me by this repeated thing?” 

We need to do repetition with each other. We need to tell each other things more than we do. Remember hearing about a surly husband who said, "I told you," to his wife. "I told you, the day I married you that I love you. And if anything changes, I'll let you know." You've heard that before. My feeling is, that's a recipe for a bad marriage.  There needs to be constant repetition of, “I love you, I'm glad that God brought you in my life. I'm glad you're my husband, my wife. I'm glad you're my kids. I'm glad you're here.” You have to say these things. You have to repeat them. We have to repeat other things to each other. We have to remind each other about basic things, that there is a sovereign God, He sits on His throne, He is good and loving and wise, and He is ruling over all things for our good. He is working out a magnificent salvation plan that ends in heaven and earth, a new heaven and new earth.

We have to remind ourselves that Jesus died on the cross for us, that His blood was shed in our place, that God didn't leave Him there in the grave, and on the third day, He raised Him to life. Speak these words to each other. We're told in 1 Thessalonians 4 to remind each other about the second coming of Christ. Therefore, encourage one another with these words, “Jesus is coming back in the clouds and we're going to be gathered together and with all the dear departed and the Lord. They're going to meet the Lord up in the air. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” We need to refresh each other's memories.

For me as a pastor, verse-by-verse exposition helps me to go over some of the things that otherwise I might skip. I wouldn't choose to give you another feeding account or healing account. I think you'd had enough, but the Lord ordains it. So we have these two feeding accounts and another account of Jesus's wonder-working healing ministry. Let’s look at that. After Jesus heals, it says in verses 29 through 31  that, “Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountain side and sat down and great crowds came to him bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and laid them at his feet and He healed them.  The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing, and they praised the God of Israel.” So we see the location,  that he was in a Gentile region.  He had healed a woman who when Jesus said, “It's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to their dogs,”  she said, “ Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.” Jesus said "Woman, you have great faith, your daughter is healed, your request is granted." Matthew Henry, in his commentary, said now that he's “let a crumb fall from the table”, He  turns back to the children and feeds them. That's a beautiful image from Matthew Henry. Jesus spends actually very little time in the Gentile regions. He goes along the Sea of Galilee. That's his home base, already greatly blessed by the Lord. But there's more work to be done and a huge crowd is following. 

There's always a big crush of people around Jesus, and it's mostly because of his healing ministry. I'm convinced that it's the healings more than anything that made a huge crush of people. He goes up on a mountain side and sits down. There's a desolate region, there's nothing happening there, no life, but Jesus consecrates it by His presence and by His power. Perhaps He sat down on a boulder or a rock or something like that and it became temporarily a throne of sovereign grace, or the greatest hospital that there's ever been in the history of the world. They bring this huge crowds of sick people, and lay them at Jesus' feet.  He has the most effective healing ministry, more effective than the Mayo Clinic or any of the metropolitan hospitals in New York or Paris, or London, or any great city of the world. This was the greatest hospital in history. Isn't it amazing how a scrubby little place on the Earth can be sanctified by the presence of God and by the working of God? Jesus is there, and we see the volume of miracles, look at verse 30. Great crowds came to Him, 10,000, 15,000 people, I don't know how many, 4000 men plus women and children, no idea, but huge numbers were coming. And Jesus' power there is lavish, it's full, completely equal to the task. He's no less powerful after three days of healing than He was at the beginning, He could have done three more days. But notice that it takes three days, it's quite remarkable. Why did it take three days to heal all of these people? I think it's because Jesus wanted a personal encounter with them, He wanted to touch them, talk to them about their souls perhaps, say something, pray for them, do something, there's such a variety of Jesus' healings. He wants a personal encounter. Let's never forget that Jesus is Almighty God in the flesh. He could have banished illness from Palestine with a single word for three years if He had wanted to, and no one would even know why they were healed, they just suddenly were healed, He could have done that. He  could have banished illness from the whole world, if He wanted to. He is not choosing to do that, He has no lack of power. What He wants is  a somewhat inefficient process where He's dealing with each individual sinner, and it took three days. 

Look at the variety of the healings, the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, what a varied wreck sin has made of the human body. Meditate on that.  There is not a bodily function, there's not a member of the body, not an organ, not a part of the body that is not somehow in some part of the world, afflicted by disease or sin. You ask any physician, is there a part of the body that makes it through unscathed, in the human race? There is none. There's nothing that hits fingernails. Yes, there is. There are funguses that'll attack them and make them change color, and they'll fall out. There's nothing that attacks eyelids. Yes, there is. There's a parasite that causes a malady called trichiasis which causes the eyelids to turn in, and then the eyelashes abrade the cornea and you go blind, what torture it must be to have all your eyelashes scrubbing the surface of your eyes every time you blink. Who would have thought of that?  The liver, the heart, the lungs, circulatory system, the immune system. Everything's fair game, everything's been attacked, not just by one disease but by multiple diseases. What a varied wreck sin had made of the human body. Jesus healed them all, He healed them all without any diagnostic tools or processes. There's no CAT scan, there's no X-ray, there's no blood test, there's no cultures being taken. He just heals them perfectly, the power of Christ. 

Now, you may be wondering and some have asked, "Why don't these kinds of healings go on today?"  I'm not standing here saying there are no miracles, today, I'm not saying there's no healings today, I'm saying, why not this kind of ministry? If this kind of ministry were going on with someone, somewhere in the world, you would know about it. Great crowds were coming to Jesus. So I meditated on this and I thought about the wisdom of God in all of it. Suppose God blessed me with the ability to cure diabetes perfectly? All I have to do is put my hand on someone's head and pray for them for five seconds and they'll be definitely cured of diabetes. Do you realize how that would change my life? Think about it. Suppose I did it for 20 hours a day, seven days a week. Do you realize it might actually change your life, you might not get a parking place here. As a matter of fact, you might have a hard time getting into Durham. They are 250 million diabetes sufferers in the world. Do you think the word would get out that there was a cure in Durham, North Carolina? Do you think they'd come? They'd come, 20 hours a day. There are 250 million diabetes sufferers now. By the year 2025, in 18 years, there'll be 360 million diabetes sufferers, they project. So I calculated out. You know it's my mathematical side. I figured, okay, how many can I do in a year, 20 hours a day, five seconds each. I calculate in 18 years I could do 95 million people. In that time, there'd be 130 million new diabetes sufferers. I'm not even keeping pace with this one disease. And what about cancer, what about AIDS, what about emphysema, what about all the others? It is not God's purpose to banish illness from the face of the earth. Jesus' miracles were meant to be what they're called in the New Testament, signs pointing to something. You're driving to a city and it tells you 130 miles to Washington DC, that's your destination. It's going to take a little more than two hours to get there. There's a sign that tells you where we're heading. We're heading toward a kingdom where there'll be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, where God's sovereign power will banish it forever. Where you will have a resurrection body and not afflicted in any way,  for even the great miracles of Jesus were undone after He performed them. Every single one of them, the feedings first. He feeds people, and the next day, guess what, they're hungry. The next day. Jesus drives out demons, he says, "You know what happens when a demon goes out of a person, it goes to arid places seeking rest doesn't find it, guess what it thinks. I think I'll go back where I started. And when it goes back and finds a place unoccupied, swept clean and put in order, and it says,  “I know what I'll do, I'll take seven of my demon friends and we'll go and live there.” And the last is worse than the first, that's how it will be with this generation," said Jesus. “When I go and ascend to the Father, Palestine will be worse off than if I had never come. The demons are coming back, and they're coming back with a vengeance.”

This is the greatest miracle working ministry in history, and it was just temporary. All of the eyes, the blind eyes that Jesus healed, they're now blind through death. All the paralyzed limbs, they're not moving through death. Lazarus, raised from the dead on the fourth day, but he is dead now. These were all meant to be signs. So, if God granted me that ability to heal diabetes it wouldn't change a single thing for the people that came. They might suffer from some other disease as well, but I couldn't help them. But suppose I said,"You know, we actually can cure all diseases including AIDS. We can cure permanently, and perfectly, and we can point to a way that you will never get sick again, that you will never die again, that you will be eternally perpetually happy in the very presence of God and you don't have to go to just one practitioner, you can go to any Christian who knows the gospel, and they'll tell you how. Simply hear that Jesus suffered on the cross, that his blood was shed for you, that God's wrath is thereby averted if you'll simply believe in the Gospel. Not any good works, just believe and you can be permanently healed of everything for eternity. There's plenty of places to sit here, no trouble finding parking.” 

But try to get people to come and listen. Isn't it amazing? Such healing is available here and now today. You may be here listening to me and you're not a Christian. You may even have some kind of pain or illness or something. I cannot offer that kind of healing, but I can promise you a far better healing. I can promise that if you simply believe in Jesus, that you'll spend eternity with him in heaven, if you simply repent and believe the good news, that I can promise you. Simply trust in Jesus, that's the power that these miracles are pointing toward, a permanent healing, a permanent feeding in heaven, that's what he's pointing toward. Look at the result, verse 31, "The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing and they praised the God of Israel.”

This is Christ's ultimate goal. He means to make you an eternal happy worshipper of God. He wants to make you happy in His presence, at His right hand forever and ever, that you might worship Him, that you'll be filled up fully with the goodness of God, and that you would flow over and praise the God of Israel. That's what He wants and this is what He intends. This is wonder, leading to worship that is eternal. Christ's true healing ministry was to the human heart and soul. That's his healing ministry.

Look, also at his compassionate feedings. It's the same thing, it's pointing toward an eternal feeding that He wants to give us in the new heaven and new earth. Verses 32-39 gives us the account. First  we have Christ's pity declared [verse 32]. Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion for these people. They've already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry or they make collapse on the way." Do you know that compassion is the number one most frequent emotion stated of Jesus. Usually the gospel writers speak of Jesus in this way: “Jesus had compassion on them and healed them or moved with compassion, He reached out his hand and touched the man.” "I'm willing," He said, "Be clean.” But this time, Jesus says it about himself. It's one of the few times that Jesus actually describes himself or his feelings. "I have compassion on these people," He says. Why so great an emphasis on compassion? I think we have a misunderstanding of the sovereign God. We think that God in his sovereignty, in his plan, just kind of grinds on fine like that... Like a mindless machine, doing whatever it does. God spinning the planets, and the universe and doing what He does and He is disconnected from what we are going through. It is not the case. He is great enough to spin the planets and to care about whatever it is you're going through. "I have compassion for these people," said Jesus.

 We see also Christ's priorities discovered. "They've been with me for three days and have nothing to eat. I think it's time to feed them." Three days. What about three meals a day? We've missed eight meals now. Note Jesus' priorities. We've seen it before, the teaching ministry and then the healing ministry and then, in due time, the feeding ministry. I think all of us would acknowledge that food is too important for us. Would you acknowledge that? Maybe not admit it, not in a public place like this, but privately, you might agree that food is too important for you. If you don't think so, then try fasting for a whole day and think how often you think about food. It's amazing. Food is too important to us. For some people it's even more. The Apostle Paul says of the Philippian unbelievers,  "Their God is their stomach, they live for their appetites."  But Jesus said, "Do not worry about your life, what you'll eat, or drink, or about your body, what you'll wear? Is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes? Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you as well.” He means that we focus on the kingdom, those are his priorities. He says, in John 6, “Do not labor for the food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” 

We see also Christ's forgetful disciples, "Where can we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?” Have you heard that before? That was just a chapter ago. That's why we have the second feeding account.  How quickly we forget. “What are we going to do, Jesus, what are we going to do?” But Jesus uses them, He calls them and says, "I have compassion on them.” He asks, "How many loaves do you have?" He gave the loaves to his disciples, and they gave them to the people. He has the disciples pick up the broken pieces, He employs them in his ministry, He employs them in his work. We are God's fellow workers with him. And yet we so quickly forget. 

We see also Christ's power displayed. Look at verse 36 and following, “He took the seven loaves and the fish and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, Afterward the disciples picked up seven basket fulls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was 4000 plus women and children.” As I mentioned with the feeding of the 5000, this is a miracle of creation, creating matter out of nothing, just material that wasn't there before. And the food was ready to eat.  Not the ingredients for the loaves, not the fish uncooked, but everything ready to go, ready to eat, fresh, delicious, I'm sure. Although it doesn't mention it, but think about Jesus making the wine at the wedding and how it was the highest quality. He's not going to give you stale bread. Maybe the best bread they ever ate. I don't know, but it's a miracle of something out of nothing, and I don't know how it happened. It happened when He took it in his hands and gave thanks, when He distributed it to his disciples, when He put a single loaf in the basket and by the time they moved, the basket was full. I don't have any idea. But I know that He created something out of nothing, and the people were satisfied. Look at that in verse 37, “They all ate and were satisfied.” Satisfied. When I die, I'll be satisfied with seeing His likeness. It'll be enough for me to see Jesus to be satisfied with God's resurrecting power. To be satisfied with the new heaven and new earth. It will be enough for you. You'll be satisfied. He knows how to satisfy you. Then it was a pretty homely meal, in my opinion, bread and fish. God has infinitely greater things to give you at his table. He will put his full creative powers on display in the new heaven, and the new Earth. You want to be there, you don't want to miss it. He knows how to satisfy the human heart and soul and body. He knows how to do it.  These people ate, and they were satisfied, and there was extra left over. Then Christ dismissed the people [verse 39], “After Jesus had sent the crowd away, He got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.”

How do these miracles apply to our lives? The fact that 2000 years ago, Jesus could do this on a hillside in Galilee. What does that have to do with us today? First of all, these are signs of Christ's deity, so worship him and trust him. He hasn't changed at all, He never changes. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, He's the same. There are also signs of Christ's priority, so focus on the kingdom and its work, the advancement of the kingdom, not on your temporal needs or wants, desires. There are signs of Christ's procedure, so get involved in Christ's work. Say, "What do you want me to do?" When He asks, "What do you have in your hand?”, give it to him and see what He can do with it. We should be trusting and not anxious.

We should be focused on the kingdom and not on our health or on food. We should be hopeful of the future heavenly life. Fill up your minds with scriptures on what heaven and earth, the new heaven and earth will be like. Get happy in that. These are the promises of God. And be active in service. 

I want to focus on four things in conclusion. First of all, on forgetfulness, do you forget? Will you remember this sermon in a year and a half? Come on, be honest.  we forget sermons, we forget what we read this morning in quiet time, we forget, we forget, we forget. Don't forget.

How many times has God challenged us not to forget what he's done, the good things he's done. Remember. Luke 24, “How slow of heart you are to believe all that God has spoken to you, what he has done in your life.” Don't forget. Even worse with sin patterns when you go through a certain sin, you do it wrong, you say or do something wrong and then the Spirit convicts you and you deal quickly and lightly with the sin. “I’m sorry, Lord, please forgive me,” and you move on. Don't do that. Remember, remember what you did, remember how God has saved you, remember and confess, do a deep work, get the root out, find out what Satan did to get you to stumble. Remember, remember, remember, note what he did, so that you don't stumble again. 

Secondly, on temporary needs, it says that they brought all of these sick people to Jesus and laid them at his feet. What a great image. Do that, okay. Take your burdens, your problems, your health issues, your struggles, finances, whatever it is, and lay it at Jesus' feet and see what he can do. He will meet your needs. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you as well. Let him do it. Remember who He is, remember his compassion, remember his great power. Remember what He did here on this, Galilean hillside, He can do the same for you. Remember also his wisdom. If you're lingering in a trial longer than you think you should, it's his wisdom that has you there. Submit to him and let him teach you the lessons He has in mind for you.

Thirdly, on worship, let your heart be moved many times by the greatness of Jesus. We don't think highly enough of Jesus; therefore fill your mind with this account. Go back and read it again this afternoon or another, read of Jesus' resurrection of Lazarus or his healing of the man born blind. Fill your heart with things so that you can think great thoughts of Jesus. Worship and praise the God who sent him, the God who is willing to part with his own son that we might have eternal life, worship him and praise and honor your heavenly father. Fill your heart and your mind. When you come in to corporate worship, come in here ready to worship. Come in here with minds and hearts filled with Jesus, filled with his word, with his promises. Get ready to worship corporately. You have a great ministry to your brothers and sisters in Christ when they look around and they see you engaged in worship. When they see you excited about worship, singing the hymns or the songs, praying the prayers, your body into it, your face into it. Be ready to worship corporately, and the way you do that is worship God privately. Honor him, he's your Lord. Thank him for dying on the cross, stimulate your heart toward worship privately, and then you'll be ready for corporate worship. 

Finally on kingdom labor. I want to remind you of the kind of year's verse that I'd like to keep in front of you this year: Luke 19:10, "The son of man came to seek and to save the lost."  "The son of man came to seek and to save the lost," it's here on a banner in our church. You probably don't look at it anymore because you've seen it eight times or 12 times. That's just the way it is. Just like the television it fades, as soon as a stream goes by, it fades but the verse still stands in front of us, "The son of man came to seek and to save the lost." We are surrounded by lost people.  You have within you the message of life. The only one that there is. Share the gospel this week. Invite people to come to worship.  Just say, "Hey would you like to come to church with me next Sunday? I'll pick you up. We'll go to lunch afterwards and talk about it." Share the gospel. Get involved in kingdom labor. Jesus involved his disciples in the feeding of the 4000, He wants to involve us also. For He said, "As the Father has sent me, even so, I am sending you.”

Andy Davis preaches on the topic of the Lord's Supper, as seen in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. 

Well, this is an unusual week for me.  Usually, I know weeks in advance what I am going to preach on.  I am a very slow-moving target across the radar screen, you know where I'm heading.  But this week, I felt led by the spirit to change the message and the message I was going to preach, God willing, I'll preach next week.  I wanted to preach this morning on the Lord's Supper.  I wanted to preach from the most important text in the New Testament on the Lord's Supper, which you heard Tom read, 1 Corinthians 11, because it occurred to me that in my almost nine years of preaching here, I've never preached a sermon on the Lord's Supper.  I have made comments on it at the time of the Lord's Supper, I have taught on it in seminars and other times, but never on Sunday morning have I preached.  And so, I thought it was reasonable for us to look at the Lord's Supper from the Scripture and to go in an expositional manner through 1 Corinthians 11 and understand this ordinance.  We have a great privilege this morning, a joyful privilege to sit at table with Jesus Christ by the power of the spirit.  In some mysterious way to partake in Him and to have our hearts strengthened in our faith and to grow and develop and to be made ready, more and more ready for that final banquet that we are going to sit down with, that eternal banquet.  Oh, what a joy that is going to be, but to have our hearts stirred toward that, to be strengthened in our trials, to be encouraged in the faith and built up, so that we can fight the good fight of faith against our flesh and against the world and the devil, all of these things I fully expect are going to happen when we partake of the Lord's Supper.  I can't think of a better passage as I've mentioned, than 1 Corinthians 11, to understand it.   

The Corinthian Church was a talented but troubled church.  They were talented, they were blessed with spiritual gifts, all of the spiritual gifts were active in that church, they were blessed with an apostolic ministry, we can hardly even imagine the blessing of having the Apostle Paul plant your church for you, and to minister and to teach.  But, they were troubled as well, they were troubled by divisions, factions based on human pride and a party spirit, some following Apollos, some Cephas, some Paul, and some following Jesus; they are my favorite ones.  We are the Jesus group.  All the others, I don't know who they are following but we are following Jesus, those are the dangerous ones. 

But there were problems, sin problems in the church, too, there were difficult issues that Paul was working through, there was immorality, there was a need for church discipline, there was misunderstanding about a sanctified lifestyle, a lifestyle of sexual purity, there was a misunderstanding about marriage and its significance, and there were problems with food sacrificed to idols.  There were all kinds of issues going on in this church, even to the point of not really understanding the resurrection body and some saying that there would be no resurrection.  And so, Paul has to deal with all of these different issues in 1 Corinthians, but one of the issues he has to deal with are problems concerning the Lord's Supper.  In the middle of dealing with this problem with the Lord's Supper, he drops a bombshell on them.  These people were acting very improperly at the time of the Lord's Supper to the point of some even getting drunk.  It's a scandalous thing.  And the Lord's Supper meant to be a display of the unity of the Body of Christ was instead the display of their local church's disunity and problem, and it was a shameful thing, and he said, "I should be commending you, but for this I cannot commend you because of your problems," and so he drops a bombshell on them concerning the significance of the Lord's Supper.  

He says in Verse 27 and following, "Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.  A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.  For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.  That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.”  They've died over this.  Now, that is a sharp word, a stunning word, that anybody could actually die over eating and drinking in a manner unworthy of the Lord, that is the highest form of church discipline when God Himself intervenes and acts, so this is a serious matter.  But more than this, more than a warning concerning judgment, which is clearly in this passage, there is also a yearning for blessing, that the church would be blessed by the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, and that is in my heart as well, that we would receive the full blessing that Jesus clearly intended by setting this up, and that we would not through misunderstanding or through false doctrine miss the blessing that is available for us in the Lord's Supper.  

Now, there is a historical context to this.  I was myself raised a Roman Catholic, and for many many centuries in the Catholic Church, they had one view of the Lord's Supper based on the doctrine of transubstantiation.  They believed, and based also on the words when Jesus said "This is my body," that the priest, through the supernatural powers endowed on him by the church, was able to transform the bread and the wine into the actual body and blood of Jesus, though it still tasted like bread and wine, it had become mysteriously the substance of the body of Christ.  I was raised in that though I didn't understand the doctrine.  I was raised in that; I was an altar boy.  I'll never forget when the priest would lift the bread up, and at that particular moment I was instructed to ring a bell and I found out years later in Protestant seminary, that that was the moment of transubstantiation when it actually became the body and the blood of Christ. 

Well, that was their view for many, many years.  Martin Luther, when he was being ordained as a priest, at that high and holy moment when he was actually lifting up the cup, was so overwhelmed with the sense of the majesty of God and the greatness of Christ, was trembling and actually spilled some of the wine on the white linen table cloth.  That was a big fault because of the sacredness of that moment, but you can have a sense also of the awe and the wonder and the reverence that Martin Luther had and before he understood the Gospel concerning that.  He never really got far away from that understanding of the Lord's Supper, although he didn't accept transubstantiation, he still believed in what we call the real presence, that Jesus is physically present in the elements of the bread and the wine.  Another man, Ulrich Zwingli, who was a Swiss reformer went very much, completely the other way.  He said, it is none of the things that the Catholics were teaching, it is a bare memorial, that's all.  And he diminished it and diminished it to the point where they might celebrate it, if you could call it that, once a year.    

I fear that many American evangelical churches fall more into that camp, denying as I think they ought, the doctrine of real presence, denying that Jesus is physically there with the bread and the wine or the grape juice.  They've gone so far the other way as to say, "This really isn't that big a deal.  It's not a big issue in the life of the church."  Some larger churches consign the Lord's Supper to the evening service once a quarter, so they are getting only a fraction of their people actually partaking in the Lord's Supper. 

I think this is a big problem for a church.  I believe the Lord's supper is meant to be an incredible avenue or river of blessing for the church.  I fully expect when I come here for the Lord's Supper, to be blessed by God.  I fully expect it.  I expect that God is going to move by His Spirit in a powerful way and while I know I'm holding actually bread and I'm drinking grape juice, and they are nothing more than bread and grape juice, this is something more than a bare memorial, but that the Spirit of God is going to be active in our midst, in the body of Christ, as our minds are turned in various directions that I'm going to discuss this morning.  We are going to be enriched by this experience as the Spirit of God moves through this room.  I have prayed for it this morning, and I am trusting him to do it in your hearts.  I trust him to do it in mine as well.  So, what are we going to do and how are we going to understand the Lord's Supper?  Well, I think the best thing to do is to look to Jesus in the midst of the Lord's Supper.  And really, it's various kinds of looks. 

Years ago, I heard a sermon by my good friend, Mark Dever, on the Lord's Supper, and he followed this paradigm of looking to this and looking to that.  I don't remember the sermon, but I remember the headings.  And I added some headings, and I think it's a good way to cover 1 Corinthians 11, namely that we are going to look in various directions as we partake in the Lord's Supper.  In Hebrews 12:1-2, it says, "Let us also lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily clings to us, and let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the founder and perfector of our faith."  I believe the Lord in His wisdom has given us the Lord's Supper to help us do precisely that, to look to Jesus the author and perfector of our faith, so that we can finish our race.  And so, we're going to look back, we're going to look up, we're going to look inward, we're going to look down, we're going to look around and look ahead, based on the words of 1 Corinthians 11.    

Let's start by looking back.  And we look back to the Passover, the night that Jesus was betrayed was a Seder.  It was a Passover meal.  And Jesus, earnestly, He said, desire to eat that Passover with His disciples.  There are many key parallels between the Passover and the Lord's Supper.  Both were instituted to be lasting memorials set up from generation to generation.  The Passover commemorated the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, released from bondage to slavery by the mighty hand and outstretched arm of God, 10 dreadful plagues judging Egypt and their gods.   The last plague was the most terrible of them all, it was the plague on the first born in which there was not a house in Egypt, among the Egyptians, that there wasn't someone dead.  What a terrifying night that was.  But, the Israelites were spared because God had commanded that they sacrifice the Passover lamb, and that the lamb's blood would be painted around the door.  The Angel of the Lord as he passed over, would see the blood and not kill the first born in that house, a clear picture of the saving work of the blood of Jesus Christ and how we deserve judgment, but it does not come upon us because of the interposing blood of Jesus Christ.  The angel just moves right over and we are not judged though we deserve it. 

Well, this was a Passover meal, and Jesus was about to die as the final fulfillment of the Passover.  He is going to shed His blood as the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, and He is going to fulfill the Passover and it will never need to be done again.  I didn't say it was never done again, I'm just saying it was never needful again, because Jesus fulfilled it.  And so instead, He instituted the Lord's Supper, both of them instituted to be lasting memorials or ordinances from generation to generation.  In Exodus 12, Verse 14 it says, "This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord−a lasting ordinance."  And Jesus says here in our passage, "Do this in remembrance of me."  In Verses 25-26, "Do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.  For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup. . .” this was a lasting ordinance.  Both of the services involved bread, both of the services involved wine, both of the services involved drawing the community together around these spiritual realities, both of the services commemorated the work of redemption, God's work of redemption, and so there are clear parallels.  We look back to the Passover, we also look back to the very night, the historical night that Jesus was betrayed.  We think about the history of that night, we think about what happened.  

Look at Verse 23, "The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread."  So, we're thinking about that.  We remember how Jesus was with his disciples the night he was betrayed.  We remember how his betrayer, Judas, dipped his bread into the dish with Jesus, identifying himself as the betrayer, how when he took the bread from Jesus in John's Gospel, Satan entered into him.  We remember that night.  We remember how sad and troubled Jesus's disciples were and how they didn't understand the things that were going on, and yet how Jesus earnestly desired to eat this meal with them, He said.  We remember that night and what happened.    

We also look back to Christ's death, to the body and blood of Jesus Christ.  The bread symbolized Christ's body nailed to the cross; the grape juice, the wine, symbolizing Christ's blood shed on the cross.  And this death on the cross is the center of our redemption, it's our only hope for freedom from the wrath of God that we deserve for our sins.  We remember the body and the blood of Jesus, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."  And so, we remember the death that Jesus paid and the free gift of life.  So, Christ's identification of the bread with His body and the wine with his blood focuses our attention on the need for a substitute who pays the penalty for our sins.    

We also look back at the institution of the New Covenant, the establishment of a New Covenant which Jesus mentions.  The Passover was an Old Covenant ordinance, but the Lord's Supper, a New Covenant.  The center of the Passover, the Old Covenant, was blood sacrifice, animal sacrifice, that's the center of it.  In Leviticus 17:11, the Lord said, "For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.”  Never forget that phrase, "I have given it to you."  Thanks be to God that He gave us a way to be atoned..  Thanks be to God for that, "I have given it to you, the blood, so that there might be an atonement."  He set up the animal sacrificial system and He fulfilled it in Jesus.  For it says in Hebrews 9:22, "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” of sins.  

Who said that?  It was God that set that up.  He established it.  And so, Christ here instituted a New Covenant in his own blood, thus ending forever the need for animal sacrifice.  Look at Verse 25, "In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.'"  By this New Covenant in Christ's blood, the wrath of God is fully averted.  Wrapped up in the new covenant is the taking out of the heart of stone and the giving of the heart of flesh, that we are actually transformed to love God's law and obey it with all of our being.  This is part of the New Covenant spoken clearly in Jeremiah’s prophecy and in Hebrews Chapter 8.  We are brought into perfect eternal fellowship with God, “I will be their God, and they will be my people.”  This is the New Covenant, and it’s done in the blood of Jesus and we remember that at the time of the Lord’s Supper, the New Covenant instituted in his blood.   

We also should look back when we are sitting, and when the bread is passed and the juice is passed.  We should look back to our own experience of faith in Christ, think of how good God has been to you to save your soul, think about who it was that God used to bring you the Gospel, thank God for them.  Thank God for the sacrifices that were made before they were even born, to get you the Gospel and all of its truth, thank God that you repented.  Thank God that you had faith.  These things are gifts of God.  Look back to how He has protected you all these years, how He has protected and nurtured your faith, look back at that, that He has got you this far by faith and He is not going to let you go.  Don't commend yourself thinking, "Boy, I've been a good believer all these years, I'm still believing in Jesus."  Don't give yourself credit.  Luke 22:31 says "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.  But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail."  And, if your faith hasn't failed in decades of walking with Jesus, then give Him the glory and give Him the praise.  So, look back.   

We also look up.  We look up to God the Father, first and foremost.  I noticed in Scripture how regularly Jesus looks up when he takes bread into his hand.  Have you noticed this?  Consistently, He does this.  He takes bread and looks up, and he gives thanks.  Now, it's not mentioned here in 1 Corinthians 11, but I think it's very vital for us to look to God the Father at the time of the Lord's Supper, to realize it was God the Father's plan that Jesus enacted and fulfilled. 

It was God the Father who sent His only begotten Son into the world.  It was God the Father who set his love on you before the foundation of the world, and it was God the Father who did not spare His only begotten Son, but gave Him up for us all.  And, it was so that Christ might bring us to the father that He went through all of those things.  "I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the father except through me."  That is his goal, He wants to bring you to the father.  And so, we look to the father, saying, "The father is the destination of all of the saving work of Christ, that we would come to the father.  And it is with thanksgiving to the father that we take the bread and the juice."    

We also look upward, as I've already mentioned, to Christ, our faithful high priest.  It is so important that we understand this.  Christ's priestly ministry in one sense is finished forever, and in another sense, it is ongoing until the end of time.  He offered Himself, His blood, once for all.  The Book of Hebrews could not be clearer about this.  I do not understand the Catholic doctrine that the priest is offering Jesus again and again and again, I can't reconcile that with the Book of Hebrews. 

Jesus doesn't need to be offered again and again.  He finished the work on the cross.  When He spoke, “it is finished,” it was finished.  It was done.  Oh, how glorious is that.  But his priestly work isn't finished because He is at the right hand of God and interceding for us as our great high priest.  As I've mentioned, were it not for that intercessory prayer ministry of our great high priest, we would have been lost a long time ago.  Satan would have concocted a series of temptations that would have laid us out and do not imagine you would have been immune.  But Jesus is constantly praying for your faith that it may not fail.  So, when you take that bread, and when you take that juice in a few minutes, look to Jesus, your great high priest, and thank Him that He's praying for your soul, and that He will not let you go.  

You may be weak in prayer; you may forget to pray.  You may tell a friend you'll pray for them and then you don't pray, and the Lord later convicts.  Jesus isn’t like that.  He is not like that.  He never forgets to pray for you, and the Father never forgets to listen to his Son, and the Son never fails to get what he asked for.  And what is he asking for?  That your faith may not fail.  And so, look to Jesus, your great high priest, and look to the Holy Spirit, too.    

Look to the Holy Spirit, who I have already said and I trust will be active and involved in the body of Christ here this afternoon.  Is it afternoon yet?  It will be soon.  Alright [chuckle].  See, now you're looking at your watch, I shouldn't have done that.  

But the Spirit of God is going to be moving through this place, uniting our hearts, drawing us together, taking things that could be dry, dead text on the page.  Black and white characters on the page, dusty old doctrines and ideas.  They are none of the kind, but rather he makes them alive in your heart and you feel the presence of Christ by the power of the Spirit of God it says in Corinthians.  So, the Holy Spirit is not mentioned in this text.  In another place in 1st Corinthians He says, "You cannot even say Jesus is Lord, except by the Spirit of God."  So, neither can you celebrate rightly the Lord's Supper, except by the Spirit of God.  So, look to the Father and look to the Son, and look to the Spirit. 

We also look within.  It's right for us to look within and be realistic about what is really happening in our life right now.  We look within and we examine ourselves.  Look what it says, "A man" in Verse 28 "ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup."  You heard Tom read the problems in the Corinthian church, how some were going ahead and gorging themselves, others were getting drunk.  There was strife and conflict, and bickering, and difficulties.  And what a shameful thing, but you know it isn't long you're thinking, "Oh, those bad Corinthians."  Well, that's not a very fruitful thought, brothers and sisters.  What about us, do we not bicker?  Do we not quarrel?  Do we not lust?  Is there not pride in us?  Are we living up to the calling that we have received?  Are we failing to present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God?  I think some days we do, and I think some days we actually present the members of our body to sin as instruments of wickedness.  We ought to repent and I think the Lord's Supper is a good time to repent. 

"Search me, O God and know me.  Try me and see if there's any offensive way in me."  So as the trays are being passed, take the time to do that, say, "Lord, show me my sin, teach me what I'm doing wrong."  And you think, well, this is kind of a morbid introspection.  It's not morbid.  Morbid means death producing.  It's actually life-giving to do this kind of introspection, just like the work of a dentist getting that nidus of infection, that bacteria, you got to get it out.  We don't want it in.  And so, search me, O God, and you confess your sin and you renounce it, and you turn away from it, and you prepare yourself to receive the holy bread and fruit of the vine; you receive it with a commitment to a holy lifestyle.  It may be that some of you need to refrain because you don't think right now, today, you can partake, you won't partake in a way worthy of the Lord, it's possible that the Lord may deal with you in that manner, but not for most of us.  I think we look inward, not just to our sin, but we look inward to the fact that we do repent, we hate the sin, we are hungry and thirsting for righteousness.  

The Spirit himself is testifying with our spirits that we are children of God and that we should partake.  I'll never forget reading about a Scottish pastor, godly pastor, who was administering the Lord's supper.  There was a young woman there sobbing so deeply and felt such a heaviness in her soul about her sin.  He knew her situation, he knew that she was a genuine believer in Christ, he knew what was going on, but she just felt unworthy.  He leaned over and whispered into her ear, “Take it, Lassie, it's for sinners."  You don't have to be sinless and perfect to take the Lord's Supper, just confess your sin, and if you confess your sin, He is faithful and just and will forgive you your sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.  And then partake gladly.  It's meant for sinners.  That's what it's for.   

And so, we look inward, we look inward at our sin, we look inward to faith and repentance into that internal testimony of the Spirit, that we are children of God, and we do all of that to be sure that we are eating in a manner worthy of the Lord.  We must look inward.   

 I'd also like to urge that you look down, just take a minute when you get the bread in your hand and just look at it.  I don't believe in transubstantiation.  I think it feels like bread, it smells like bread, and it tastes like bread, because it is bread.  That's it, it's bread.  And Aristotle is not going to help us understand it differently.  He may have been a very smart man, but we don't need any help from him here.  

Talking about substance and accidents and how it tastes like bread, but it really is the Body of Christ.  It is bread, but it is physical, and Jesus set it up for this reason that we might be mindful that there was a time on this planet in space and time, that there was a body of Christ, and He had actual blood, and that body was nailed to the cross and that blood was shed for you.  It was physical, it hurt.  It was a real death in your place, keep that in mind when you touch that bread, think about it, look down and look at that element and say, this is physical, it's not a metaphysical theory that was nailed to the cross that day, it was the body of Jesus.  And it says in the Book of Colossians that God redeemed you by Christ's physical body to present you holy in His sight, because he, in Colossians, is dealing with another heresy there, that Jesus didn't really actually have a physical body.  Yes, he did. 

The Lord's Supper is ordained to help us remember that.  It is also good to remember that your hands, as you are holding them someday are going to be remade into the image of Christ's resurrection body, and you are going to be physical for all eternity, too, remember that.  Some day you are going to have a resurrection body.  More on that in a moment.   

We also need to look around.  As we partake in the Lord's Supper, I want you to notice as you look around that you are not alone in this room.  That's good.  We are very individualistic in this country of ours, we are very individualistic, but the Lord is not saving us into individualism.  He is saving us into a marvelous body of Christ, made up of people from every tribe and language and people and nation, from all of the generations of the church.  That's the body of Christ.  And how beautiful is that, as we sang earlier, how beautiful is the body of Christ, and so we are drawn together into one body.   

It says in Verse 33, "So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other."  So, when the dish goes past, we take and we wait, we wait until we are all ready to eat together.  And because it says in 1 Corinthians 10:17, "Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf," and Jesus said, "Drink from it all of you."  So, there's a sense of unity and a fellowship, there's a fellowship together.    

When we look around, not just to the believers, but we look around to the unbelievers.  There are unbelievers watching.  Look at Verse 26, "For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes."  We preach the Gospel until He comes.  Just by doing this, the church is by acting out this drama, we are in some sense preaching the Gospel to an unbelieving world.   

Now, a pastor, if he is wise and does a good job at this moment, will urge people who are in this sanctuary who have not repented and trusted in Christ, to not partake of the Lord's Supper, for then you would be eating and drinking judgment on yourself.  And we are urging people who are Gospel hypocrites, who the Spirit of God is not testifying with their spirits that they are children of God, but they go through the church motions and they are fooling everyone, but they are not fooling God, we are urging them not to partake.  

We are proclaiming the Lord's death, but you know even here, I want to speak to you, if you have not been converted, there is a Gospel for you.  Though you ought not to take from the bread and the juice today, you can partake of something far better today, and that is faith to the salvation of your soul, that you can have today.  For Jesus Christ died on the cross in the place of sinners just like you.  He shed His blood, paying the penalty that God demands for your sin.  It is available simply by repenting and trusting in Him, you can have full forgiveness of sins for your soul right now.  You don't need anything else.  Just hear and believe the Gospel and you can be forgiven.  So, we look around to an unbelieving world as we do this, and we proclaim the Lord's death.    

Finally, we look forward.  We look forward.  Are you looking forward?  I am looking forward.  I am looking forward to the second coming of Christ.  We proclaim the Lord's death until He what?  Until He comes.  He's coming back, Revelation 19, He's coming back with the armies of heaven.  He's coming back, riding on a horse.  He's coming back, conquering, and to conquer.  He's coming back to set up an eternal kingdom..  And there is written on Him, the name King of kings and Lord of lords, He is coming back.  And we are nearer to that day now than when I began this sermon and then the day you first believe, we are getting closer and closer to the second coming of Christ, and these are just homely symbols of a future feast that we're going to have in the presence of the almighty God.   

We are going to eat with Him, we are going to feast with Him.  This is not really a physical feast, you know that, don't you?  It may be and ought to be a spiritual feast, but we are looking ahead to a physical and spiritual kingdom, and we will sit at table with God Almighty, and we will look at him in the face, and we will look to the left and the right, and we will see, as Jesus said in Matthew 8, "Many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." 

It's coming, and we get to sit there through faith in Christ, we're looking ahead to that, anticipating it, we're looking ahead best of all to our final future salvation through the resurrection of the body.  There is a banquet that Christ will lay for us, that is the resurrection of the body, listen to Isaiah 25:6-8, "On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine−the best of meats and the finest of wines.  On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever."  

That's a feast I can't wait for.  To be free from death and mourning and crying and pain, and to be in a body that will never perish.  That's the future, and we proclaim that by the Lord's Supper. 

 So, we look back in remembrance of the Passover and the night that Jesus was betrayed to Jesus's body, broken and His blood shed into our personal faith in Christ.  We look up, in dependence on God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  We look inward to our own sinfulness and to repentance and faith into that internal testimony of the Spirit that we are children of God.  We look down at the elements that we're holding reminding ourselves that the physical body and blood of Christ were given for us that we might have eternal life.  And we look around in commitment to the body of Christ, that we are members together of one body and to an unbelieving and watching world that to whom we proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.  And we look ahead and hope to the second coming of Christ and to the great resurrection day, when we will eat and drink anew in our Father's kingdom.  Won't you pray with me?

There are many admirable attributes of the human nature that God could have chosen to focus on concerning our salvation. He could have focused in on wisdom. He does praise young King Solomon highly and rewards him highly for asking for wisdom to lead God's people. Wisdom was rewarded and praised and is an admirable trait. He could have focused on courage or boldness, like the courage of Samson  facing all those Philistines with the jaw bone of a donkey, or the boldness of Peter and John in front of the Sanhedrin. Filled with the Holy Spirit, they proclaimed the word of God boldly. He could have zeroed in on that character trait for the salvation of our souls.  He could have zeroed in on compassion or humility or generosity or kindness. He could have focused on love. Love has an entire chapter in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13.  Love is even compared to other admirable attributes; “And now, these three remain: faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.” But it was none of these character traits that God zeroed in on for the salvation of a sinful soul. No, it was faith that God zeroed in on. “The righteous will live by faith,” the scripture says. “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Why faith?

God hates our boasting.  He has very wisely saved us in a way that we cannot boast about the process. How can you boast about faith? What does faith do but receive what God will give. That's all. It's like the eyesight of the soul,  it just receives what's there. It doesn't create anything. It just receives what God is willing to give. How do you boast about that? Imagine standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon and you saw all those purples and browns and reds, and you saw the beauty there and somebody said, "Isn't that incredible? Isn't God magnificent to make something like that!" And someone else said, "Yeah, but my eyesight, now, I can see it, okay. I have great eyesight. Let's talk about that for a while."  There's nothing to talk about. "Yeah, that's good, that's good. Why don't you go sit over here and think about your eye sight while I look at this grandeur.” “It's out there, it's magnificent, it's glorious and my eyes just happened to bring it into me that I may receive it.”

 So how can we boast about our faith? How wise is God! But also, in a perverted way, how wise is Satan to attack faith so that we don't understand it properly. We must have clear teaching about faith, because there's a lot of misunderstanding about faith as well. There are well-publicized movements that focus on faith: The faith healers, the Word of Faith movement, etcetera, that sees faith somewhat like a commodity that you can trade with God based on if you have enough. Like a bag of gold dust hanging at your belt, and God's got His scales, and if you've got enough faith, like a commodity, you can pour your faith on to the scale and it'll trip over, and God is forced to give you what you ask for. It's like a commodity that you can have and you got to go get more if you don't have enough. If you're pulling out your little bag and God looks at you, "I tell you right now, you don't have enough faith. So go get some more faith and then you can have the thing you ask of Me."  In the end, faith turns in somewhat of a work of man, that if you have enough of this thing called Faith, then God's got to give you whatever you ask. The dark side of that whole word of faith approach is that, if you have any kind of suffering in your life, if there's a loved one, like the Syrophoenician woman's daughter who is demon-possessed, or you have some illness, or there's some issue and you come to the matter, and you don't get the healing and the person dies, or something, it's because you didn't have enough faith. So now, not only do you have the loss of the loved one, you now are told that was, indirectly told it was your fault, that if you'd had enough faith, this would never have happened. It’s similar to Job's friends basically saying, "Well, I see that you're going through great suffering. Just want you to know it's your fault. And if you would just kind of out with it about your sin, then we could get on with the healing and all that." It's about the same thing. You're left devastated. 1980 Harvest House published a book by Larry Parker entitled We Let Our Son Die. The book tells a tragic story of how Larry and his wife, after being influenced by one of America's numerous Word of Faith or Word-Faith teachers, withheld insulin from their diabetic son, Wesley. Predictably, Wesley fell into a diabetic coma and died. The Parkers, through that whole process, were warned about the impropriety of making a negative confession, saying anything negative about the whole thing. They continued to trust God and to speak words of faith concerning this matter until finally he died. Even after his death, they refused to have a funeral, but instead had a resurrection service for their son, trusting God based on a revelation they'd had that their son would be raised from the dead. It wasn't until a year later that they started to realize that they'd gotten hold of some bad teaching, and it focused on this matter of faith.

If it were just limited to the seriousness of that situation, physical death for a loved one, that would be bad enough, but instead it's going to the heart of the way that God saves our sinful souls. We are justified by faith. We must understand it, therefore. We don't go to the Word-Faith teachers, we don't go to these fad, weird movements to find out what faith is. We must go to the Scriptures. The verses today are one of the accounts that I would bring someone to who wanted to understand what is the nature of true faith. Why? Because Jesus commends this Syrophoenician woman for her faith. He focuses on it. In verse 28 it says, "Jesus answered, 'Woman, you have great faith. Your request is granted.' And her daughter was healed from that very hour."

It's good for us to learn from the Syrophoenician woman, to find out from her example what is great faith, faith that Jesus will commend. As we come to this encounter, we're coming to, I think, one of Jesus's most puzzling interactions. Admit it, haven't you wondered about this one before? It's a little bit strange. Robert Stein in his book, Difficult Passages in the Gospels, chooses this as one of the passages he deals with. Why is it difficult? Stein says this, "The problem is obvious. Jesus' words appear harsh, austere, insensitive. They seem atypical of Jesus. In the Gospels, He is portrayed as a kind, loving and compassionate savior. The words of this account would cause little difficulty coming from a mean, harsh, unloving individual. The Jesus of the gospels, however, is a loving and kind Jesus with a special compassion for the outcasts of society, and this woman is an outcast in the Jewish mind." That's why this passage is difficult.  It seems strange that Jesus would answer like this. 

Let's understand the context, first of all. It begins, verse 21, "Jesus left that place or leaving that place, He withdrew." Now the Greek word “there” just means, it means more than just went away. He's in effect bringing about a strategic withdrawal in His ministries, retreating strategically at this point. Why? I think to escape the building pressure. The pressure was building around His ministry. Pressure from the huge multitudes who are crushing in on Him on every side, demanding, yearning for Him to meet their physical needs. In Mark 6:31 it says, "Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, He said to them, 'Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.' So, they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place." That's the retreat approach.

Or again, this crowd, after Jesus had fed the 5,000 in John's account, are pressing in on Him and want to seize him and take Him by force and make Him king.  Jesus's response here is the same. John 6:15, "Jesus knowing that they intended to come and make Him king by a force, withdrew again to a mountain by Himself." So again, He's withdrawing. Strategic withdrawal. There's a pressure from the crowd, the adoring and needy crowd. Secondly, there's pressure from the secular authorities. The king, for example, Herod Antipas, who thinks that Jesus may be John the Baptist risen from the dead and that's why miraculous powers are at work in Him.  He killed John and so Herod may be pushing matters to accelerate Jesus's death. That may be some of the pressure that Jesus is feeling.

I think in the immediate preceding account, however, is pressure from the Jewish religious authorities. The Scribes and Pharisees who had already decided, in Matthew 12:14, that Jesus had to die. They already decided that, and now they are basically amassing evidence or pushing a case so that they can have Him executed. The previous encounter was about hand-washing, and the ceremonial law, the ritual washing and all that. In that account, Jesus offended them and the disciples told Him about it. In Matthew 15:12, the disciples came to Him and asked, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?"  So for all of these pressures, I think Jesus desires a strategic withdrawal to let things cool off a bit. It's like it's boiling over and it's going too fast, it's time to cool it off a bit because everything's been timed out. There's an exact time for Jesus to die, it's not yet.

There's another aspect, I think, and that's so that Jesus could focus on His apostles and just work with them for a while and just pour Himself into them and build them up. But it didn't work, because it says in Mark's gospel in this parallel account, Mark 7:24-25, "Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, yet He could not keep His presence a secret." No way to keep the presence of Jesus, the Son of God, a secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about Him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at His feet. That's how the encounter begins. So Jesus is trying to find a quiet place to work with His disciples, but it's no good. The woman finds Him and presses her need forward at this moment.

Now, Tyre and Sidon are an interesting place in Biblical history. They are notorious to some degree in Jewish history. The region of Tyre and Sidon had a good beginning in scripture, as the wise king Hiram was a good friend to King David, and once David had established himself in Jerusalem, sent him timber and different materials to build his palace. In the time when Solomon, David's son, was building the palace, he again supplied him with building materials. They had a good relationship. But it went south from there, after King Hiram. Tyre was a gentile trading area where  goods would be sent out all over that region of the Mediterranean. They became very wealthy, plying that commercial trade. With it came all of the corruption of being a nautical seaport. All kinds of evil, as a matter of fact, Isaiah likened the region of Tyre and Sidon to a prostitute plying her trade. It's somewhat of a defiled area, defiled by their wealth and their prosperity. Worse, they involve themselves in buying and selling human slaves from the ancient Near East, from Edom, and even including the Jews, buying and selling them. This is talked about in the book of Amos. But worse still, when Jerusalem fell, the people of Tyre and Sidon mocked and celebrated the fall of Jerusalem. Ezekiel talks about this. In Ezekiel 26, "Son of man, because Tyre has said of Jerusalem, 'Aha, the gate to the nations is broken and its doors swing open to me now that she lies in ruin, I will prosper.'" Judgement comes on Tyre and Sidon. In Ezekiel 28, the oracle to the King of Tyre is couched in such language that you're not sure if it's talking about the human king of Tyre or Satan himself, implying that, it's like demonic forces are behind Tyre and Sidon.

Several prophets, therefore, predicted the total devastation of Tyre and Sidon, including Ezekiel, Joel, Amos, Jeremiah and Isaiah.  However, Jesus knew the people of Tyre and Sidon even a little bit better.  He made some remarkable statements about them. First of all, He knew that hundreds of Gentiles had been coming to see Him and to listen to Him preach and to have their illnesses  cured. In Luke 6:17-19 it says, "A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases, those troubled by evil spirits, all of them were cured and the people tried to touch Him because power was coming out from Him and healing them all." This whole region is coming to listen to Jesus preach, and He's healing them. One of Jesus's most amazing statements though, He made earlier in Matthew's Gospel, when He denounces the Jewish cities in which most of His miracles had been performed because they didn't repent. He said, "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sack cloth and ashes. But I tell you, it'll be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you." 

Now, who was this woman that Jesus deals with?  Matthew describes her as a Canaanite, the very people that God had commanded Joshua to destroy completely when the Jews conquered the Promised Land. Canaanite women, in particular, were the focus of a warning in Deuteronomy 7:1-6 in which God warned the men of his people, “Do not intermarry with Canaanite women because they will turn your heart away from worship of the true God.”   But Mark goes into even more detail about this Canaanite woman. In Mark 7:26, it says the woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia, so she's frequently called the Syrophoenician woman. This woman would have been a complete outcast as far as the Jews were concerned. They would have had nothing to do with her. Nothing at all. But yet, she has a tremendous faith in Christ and for all times she's memorialized here in the text of scripture, as an example of great conquering faith. How beautiful is that? Now what was her plight, what was her problem? Her little daughter was demon-possessed, verse 22, "A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to Him crying out, 'Lord, son of David, have mercy on me. My daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession."

Mark's gospel heightens the fact that she's young, she's a little daughter, using an extra Greek word, so there's a sense of a little helpless girl being tormented by a demon. Demon possession is a very serious spiritual affliction. A demon, a fallen angel, a spiritual being takes over the mind and personality and even the body of a human being. The demon and demons do  bodily harm to the individual and they cause somewhat of a living hell for those around that care about that individual because there's nothing they can do. There's no power that can deal with this demonic force. This seems to have been, if you can imagine, an especially bad case. There's extra words that give a sense of, she's suffering terribly from demon possession. 

Then Jesus begins a series of strange actions at this particular moment. The first thing, is He doesn't answer her at all. Look at verse 23, "Jesus did not answer a word." Secondly,  his disciples come to Him and urge Him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." Jesus seems to focus His ministry only on the Jews, and He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." He says this in her hearing. He doesn't even address her directly, He just says it to His disciples. Third, in finally dealing with her directly, He seems to insult her and call her a dog. "The woman came and knelt before Him, 'Lord, help me,' she said. He replied, 'It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs.'" This is a series of strange actions on Jesus's part. 

There's some mitigating factors. We don't have facial expression or body language or tone of voice, we don't have any of that. We just have His words and you know, there's a way to say something that doesn't sound as harsh. It could be playful, like a riddle. He could be saying it like that. We don't know. We weren't there, so we don't know the non-verbals that went along with this statement. Secondly, the Greek implies that Jesus had a longer conversation with her than is recorded here. Jesus was saying to her, "It's not right to take the children's bread." It's not just one simple proverb, and then He's done. It seems like He's having a conversation with her, but you only get part of it here. Then also this word dogs, it's not the harsh word for dog, like a rabid beast that roams the streets picking through garbage and is a threat to the populace, that kind of a dog, like a roaming wolf. But rather, the word used here is more like a household pet, like a puppy. So it would be like, "It's not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their puppies." 

There's some mitigating factors but all of that said, it's still a strange interaction on Jesus's part. What is going on here? What were Christ's motives? That's what we have to ask. Why did He treat her like this? Let's rule out some things that cannot be. Let's rule out false options. It's not because Jesus didn't care about Gentiles.  Let's start right there. He knew very well that Abraham had been promised 2,000 years before  in Genesis 12:3, “I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”  Jesus knew that very well because Jesus's Heavenly Father, said in the words of Isaiah the prophet[Isaiah 49:6], “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant. To restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept.” That's too small a commission for Jesus just to save the Jews. “Ask of me, and I'll give the nations as your inheritance, the ends of the Earth as your possession.”

After Jesus was born, Simeon took the baby Jesus in his arms and praised God saying, “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light of revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people, Israel.” If Simeon knew that, Jesus knew it; can we concede that? Jesus knew very well that He was to be the light for the Gentiles, and in His ministry, Jesus had already dealt many times very positively with Gentiles — the Roman centurion He deals very graciously with and very lovingly with. Then there's the Samaritan woman, the half-breed, half Jewish, half Gentile, but He is so loving and gracious to her, He doesn't hesitate at all.

After Christ's resurrection, He would send His disciples to the ends of the earth, and one of the places they would go would be this very region of Tyre and Sidon.  He had a saving plan for them, and soon, in the Book of Acts, there's a church in this area beautifully growing. Paul, on his journey to Jerusalem back to Jerusalem, lands at Phoenicia. He goes and visits the disciples in Tyre and they welcome Paul warmly. Through the spirit, they warn him not to go to Jerusalem and after that they take him out with his entourage, and they kneel on the beach together, and pray. There's such a loving encounter there  in  a church made up of people from Tyre and Sidon. Jesus knew all of this would come. Clearly Jesus had a saving intention for the entire world, including the people of Tyre and Sidon.

Secondly, it's not because He lacked power to do miracles in Gentile territory. Jesus is God omnipotent, there is nothing He cannot do. He's not more God in Israel than He was in the gentile areas. There's nothing He cannot do, and He's going to prove this directly by giving her her request. There's no lack of power to do miracles, not at all. 

Thirdly, it's not because He lacked mercy or compassion for her plight or her daughter. Jesus was infinitely filled with mercy and compassion; the most perfectly compassionate man in history. Four separate times in Matthew's gospel, it links one of Jesus's miraculous healings to his compassion, his heart is moved with compassion and He heals. Basically anybody who comes to Jesus as a beggar, humbly asking for a healing like this, they get it. It doesn't matter who they are, so it can't be that He lacked compassion.

And it can't be that He was weary and annoyed and irritable after a long hard day. You may be like that from time to time, maybe not, getting irritable and saying something you wish you hadn't said. Has that ever happened to you? You wish you could have the words back. James 3:2 says, “We all stumble in many ways.” Isn't it true?  We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, what is he? He's a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check. Is there a perfect man? Was there a perfect man who was able to keep his whole body in check? Yes, His name is Jesus. He never stumbled in what He said. Never. So it's not that He was weary and irritable after a long, hard day. I'm not saying Jesus didn't get weary, I'm not saying He didn't get tired, I'm not saying that there aren't temptations, I'm just saying He never yielded to any temptation and everything He said was perfect. Jesus spoke the words of life. He says in John 6:63, “My words are spirit and they are life.” Jesus is the Word of God; He doesn't throw words aside like you and I do. When He speaks there's a reason. 

Fifth, it's not because He's taking a break from ministry and doesn't want to care for her needs at this point. “I’m on vacation.” That's not it. Jesus could both take a strategic retreat, and care for her needs as He does. He's not shocked or dismayed when there's a huge crowd in Tyre and Sidon that hears of his being there. He's not surprised at all, He knew full well that this was going to be part of his ministry.

Six, it's not because there's only so much bread for the children and once it's been given out, there's none extra. Do you think Jesus would have been more taxed to feed 6,000 than He was to feed 5,000? What do you think? There’s a little extra miracle-working power, a little more sweat on Jesus's part, it's impossible. 60,000, 600,000.  He fed 2 million Jews in the desert for 40 years. Is the arm of the Lord too short? He can do anything. It's not because there's only so much bread for the children and once that's gone, then the dogs eat or the children are going to starve, that's not it, at all. It's not because the woman didn't ask properly or with enough humility or enough faith or any of that, none of that. 

Why then? First let's look at redemption, the redemption plan of God to the Jew first and then to the Gentile. This principal is stated again and again in Scripture. After Jesus was raised from the dead, the apostle Peter spoke about this to the Jews in the temple, [Acts 3:26], “For you first, you Jews  God raised up his servant, and sent him to bless you, by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.” The apostle Paul taught this, and lived this out again and again in His ministry. He was the apostle to the Gentiles, but every city he went to, he went first to the synagogue, didn't he? That's where he started.

 To the Jew first, he says in Pisidia in Antioch. He and Barnabas had preached there. The Jews become hostile, they begin to reject the message. This is what Paul says in Acts 13:46, “Then Paul and Barnabas answered the Jews boldly. ‘We had to speak the word of God to you first; since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life. We now turn to the Gentiles.’” Do you see that ordering? Now, “you Gentiles.” I'm a Gentile, too. We should not feel offended by this. This was just God's strategic ordering, this is what He chose to do, and He says it again, and again. He wrote about it in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, and then for the Gentile.” This was God's strategy. That Jesus, the Son of God, would go to his own people, and they would reject Him,  and that they would turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified and then on the third day, He would be raised to life. That was part of God's strategy. It's spelled out very plainly in John 1:11, “He came to his own, but his own people did not receive Him. Yet to all who received Him, To those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Children, not born of the flesh, or of blood, or of water, but of the Spirit of God.”  Jesus says in verse 24, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” Christ hadn't died on the cross yet, so the barrier to the Gentiles was still up. There was still a barrier separating Jew from Gentile which was spoken of in Ephesians 2 where Paul said, "Therefore remember, that formerly you who are Gentiles, by birth and called uncircumcised, by those who call themselves a circumcision that done in the body by the hands of men.  Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. That's what you were, but now he has destroyed in his body the barrier between the two, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in His flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace and in this one body, to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which He put to death their hostility.” This hadn't happened yet. The curtain in the temple, hadn't been torn in two from top to bottom, so there were still a focus on the Jews. Also, there's a strategy here. Jesus is focusing on the children of Israel, but within them, his disciples, and within them, the 12 apostles. He's got a strategy to pour Himself out. It could be that He's saying, “Look, I'm here to focus on the apostles, it's not right for me to be doing a wide ministry of the Gentiles, right now. I've got to spend time with these men and pour myself into them.” That's all possible.

One of the most common answers to this is that Jesus was doing it to test her faith.  More specifically, He's humbling her, and seeing if she would overcome the obstacles. Perhaps this is true, but I don't think it goes far enough. I think Jesus knew her heart very well. He wasn't merely testing her faith, I think he was actually developing and strengthening her faith and then putting it on display for us.  Like a physical therapist will develop a weak or injured muscle by opposing motion so that the person is forced through some pain to strengthen that weakened muscle and develop it.  The therapist in a very wise way will oppose the motion and strengthen and build up that damaged muscle. So Jesus seems to oppose her and fight against her despite the fact that He really does desire to give her what she wants. Ultimately, He means to put this woman's faith on display for all time. 

So, what is the nature of true faith, what then is true faith? Well, first, it has a basis in something.  We don't have faith in faith itself. There are a lot people like that — True faith is a leap into the black darkness. You imagine some pitch black night and you're on top of a skyscraper and you're running off screaming into the dark hoping something's going to catch you, and that's faith. That is not faith. It's not essentially our optimistic outlook- “I believe for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows. I believe that somewhere in the darkest night, a candle glows.”  John McArthur said this  sort of faith is essentially faith in faith, which is to say no faith at all. “To jump out of an airplane with a parachute is an act of faith. To jump without a parachute, while exclaiming I believe, is an act of stupidity. To say no more than I believe in love, or I believe in believing or I believe it will all work out is contentless faith, and therefore, pointless and powerless.”

Faith focuses on something.  It focuses on God — His nature, His promises, His work in the past as revealed in Scripture. That's what faith focuses on. This Canaanite woman clearly had heard of Jesus's miracles, she knew of the Jewish prophecies concerning the Messiah. Look at the title she uses and the expectation she has that Jesus will heal her daughter. Lord, son of David, she calls him. How does a Gentile woman know Son of David?  Faith comes from hearing the message about Christ; that's where her faith has come from. 

We see also the reverence of faith. She calls him Lord. Later on she bows down before him and worships him. She is submissive, she is reverent, she doesn't presume on him, she doesn't demand from him. How different is that from the “name it and claim it” crowd that bosses God around like he's some kind of a house boy as though God somehow loves to be bossed around like he's a house boy. He doesn't. He is a sovereign king and it says in Ecclesiastes 5:2, it says, “Do not be quick with your mouth, and do not be hasty in your heart to bring up anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on Earth, so let your words be few.” Stand in awe of God.  The more you believe, the more reverence and awe you'll have for God. You're not going to boss him around. I hate that aspect of that Word of Faith movement, it forgets reverence. Remember what Abraham said, when carrying on intercessory prayer over Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18?  Abraham spoke up and said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord though I am nothing but dust and ashes. . .” So also the Syrophoenician woman, she had a submissive humility to her. 

We see also the confidence of faith. She was absolutely certain that Jesus could do this, wasn't she? That's why she kept coming. She's so persistent, she calls him Lord, so she knows he can do all things. The essence of great faith is great confidence that God has the power to do what you ask him to do.  Abraham had it in Romans 4:21, “Abraham being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine.” That's our God; that's the confidence of faith. He can do anything, infinitely more than you could ask or imagine.

We see also the repentance of faith. “Have mercy on me,” she calls. She recognizes that she doesn't deserve anything from the Lord; she's a sinner. She may not know the verse because it hadn't been written yet, but she understood the concept, that Paul wrote in Romans 9:15, “For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’” God has the power sovereignly to decide who He's going to have mercy on and who He won't. So you come asking for mercy, you come with repentance, humility, knowing that you don't deserve a favorable outcome. Once we acknowledge that we are sinners, all we can do is cry out for mercy and humbly accept what God chooses to give. Anything we get is more than we deserve. Repentance and faith, I think are two sides of the same coin. Genuine saving faith involves turning away from wickedness and sin and turning to the Lord who can save you from it.It's both.

We also see the persistence of faith. Jesus puts up one road block after another and she overcomes every one of them. True belief is persistent. Notice also with intercession here, she has linked herself to the plight of her daughter. That is true intercession. You want to know what  intercessory prayer.  It is when you really care about the person and what you're praying for as though it were happening to you. Look what Jesus says in  verse 22.  “ Have mercy on me,” she says. In verse 24, “Lord help me.” I think God sometimes tests our prayer because we don't care about people enough. Let me just speak about myself. I think that God tests me in prayer because I don't care about people like I should and so sometimes he wants me to come on more strongly, and care more about what I'm praying for. He doesn't give it to us right away. So faith overcomes all obstacles through persistence.

We see the humility of faith. Jesus said, “You know it's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to their dogs.” What came out of her mouth next, just moved me this morning as I was thinking about this text. It's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to their dogs. “True Lord,” she said. Wow. Where's the pride at that point? Where is the bridling up?  “I’ve got some things that... I'm pretty good here. I'm not a dog at least.” There is an incredible humility here in this woman. “True Lord,” she says. “I’m closer to a dog than I am to you.” John the Baptist put it this way, “After me will come one who's more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” Is that true? The angels hide their faces in front of Jesus. She accepts it.  “Yes, I'm a dog, less than a dog, but please heal my daughter anyway.” Here's the miracle of grace, that God can take a dog and make her one of his children.  It's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to their dogs. How about if he makes her one of the children, how about then? Does He have that kind of power to take a wretch and make us His treasure?  We're worse than dogs when we rebel against the king, but God's grace is sufficient to take us out of that rebellion and save us entirely. This is the reward of faith. Look at verse 28, "Then Jesus answered, ‘Woman, you have great faith. Your request is granted.’ And her daughter was healed from that very hour.” You know, I've heard this expression, “We need to storm the gates of heaven.”  I don't like it. It implies that heaven is like a walled fortress against us, somewhat our enemy, and we have the power to overcome that adversary and make him give us what we demand which He doesn't want to give.. It's wrong. It forgets how powerful He is. It forgets how loving He is, how much readier to give us blessing than we are to ask for it. Forget storming the gates of heaven. Go like a child to your father and ask. “Which of you fathers, if a son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” That's the way to think, and if He doesn't give it right away, He's strengthening you and helping you. He's got a plan and the reward of faith is that your request is granted, dear woman, and her daughter was healed from that very hour. 

This is an incredible miracle, really, it is but I think there's a greater one, far greater, and it has to do with the greatness of the blessing and the greatness of the cost.  What did she get for all of that? She got a healed daughter. You may be sitting here today listening to me in an unregenerate state. You may never have a demon-possessed daughter. Does this passage have anything to say to you? Yes, it does. Jesus has something far greater to give you then the healing of a demon-possessed daughter. He has eternity in Heaven at His right hand where there are pleasures forevermore. He has full forgiveness of sins available for you. You may not have a demon-possessed daughter, but you have a sin-saturated soul. If you're sitting here listening to me, in an unregenerate state you are not ready to die. There is a record against you of all that you have ever said or done and you're not ready to face that record.

If you're here today in a graceless state, if you don't know Christ as your savior, you're not ready to die. All you have to do is believe in Him. Jesus shed His blood on the cross for the forgiveness of sins, just like yours, and He is eminently capable to cover all of your sins through simple faith. That's all it is. Just receive what He has promised to give. “If anyone comes to me, I will in no wise cast them out.” Trust in Him. You may be listening to me and you've already trusted in Christ. Are you done coming to Jesus? No. That was just the first time you came. You know you've come again and again and again. He is still more ready to give you what you're asking for, than you are to receive it. It will always be that way.

Pray then like this woman and care about somebody else the way she cared about her daughter. Take up their case and press it in as this woman did, not storming the gates of heaven as though heaven's your enemy. Heaven's your eternal home; you're going to live there forever. It's not an enemy, but with persistence and with humility go and ask for what God has laid on your heart and ask until He gives it to you, and let his wisdom decide when that will be.

The greatest gift that Almighty God can give you is Himself, that He would reveal Himself, that He would give Himself to you, He can give you no higher gift. And for myself, I could not enjoy heaven if I couldn't have that. If I could just see the streets of gold, and if I could see the walls of the new Jerusalem, and if I could see the new heaven and new earth, but I were denied seeing the face of God, it would not be heaven to me. The greatest gift that Almighty God can give to you and me is Himself. The greatest gift that you and I can give to Him is our worship, that we would offer Him a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name, that our hearts would be moved with love and deep devotion to Him, and that moved out of that, we would give ourselves to Him. We can give no greater gift.

As I think about those two things, essential to both is a pure heart. If our hearts are filled with wickedness and defilement, we cannot receive the gift of Himself, we can't. We will not treasure it, we will reject it, we have no interest in it. And from an impure heart, God can receive no worship. So if God will bless us with Himself, and if we will give to God a sacrifice of true genuine praise, there must be at the heart of that a pure heart, a heart made pure by the grace of God. In our text, we have some people trying to purify their hearts by their own efforts through tradition and legalism and through their own man-made religion. They are failing, and they are in great danger of being deceived into thinking that they are succeeding, that their worship is acceptable to God.

Some time ago, David penned these words, "Who may ascend the hill of the Lord and who may stand in His holy place?" Is that your desire? Would you like to ascend the hill of the Lord and stand in His holy place? Well, who may do that? It says he who has clean hands and a pure heart. Now, all week last week, I was concerned about clean hands. I had that little bottle of Purell with me that kills 99.99% of all germs. I was just washing all the time. I wasn't doing it like the Scribes and Pharisees here. I wasn't seeking to wash my hands for spiritual reasons, but I wanted my hands to be clean. Some of you are concerned about this norovirus. Wash your hands, okay? It's very, very necessary. As the soap is breaking up the surface tension, and as stuff is getting uncovered, fungi and viruses and bacteria, it's getting washed away, and it's just wonderful. Clean hands. We can do that part, friends, but what about your heart? What can make me pure within? Now that's the question, isn't it? Frankly, Jesus said, "Make the inside of the cup and dish clean, then the outside will be clean too, because if your heart is pure, your hands will be pure too.” I want to know, what can purify my heart? I want to stand on the hill of God and see His face, I want to be in His presence forever and ever. He tells me I have to have a pure heart, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God." The implication is, “blessed are the pure in heart for they, and only they, will see God.” So I must have a pure heart. But how? In our text today it does not tell us how. Thanks be to God, there are other texts. This text tells us how not to try to purify our heart.

The Scribes and Pharisees were professional legalists, who thought that they could earn their way back to God in reference to their sin by keeping the laws of God and their own extra laws that they had made up to help them keep the laws of God. They had built up traditions of the elders that they had passed on from generation and generation, and in this whole machinery of religion, they felt that they could be pure and acceptable to God and worship Him. Along with this whole way of living comes judgmentalism. It's almost inevitable that you're going to feel yourself superior to other people who are not doing what you're doing, and you're going to judge them if they don't follow your patterns.

Part of it is, I think, just that human desire to dominate. The Scribe and Pharisees want to be in charge and say what's what and walk through the marketplaces with flowing robes and long tassels and have people greet them and honor them and all of that. They wanted the whole thing. So they come at the Son of God, the pure and holy Son of God, with an accusation, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat." And so they're bringing this issue of legalism and the tradition of the elders. Jesus turns the whole thing right around, they make an attack on Him, He makes a far more significant attack on them. Why more significant? Because He's the Son of God, He's the judge of all the Earth, and He's judging them. Very serious. He charges them with arrogance over the Word of God. "Why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said... But you say... " You see? 

They were overturning the command of God, "For God said, Honor your father and mother, and anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. But you say, Whatever gift my parents might have otherwise received from me is a gift devoted to God." Thus he is not to be helped by it. You don't need to honor your father with it, "Thus you nullify the Word of God for the sake of your traditions." But then he gets to the even more serious issue. What does God want from us? He wants worship, He wants us to honor Him, and so He gets to this matter of hypocrisy. "You hypocrites," He said, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." Oh, those words could haunt any true and righteous heart. You listen to that and you say, "Oh God, may it not be me." And we feel that it might be, not that our souls would be condemned, that our faith in Christ is of no value, but we see that our hearts are prone to wander. We're prone to go through the rituals and prone to come in here and act like we're really okay with God; we're really worshipping and singing and going through the motions, our lips are saying the right things, but our hearts are far from God, and we yearn to be delivered from that.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, not for a sham. We want the real thing, we want to be righteous, we want our worship to be right and so we are hungering and thirsting for a pure heart. That is the issue that's in front of us in this text. What can make me pure within, so that my worship really would be acceptable to God, that I wouldn't be worshipping in vain? "They worship Me in vain," He said. I don't want to waste my time in worship. I don't want you coming here week after week to waste your time, and you will do so if your hearts are far from God. It doesn't matter how many times you come, it's actually worse, because you're hardening your heart, you're learning how to  give fake hypocritical worship. Don't learn that skill. But rather that we would come and give to God a genuine heart of worship and praise. That's the thrust of the text. But here it's dealing with it negatively as I mentioned.

There's no real answers in the text, only what are not the answers. Legalism and traditionalism and hypocrisy, those are not the answers. What is the issue? The issue is heart religion. When I say heart religion, what am I talking about? The heart is the internal part of you, the part of you that thinks, the part of you that feels, the part of you that reasons, the part of you that decides, the part of you that yearns and has affections, that internal part of you, that is your heart. The Bible says the heart does all of those things. That's what God wants, worship from the heart. The problem is that there is defilement in the heart, impurity. Our hearts are not pure naturally, and so we're coming to the issue of defilement. The legalists said, sprinkle water on your fingers in a certain way, and then you'll be ritually pure. Jesus says, "No, you won't. You're still defiled." There's an internal defilement. True defilement doesn't come from outside in, true defilement comes from inside out. That's what He's getting at.

Now, it's interesting, in verse 10 and 11, Jesus called the crowd to Him and said, "Listen and understand, what goes into a man's mouth does not make him unclean, but what comes out of his mouth, now that's what makes him unclean." This is a very significant moment in redemptive history, it really is. Mark highlights it, he underscores it. This is the moment in which Jesus declared all foods clean, very, very significant. It's the reason that we can eat pork with a clear conscience. It's the reason that Peter could be shown a sheet with all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and creeping things and snakes, and all kinds of stuff and be told, "Get up Peter, kill and eat," [Acts10]. "Never, Lord," he said, "I've never eaten anything impure and unclean." And he was told, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." It's a change. Does God have that right? Are we going to give Him that permission? It's okay for God to make that change. The Old Covenant has gone, and the New Covenant is here, and this is part of it.

If you'll look in Deuteronomy 14, there'll be a list of all kinds of animals, I'll read part of it, "Do not eat anything detestable. These are the animals you may eat... " Are you ready now? "The ox, the sheep, the goat,  the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, mountain sheep, you may eat any animal that has a split hoof divided in two and that chews the cud." Those are the rules, and the text continues with the birds you can eat and can't eat, it goes through the fish that you can eat and can't eat, all of that. That was the law, and it was given by God. But here Jesus, who is Lord of heaven and earth, decrees that all foods are clean, spiritually clean. It doesn't mean you can't do damage to your body if you eat certain things, whatever, that's not it, but in terms of spirituality, you're not at any disadvantage, whatever you eat.

It's not what goes into a man that makes him defiled, it's what comes out of a man that makes him defiled. That's the issue. We're already impure, we're already defiled, and what comes out of us, that's what defiles us. Jesus made this very plain to His disciples. The disciples came later to Jesus and said, “We have a problem here. Do you realize you have a problem? You have just made quite a statement.” The disciples came in verse 12 and asked, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?" Offended would be an understatement. Jesus replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them, they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.” “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach, and then out of the body, but the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man unclean. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man unclean, but eating with unwashed hands does not make him unclean." 

Very clear, God is intensely concerned with what's going on inside in our hearts, that's what matters to Him. This is a consistent theme in the Scripture. You remember how God rejected Saul from being king? And He said, "I have sought for myself a man after my own heart, and he will be king instead of you." And that man was David. David writes of his heart after God, again and again in the Psalms, it's a major theme in the Book of Psalms. Psalm 9:1-2, "I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart. I will tell of all your wonders, I will be glad and rejoice in you, I will sing praise to your name, O Most High." It's heart worship.  Psalm 13:5 says, "But I trust in your unfailing love, my heart rejoices in your salvation." Psalm 16:7, "I will praise the Lord who counsels me, even at night my heart instructs me." There's an internal heart instruction. God instructs the heart, the heart instructs the rest of the person. Psalm 17:3, "Though you probe my heart and examine me at night, though you test me, you will find nothing. I have resolved that my mouth will not sin." It's a determination from the heart not to sin. Psalm 19:14, "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” Read my mind O Lord, read my heart, and may my heart be pleasing to you. May my mind be like an open book and may there be nothing defiled on those pages." Heart religion. Psalm 27:8, "My heart says of you, Seek his face. Your face, Lord, I will seek. Hide not your face from me." That's a heart yearning after God. Or Psalm 1:39, "Search me, O God and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." This is true worship then, it is a heart yearning after God, delighting in God inwardly, searching out God's wisdom, keeping purity within one's private thoughts and life, exposing one's heart to the searching out of the holy God, seeking to make the heart and the hands clean, seeking God's face from an internal drive. This is the heart religion of David, and this is what Christ means to work inside you and me. The kingdom of heaven comes first into human hearts, then it comes to the new heaven and new earth. So it's in the hearts of believers, that's where it comes. That's what he means.

Jesus was even more concerned about this then was King David. As we've already mentioned, He spoke of the ultimate blessing for internal purity.  Matthew 5:8, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." He said it isn't enough just to refrain from adultery. On Judgment Day you'll stand accountable if you even had a lustful thought in your heart. Jesus said it mattered what your heart was set upon, for wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also. It means what you're aspiring after. What do you think about? What are you driving for? Jesus said that's a heart religion. How different is this from the professional religious actors that Jesus was rebuking here? Theirs was a sham. It was a show, it was hypocrisy, it wasn't reality. They delighted in traditionalism and ceremonies and did them better than anyone.   They lusted after the praise of other people, they hated the Son of God, and they rejected the concept of a genuine heart relationship with God. We must have a pure heart in order to worship God rightly, but we have a problem. Scripture testifies very plainly of the nature of the human heart unaided by the grace of God. In the days of Noah, Genesis 6:5, "The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time." That was Noah's day. What about in the time of Jeremiah? Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it?"

I met a man in Haiti I will never forget, probably the rest of my life. The man with the red-knit hat, it was 95 degrees and he had a red-knit hat on. He also had an arm that was curved, like it was bent, and had an Ace bandage wrapped around it. It looked like it had been fractured and then set improperly.  I was concerned about that, I wanted to see what we could do for him. We were talking, but first and foremost, we wanted to share the gospel, so I began talking to him about his spiritual life. In the conversation I felt needed and led by the Lord to quote to him the Ten Commandments, to go through each of the Ten Commandments quickly. And he said, "I've kept all those." I was surprised. He said, "I've never sinned." I was even more surprised.  I've met many people who did not think they sinned enough to go to hell. I actually think most non-Christians are like that. They'll acknowledge that they've sinned, but they just don't think they've sinned enough to merit hell. This man didn't even think he'd ever sinned. I was perplexed, so I said, "Well, you know that Jesus said, 'It's not enough just not to murder, if you're even angry in your heart, you're in danger of the fire of hell.'" "I've never been angry at anyone." I was even more shocked. So I said, "Alright, we gotta ratchet it up on this guy." I said, "If you've even looked at a woman lustfully, you've committed adultery in your heart." "I've never done that." This guy was in his 50s. So I went to the one that got the Apostle Paul, coveting[Romans chapter 7]. "Have you ever yearned for something that wasn't yours and wish you had it?" "Never. Never done it." I said, "Then Jesus can do nothing for you."

It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. "I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. That's the nature of the deceit. It doesn't know that it's desperately sick. It thinks it's okay or needs a little help. Well it doesn't. It's a heart of stone, there's no life in it. It's dead. You must have a heart transplant, and only God can do that. I asked the man if he thought I was a Haitian man. He said, "No." I said, "What if I really believe that I'm Haitian?" He said, "You're still not." I said, "Do you think it would help me if I looked in the mirror?" He said, "Yes." And I held up the Bible and I said, "Here's your mirror. There is no one righteous, not even one. No one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become wicked, worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. Look at yourself in the mirror."

Isn't it amazing how dark a heart can be before God works in them? Now, I don't know what will happen to him. There was nothing more I could do. The heart is dark, it is wicked and it's true still today. Not just in Noah's day, not just in Jeremiah's day, not just in the apostle Paul's day. He said their hearts are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God, and even today.  Jesus said that true defilement are sins of the heart. Look what He says, "Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart and these are what make a man unclean. For out of the heart come evil thoughts: Murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. That comes from the heart. And these are what make a man unclean, but eating with unwashed hands does not make him unclean."

That's God's assessment. What is the remedy? The only remedy there is, is salvation by grace. God, Christ, the Great Physician has given His grim diagnosis of our natural state apart from Him, of our hearts apart from the work of God's grace. Our hearts are defiled and polluted. A river of vileness comes naturally from them. How can the heart be made clean? How can I purify my heart?  The answer as I mentioned, is not found in the text. It's not religiosity, thinking that man-made forms of worship and service to God make one righteous before God. It's not traditionalism, thinking that keeping man-made traditions in the pattern of the elders will make us pure before God. It is not legalism, thinking that obeying laws, even God's laws, will make us righteous in God's sight. It cannot be.

No, no, and no. Even God's holy law cannot clean up a defiled heart. It just can expose it for what it really is. In John Bunyan’s classic, Pilgrim's Progress, Christian is at Interpreter's house, learning about the Christian life, and there's these little dramas that are acted out that help him understand spiritual truth. In one, Interpreter showed him a very large living room full of dust because it had never been swept. Christian saw this for a while and then Interpreter called for a man to come sweep up the room. And as he began to sweep it up, clouds, choking clouds of dust were stirred up so bad that Christian began to choke on it and couldn't breathe. Then Interpreter spoke to a young woman who stood nearby and said, "Bring here the water and sprinkle the room." And when she did, after sprinkling the room with water, the room was quickly cleaned with pleasure.

Christian asked, "What is the meaning of this?" Interpreter answered, "The living room is the heart of a man that was never sanctified by the sweet grace of the gospel. The dust is original sin and inward corruptions that have defiled the whole man. The man that came and swept up the room at first is the law of God, but the woman that came and sprinkled the water is the gospel. Now just as you saw that as soon as the man began to sweep, the dust flew about the room so much that the room could never be cleaned and you began to choke because of it, this is to prove to you that the law, instead of cleansing the heart from sin by its power actually revives sin and makes it even stronger in the soul, even as it uncovers sin and forbids it. For the law has no power to kill sin, only to expose it and stir it up. Just as you saw the young woman sprinkle the room with water after which it was cleaned with pleasure, this is to show you that when the gospel comes with its sweet and precious influences into the heart, then I say, even as you saw the young woman sweep up the dust by sprinkling the floor with water, so is sin conquered and subdued and the soul made clean through faith, and as a result, fit for the King of Glory to inhabit.

The law cannot clean up the heart, even God's holy law. There's nothing wrong with the law, but there's something wrong with the heart. All the law does is expose the wickedness. Only the grace of God in the gospel can clean up and purify the heart. So Jesus said, "Leave these blind guides." Look at verse 12-14. Don't you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this? He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them, they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit." What glorious good news. Some day every plant that God has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. All false teachers, false apostles, cult leaders, false religious systems will someday be weeded out of this world, and in the new Heaven and new Earth, they will not be. They'll be gone forever.

So leave these blind guides. If a blind leads the blind, both will fall into a pit. I was reading about a huge pit in Maui in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in Maui. It's a terrifying volcanic pit called The Devil's Throat. It's 165 feet deep and 150 feet across. What's interesting about it, though, is that there's no fence around it, and there's about a 50-foot path right to the edge. So, they advise that you don't go there at twilight or later, and that you don't let your kids run ahead of you on the path while you walk along slowly behind them. They say that right around the edge there's crumbly rock with fissures in it that you can easily trip on and all that. I'm thinking, I would put a fence up if I were the National Park Service, but there's no fence there. Imagine a blind guide of a school of the blind going to listen to the wind blow in The Devil's Throat. They'll fall into the pit.

But the danger of these Scribes and Pharisees is greater than that. The pit they fall in can take your physical life and nothing more. These folks can lead you to hell, they're blind guides. Traditionalism, legalism, hypocrisy. These kinds of things do not purify the heart, they are not the answer. The only answer then is the blood of Christ, the grace of God in Christ. Listen to Titus 3:3-7, "At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasure.” That's an impure heart. "We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God, our Savior, appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done but because of His mercy….He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life." That's how a defiled heart gets clean.

The pouring out of the Holy Spirit, the blood of Jesus applied, the righteousness of Christ given as a gift, imputed freely as a gift. That's how a defiled heart is made pure.

What application do we take from this? Do you care whether your worship is acceptable to God or not? Does it matter? Does it matter whether you will spend eternity in the presence of worshippers giving praise and glory and honor to the eternal and Almighty God? Does that matter to you? I don't know your heart condition, all of you. It may be that I'm speaking to some who have never been born again. You are not ready to face judgement, if that's the case, you're not ready. You must have the heart of stone removed and you must have a heart of flesh put in by God. You must have a defiled heart purified by the grace of God. But thanks be to God, it's available right now.  Simply trust in Jesus, His blood shed on the cross is sufficient for you. Look to Him and trust in Him for the purification of your heart. The Scripture says, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God." Now to you who are saved, let me give you a word of assurance and comfort because I spoke a moment ago about our hearts being far from God, and we feel that. But let me say something to you, if you have been justified by faith, your heart is pure in God's sight. Isn't that wonderful? 

After washing His disciples' feet, or while washing his feet, Peter said, "Lord what are you doing?  Are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus said, "You don't understand now, later you'll understand."  Jesus says, "Can I continue?" Peter said, "No Lord, You will never wash my feet into eternity." Jesus said, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me." Do you hear that? If He doesn't clean your heart, you will not spend eternity with Him. Well, Peter's not done yet. Peter's kind of an arguer, have you noticed, back and forth? He said, "Then Lord, not just my feet, but my hands and my head as well." The whole thing, right? But Jesus will not let Peter get the last word. He said, "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet, his whole body is clean. And you are clean because of the word I have spoken to you." Oh, what an incredible word that is, that the Creator and Redeemer and Judge of all the Earth can look at you and call you clean.

For such is what you are, by hearing and believing the Word of God. Your heart is clean. It has been clean from the first moment you believed, and it will be clean on into eternity. But yet our hearts can still drift from God, can't they? We can get distracted by the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth. We can get distracted by the pleasures of this world. We have more ways to distract our hearts than any generation that has ever lived. We are easily distracted from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. I would urge you to weed those distractions out of your life and get back to a pure devotion, so that you don't walk in here feeling like a hypocrite, like you have lived far from God all week long and now you're coming to worship Him with your lips while your heart is far from Him. Don't be like that. Repent from those things that are distracting you from a pure devotion to Christ and give yourself to Him fully. Let Him work in you that weeding process, that purifying process, and next week when you come here on Sunday morning, don't worship with your lips only, but worship with the heart that's been made clean by the grace of Christ.

One of the greatest issues of the human soul stands before us in the text that we're studying this week and next week. One of the greatest issues of the human soul is genuine, heartfelt worship. That's what's in front of us in Matthew 15:1-20. That's what the issue is here, and it comes at that incredibly important topic negatively. We actually have three enemies that are arrayed against pure worship in this text, and they are legalism, traditionalism and hypocrisy. These are the enemies of genuine worship. Legalism is the belief that God accepts our worship based on how well we obey rules and regulations, that God accepts us based on how well we keep the law. That's legalism. Traditionalism is the idea that the worship of Almighty God can be captured in a set of behavior patterns which are then passed on from generation to generation, and the better you conform to those patterns, the more acceptable your worship is. That's traditionalism. Hypocrisy is the most dangerous of all, essentially, it's acting, it's putting on a show, and the audience is not really God, the audience is other people. It's acting righteous when you're really not. These are the three enemies of genuine worship that are in this text.

Now, what is the setting?  Jesus has just fed the 5000; 5000 men plus women and children. He's displayed his power in an awesome way there, and then by walking on the water, He displays his supernatural power and control over the natural elements. He gets across the water and lands at Gennesaret. There He basically banishes illness with his supernatural wonder-working power so that even sick people who touched the hem of his garment are made well. In the face of such awesome divine power, there's a delegation of Jews who have come from Jerusalem to investigate him, basically to find fault. He's already guilty in their mind, they're just looking for evidence with which to condemn Him.

So that's why they're there. And as they observe Jesus and His disciples, they come up with something. They watch Him as He eats a meal. I don't like to be observed while eating meals. I like other people to be eating with me or not watching me, okay. I don't know how you are, but I don't enjoy that. Can you imagine the Scribes and Pharisees, this delegation from Jerusalem, observing Jesus. They say, "Aha, there it is." He and his disciples have violated the hand-washing law, and they're going to bring them up on charges. It has to do with the ritual hand washing that was supposed to be done, according to the tradition of the elders, before every meal, and Jesus and his disciples didn't do it. Now, where did the tradition come from? I have no idea; you're not going to find it in scripture. More about that later. It's not coming from the Bible, it's not a command of God. Where did it come from? I don't know. My guess is, so many of these traditions have a good origin, a good intention, something good that then gets encrusted in something permanent as traditionalism.

So it could be that they read the scripture that was written a thousand years before Christ by King David who was a man after God's own heart, who yearned for a heart relationship with God and so things would be displayed in his life connected to that. But David said this concerning worship. In Psalm 24:3-4 it says, "Who may ascend the hill of the Lord and who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart." So, someone after reading that would say, "Well I want to do that, I want to stand in the holy place, I want to ascend the hill of the Lord, so I must have clean hands and a pure heart. I don't know what to do about the pure heart aspect” — that's next week's sermon — “but I can certainly make my hands clean. So let's start doing the hand washing and maybe we'll work our way toward a pure heart."

Maybe some legally-minded people after that said, "You know, that's a good idea. Let's do it every meal,” and so it gets established as a tradition. It's on the basis of this tradition that these legalists, the Scribes and Pharisees, come and bring charges against Jesus. Look at verse 1 and 2, "Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 'Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat.'" Now The Pharisees and Scribes are professional legalists. They're there at this moment, in Matthew 15, which marks the beginning of a great escalation of hostilities between Jesus and the religious authorities in Jerusalem that will ultimately lead to His crucifixion. It starts here, in Matthew's gospel. It's where it begins.

There'd been issues up to this point, but this is where they're starting to investigate him. They're building a case against Jesus. The Pharisees and Scribes were religious leaders who made a careful meticulous study of the law of God their full-time business. That, and then teaching what they had found. They weren't just studying, however, the law of God, they also studied the tradition of the elders, and on the basis of the tradition of the elders and their personal study of the law of God, they instructed the people. They also established themselves somewhat as the religious and ethical police of the Israelite nation. They were there to blow the whistle on anything that was done contrary to the traditions.

What is the origin of their legalism? Simply, we could trace it back at this point to the return from exile in Babylon. The Jews had been evicted from the Promised Land because they violated the commands of God. They broke the covenant established through Moses,  so they were sent out of the Promised Land and were in exile for 70 years. Daniel underscores this as the reason in his incredible prayer in Daniel chapter 9:11, where Daniel prays  to God saying, "All Israel has transgressed Your law and turned away, refusing to obey You. Therefore, the curses and sworn judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us because we have sinned against you."  Daniel underscores the fact that the Jews violated God’s law, and that's why they were kicked out.  Now, after 70 years, a very, very small delegation of Jews, the remnant, forty thousand plus people, not many people, came back under Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, and established themselves again in the Promised Land. They resolved that they were not going to do that again. They were going to adhere to the laws of God, they were going to keep close to the laws of God, so they wouldn't lose their place. It's bad enough they have to kowtow to the Gentile leaders at this point, but they are not going to violate the law. They have Godly teachers of law with them, like Ezra, for example. In Ezra 7:10 it says that Ezra devoted himself to the study and observance of the law of the Lord, to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel. That’s all well and good, that's all fine, but after Ezra came a generation of people who sought to establish a different kind of rules and regulations for the people of God. Schools of religious lawyers developed who spent their full-time debating this or that law, trying to nail down exactly what they're supposed to do in every case. The legal mindset grew and grew until it covered every single detail of their public and private lives. Everything was covered. That's the simple answer to the origin of legalism.

I think there's a deeper answer still. I think it comes from within the heart of a sinful human race who desire to work its way back to God by their own religion and their own good deeds. Basically, what we would like to do is make it right with God by following our own religion, our own way. That's what we want to do, so we're going to make the religion up and then we're going to follow it as best we can. Then God will be very pleased to accept us on that basis, so we think. It goes all the way back, in my opinion, to Cain's offering of vegetables instead of the animal sacrifice that God prescribed. He said, "I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to humble myself and go to Abel and ask for some of the firstlings from the flock. I'm going to take what I want to God, and He better accept it because I'm being generous to God."  It's the religion of Cain. 

I think if you take this and move it all the way through the ages, you're going to get to that, ultimately, with the Scribes and Pharisees. Look at Matthew 15: 9, "They worship Me in vain. Their teaching are but rules taught by men." This is a man-made religion, and it has its origin all the way back in the time of Cain. Now the highest value of the Scribes and Pharisees was outward conformity to the legal tradition. They had a whole tradition of Rabbis that had given their comments on the law. Rabbi so-and-so said such and such about this or that law and then Rabbi this and that and the other commented on what the first Rabbi said, and this is a whole school of back and forth debate over the laws of God. These verbal traditions were erected, somewhat like a safety fence against the law of God, keeping a safe zone around the commands of God, so the theory went, so that if you keep the tradition of the elders, God has to accept you because you're doing more than He told you to do. It's like 20 feet back from the precipice, they'll put up a fence. That was the whole mentality. Now after the second century AD, after Christ, a Rabbi Judah took all of these kind of Jewish traditions and wrote them down in a book called the Mishnah. In time there came many debates about the Mishnah, and those debates, back and forth, were gathered together in another book called the Gemara. And the Mishnah and the Gemara together make up the Talmud, and the Talmud is the basis of the Jewish religion up to this present day around the world.

Jesus, way back at the beginning here in Matthew 15, points to the flaw in all of it. It has to do with arrogance concerning the Word of God. Eventually, the Talmud was openly put, clearly put above scripture itself. There are open statements in the Talmud like this.  "The sacred scriptures are like water, the Mishnah is like wine, but the Gemara is like aromatic wine." So there's a hierarchy, scripture at the lowest, and then the Mishnah, and the Gemara is highest of all. Or this one, "My son, give heed to the words of the Scribes, rather than to the words of the law." Well, that's very clear, isn't it? It's better to listen to the Scribes than it is to listen to the law of God. Or this one, "He transgressed the words of the Scribes sins more gravely than the transgressors of the words of the law." There are many such statements like this in the Talmud. Jesus circled it right from the very beginning, here in Matthew 15. It's astonishing that the opinions of human beings can actually take the place of the perfect and inspired Word of God.

This legal mindset is ultimately what led to Jesus's death. You see it in His encounters with the Jews, again and again. In John chapter 5, Jesus heals a man that had been paralyzed for 38 years. So 38 years, there's this paralyzed man, and Jesus heals him. He did it on the Sabbath. I can say with full confidence He did it on purpose on the Sabbath, because He did it on the Sabbath. Everything Jesus did was on purpose.  Why did He do so many healings on the Sabbath? He was challenging their traditional understanding. Well, what happens when the religious and ethical police see this man miraculously healed. They don't see a miracle, a walking miracle, they see a mat carrier. He's a mat carrier, and so they're going to go after this guy and  say, "Who gave you the right to carry your mat? It's the Sabbath." They want to bring the penalty down on him. Eventually they bring them to Jesus, and Jesus has to stand accountable for what he's done on the Sabbath.

The ultimate example of this is in Jesus's own death trial before Pontius Pilate. The Jews are seeking to kill the only begotten son of God, the only perfectly innocent pure man that has ever lived. They want to kill Him. This is their goal, this is their plot. It's what they've been trying to do all along. They go to Pilot's house, the Roman procurator, but they will not enter the house. Why? Because they want to be able to eat the Passover and according to the tradition of the elders, if you go into a Gentile house, you will be defiled and not be able to eat the Passover. Where did that come from? It's not in the Word of God. So here it is, they're killing God in the flesh and they're trying to obey God's laws, so they think by not entering Pilot's house.

There's a whole chapter of this in Matthew 23: the sevenfold woe. "Woe you Scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, you are like blind guides, you're like white-washed tombs. You look good on the outside, but inside you're full of dead men's bones and everything unclean." That's what's going on. Their accusation here is ceremonial defilement. “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat.” Nowhere in the Law of Moses are you going to find this requirement. If you're going to find it anywhere it would be there, and it's not there. Priests had certain washings that they had to do. There is a law in Deuteronomy, concerning the dealing with an unsolved murder. If there's a dead person found and nobody knows who did it, there's just no information, there's no lead. There's a certain pattern that they follow, and the elders would wash their hands over the sacrifice offered concerning that sin.

But there's nothing anywhere that the people of God need to wash their hands ceremonially and ritually before every meal. This is a tradition and they even acknowledge it. They do not say that Christ had broken the law of God, they're not even troubled by that. He's broken the tradition of the elders and that's worse in their mentality. Now don't misunderstand, we are not here talking about hygiene, okay? Don't think of Jesus as basically a dirty person.  When we say you should wash your hands before you eat, you do it for hygiene reasons. We are living after the time of Louis Pasteur and the germ theory. We know that we ought to wash our hands. So, ought to be done, but we're not talking about hygiene here. We are talking about ceremonial defilement, ritual uncleanness. Where did that come from? It came from human tradition, so Jesus makes a counter charge. Look at verses 3-6, "Jesus replied, 'And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received for me is a gift devoted to God,’ he is not to honor his father with it. Thus you nullify the Word of God for the sake of your tradition.’”

This is a serious attack on the Word of God according to Jesus. Notice the clear contrast. "For God said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and 'anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say," etcetera. God said, but you said. That's the issue here. Jesus is heightening the conflict. The whole system of legalism and traditionalism was a serious attack on the word of God. Legalism is adding to and subtracting from the Word of God. That's what it is. It's going beyond what the Word of God says, or overturning or taking away from what God has commanded.

These folks added requirements that God did not give and thus they overturned clear requirements that He did give. The case that Jesus brings forward is the issue of, what's called in Mark's gospel, Corban. It's got to do with money that you can designate as a gift given to God. The tradition of the elders cropped up that if any Israelite wanted to devote a gift to God, that that took priority or precedent over any and everything that they could have done with that money, including helping their  aged parents with it. Well you know what happens. It's like "Well, all I have to do is just declare everything in my house Corban and I don't have to take care of my parents." You see the legal mindset there.

So there's a loop hole and they just drive trucks through the loop hole. That's what's going on. The fundamental issue in Jesus's mind isn't just the case study of honoring your parents. We get to that in a moment, but it has to do a scripture itself, and human response to scripture and how that feeds into worship. This is an attack on the sufficiency and the clarity of scripture. The legalist adds new laws because God hasn't given enough laws, you see. We need more laws than God gave. Or because he feels that God's existing laws aren't clear enough. God means well, but He's not a very good writer. And so what you need to do is you need to kind of help Him out by adding some extra laws and clarify what God really intended. We know what He really intended from the Word, we have to have help. This is the mentality. Do not see how arrogant this is? God needed more laws to achieve the righteous life He was seeking to achieve. He didn't make it clear. So He needs some additional help from us. This arrogance is precisely why God clearly forbade the doing of this, the adding to and the subtracting from. He does it again and again. Deuteronomy 4:2  says, "Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God, that I give you." That's not the only warning like that in Deuteronomy. This one in Proverbs 35:6 says, "Every word of God is flawless. He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words or He will rebuke you, and prove you a liar."  Then there's the most famous of all, and that's at the end of the entire Bible, at the end of the Book of Revelation.  Revelation 22:18-19 says, "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book and if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy God will take away from him his share in the Tree of Life and in the holy city which are described in this book."  This is very, very serious. If you add to or take away from the Book of Revelation, dire consequences come.

Look what Jesus does. Jesus instead, perfectly upholds the law of God. He cites this as an example, this idea of Corban. The issue of honoring your father and mother.  It's the fifth of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are broken in two categories, two tables of the law. There's the vertical, our relationship with God, and then there's the horizontal, our relationship with other people. This is the first and the most significant of the horizontal relationships, because God in His wisdom set children into families and He commanded the children that they should honor and obey their parents.  If they don't honor and  obey their parents, they will not honor and obey God.  This is the foundation of all ethics: children honoring their fathers and mothers. So Jesus picks this one. What does it mean to honor? I think it's important to do a word study on the word “honor.” Get a concordance, or a Bible search, and just look up the word “honor” and go through the whole Bible and you'll learn what it means to honor. 

I think we ought to do it because I don't think we know it very well. We're a very informal culture, and we don't do honor very well. There's an awful lot of informality, if not open rebellion, even in families these days.I think children don't really know what it means to honor their parents. I don't know that the parents know what it means, so that they can properly instruct their children. I found one as I went through the whole Bible. Now understand what I'm saying, this is an example of honor. The king of Persia brings in his evil councilor Haman and said, "What should be done for the man whom the King delights to honor?"  Haman, in his arrogance, thinks, "Well, who does he want to honor more than me? I mean, after all... " So he figures it’s going to be him, and he says, "Well here's an idea, King. For the man the King delights to honor, have them bring a royal robe the king has worn and a horse that the king has ridden, one with a Royal Crest placed on its head, and let the robe and the horse be entrusted to one of the king's most noble princes, and let them robe the man whom the King delights to honor and lead him on the horse through the city streets proclaiming before him: 'This is what is done for the man whom the King delights to honor.'" Parents, would you like that done for you? Children, would you like to do it?  I think very few of us would actually like to be paraded through the streets of Durham,  yet, look at the core of what's going on here. There is a yearning to take an individual and elevate him, so that it's obvious to everyone around that this is an honorable person. So, all humor aside, God commands children to do this for their parents. And based on Matthew 15, He intends it to the end of life.  Honor your parents right to the end.

Find out what it means to honor, children. I'll speak to the youth.  Don't get sucked into the pattern of this world of dishonoring parents. So many young people do this, the rolling of the eyes, the sighing, questioning parents, wondering if they really know what they're talking about. Isn't it a good thing that the teenagers have come along and help the parents, because they didn't know anything until they came? I don't think that's the idea, okay? The idea is, instead, no, they're not as perfect as you thought they were when you were four, and they're not like what you're thinking now, but actually these are established by God as leaders and spiritual guides. Honor them. Jesus actually went beyond that and brings in a verse from Leviticus, says, "Anyone who curses his father and mother must be put to death." Do not think that Jesus would ever coddle or wink at children disobeying or rebelling against their parents? He doesn't. It's a very, very serious matter. Jesus sites this as an example, but there's a deeper charge here that Jesus is getting at. It's not just the attitude of children to the parents. It's not even just the attitude of tradition and all of that. It really just ultimately has to do with worship. We were created by God to worship Him in spirit and truth. That's why we're here. Anything that comes and perverts or pollutes that worship has violated the very reason why we're here on Earth. 

Jesus goes to the deepest issue of all and it has to do with worship. Look at verses 7 through 9. He says, "You hypocrites, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you. These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. They worship Me in vain, their teaching are but rules taught by men." Jesus is here quoting Isaiah who had written, seven centuries before him, about a problem, an ancient problem, that was still with him in His day and is still with us in our day, and that is the issue of hypocrisy in worship. Isaiah 1:11-14, the prophet Isaiah speaking for God says,  "The multitude of your sacrifices, what are they to me, says the Lord. I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and of the fat of fattened animals. I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of My courts? Stop bringing meaningless sacrifices. Your incense is detestable to me. New moons, Sabbaths and convocations. I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts My soul hates. They have become a burden to Me. I am weary of bearing them." This is what the Lord said about the machinery of religion back in Isaiah's day. It is so easy for the machinery of religion to cover over a heart that is actually far from God. Very, very dangerous. We live in a nation dominated by churches. You can't drive far, especially more suburban and into urban, you can't drive far without passing a church. They are everywhere. A large percentage of the American population goes to church every Sunday. There is an outward show of religion in our country, but the real danger here is hypocrisy in worship.

What is hypocrisy? The Oxford English Dictionary says a hypocrite is one who falsely professes to be virtuously or religiously inclined, one who pretends to have feelings or beliefs of a higher order than his real ones, hence, generally, a dissembler or a pretender. A simpler definition is, a hypocrite is somebody who says one thing and lives another. The practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs which your own behavior doesn't line up with. Those are all fine working definitions. I prefer a much simpler one. The word hypocrite is actually a Greek word brought straight over, letter by letter, into the English language. It means an actor. You remember the ancient Greek tragedies and comedies and the actors would wear masks made of clay. Either the faces would be sad, if it was a tragedy or it would be happy if it was a comedy, depending on the role that the actor was playing. It didn't matter at all what the actor was feeling at that moment. What mattered was the performance. The performance had to be winsome and believable. This was acting. This is the word hypocrite. It's an actor. Now, some of our culture's greatest heroes are actors and actresses. We may applaud the range and the skill of their acting. Maybe one man could play a president and then in the next role, a homeless street person and then in the next role, Napoleon and then the next role, an idiot savant institutionalized, but able to do amazing things. We look at this one actor and we applaud the range by which they can believable portrays of all these different emotions and attitudes. They're acting. Now, all of that's fine, but it's terrible when you bring it in here on Sunday morning, when you bring it to your worship life.

Jesus said in John chapter 5, "I know you, I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts." He is the one with eyes of fire who searches our hearts and knows what's inside. We can't fool Him and we know it. The audience isn't God anyway, for the hypocrite. The audience is other people. Jesus said, "Everything they do is done for men to see." [Matthew 23] Jesus also said in John 5, "How can you believe, if you accept praise from one another and yet you make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God." This is the danger of hypocrisy.  Ritual hand-washing is just an outward show. It shows everybody how religious you are, but there's nothing inside, your heart is far from God.

 What is true worship? The essence of true worship, is a heart inflamed by the Spirit of God, based on God's character and actions as revealed in the Word of God. That's true worship. God, by His Spirit, takes some aspect of His character, or some action of His in the past, and presses it home to your heart by the power of the Spirit of God so that your heart is inflamed with that truth. You love God. You yearn for Him. You're moved within. You want to see Him, you'd give anything to be with Him right now, but since you can't be you'll go ahead and speak and sing and cry and laugh and rejoice and be sorrowful, depending on what God is revealing of Himself and your situation too. That is genuine worship, and it is pleasing to God. It is actually delightful to God, it's a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to the living God.  He cannot be fooled and He will not accept a counterfeit, and that's the real danger going on in this text.

True worship versus hypocrisy. True worship versus traditionalism and legalism. When I speak of traditionalism, do you understand what I mean? It's so important that we don't make a mistake here. Traditionalism is different than tradition. Do you understand that? Jaroslav Pelikan, a teacher of theology and church history at Yale, made it a vital distinction.  It's this: "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living." I think what happens is, the Spirit of God moves powerfully at a particular moment and everybody notes it and everybody senses it. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound. The spirit of God has moved, and people say, "What an incredible time that was! Now, what happened? What songs did you use, what technique did you use, what approach did you take? Let's do that again."

I read about one church  over 50 years ago, where a revival broke out right about the time they played the hymn "Spirit of God Descend Upon My Heart." So they made a commitment that they would play that song at the end of every single worship service from then on. Well, I don't need to tell you that the Spirit of God didn't move equally the same every single time from then on. And after decades of this song, one of the most courageous figures in church history stepped forward and just didn't choose that as the closing hymn. What a moment that must have been for everybody. Some greatly relieved, others, greatly shocked, and that is the issue of traditionalism rearing its head. The Spirit moves in a powerful way, but He doesn't move the same way every single time. And to try to capture the wind in some behavior pattern, some human behavior pattern, it cannot be done. Woe to us, if we try. It's one thing to note it, say, "God did this, this is what He chose to do at that moment. Let's learn from it," etcetera. But to try to legislate it now, that's traditionalism.

I don't want you to misunderstand. There's an essential place of tradition in our faith. I hope you don't think that we are responsible to reinvent Christianity every generation. We're not starting from scratch. Brothers and sisters have gone before us and have lived faithful God-honoring lives and we ought to learn from them. Even more significantly, the Word of God itself has been passed on to us and that is tradition. It's literally the Greek, the passing on of something from one to another. It's essential to our salvation. It says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, "What I received, I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried. And that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." So we have to have tradition is the foundation of our gospel.

We are a people who are in love with the new and fresh and exciting. We have to be told the tradition is going to continue to be part of our faith. Walmart has almost 4000 stores. They study the shelf life of an object based on how well it's doing in sales. A new object has about a week or two to prove itself and then it's gone and the shelf space goes another place. USA Today prints lists of what's hot and what's not, alright, and you can read and find out what's hot and what's not. That's really exciting and interesting, find out what's in. Some things are moving so fast that even a traditional website can't keep up, you got to have the blog and the blog is going to tell you what was hot three days ago.

A church should not try, nor can it keep up with this bewildering change.  We have the word of God which has never changed. Jesus said, "Heaven and Earth will pass away, My words will never pass away." But it is churches, above all, that need to be told not to embrace traditionalism, because it's so easy for something to get captured and say, "God wants us to do it this way." There's a balance. What then is true worship? Well, three key observations. First of all, it is not man-made, but it's initiated by God. It is revelation, then response. Jesus asked the disciples, "What about you, who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," and Jesus said, "Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man but by My Father in Heaven."  That is the foundation of true worship.

It's a revelation of Jesus Christ to the individual heart by the Spirit of God, by the heavenly Father. He reveals Christ to you. You realize you need a Savior, that you're a sinner and that you cannot be saved by tradition or by your good works, or your own approach. You know it's not going to survive Judgment Day and so you come to the cross, you kneel in your heart and  say, "Jesus, save me." Maybe  you're not a Christian, you've come here today, because you're invited by someone. You say, "Oh, church is just full of hypocrites." Well, so it is. There's not one of us that perfectly lives up to our standards, but a healthy church is where you go get healed of your hypocrisy. Let me say to you, as an unbeliever you will not survive Judgment Day. You will not survive based on how well you keep your standards. Be honest. Do you keep your standards perfectly well? You need Jesus. Trust in Him, believe in Him for the salvation of your soul. That's the foundation of true worship, the revelation of Jesus Christ directly to the heart by the Spirit of God.

Secondly, it's not based on human rules, but based on the Word of God. We don't need a bunch of people telling us rules and regulations on how to worship, rather they flow from the word of God. 

Thirdly, worship is not hypocritical, but it's from a heart drawn close to God. But what to do if your heart isn't drawn close, if you know your heart is cold toward God? By way of application, I wanna ask you a simple question, whether you're Christian or non-Christian. You came here today, came into this place, First Baptist Church in Durham. Were you acting today? Are you acting now? Acting interested in the sermon. Were you acting in worship? Who's the audience? What's going on, really, in your life and in your heart? Don't worry about the hypocrites out there, worry about what's going on in your heart. Are you putting on a mask? Is your life genuinely controlled by the Spirit of God or are you leading a double life, sucked away by the allurements of the world, but you know you need to maintain the religious outward appearance for some human reasons. Are you acting? Can I urge you to take the mask down and get honest with God? He already knows you. John 5:30, "I know you. I know you do not have the love of God in your heart," Jesus said. If it's not the way it should be, I urge you to repent, I urge you to get right with God, I urge you to say, "Lord, I don't want to be an actor, an actress. I don't want to be a hypocrite. I want to be genuine in my worship of Almighty God."