Two Journeys

Take your Bibles and look with me at Matthew 12:15-21. This is a very propitious time, a good time for us to be looking at this text as we see the events unfolding in Iraq. We see the descent of yet another human kingdom back into the dust from which it came as we watched Saddam Hussein's shabby reign come to an end, a reign of pillage, a reign of murder, a reign of distress and strife. That human kingdom goes back into the dust as all the others have before it, one after the other. The 20th century has been a time for these kinds of kingdoms to rise and fall right before our eyes. We've seen them one after the other, and we've seen a specific kind of leader, a specific kind of kingdom builder, namely the street level, rabble-rouser, the kind of man who could stand up in front of people who are already predisposed to be angry, to be revolutionary, to be angry and upset, and to organize them into a force for revolution— the street level rabble-rousers like Benito Mussolini who was able to take his black-shirted fascists on a march to Rome and led Italy into fascism. Or Lenin who had the ability to stand and harangue a crowd and whip them into a frenzy, and lead them into the October revolution, over throwing the old czarist system.

Certainly, we know that Hitler had this ability to harangue people and take the frustrations and the economic deprivations of Germany, post World War 1, and whip it into like a frothy sea, a title wave of passion and anger, and military strength. Mao had the same ability to mobilize the frustrated peasants, organize them, and move out for revolution. He was able to sense the times, to tap into the force of the people and their anger, and with a fist and with the harangue move them to action. And the Lord Jesus Christ could have done that, couldn't He? He had the power and the ability to sway and to move people. There certainly were forces for revolution in Israel in His time. The Zealots, for example, would have been willing to lay down their lives, to suffer and die, to see Rome evicted from the Promised Land, but this is not how Christ chose to build His kingdom, and we see that in the text today. Seven centuries before Christ, Isaiah foretold the kind of king, that our Messiah, our Savior would be. He would be a servant. He would be the servant of the Lord.

Isaiah gives us a beautiful prediction quoted by Matthew of a peace loving, gentle, humble, servant ruler who would build His kingdom an entirely different way. Unlike the others, they would not rise, have their moment in the sun, and then sink back into the dust. Not at all, but this kingdom only gets stronger and more powerful until in the end, it will consume the whole earth.  Isaiah said and quoted by Matthew, "Here is my servant whom I have chosen, speaking of Christ, the one I love and whom is my delight. I will put my spirit on Him and He will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out. No one will hear His voice in the streets, a bruised reed, He will not break. And a smoldering wick, He will not snuff out until He leads justice to victory. In His name, the nations will put their hope." That's speaking of a kingdom being built, but in a way no one had ever seen before since, the kingdom of Jesus Christ. The basic idea here is that Jesus Christ has enemies who want to oppose Him. They want to kill Him, to crush Him.

In the context of that, instead of confronting Him like any of these dictators would, He withdraws. He pulls back. Who follows him but the weak, the sick, the lowly, ones that no one would want. He ministers to them. He heals them. He preaches the gospel to them. And in that way, He gains a kingdom. He's been doing it for twenty one centuries, building a kingdom little by little in a way that no one would ever have done before Him. It is a kingdom of the gentle, humble, servant leader, who takes bruised reeds and smoldering wicks like us, and builds out of us, a mighty kingdom. This is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The context of this that we're looking at, starts out in the NIV, "Aware of this, Jesus withdrew."

In verse 14, Jesus's enemies are plotting to kill Him because He's been humble. He's been gentle. He's reaching out to His disciples who are hungry and enabling them to eat grain on the Sabbath, and even worse, He's healing on the Sabbath, taking a man with a withered hand and restoring it just like new. Because of Jesus' humility, because of His gentleness and love, and His tenderness, and the fact that He wouldn't follow their rules, they found Him dangerous. In Verse 14, they plot to kill Him. The overall context here in Matthew 11, and 12 is of human responses to Christ's kingdom. That's where we're at in Matthew's Gospel. Overall, the big picture of Matthew's gospel, as you know, is the building of the kingdom of heaven. It's the advance of the kingdom of heaven. It's the coming king, Jesus Christ, the one who is the son of Abraham, the Son of David. He is the King of the Kingdom of Israel. The genealogy establishes Him as the descendant of both David and Abraham, the one who came to fulfill those promises.

We see unfolded in the first ten chapters, the evidence that Jesus is a fit and worthy King of the Kingdom of Heaven. He is the Son of God. He is the son of man. He's the king. In chapters 11 and 12, we start to get the responses back. How is He being heard? Are people believing? Are they responding? It starts out amazingly with John the Baptist, who can't quite get it, who can't quite understand why Jesus is not ruling the way that he expected, and he said, "Are you the one who has to come or should we expect someone else?" Jesus says, "Watch this," and does some miracles. He heals the weak, the sick, the blind, the lame, and says, "Go back to John and report what you've seen and heard."  John hears, and we believe he was strengthened in his faith and believed and trusted that Christ was right on schedule and the kingdom was fine. 

Then Jesus deals with the problem of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, Jewish cities that rejected Him. They weren't fomenting against Him. They weren't seeking to kill Him. They were just bored by Him. They came and saw the miracles, they were interested but then they went back to their lives, they were indifferent, they did not believe. Jesus deals with them, and says, "Woe to them. " It's a very serious matter, to reject Christ.  Then He goes right from there to an extended discussion on the sovereignty of the kingdom. "I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth," He says. "All of these things being done according to your will, your power, your plan." Then He gives a gentle invitation.  “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." This is our King and this is the way it's working. Human beings rejecting the king, but He continues on in His gentle manner, building the kingdom through preaching and through healing, and through the work that He was doing. The Pharisees couldn't handle it. There was trouble over the Sabbath, so the religionists organize, they attack. In Verse 14, “[the]Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus." In the end, their plot will be successful, in one sense. They will kill Him, He will die. But His kingdom will go on forever. His kingdom is built specifically on the bloody shed at the end of their plot. This is the building of the king of the Kingdom of Heaven, and His kingdom.

We have in verse 15, Jesus' response to His enemies. He is aware of this, aware that they were rejecting, aware that they are plotting to take His life. You might say, "I wonder what His source of information is?" Every mighty king's got a fifth column, maybe some spies that are letting Him know, but Jesus knew their thoughts, He knew their hearts, He knew what they were doing. At one point, He confronts them in John's Gospel and said, "You're trying to kill me." He goes right to it and says, "You're trying... " They denied it at that point, but it was true, they were. What does Jesus do? Aware of this plot, He withdraws. He pulls back from that place. This is typical of the humble servant-hood of Jesus Christ. He is living only to do the will of His Father. This is His purpose. His purpose is to do his Father's will. He is not seeking glory for Himself. He says it directly in John 8:50, "I am not seeking glory for myself." He's not seeking adulation, human praise. He's not seeking this kind of a human kingdom.

Most empire builders, most kingdom builders when they're confronted with some opposition, perhaps even from within their own numbers,  go on the attack, the preemptive strike. The purge for example. If they find out that there's some factions within the group, they're going to eliminate them, they're going to cut off heads, they're going to purge before they can get killed in return; they're going to be aggressive. Jesus doesn't do this, instead He withdraws, He pulls back. He's so different. Every time He's faced with this kind of strong opposition, He withdraws. In Matthew 4:12, "When Jesus heard that John had been taken into custody, He withdrew into Galilei." Matthew 14:13, "When Jesus heard what had happened, He withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place." John 8:59, "Of this, they picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus hid Himself slipping away from the temple grounds.” John 12:36, "When Jesus had finished speaking, He left and hid himself from them." This is a repeated pattern. Pulling back, sliding away, even hiding Himself. 

Christ also withdrew not just in the face of opposition, but in the face of surging human adulation. After feeding a group of 5,000 people who wanted to take Him by force and make Him king. He does the same thing, John 6:15, "Jesus knowing that they intended to come and make Him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by Himself." Again, the same word “withdrew”. This is the way He works. Evidence of this withdrawing is right in our text. We see consistently when Jesus does these miracles He warns people,.”Don't tell anyone, be quiet about it." Look at Verse 15 and 16, "Many people followed Him, and He healed all their sick warning them not to tell who He was." It's very interesting, isn't it? It's all part of that same approach, pulling back. Christ did not desire to build some kind of a populist Jewish movement, an anti-Roman zealot thing in which there are all these people clamoring for him to become king, to be crowned. This isn't what He's doing. They didn't understand Him. They didn't understand His Kingdom.  He's pulling back away from them.

Now let's clear away some misunderstandings about this withdraw. Christ did not withdraw out of fear. He wasn't afraid of anybody.  On the contrary, when the time came for His arrest in John 18, He goes out the garden through the gate and confronts 600 men with weapons who are there to arrest Him. He stands right there in front of them and says, He says, "I am." "Who are you seeking?" "Jesus of Nazareth.” "I am." He confronts... He's not afraid of anything.  Secondly, Christ did not withdraw out of weakness or lack of military strength. You know what happened when He said “I am” that night? They all fell down in front of Him. Just the word of God, all He has to do is say, "I am,” and down they go. It would have been a very one-sided battle if He didn't want to die that night. It would have been over quickly. Furthermore, if He wanted to, He could have called on His father, and He would at once put at His disposal more than twelve legions of angels. Julius Caesar conquered Europe with eleven legions of men. Jesus said, "I've got twelve legions of angels." What's the difference?  One angel comes down on the morning of Jesus' resurrection, moves the stone and just because of His appearance, the Roman soldiers fall away like dead men just because of how he looked. Three angels in Revelation, poured out their bowls and a third of the world died, that's three angels.

Twelve legions would do the job. So he does not withdraw because of lack of military strength or power and he does not withdraw because he doesn't want to be king. He does want to be king. As a matter of fact, he is king. You remember what Pontius Pilate said to him, "You are a King then." Jesus said, "You are right in saying that I am a king. It is for this reason I entered the world. This is why I'm here, to build a Kingdom. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me. That's how I've built my kingdom by a proclamation of the truth. People listen. That's how I've built my kingdom. Not what you're thinking Pilate. Not the Caesar way."

He did not withdraw because he didn't want to be King. Jesus withdrew because his kingdom would not be built that way. It's going to be built another way. He withdrew because he was not willing to shed his enemies’ blood. He didn't want to slaughter them, and that's what it would have taken. Rather he wanted his own blood to be shed. Not when they thought, but when he's chose at the right time in the fullness of time, at the Passover, after the third year of ministry, that's when it would happen, not before because his time hadn't come yet. He withdraws because he doesn't want to slaughter his enemies. He wants to be the sacrifice, the one slaughtered. Secondly, he withdraws because he wants to demonstrate that his kingdom will be built through gentle, humble, servant ministry to the weakest lowliest off-scourings of society that nobody wants. In his withdrawal, he builds his kingdom that way. The combination of humble servant-hood under death, an irresistible gentleness, has built the greatest empire in the world and it's only going to get bigger and stronger. That's why he withdraws.

Isaiah gives us an astonishing portrait of our king. He shows us with an incredible prophecy here, seven centuries before Christ, what our Messiah is going to be looking like. "Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love and whom I delight. I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out, no one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed, he will not break, and a smoldering wick, he will not snuff out till he leads justice to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope." Isaiah's visions are the foundation, a very strong foundation of Matthew's proof that Christ is who he claims to be. Matthew is constantly quoting Isaiah, verse 17. "this was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet." Six times Matthew quotes Isaiah, showing how Christ fulfills Isaiah's prophecy Christ's entire ministry was prophesied seven centuries ahead of time.This gives us great evidence that Christ is who he claimed to be. 

Three  bullet points: first Christ calling by God, secondly, Christ conduct of that calling, and third Christ's consummation of that calling. First Christ calling by God: Verse 18, "Behold my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love and whom I delight." Are any of you reading the NIV? Do you notice the “behold” is missing? That frustrates me, because it's in the Greek.  Let's put it back. "Behold."  "Everybody look, sit up and take notice," says the father. "Look at my son. Behold my servant. Look at him." Take a minute if you would and go back to Isaiah Chapter 52:13 where it says, "See my servant." Well, they did a little better there. They at least put the "see" in there, but I still like “behold” better. It makes you sit up and take notice. "Behold my servant. Behold my servant will act wisely. He'll be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Just as there are many who are appalled at him, his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness. In that way, he will sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand."

This is the message of the cross, isn't it, of a disfigured grotesque man, who in that way, sprinkles nations with his blood and atones for their sin. A message goes out. Kings will hear about him, and they will believe. In Isaiah 53:1, "Lord, who has believed our message?” The Jews would reject." Paul picks up on this. They would not believe, they would not accept. Why? They could not factor in the suffering servant image here. “Who is this, this suffering servant? We don't understand. How can we have a Messiah that would shed His blood, whose appearance is grotesque and disfigured beyond that of any human likeness?”  Who could this be? They took this passage and set it off to the side, or they thought perhaps it was Israel or something, they didn't know what to do with it.

Listen again to what it says,  [Isiah 53: 1-6]“Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed. He grew up before Him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering, like one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. Yet, we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted, but 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." This is the suffering servant. They can't figure it out. Who could this be? 

Look at Isaiah 53:10,  "Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer. And though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul he will see the light of life and be satisfied, and by his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities." This is the triumph of the suffering servant. I believe it's predicting His resurrection. After He suffers, He rejoices, He sees the bounty. Go back now to Matthew. Do you see now the potency of this prediction? In verse 18, "Behold my Servant." This is the servant of the Lord. “Jews, you can't figure Him out. But here He is; He's humble, He's a servant, He's broken, He's going to die on the cross.” In verse 14, they're going to plot to kill Him. Verses 15-18, He's going to yield to it. He's the servant; He's going to die because He's the suffering servant of the Lord.

Christ's calling by God is that He is the suffering servant. "He came," it says in Matthew 20 verse 28, "Not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many." John 6, "I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but to do the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day." This is the servant of the Lord, He does the Father's will. Philippians 2:5-8, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God did not consider it equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself even to death, death on a cross. Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place." That's the servant of the Lord, the suffering servant, and that's His calling. He's called to be a servant.

It also says that He's chosen, "Here is My servant, whom I have chosen." Christ was specifically chosen by God for this role. He is the elect. He is the chosen one of God. The Greek word here for “chosen” is a little unusual, it means the irrevocable choosing of one out, usually connected with adoption. I'm not saying that Christ was adopted by the Father,  but there is a strong choosing here done by the Father for this role. God chose Christ before the foundation of the world that He should suffer and die.

In I Peter 1:18-20, "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you by your forefathers. But with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect, He was chosen before the creation of the world, but has now been revealed for your sake." And so before God even said, "Let there be light", Christ was chosen for this role. Before the foundation of the world, He was the chosen of God, chosen to be the living stone, a foundation for the spiritual house that He's going to build. 1 Peter 2 he says, "As you come to Him, the living stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to Him, you also being built upon Him."  He's the chosen one, chosen for this role.

Thirdly, He's beloved and delightful to God. "Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love in whom I delight." He delights in His Son. KJV puts it this way, "Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased." The Father speaking of the Son. What a beautiful meditation it is to think of the strength of the love the Father has for His own Son.  It burns brighter than a trillion suns. He loves His Son, and so He's willing at His baptism to say, "Behold my Son whom I love. In Him I am well pleased." He's going to say it again at the Mount of Transfiguration when Peter is running off  the mouth; "Peter, be quiet." A bright cloud envelops them, and a voice comes from the cloud and says, "This is my Son whom I love. With Him I am well pleased, listen to Him, as opposed to talking like you're doing right now. Listen to Him, this is my Son." So the delight of the Father for the Son; John 3:35, "The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in His hands." John 5:20, "The Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does." John 10:17, "The reason the Father loves me is that I laid down my life for the sheep." The Father loves the Son because the Son is a perfect representation of the Father. The Father loves the Son because the Son was his co-laborer in creating the universe; they worked together at it. Through the Son, God made all things. The Father loves the Son because the Son is zealous for the Father's glory and would rather die than disobey His Father. The Father loves the Son because He's willing to lay down His life for you and me.  He says, "This is My beloved one, my soul is well pleased with Him." Jonathan Edwards put it this way, "The infinite happiness of the Father consists in the enjoyment of the Son." Now you say, "How does that relate to me? Please make it relevant." Now let me tell you something, you don't get saved any other way, that's how you get saved. You are seen in Christ, and so when the Father is lavishing love on the Son and you're in Him, you receive that. We are chosen in the beloved, chosen in Christ, we are loved in Him. Ephesians 1, "In love He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glory, His grace which He has freely given us in the one He loves." KJV had it this way, "We are accepted in the beloved." Because the Father loves the Son, we get to go to heaven. We are chosen in Christ. "Behold my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight."

Number one, Christ's calling by God. Number two, how does He conduct that calling? In Matthew 12:18 He says, "I will put my Spirit on Him, and He will proclaim justice to the nations." Positively, we have here a Spirit-empowered, enduring proclamation of justice to the nations; that's how He's going to carry out His calling. The Spirit is going to be on Him, and He will proclaim. Christ was, first of all, saturated with the Holy Spirit. He was conceived by the Spirit in his mother's womb. The Spirit came upon Him at His baptism, landed upon him. He was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil, led out of the desert by the Spirit to preach and proclaim. He stands up to preach for the first time in Nazareth, what does he do but find a place in Isaiah in which he says, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me." What is he saying? "I'm the Messiah."  That's what he's saying. "The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me." He was empowered by the spirit to do miraculous signs and wonders, filled by the spirit to proclaim the kingdom to Israel, led by the spirit to the cross to suffer and die, raised by the Spirit from the dead on the third day.

“I [God]will put my Spirit on Him and He's going to proclaim justice to the nations.” If you would have been a first century Jew, you would have been stunningly disappointing. “I don't want the Gentiles to have justice proclaimed to them, I want them to have justice at the end of a two-edged sword. That's the kind of justice, I want. Not a proclamation of justice, a conquest of Jewish justice. That's what I'm looking for.”  No, he's going to proclaim justice. What does that mean? Two senses; it has to do with the Gospel. Justice and righteousness, the same thing, he's going to proclaim, to Jew and Gentile alike, that there is a righteousness, a justice available by faith to those who simply repent, and trust Him. He will proclaim the gospel of justice that in his death on the cross God's justice has been satisfied, and he can justify us through faith. That's one sense of the justice. Secondly, he's going to proclaim the justice of God in vengeance and wrath on all who do not obey the gospel. A two-edged proclamation will go forth, just not yet on the second one. This is the day of the year of the Lord's favor, this is the time of proclamation and grace, and mercy. He will proclaim justice to the nations, to the ends of the earth. 

He's going to proclaim justice to the islands it literally says in Isaiah. He's going to go right to the end. How is he going to do that? He sent His Spirit and He says, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the Earth." He goes on by the Spirit proclaiming justice to the nations through us. So it goes, patient endurance to the end. Isaiah 42:4 says literally, "He will not falter or be discouraged until he succeeds." He is not going to give up, he's relentless, he never gets discouraged. There’s never a bad day in the Kingdom of Heaven. He doesn't falter, he doesn't get discouraged, he just builds his kingdom day after day after day. It doesn't matter what you read in the newspaper this morning, Christ is building his kingdom, and he will not falter nor be discouraged. He's going to  keep going,  and he's going to win. That's positively a Spirit-filled patient, enduring proclamation of justice to the nations to the end. Negatively, however, he will not do some things; he will not be a harsh, street level, rabble rouser with his fist in the air whipping people up into a revolutionary frenzy. Verse 19, "He will not quarrel or cry out, no one will hear His voice in the streets." This is interesting, in one sense, Jesus does proclaim in the streets, doesn't he? He raises up his voice. John 7:37, "On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink."  Or he'll stand in front of Lazarus' tomb after the stone has been removed and he'll call out in a loud voice, "Lazarus come forth." And Lazarus will come. Or he'll get up on the cross, and in a loud voice, he will cry out "Eloi, Eloi Lama Sabachthani," which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He'll cry that out in a loud voice. Through His suffering on the cross under the wrath of God He can invite anyone who's thirsty to come and drink, and he can stand in front of a tomb, and call you and me out to everlasting life. He's not going to build some shabby, earthly, dusty kingdom that's going to sink back down into the dust. He's not going to stand and call in the streets in that way.

He's also not going to use and abuse people the way those revolutionary dictators do.  "A bruised reed, He will not break, and a smoldering wick, He will not snuff out." These people are worthless to a revolutionary dictator. They can't do anything with them. You can't build a strong structure with a bruised reed. Revolutionary dictators need angry powerful, strong young people who are willing to risk anything to overthrow the existing regime, not bruised reeds and smoldering wicks. Christ is different, isn't he? He's going to take weak people, sick people, lame people. He's going to take lepers, who no one wants to touch or be near. He's going to take blind people. He's going to take demon possessed people who are an embarrassment to the entire culture and he's going to work with them. He's going to take prostitutes, tax collectors, sinners of all kinds and he's going to build a kingdom out of them. He's not going to do those things; raising His voice in the streets and crushing and dispensing people when he's through with them, not at all. 

Thirdly, Christ's consummation of that calling. Let me put it to you very simply. He's going to win! He's going to be victorious! He wins in the end. "A bruised reed He will not break, a smoldering wick He will not snuff out, until He leads justice to victory." He's a leader and He's going to win.  He's going to be victorious. In the end He will succeed, and in His name the nations will put their hope. He will be a king, and all over the world, even to the distant most islands, even there there will be people trusting in His Name and following His law. Even there His kingdom will be. He will win. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

What application can we take from this? First of all, let the servant of the Lord serve you. The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. He doesn't need anything from you. He doesn't need you to build his kingdom. He'll build it, it's going to succeed. Let him serve you.  Let Him be your sin bearer first and foremost. Let Him be your atoning sacrifice. Let Him cleanse you and prepare you for heaven, let him clean you up. Secondly, let Him get down on his knees and wash your dirty feet every day. Let Him atone for your sins, let Him cleanse you and sanctify you daily. Let him serve you. Don't think that you can bring to Him some sacrifice to help Him in His kingdom endeavor. "Lord, I've heard you're building a kingdom and I like to chip in a little. I'd like  to help see what I can do." He doesn't need that. Let Him serve you. That's humbling, isn't it, to let Christ serve you? "I want to think I had some hand in it." No, no. Let Him serve you. Let Him cleanse you. Let Him die for you as your Savior and then let Him cleanse you day after day.

Secondly, how does this kingdom grow?  Zechariah 4:6. "Not by power, nor by might but by my Spirit," says the Lord. That's how the kingdom's going to grow. You know what that means?  By the Spirit. By the Spirit's wisdom and by the Spirit's power. What do I mean by Spirit's wisdom? He is unpredictable, actually, His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts. What that means is there are some times that he's going to do things that you would not think he would do. His wisdom is unpredictable.  He's not building it by our gifts, our talents, our skills, our efforts, our money, but by Him, by His power. That's how the kingdom's going to grow.  Therefore we need to have full confidence that the Spirit's going to lead this church, and the world-wide kingdom of Christ to its final end. Just follow the Spirit. Keep in step with the Spirit. Do what He tells us to do. Don't be a worldly empire builder, not in your business, not in your family. Follow and imitate Christ. He was a humble servant leader. Be that way.

Thirdly, don't be intimidated or impressed by earthly, dusty kingdoms. Don't be intimidated or impressed by people like Saddam Hussein who rise for a while and have their moment in glory and then they fall back down. That is not the story of the world. It may seem like it is. Against the backdrop of it Christ advances his kingdom. But that's not the story. So don't be intimidated. Where is Leninist Russia now? Where is Hitler's 1000-year Reich? It lasted 13 years. It's gone. Where is Christ's kingdom? Stronger than ever before.

Now let me say this one delicately, and hear me carefully, limit your patriotism. There is a difference between America and the Kingdom of Heaven. Many American  leaders are Christians. They love the Lord. We praise God for them, we pray for them, but there is a difference between America and the Kingdom of Heaven. They advance by different means. In many cases they have a different agenda. Our first loyalty is as it says in Philippians 3, "Our citizenship is not on earth, it's in heaven." I pray for our President, I pray for our troops. I own American flags I display them, I have patriotism. I honor those that have sacrificed their lives that we might have freedom, but realize there's a distinction between America and the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ's kingdom lasts forever, America does not. Let's keep that in mind as we continue to pray for our President and the troops. Finally pray, give, and go, so that those islands will hear the gospel because Christ intends to establish his kingdom even there.

An overview of the Book of Isaiah and the scope of the Kingdom of Christ that extends to the end of the world and the end of the ages.

I hope you've all gotten one of these green sheets, the ones at the bottom of the pile of white, and we haven't gotten there yet, so they're all green, if you need one, we've got some up at the front and you'll want them, you'll also want your Bibles, we're gonna be looking through the book of Isaiah. I did not put all the quotes in the green sheet, we're gonna have to follow along. Ordinarily, I'm going through the book of Exodus, and I hate to digress, but I just felt compelled, I was just so excited by this study that I did earlier. I was challenged recently as I was preparing for a talk that I'm gonna give to some ministers tomorrow, about the role of the word of God in the ongoing devotional life and healthy spiritual life of a pastor. By the example, I had forgotten, but of the example of George Muller, who read through the Bible 100 times in his life. Now, you may not think that's any big deal, but have you ever tried to read through the Bible once in a year? And he went, read through it 100 times, so that's on average, about twice a year for him, and maybe a little faster. That's incredible. And just the scope, what that does for you, you see, in-depth memorization of Scripture, memorizing whole books of the Bible gives you knowledge and depth, you take one book and you study it carefully and you go as deeply as you want with that one book. Reading through the Bible in a year or reading through it 100 times gives you the overall breadth, the scope of what God is doing, and you just keep learning new things, so I thought, "Well, I'll see if I can combine it,” and I've really never been able to do that before, is read through the Bible in a year and memorize books of the Bible, it's really hard to do, but I thought I'll keep going until I just can't do it anymore. And so I was going through Genesis again and some things started to click into place, and it started with the passage in Isaiah 42, which I preached on this morning.

Now, you see in your outline there, this morning's quote from Matthew 12. In Matthew it reads, "Here is my servant, whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight, I'll put my Spirit on him and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out, no one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed, he will not break, and a smoldering wick, he will not snuff out, until he leads justice to victory. In his name, the nations will put their hope." Now, in the Isaiah passage, if you look, especially at verse 4, you see a difference, he says there, “He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth.” And then it says, “In his law the islands will put their hope.” It's kind of interesting, isn't it? Matthew brings it over as nations, and really the scope, and it ends up about the same, but there's a detail or a specific understanding of islands in the book of Isaiah, I spent about a year and four months doing scripture memorization in Isaiah, and I'll tell you what, the things that are there, in the book of Isaiah, it's like I've likened it before to the new world, when Columbus landed, or when Lewis and Clark went across on their expedition, there's so much to learn in the book of Isaiah, so many details. And you could take one theme, like I've done here, this is really just a word study on the word island, in Isaiah, and you would see the riches there. But that's what we're gonna do this evening. “In his law,” it says, “the islands will put their hope.”

Now, Isaiah, if you look at Isaiah 1:1, it's there on your sheet, or you can turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 1:1, either way is fine. But it says, “The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah, son of Amoz, saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.” Now, this is important, in two senses, number one, that Isaiah is, I think of all the prophets, all the Old Testament prophets, the most visionary, by far, what I mean by that is, you could close your eyes, and listen to someone reading Isaiah and streams of visions, would come into your mind, pictures really. He was a very picturesque writer, you know, you're gonna see images of streams in the wasteland, of the desert blooming with crocuses, you're gonna see the shadow of a great rock in a dry and thirsty land, a voice crying in the wilderness, for example, or you're going to see great, mighty tall sailing ships with tall masts being toppled over, an image of the humiliation of human arrogance and pride, there's lots of images that come in, one of them in chapter one is the daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a field of melons, like a city under siege. You can imagine a melon field, and so it's just flat and there are vines everywhere and there's a hut, perhaps a shelter to rest in the middle of the field, and so you can imagine the starkness of that, there's this hut, sitting all by itself, and then just a field all around it with nothing else there, and that's Jerusalem when the Assyrians came in and conquered everything but that one city, Jerusalem, and there was nothing left, and so Jerusalem was left alone, isolated like a hut in a field of melons, like a city under siege. So you see the images there, or at the end, “You will be like an oak with fading leaves, like a garden without water, the mighty man will become tinder and his work a spark, both will burn together with no one to quench the fire.” Speaking of idolatrous Israel and their works being really like drying leaves ready to burn and crackle with a fire, and that fire is coming, so they're images. It's a visionary book, and one of the images he gives us again and again is this image of the kingdom of Christ, the overall glory of the kingdom of Christ, and he gives that probably most clearly, I think in Isaiah 9, very familiar to us. Verse 6-7, "To us, a child is born, to us, a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders, and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end.” And here it is, it says, “He will reign on David's throne, and over his kingdom.” You see that, now, the kingdom image for Christ and the Messiah is not strong in Isaiah, but here it is clearly taught, that the coming Messiah, the descendant of David, “will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness,” it says, “from that time on and forever, the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.” Accomplish what? Well the kingdom of Christ, from the time he comes, from that point on, the kingdom will reign and it will grow and get stronger. And so that's what we have in mind, the increasing glory and the eternal glory of the kingdom of Christ, and Isaiah gives us the scope of that vision, the geographical scope is what we're really kind of looking at tonight, to the ends of the earth or to the distant islands, will be his reign. We're gonna talk about that. The ethnic scope, it includes the Gentiles, the strongest verses on God's saving intentions to the Gentiles in the Old Testament are found in the Book of Isaiah. And we're gonna look at some of them tonight. The nations, he has in mind, the nations, and also the timeframe, he's going to go from that time on and forever, right to the end of the world. So we have the scope here of Christ's Kingdom, to the ends of the earth and to the end of the age. That is the scope of Christ's kingdom.

Now, the roots of this are the beginning, namely the original creation mandate. In Genesis chapter 1, God after creating man, male and female, in his image and after his likeness, gave them this commission. “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it.’” Now, what does that mean, “Fill the earth?” It means, “Replicate, have more of yourselves, have lots of children who are also created in the image of God, and then just be there, be all over the world, everywhere that I've made, live there, and see what I've made.” The glorious creation, and be there as worshippers of God, those that take in the glory of God, that see it, that admire it, and that reflect it back up to him in knowing worship, something nothing else in creation can do, that's something we alone can do, we who have been taken from the Earth, physically, created out of the dust of the earth. We can stand on the ground and we can look around us and say, "This is my Father's world, God made this, and he's glorious, and he's majestic." That was our job. And so God intended, I believe, from the beginning, that the earth would be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, and that we would do that, that we would have children and grandchildren, Adam and Eve would, and they would fill the earth with the knowledge of his glory, and that all over the world his image would be there, standing on this spot, or on that spot, or on this hill, or that mountain, we would be there all over the world, and we would see what God has made and we would honor him and we would give him glory and praise, for he made it.

But sin ruined everything, didn't it? In one sense, sin interfered, sin stepped in and made us selfish and made us wicked so we could not see his glory, we became blinded because of sin, we were cast out of the garden of Eden. Genesis 3:23, "The Lord God banished him from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken." So we had to wrestle with the dust and with the thorns to make a living, and so everything changed when sin entered, we changed and our task changed.

And so we see at this point, the idea of scattering coming in. Now this is very interesting, so I've only begun to have these thoughts over the last two days, so this is very undeveloped for me, but the idea I have here is that God still wants the world filled, even sinners that we are. And so what he's gonna do is he's gonna scatter people all over the earth. He's gonna spread them everywhere, even though they don't know him or acknowledge him, they're going to be there, but they're not going to acknowledge him. Then he's gonna go get them, with the gospel. That's the kind of the big picture here. He's gonna send them out there, they're gonna be there, and then the gospel is gonna come after them and transform them into worshippers of God. You see what's gonna happen. So that's his second plan, and obviously he knew that the fall would happen, I'm not getting into that, but the idea is he would scatter them to the ends of the earth, and they would populate those places, and then he'd come after them with the gospel.

Cain was the first who was scattered, if you look at his situation, that he murdered his brother, over worship really, and it says "The Lord said, 'What have you done? Listen to your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground, now you are under a curse and driven from the ground which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand, when you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you,'" and then it says, "You will be a restless wanderer on earth." That's very important, isn't it? Who does that remind you of, a restless wanderer on earth? Isn't that the devil's role? You're very demonic, at this point; he's a restless roamer over the surface of the earth, that's what Cain would be like. But that's a sense of the scattering, he's gonna go out and move out at that point, and he's gonna have cities and he will, and his descendants will as well, and they're going to set up cities and they will populate them. We see the same thing happening after the flood, Noah's flood, in Genesis 9:18-19, “The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Ham was the father of Canaan. These were the three sons of Noah, and from them came the people who were scattered over the earth.” do you see that? That's very interesting, Genesis 9:19, from these three sons of Noah came the peoples who are what? Scattered over the earth. What is he doing? He's spreading people all over the world, scattering them.

Now, when did that happen? Well, in Genesis 11 it happened with the incident of the Tower of Babel, you remember that story? And they had the technology, they developed a technology on how to build bricks and bake them thoroughly, and when I preached on Genesis, you remember in Genesis 11, I talked about that, why is that important? Well, it had greater compressive strength, you see, as an engineer, I can stand here and tell it, and when you bake them thoroughly, and all the moisture gets out and you can stack one on top of the other, and when you can do that, you can build tall towers and great cities at that point. And so at this point, we look in and we see what is their motive? And in Genesis 11:4, it gives the motive, “Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may [number one] make a name for ourselves and [number two] not be scattered over the face of the earth.’" They're doubly thwarting the plan of God. Do you see that? They're not going to be spread or scattered all over the Earth, they don't want that, they wanna come together and be in this one place, and why, so that they could glorify themselves; make a name for themselves. And so in this way, it's frustrating the plan of God, who would have them fill the Earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Exactly the opposite, of what he intended, and then in Genesis 11:8-9, “So the Lord scattered them from there all over the earth and they stopped building the city, that's why it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world, and from there, the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.” that's twice now, in two verses and three times, in this account, in Genesis 11, this idea of scattering, the people are being scattered all over the Earth. God did it. It's not an accident. He intended it to be done. He scattered the people. Where did they go? Well, Acts 17:26 tells us where they went. What does it say? It says, "From one man, he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole Earth." What does the word, that, mean in that sentence? God intended that people be all over the earth, he intended that. “From one man, he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he determined the time set for them and the exact places where they should live.” So where did they go? They went where God determined that they should go, they spread out, and they took their place on the earth where God intended.

Alright, well, the descendants of Japheth were particularly interesting to me as I went through the table of nations, “The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, and Tubal and Meshech and Tiras, and the sons of Javan were Elishah, and then Tarshish, it says, Kittim and Rodanim,” now, Tarshish and Kittim are particularly interesting to me, but I'm gonna keep reading, “From these the maritime peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each with its own language.” These were the maritime peoples, what does that mean? They got into ships and sailed to places you couldn't reach except by ships. Well, how do they know how to do that? Well, Noah built an ark, a very impressive ship, I must say, and so it wouldn't be so shocking for his descendants, a few generations later to know enough to build sailing vessels that could take them anywhere on the surface of the earth, they could go anywhere. And so they did. And so they peopled, among other places, the islands, the distant islands, and there would be people there, and they would have their own culture, and their own language, it says.

Now, Tarshish is the most distant populated colony of the Mediterranean Sea, perhaps as far as Spain. You remember Tarshish, in that Jonah tried to flee there from the presence of the Lord. Well, the problem was that he hadn't read Psalm 139, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” “If I go to Tarshish, you are there. It doesn't matter where I go, you're there,” but he thought he would flee from the presence of the Lord. Was he going as a missionary? No, it's more of that scattering. He's just going. He wants to get away. It has nothing to do with being a missionary; it has to do with just running away from the presence of the Lord. Well, God didn't intend that Jonah go to Tarshish at that point, he said, no. Alright, now, Kittim is the general term for the islands of the Mediterranean Sea, but especially Cyprus, I think, in particular Cyprus, that's gonna play in later, again, when we see the fulfillment of the islands, I'm just setting the table right now, say, “Well, when are we gonna eat the course?” I don't know, but we're getting there, we're getting there. Okay. So the descendants of Japheth peopled the islands of the sea.

Now, Israel was called out. You know after that, shortly after the Tower of Babel, God called a man, Abraham, from Ur of the Chaldees and set his love on him and made a covenant with him, that through his offspring, all peoples on earth would be blessed, right? And so God would bless the whole world, all nations on earth blessed through Abraham, and he was the father of the Jews, the Jewish nation. And so he made a covenant with him and that they would have the Promised Land, but it wouldn't be until after the events of Exodus that we're studying, when God would lead them out with a mighty hand, outstretched arm, into the Promised Land, and they would take that Promised Land, but with a conditional covenant. What do I mean by conditional covenant? Well, there are unconditional covenants, like the covenant that God made with Noah after the ark, he said, "Look at the Rainbow. There's the sign, I'm never gonna do this again." Okay, That's unconditional covenant. God makes it, that's it. We don't need to agree or disagree, obey or disobey, he's just not gonna flood the earth anymore, like he did that one time, that's what, a uni-directional covenant. Okay, but this one, when they entered the Promised Land was not like that. It was a conditional covenant that if they disobeyed, he would do what? He would scatter them. He would kick them out of the Promised Land and scatter them to the four winds. And so it says, in Deuteronomy 4:25-31, "After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time, if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and provoking him to anger, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, you will not live there long, but will certainly be destroyed." And here in Verse 27, "The Lord will scatter you among the peoples... " See that, kind of hard to miss, I put it in bold, underlined. But there it is, “the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. There you'll worship man-made Gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear, eat or smell, but if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all of your heart and with all your soul. And when you're in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey him." Very big theme in the book of Isaiah, namely the re-gathering of Israel back to worship in the Lord and back to the promised land, very big theme, if from there, you turn, he will bring back... Now, we're studying this in Sunday school, aren't we? With the books we've been doing recently with Haggai and Zechariah and all these, but that was just a token, you have to understand that. You have to understand that's just the first fruits, that was not the ultimate, I think, re-gathering, that's prophesied in Isaiah, and others might disagree, but I think that the scope is so huge in the book of Isaiah that there's something else yet to come, and I'm excited about that. It's remarkable because, I'm just tipping my cards right here, you know who's gonna be bringing them back? It's the Gentiles who're gonna bring the Jews back. They're already out there, they're gonna hear the gospel, they'll believe it, and they'll carry the Jews back to the Promised Land. It's a remarkable thing, and Isaiah gives us the whole vision, but he says, "I'm gonna scatter you," and he did, didn't he? Song of Moses predicted all of it, they did rebel, they did become idolatrous, and he did scatter them, to the four winds, it was called the diaspora. And they were spread everywhere. The Jews went everywhere, and yet remarkably, they maintained their Jewish identity, in all the communities they went, whether it was Russia, or Greece, or Rome or whatever, they continue to be Jews, which is very interesting how God maintained that identity, and yet they're rejecting Christ, fascinating thing, but he scatters them out.

Now, Christ comes, in the fullness of time, at the right time, he enters in the world, and one of the things he's here to do, I would say one of the ways he's here, that one of the ways we speak of his mission is that he is here to re-gather. And we're gonna get to this shortly, in Matthew 12, if you look down on the third quote there, Matthew 12:30, Jesus said, “He who is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me... " Does what? “Scatters.” So you're either, in one of two categories, you're either a gatherer or a scatterer. That's it. “Well, I like a third category. Some grey area. I mean, isn't it possible for me to be kind of an in-between? Kind of a semi-gatherer?” No, you're either a gatherer or a scatterer according to Jesus. Okay? Jesus came to gather. Well, what did he come to gather? Well, look at that verse in Isaiah 11:12, we'll get to that in a minute, but it's so fantastic, “He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel. He will assemble the scattered peoples of Judah from the four quarters of the earth.” Isn't that fantastic? He's gonna raise up a banner and say, “Here I am, I'm the Messiah!” and they're gonna come, from the four quarters of the earth, they're gonna worship Christ. Or in Matthew 3:12, “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering up his wheat into the barn but burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” What is he gathering? His wheat, just another image of the same thing: his people. Or then in Matthew 24:31, this is at the end of the age, “He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect, from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” Well, that's a big gathering, and you don't wanna miss that one, folks. Okay, don't miss that one. That's the final gathering, when the angels come. So through faith in Christ, he'll come and get you and he will gather you. But you see the gathering going on, he's bringing them back together, not only Jews are gathered, but Jesus has, according to John 10:16, other sheep as well. And you remember that passage? John 10:16, “I have other sheep that are not of the sheep pen, I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” Isn't that fantastic? He said, “I've got sheep out there, I've got people that are mine, my chosen ones,” his elect, it says in Matthew 24:31, “but they're mine, I'm gonna go get them. They're not of this pen, but they will come and there will be one flock and one shepherd.” He has broken down the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile, there's one new man, believer in Christ, that's all, and so he's gonna gather them together into one flock, the gathering is only spiritual at this time, not physical. People stay where they are, and know God, aren't you glad? You don't have to go to Jerusalem like the Muslims go to Mecca? It would get really crowded if all Christians went physically to Jerusalem. And I'm so glad we don't have to do that. Now, the Jews did. You remember that? Physically, three times a year, they had to go up to Jerusalem. We don't need to do that. Jesus said so in John 4, “Woman, believe me, the time is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” What is he saying? You don't need to change your location. Not at all, God must change your heart, and if God changes your heart, you will be a spirit-filled knowledgeable worshipper of God, right where you are. And guess what, when that happens, what's gonna happen? The Earth will be a little more filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord because you are converted, you are transformed, and you'll just look at everything differently.

What do you mean everything? Well, the other day I was driving to a friend of mine's house, and as I was driving I noticed a turtle on the road, I don't know if they're out these days, 'cause I've seen three in the last two days. Now, I am not a tree hugger, okay? But I just felt a stewardship responsibility to pull over and move that turtle to the side of the road, and it was actually one of my more spiritual moments in the last several days, it was like an act of worship, "God, you made this turtle, I would hate to see it crushed." And so I picked it up and I moved it to the side, and I said, "Go on your way, off you go, whatever it is you do, you know? Go be a turtle somewhere, but just don't get crushed, this is not a good place for a turtle." And so I felt a sense of the glory of God in that turtle, and the Lord made it. And so that's it. I think the thing is, when the Lord transforms your heart, you see everything differently, “This is my Father's world, and we're here as stewards, we're not here to kill and to destroy, we're here to serve” like Adam was supposed to in the garden. And so there it is, we are transformed and right where we are, we can worship God, who is spirit and truth. But yet there is in a metaphorical sense, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, our hearts face there now, don't they? There's been a streaming of the nations with the advance of the Gospel, and so in one sense, every new Christian, wherever they are, their hearts are moving towards Zion, we're looking there for our lawgiver, Jesus to give us the law and tell us how to live. He becomes our ruler. Now ultimately, we will be gathered in the New Jerusalem and yet filling the whole earth with the knowledge of God, and this I haven't fully developed yet. That cubicle, New Jerusalem, a thousand stadia, or 10,000 and all that, that's hard to understand, there are depths here that, see, we're all in one place, and yet we're filling the new heavens and the new earth, so we'll work on that later.

Let's move on before we get too, whatever, the islands of Isaiah; let's look at the first one. Turn to Isaiah 11. Isaiah 11. And we're looking at verses 1-12. Now, my watch here says three till six, is that what you guys have? Is that? Okay, yeah? Okay, alright, now that's good, that's right, I appreciate that. Why are you laughing?

Okay, alright. I don't know how we started so early to... And I'm grateful for it though; I think we did well starting at five and getting going, so I'm excited. Alright, Isaiah 11, it says, "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him- the Spirit of wisdom and understanding- the Spirit of counsel and power- the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord- and he will delight in the fear of the Lord." Who is this? This is our Messiah, the anointed one. This is Christ, the shoot from the stump of Jesse coming up. “He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy. With justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.” He's a king. This is what he does, he rules; he reigns. “He will strike the Earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips, he will slay the wicked.” He's a righteous ruler.

Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness his sash around his waist. The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Isn't that marvelous? What a prophecy. “In that day, the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the Gentiles;” or the peoples, “the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious.” So he's gonna stand up there and everybody's gonna rally to him, and it's gonna be a glorious place of rest. Look at verse 11, “In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim,” one could also say, re-gather, “the remnant of his people that is left from Assyria, from lower Egypt, from upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.” Wow, they've gone a long way, haven't they? Yes, he's gonna reach out and he's gonna reclaim them, he's gonna bring them back, “He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel. He will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth. And so the root of Jesse will come and establish his kingdom, the remnant of Israel, and God's chosen people from the Gentiles will be gathered from the distant corners of the earth.”

Second, Isaiah 24:15, turn there if you would. Now, Isaiah 24 is a picture of judgment. The Lord's devastation of the whole Earth, “See, the Lord is going to lay waste to the earth and devastate it, he will ruin its face and scatter its inhabitants, it will be the same for priest as for people, for master as for servant, for mistress as for maid, for seller as for buyer, for borrower as for lender, for debtor as for creditor, the earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered. The Lord has spoken this word.” and brothers and sisters, this is gonna happen. 2 Peter 3 talks about it, how everything is going to be destroyed in the fire, it's all gonna go.

The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the exalted of the earth languish. The earth is defiled by its people, they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant, and therefore a curse consumes the Earth, and its people must bear their guilt, therefore earth's inhabitants are burned up and very few are left. The new wine dries up, the vine withers, all the merrymakers groan, the gaiety of the tambourines is stilled, the noise of the revelers has stopped, the joyful harp is silent, no longer do they drink wine with a song, the beer is bitter to its drinkers. The ruined city lies desolate; the entrance to every house is barred. In the streets they all cry for wine; all joy turns to gloom, all gaiety is banished from the earth. The city is left in ruins, its gate is battered to pieces. So will it be on the earth and among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, or as when gleanings are left after the grape harvest. They raise their voices, they shout for joy; from the west they acclaim the Lord's majesty. Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord; exalt the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, [Where?] in the islands of the sea.  

What's going on? There's this huge devastation, and yet there's celebration right in the middle. These are the people who love God; these are the worshippers of the Lord, and where are they? Well, first of all, there are as far as in the east and the islands of the sea, verse 16, “From the ends of the earth, we hear singing: ‘Glory to the righteous one.’” Stop there. What's going on? The ends of the Earth, the distant islands are praising the God of Israel, they're worshipping. They're giving honor to him. That includes us; I would think we'd be kind of like ends of the earth to Jerusalem. Durham, North Carolina. Where is that? If you had asked Isaiah and said, "We live in Durham, North Carolina." "Oh, that's the ends of the earth as far as I'm concerned." They're singing to God. Wow.

Next, Isaiah 40:15. I'm actually gonna begin at verse 12, verse 11, sorry, “He tends flock like a shepherd and gathers his lambs in his arms,” isn't that wonderful? He's gathering them. “He who is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me, scatters.” He's gathering, gathering people together. “He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have young. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales or the hills in a balance? Who has understood the mind of the Lord or instructed him as his counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge or showed him understanding?” Now look; verse 15, “Surely the nations, are like a drop in a bucket, they're regarded as dust on the scales, he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.” Isn't that remarkable? We'll just stop there. The basic idea here is clear. The nations are as nothing to him. He's immense, he's powerful, and he takes these distant islands and weighs them like they're dust on the scales. They're just small, compared to his immense power.

Look at the next one, Isaiah 41, next page, verse 1-9. This is what he says, “Be silent before me, you islands! Let the nations renew their strength! Let them come forward and speak; let us meet together at the place of judgment. Who has stirred up one from the east, calling him in righteousness to his service? He hands nations over to him and subdues kings before him. He turns them to dust with his sword, to wind-blown chaff with his bow. He pursues them and moves on unscathed, by a path his feet have not traveled before. Who has done this and carried it through, calling forth the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord- with the first of them and with the last- I am he” The islands have seen it and fear; the ends of the earth tremble. They approached and come forward; each helps the other and says to his brother, “Be strong!” The craftsman encourages the goldsmith, and he who smooths with the hammer spurs on him who strikes the anvil. He says to the welding, “It is good.” he nails down the idol so that it will not topple. “But you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham, my friend, I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, ‘You are my servant’; I have chosen you and have not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.”

What is this teaching? Well, the distant islands are guilty of idolatry, most of them are idolaters, they're idol worshipers, and so they set up an idol, so it won't topple, they nail it down, and they encourage one another, but they're trembling in fear, why? Because God sends forth judgment, first of all, their own hearts condemn them, that their idolatry is wicked. But secondly, events happen. One from the east comes, who is this, well there's different interpretations, but I think it's a military conqueror, it could be like Cyrus who comes and he gives over the lands, the islands into their hands, and so there are under the sway of the rise and fall of history and of empires that rise and fall, and they're always afraid, they're idolaters, the ends of the earth, the islands. Let's not think of the islands of the earth as though they're the noble savage, who don't need the Lord, oh they're idolaters and they're wicked, and they're under the judgment of God if they won't repent, but God's gonna bring them the gospel, isn't that wonderful? They're gonna see the light, and they're going to believe.

Look at the next one, Isaiah 42:1-12, this will sound familiar, I hope., Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight, I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed, he will not break, and a smoldering wick, he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his law the islands will put their hope.

Stop there for a moment. Who are we talking about? Well, this is Jesus Christ, he's going to come, the servant of the Lord, and he's gonna establish his kingdom, and in his sovereign reign, in his law, the islands will hope. They'll find their hope. They will trust in him. Now, it's interesting, Matthew translates it, "in his name the islands will put their trust or their hope." But is there really a distinction between law and name? “Open up in the name of the king.” It's the same thing, right? And so the king, with his name and with his authority and with his law will come and the islanders are going to accept, they're going to yield. They'll submit to the king of the kingdom of heaven, Jesus Christ. Continue reading, verse 5, “This is what God the Lord says- he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people and life to those who walk on it”. Verse 5 says, “I made them, I made the islanders. I created them. I formed them in their mother's womb.” Verse 6,

“I the Lord have called you in righteousness, I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, and free captives from prison, to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. See, the former things have taken place and new things I declare; before they spring into being, I announce them to you.”

Verse 10, “Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth. You who go down to the sea and all that is in it, you islands and all who live in them. Let the desert and its towns raise their voices; let the settlements where Kedar lives rejoice. Let the people of Sela sing for joy; let them shout from the mountaintops. Let them give glory to the Lord and proclaim his praise in the islands.” Isn't that wonderful? Let them praise and exalt God in the distant-most reaches of the earth. Will they? Is this a prophecy, a prediction? Is this actually going to occur? Oh yes, it will. I'm telling you it has. It's already happened. It's not done yet, but it's already happened, it's already occurred. Even over the last century and a half, these prophecies are being fulfilled right in our own time.

But they're very specific, aren't they? Look at Isaiah 49:1, "Listen to me," it says, "You islands; hear this, you distant nations," by the way, who's writing this? This is Isaiah. Where is he? He's probably living in Jerusalem. When? Seventh century BC, and he's writing down on a piece of scroll or parchment or something like that, "Listen to me, you islands." Now what are the odds, humanly speaking, that they'll ever hear anything he says? The answer is zero, humanly speaking. What are the odds, divinely speaking, that they will read this and hear it and believe it? 100%. And so he's speaking to them, he's addressing them, "Hear, O Heavens and Listen, O Earth for the Lord has spoken." He says, "Isaiah, just write this down. Let me take care of the delivery. I'll get it there, you just write it down." Okay, alright, Isaiah, what do you say? "Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations." Now he is speaking as a prophet, and he's speaking Christ's words here. Isn't he? Listen.

Before I was born, the Lord called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver. He said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.” [Verse 4] But I said, “I have labored to no purpose; I've spent my strength in vain and for nothing. Yet what is due me is in the Lord's hand, and my reward is with my God.” And now the Lord says- he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring back Jacob to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength- [I love verse 6] he says: "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. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth."

Now, this has gotta be Christ. In one sense, you could say it's Isaiah who's writing it, but it's got to be Christ, because Simeon said that Christ would be a light for the Gentiles. And so Christ is the light for the Gentiles, and God, the Father has spoken to him and said, “It's too small a thing for you to save Israel only. It's too small; I will make you a light for the whole world. Even to the distant most islands of the earth.”

Isaiah 51:5, look at verse 4-6, it says, "Listen to me, my people; hear me, my nation: The law will go out from me; my justice will become a light to the nations. My righteousness draws near speedily, my salvation is on the way, and my arm will bring justice to the nations. The islands will look to me and wait and hope for my arm. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath, the heavens will vanish like smoke. The earth will wear out like a garment, and its inhabitants die like flies, but my salvation will last forever. My righteousness will never fail."

So this is a strong exhortation to the islands to trust in Christ, why? Because they're vanishing like smoke, the heavens will disappear, there'll be no place to live any longer. And so come to Christ. Now, what's interesting is in Isaiah 51:1-3, it says, "Look to the rock from which you are cut, to the quarry from which you are hewn, look to Abraham, Your Father and to Sarah, who gave you birth." This is a Jewish Messiah. And so, “Salvation,” said Jesus, “comes from the Jews,” and so all the islands, the distant lands are gonna look to a descendant of Abraham, the rock from which they were cut, they're gonna look to him and trust in him and find their salvation there.

Isaiah 59:18, now, Isaiah 59 speaks about sin. Verse 1, it says, "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that you will not hear. For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken lies and your tongue mutters wicked things. No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments and speak lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil. They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider’s webs. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken an adder is hatched. Their cobwebs are useless for clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are evil deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands. Their feet rush into sin, they're swift to shed innocent blood."

That's quoted from Romans 3; he quotes it there. What is this talking about? It's talking about the universality of personal sin, and when they try to cover themselves with their deeds, cloak of righteousness, you're gonna stand before God on judgment day with your cloak of righteousness, it's gonna be like covering yourself with cobwebs. Your righteousness is nothing. You've lived the life of an adder, of a snake, and so there's no righteousness to cover yourself, and that's true to the ends of the earth. Look what it says in verse 18, "According to what they have done, so will he repay wrath to his enemies and retribution to his foes; he will repay the islands their due." Do you see that? Judgment comes even to the islands, to the Jew first, and then what? To the Gentile, and that includes the islands. So they have personal sin, and if they do not repent and trust Christ, if they do not accept the gospel, then they will come under vengeance, they will come under vengeance, 'cause judgment reaches to the ends of the earth. Nobody escapes.

Isaiah 60, magnificent chapter, the glory of Zion. "Arise and shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn." This may be the most important chapter in our study tonight. Concentrate now on verse 4, "Lift up your eyes and look about you, all assemble and come to you, your sons come from afar and your daughters are carried on the arm. Then you will look and be radiant. Your heart will throb and swell with joy." What are we talking about here, Zion? What is Zion? Well, in one sense, it's Jerusalem, the center of Jewish worship. This nation that's been trampled by the Gentiles, stripped and ruined and the walls are cast down, what does he say here? You're gonna look good, you're gonna be dressed up and you're gonna be dazzling and glorious, You'll look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of nations will come. Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord. All Kedar's flocks will be gathered to you, the rams of Nebaioth will serve you; they will be accepted as offerings on my altar and I will adorn my glorious temple. “Who are these that fly along like clouds, like doves to their nests? Surely the islands look to me; in the lead, are the ships of Tarshish, bringing your sons from afar, with their silver and gold."

Now stop there. This is fascinating. The people from the islands, Tarshish, are sailing to Zion, aren't they? And who are they bringing with them? Your sons, who are the sons? The Sons of Zion, they're Jews. And how... In what sense are they bringing them back to Zion? Well, who do you think is gonna lead the unbelieving Jews to Christ? Some Jews maybe, Jews for Jesus do that. It's mostly Gentiles though. We're the ones that make them jealous according to Paul, and we have the gospel. And who do you think in the end, when all Israel will be saved and there's a great in-gathering of Jews is gonna be, are gonna be the witnesses, the evangel, those that are taking the gospel? Is it not the inhabitants of the islands, among others, who will bring them to personal faith in Christ and bring them back home?

Why don't you read the whole chapter when you have time, we're gonna finish with Isaiah 66:18-22, turn there. And it says there, this is the new heaven and new earth, "And I, because of their actions and their imaginations, am about to come and gather all nations and tongues, and they will come and see my glory. I will set a sign among them and will send some of those who survive to the nations- to Tarshish [that's that distant island], to the Libyans and Lydians (famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece, [these are all Gentiles, by the way] and to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations. [Now listen] They will bring all your brothers, [these are Jews] from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the Lord- on horses, in chariots and wagons and on mules and camels, says the Lord. “They will bring them, as the Israelites bring their grain offerings to the temple of the Lord in ceremonially clean vessels. And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites,” says the Lord. “As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,” declares the Lord, 'so will your name and descendants endure.'" 

This is the eternal state, isn't it? And what's happening is, again, these Gentiles from the distant lands from Tarshish, from Lydia and all of these other places, are going to bring Jews back to Jerusalem to personal faith in Christ. Now, I wanna add a quick footnote on how this has been fulfilled. In Acts Chapter 13, when Paul and Barnabas went out on their first missionary journey, where did they go first? Does anybody know? They went to Cyprus; that was their first place, they left Joppa and went to Cyprus. That's Kittim, that's their first place that they preached the gospel, that's the beginning of the missionary endeavor of the church of Antioch, they go to the island of Cyprus and they begin preaching there. And then at the end of Paul's recorded life in Acts 28, he's shipwrecked and where does he end up? Malta, an island off Italy, you remember? And he gets to witness there to the governor and they come to faith in Christ because of a miracle he does there when he shakes off a snake and he heals some people there. Malta. Maybe that was even Tarshish, I don't really know what Tarshish is, just the distant islands in the Mediterranean, that's pretty distant. Paul intends to go even beyond there to Spain, and perhaps as far as what he intends in Tarshish. That's the apostle Paul.

What about in our day? Well, perhaps you've heard of John Paton, he went to the New Hebrides in the 1850s and '60s, and led them to Christ. They were cannibals. They ate the last missionary that was there, you remember the story, and the ship that had left the missionaries on the beach sat there and watched from the shore or from the distance with their telescopes as these cannibals ate them, John Paton was the next missionary at that stop.

Now, that took incredible courage, didn't it? He went there and he led them to Christ, they became an offering to the Lord and they worshipped God, and that beautiful island there that God had filled with his glory so long ago, those islanders, they knew his glory. The Earth was filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And after World War II, when soldiers had gone island-hopping with General MacArthur, after the war was over, they said, "Hey, let's go back, let's go back as witnesses," MacArthur called for thousands of missionaries to go to Japan, we've been there, Jordan and I and others have gone to witness to that island, that counts, it's an island in the sea. And there are Christians there. And also Irian Jaya, like Don Richardson, brought those islands idol worshippers to faith in Christ.

Now, there's still work to be done, isn't there? But this is... I'm arguing from the greater to the lesser. If God cares about little dots and islands in the ocean, he cares about every square inch of this earth, and the earth will most certainly be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

We'll be looking this morning at Matthew 12.  As we're making our journey through the Gospel of Matthew, we see unfolding the Kingdom of Heaven. We see unfolding before us the authority of Jesus Christ as the King of the Kingdom of Heaven.  In this text, we're going to see another aspect of that authority. We're going to see the fact that Jesus claims authority over the Sabbath.  He claims the right to make rules and regulations that we should abide by, and to dispense with man made rules and regulations which he did not make. He is Lord of the Sabbath. We're also going to see in this text one of the most grievous thing in the history of the world.   Jesus came to his own people, and his own people did not receive him. The leaders of his people who should have known better, end up by plotting to kill Jesus.  700 years before Christ was born, the prophet Isaiah prophesied that this would happen.  Isaiah 53:3 says, "He was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and familiar with suffering, like one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised, and we esteemed him not." Here for the first time in Matthew's Gospel, therefore the first time in the New Testament, we see organized murderous opposition to Jesus as the King of the Kingdom of Heaven. And the reason is so perplexing, isn't it? 

 The reason is striking. They want to kill him because he is merciful to the weak. They want to kill him because he demonstrates mercy and compassion. He does not follow their rules, and for this reason they want to murder him. What we're dealing with in this text is the issue of Sabbath laws and regulations. The commandment did come from God. It was established right at the beginning of creation. It says very plainly there that in six days God made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything in them. All things that were created, all the physical universe was made in six days by the power of God.  by His word, by His out outstretched hand and His mighty arm. He created all things in six days. The Bible says then very plainly in Genesis 2, that by the seventh day, God had finished the work He had been doing, and so on the seventh day He rested from all his work. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it He rested from His work of creating. Don't imagine in a human way that God was fatigued or worn out from his creating work, not at all. That's a human phenomenon, but we have learned later from Christ that man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man. Right from the beginning God established this that we might be blessed, that we might be strengthened.

 The Sabbath was established therefore I think for two great reasons. Number one, that we might acknowledge God's kingship over the entire universe. I look on his rest in Genesis 2 as the rest of a king sitting down on his throne to rule over his empire. Not resting out of fatigue, but resting on his throne to be a king, to rule. The Sabbath day was set apart that we human beings would acknowledge his sovereignty, that we would acknowledge his kingship, that we would yield to his commands.  

Secondly, the Sabbath day was also set up for us because we are weak and frail, and limited human beings. We do get tired, we do get worn out. So God set apart this day, one day in seven, and made it sacred and holy that we might rest from our labor. That we might be refreshed and encouraged and renewed, recreated in some sense, that we might continue our labors. For those two great reasons, God from the very beginning of creation set up the Sabbath day and blessed it and made it holy. From the beginning of Israel's history as a nation, he established the same principle. Even before the Ten Commandments were given, God provided manna and bread from Heaven that came down on the ground, and people went around to collect it, and he said, "Pick it up, in six days you'll pick it up and eat it. Don't take more than you need for one day. There'll be enough tomorrow, so just take enough for today." They went out, but some disobedient Israelites collected too much. They thought they would have a midnight snack or an early breakfast or something. But they accumulated some extra, and you remember the next morning it was filled with maggots. It was defiled because they had broken the commandment of God. God very clearly establishing each day enough bread for the day. But there was one day in which that was changed, and that was the day of the Sabbath. And God said, "Tomorrow, you must not go out and collect any bread. No manna will be on the ground as you go out tomorrow. So therefore, collect double the amount you need today, and then eat it tomorrow." The people disobeyed that command as well.They brought their baskets out to collect, and so God rebuked them for their disobedience. The rebuke was in the absence of manna on the ground. There was nothing there to collect. God established therefore even before Sinai, even before the 10 commandments, that there would be one day in seven, a day of rest. But then very plainly in the old covenant, in the 10 commandments he established this day. In Exodus 20:8 it says, "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work. Neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your man servant or maid servant, nor your animals nor the alien within your gates, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.. . .Therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy.”  There it is in the Sinai regulations there would be one day in seven, the seventh day, the Sabbath day,that the people were to do no work. 

The Sabbath regulation  was established by punishing severely Sabbath breakers. Even in the time of the Exodus, there was a man found who was collecting firewood and the Lord ordered through Moses that he be put to death. It was a very serious regulation. God established this as a law and a regulation that they would take this Sabbath day and they would rest. Moses was very specific in Exodus 35: "These are the things the Lord has commanded you to do. For six days work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death. Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day." And so God establishes this  rule through severe punishment for any that would break the sabbath regulation.

He  also establishes it through strong statements made by the prophets. For example, Isaiah says in Isaiah 58:13-14, "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the Lord." Well, that's a vital verse, isn't it? You'll find your joy in the Lord and I[God] will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob. He also establishes the same principle in Jeremiah 17: 21-23, “This is what the Lord says, be careful not to carry a load on the Sabbath day or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem. Do not bring a load out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your forefathers. Yet they did not listen or pay attention, they were stiff necked and would not listen or respond to discipline."

Thirdly, in the history of Israel, God re-established Sabbath regulations when He restored the people back after the exile.  In Nehemiah 13 as he is speaking as a governor, Nehemiah says, "In those days I saw men in Judah treading wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of loads and they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Therefore I warned them against selling food on that day, men from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all kinds of merchandise and selling them in Jerusalem on the sabbath of the people of Judah. I rebuked the nobles of Judah and said to them, 'What is this wicked thing you are doing? Desecrating the Sabbath day, didn't your forefathers do the same things? So our God brought all this calamity upon us and upon the city, now you're stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath.' When evening shadows fell in the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I ordered the doors to be shut and not opened until the Sabbath was over. I stationed some of my own men at the gates so that no load could be brought in on the Sabbath day.  Once or twice the merchants and sellers of all kinds of goods spent the night outside Jerusalem, but I warn them and said, "Why do you spend the night by the wall? If you do this again, I will lay hands on you." That means I'm going to arrest you, so they didn't do it anymore. Again, Nehemiah establishing the importance of the Sabbath regulation in the old covenant. Now, the Jewish response to this, especially after the exile, was one of total seriousness even in the point of death. During the days of the Maccabees when the Maccabean Jews were fighting against the Greeks that were seeking to desecrate their land, they would not fight on the Sabbath.  Some men women and children were massacred in a cave and would not lift a sword to defend themselves for they were willing to die for the Sabbath regulation.  After that, however, one of the Maccabi rulers had a different insight about the Sabbath and said, "We can defend ourselves in the Sabbath, we just can't have any offensive operations on Sabbath days." 

So there was new insight, and we see that the Sabbath regulations changing and evolving as people were thinking about how to out the Sabbath. They were trying to figure it out. What ended up happening  was that groups like the Pharisees, spiritual leaders, men who Jesus said sat in Moses’ seat, started to make rules and regulations about what you could and  could not do on the Sabbath. There were long lists of dos and don'ts. There were long lists of obligations, more don'ts than do’s; for the most part it was a list of  “thou shalt nots.” There was a list, for example, of 39 prohibited actions: you couldn't sow, there was no plowing, no reaping, no binding, threshing, winnowing, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, sheering wool, bleaching or dying wool, no spinning, no weaving, no tying or untying a knot, no sewing or tearing of two stitches, apparently one was okay. No writing or erasing of two letters, again one was okay. So if you got enough people together, each could write one letter and you could write a message. There was no hunting, no building, no demolishing, no kindling or extinguishing fire. No hammering, no carrying objects from one place to another which was a factor in John chapter 5 when Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath and he picks up his mat and carries it home at Jesus's command. The man is condemned as a mat-carrying Sabbath breaker rather than one who had been healed after 39 years of paralysis. This is the regulation, the list was not exhausted by any means, they were always adding to it, more and more “thou shalt nots.” These  were the men  who Jesus said sit in Moses’ Seat, making authoritative regulations about how you were or were not to keep the Sabbath. 

These are the kinds of regulations that Jesus begins to challenge. Jesus looks at the positive side of the Sabbath; what it is lawful to do on the Sabbath, what  in fact you should and must do on the Sabbath. In Matthew 12:12, “Therefore, said Jesus ‘It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.’”  Jesus has a different viewpoint of the Sabbath; what must and may we do on the Sabbath rather than being concerned about the negative side the regulations.  Some Jewish religious leaders were absolutely convinced that Jesus was from the devil. Later we’ll study that they ascribed his miracles to Beelzebub, the prince of demons, but I think it's specifically on the issue of the Sabbath that he really angered them.  Some of the Pharisees said in John 9:16, “This man is not from God for he does not keep the Sabbath”, but others asked, ‘How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?’ and so they were divided.” The Sabbath and Jesus’ miracles contradicted each other, and in their way of thinking, they didn't have any way to reconcile them. They never considered that their own regulations were outside the will of God. They were human regulations that God had never established, for Jesus came to uphold every jot and tittle of the law absolutely but he did not come to uphold  the listing of regulations that human beings had made.  Actually he came to challenge them. I think he went out and provoked the Pharisees on purpose. Nine different times in the Gospels, there's a healing account on the Sabbath. That's pretty significant, isn't it, when you stop and think of the number of healings and the accounts that we have?  Nine different times it occurs on the Sabbath. Seven different times on the Sabbath we have an articulated defense of why He's healing on the Sabbath. Our text here is one instance where Jesus gives a defense for his actions on the Sabbath. The issue of the Sabbath was, therefore, not at all a minor issue. This was actually a major point of conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees and the Sadducees. In these examples Christ in no way minimizes the importance of the Sabbath, quite the opposite. He's trying to save the Sabbath from human traditions and from human regulations. The greatest change of all that Jesus instituted in the Sabbath is that he fulfilled it through his death on the cross and through his resurrection and opening heaven for any who had come to faith in Christ. That is the very point made in Hebrews chapter 4 in which we can enter into God's Sabbath rest eternally through faith in Christ.

Now let's look at verses 1-8 in which Christ says very plainly that the Lord of the Sabbath claims his authority. The context here in verses 1 and 2 is a hungry stroll by his disciples through a field. It says at that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and they began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this they said to him, "Look your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath." What's going on is they're walking through a grain field that does not belong to them and they're picking heads of grain and rubbing them in their hands and then blowing on them to get the husks away and then eating them. The problem was not one of theft — that they were eating grain that didn't belong to them not at all.  The book of Deuteronomy 23:25 provides for poor people in Israel.  So that the poor  would have enough to eat; this is the basis on which Ruth, for example, went through and gleaned and picked up enough food for she and Naomi to eat. This was a form of welfare  that God provided for the poor. What does that tell you about being a disciple of Jesus at that time? It was not very lucrative to follow Jesus; they were picking the grain on the sabbath and eating it because they were hungry. Because they didn't really have a lot of money. It didn't pay well to follow Jesus at that point.  Jesus said, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the son of man has no place to lay his head and you may end up picking heads of grain and eating them just to have enough to eat." Notice also that Jesus doesn't seem to be picking the grain and eating but rather just the disciples, but the Pharisees come after him, don't they? He's the one that they want to attack and because the disciples are seen to be under the authority of the master and  he's got to give an account for their behavior.

 At issue was a strict pharisaic interpretation of what they were doing. Plucking grain with the hand is interpreted as reaping. I believe that was one of the “ing” words that you weren't supposed to do.  They could not do reaping; they could not rub the grain with their hands because this was interpreted as threshing. Neither could they blow on it because this is winnowing, so they're guilty on three counts of labor on the Sabbath.  Christ has to make a defense, doesn't he? He's has to defend his disciples and even more to challenge their understanding of the Sabbath that is deeper. He begins his defense. How does he defend himself ? To what does he appeal? As always He appeals to scripture, " Have you not read?" This is so significant  He says it twice in this text doesn't he? "Have you not read what David did, or have you not read concerning the priests that they desecrated the day through their labor?" He's ascribing his defense to the scriptures. It's interesting that the Pharisees  spent their whole lives doing nothing but study the scripture. They studied it so meticulously that they actually knew what the middle Hebrew letter was of every book of the Old Testament. They knew the middle Hebrew letter of the book of Isaiah. Do you know how you would do that? You count them forward and you count backward. They had all kinds of arcane information but they did not understand what they were reading, so Jesus somewhat rebukes them by saying, "Have you not read in the scripture... ?” He brings them back to the scripture. This shows me something about Christ's view of the sufficiency of scripture. When you have a controversy, when you have a problem, where do you turn to answer that problem? You turn to the Scripture. Christ believed the answer could be found there. I believe this challenges the modern church. On controversial topics we tend to think that the Scripture is inadequate because of the nature of the controversy itself. One side says one thing somebody else says something else close. We can't figure it out; we have to go some other way to resolve the issue. Would Christ have done that? “Study it more carefully, you're not reading properly.” We tend practically to deny the sufficiency of Scripture. Concerning church growth, we think that the simple preaching and exposition of the word is insufficient. We must have glitzy programs, we must have a family life center, we must have jugglers and dancers on Sunday morning. We must entertain the people. The simple exposition of the word is not enough to build a church. It's not enough to build your soul. We must have something else, not Scripture alone.

In counseling, if you're going to sit down with somebody who's having a problem, it's not enough to teach them Scripture, not enough to unfold it. We must instead have the most up-to-date psychological teachings, pop psychology, and whatever book is in the top 10 list .This will be your insight. The word “psychology” means “a study of the soul.” If the Bible wasn't given for that, then what was it given for? Christ found the sufficiency for all things in scripture.   There are various levels to scripture. When you're going to resolve a difficult problem you could turn to precept, you could turn to principle, and you could turn to pattern. Precept is: “Thus says the Lord” or “the Lord commands this” or “the Lord prohibits that.” That is precept. Or you could look to principle. A theological principle is a truth that is unfolded in book after book of Scripture. It is  something we learn about God and about man and about his dealings This is principle. Or we could look at pattern: an example of famous people in the Bible and how they behaved. We can follow their example.  Jesus does all three here. Isn't that remarkable? He turns to precept, he turns to principle and to pattern to find his answer. The sufficiency is right here. Precept: the fact that the priests were commanded to work on the Sabbath. That is a precept that tells you something, doesn't it? Principle: the fact that humans are of greater value than animals. That tells you something to help  us resolve this matter. Pattern: the fact that king David acted a certain way at a certain point in history and he was beloved of the Lord, a man after God's own heart. But ultimately Jesus finds his answer on this matter in his own authority. Ultimately He's going to resolve it by saying the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.  “I have the right to make rules about this matter.” It's an incredible statement that he makes.

Jesus, first, appeals to the authority of a future king. Look at verse 3-4, he answered, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread which was not lawful for them to do but only for the priests.”  He's turning to a future king David.  David was not yet king [ 1 Samuel 21]. David is fleeing for his life from the insane king Saul. King Saul hates David. He wants to kill him because he's jealous of him. David is running for his life with some handful of men. He comes to the tabernacle and I believe it was on a Sabbath that it occurred because on that day the old bread from last week, the bread of the presence, was set aside and new bread was put in its place. What's going to happen to the old bread? The priest could eat it or do whatever he chose with it since it was old.  Jesus himself said it was not lawful for David to eat the bread yet David asked for it and it's given to him. Here Jesus is establishing a very important point. David's role as a future king of Israel and the mission he was on fleeing for his life made his eating of unlawful bread acceptable. He's clearly quoting David's action positively, and so the fact of who he was and what his mission was took priority over throwing out the bread of the presence. It took priority over this. If the law says nothing about picking heads of grain and eating them for hunger's sake, how much more then are my disciples allowed to do this? That's the way his argument works.

It works especially because of who David was. It's the authority of David that's in mind here. If he were Joe the plumber or Fred the carpenter it wouldn't be the same, but it's David and he's on a mission. He's going to be king over Israel. He's a man after God's own heart, and so he appeals to the authority of a future king. Secondly, he appeals to the authority of a priest. Jesus says in verse 5, “Haven't you read in the law that on the Sabbath the priest in the temple desecrates the day and yet is innocent.” This is the direct appeal to the law to limit Sabbath regulations. The law says very plainly in Numbers 28 that every Sabbath the priest was to offer sacrifice; you might not think that's a lot of work, but it really was. Israel was a huge nation. This was probably the priest's busiest day of the week,  and Jesus says very plainly that the priest desecrates[a very strong Hebrew word] the day, and yet he says the priest are innocent. It's the same word he ascribes to his own disciples when he says, “How could you condemn the innocent? The priests are innocent, and my disciples are innocent.” He appeals to the authority of the priest again we're not talking about Joe the plumber or Fred the carpenter we're talking about specific roles in Israel and they were allowed even commanded to desecrate the sabbath.

 Thirdly, Jesus appeals to the authority of a prophet. Matthew 12:7, “If you had known what these words mean I desire mercy not sacrifice you would not have condemned the innocent.” This is a very important quote from Hosea. He quotes it several times,  and what he's saying is you are living for sacrifice. You are living for the rules and regulations that you've set up, I desire mercy, we could almost say more than sacrifice. There's a hierarchy that Christ sets up in the law very plainly. He sets it up when he talks about them giving a tenth of their spices. You remember you are supposed to give a tenth of everything, so there they are accounting out mint leaves.  You just about need a microscope to see the leaf, and there they were — nine for me, one for you, nine for me,one for you. How many mint leaves did you have? I had 184; that means you gave 18.4 to God.  That's what they were doing. Jesus said, "You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin, but you've neglected the weightier matters of the law: Justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Then he says, “You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former. Go ahead and count out your mint leaves, but please, justice, mercy, faith, these are the essential matters.” They had no mercy whatsoever, and the later account in which Jesus heals the man with the shriveled hand proves it.

Christ does not therefore overthrow the minutia of the law, he just puts it in its proper order. Justice, mercy, and faithfulness is vital. For Christ to feed a hungry man, or heal a suffering human being created in the image of God on the sabbath, is pleasing to God, that's what he's saying. The conclusion though above all things, is that Christ appeals to his own authority. In effect he's saying, "I am a king greater than David, I am a priest greater than any priest that's ever lived, because I am greater than the temple. One who is greater than the temple is here." What a claim Christ is making. He's saying, "I'm a prophet that ends all prophets. In the past God spoke to the people through the prophets, but now he's speaking through me, I'm the final word from God. I am the word incarnate, I am the prophet that's above all prophets."  Verse 8: "Therefore the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath." "I am the king of the Sabbath, and what I say goes, that is my authority." He appeals to the authority of a king, of a priest, and  of a prophet, but finally, to his own highest authority. There has to be somebody to make up Sabbath regulation. Jesus says, "I'm the one who will do it, I decide what to do." It's a stunning claim, but it's actually less than the claim He makes in John chapter 5. After healing a man on the sabbath, the Pharisees challenged him because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.  Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I too am working." For this reason, the Jews tried all the harder to kill Jesus. Not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. The Son of Man is son of God, and He has the authority to make these kinds of regulations.

Jesus exercises his authority in verses 9 through 13. It says, "Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked him, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath?’” I get the image at this moment of the Pharisees and teachers of law like birds of prey, with their talons extended. Each talon may be one of the commandments of the Ten Commandments, something like that. They are ready to rip flesh, aren't they? They have no desire to see the man with the shriveled hand healed.  They have no concern for him at at all. They have more concern for their own sheep than they do for this man. They were there like birds of prey, ready to rip flesh. They want to accuse Jesus, they want to attack him. 

Now the man it says, had a dry or a shriveled or withered hand, much like... Have you ever seen a branch on a tree that for some reason is cut off from sap and it shrivels and there's no fruit, it just kind of pulled in like that? This man had that kind of a hand. Luke tells us tit was his right hand probably to imply it was very hard for this man to make a living, he couldn't work. You can imagine trying to work with one hand.  Jesus is there, and he knows very well that these people are ready to accuse him, they're ready to attack him for healing on the Sabbath.

The Lord of the Sabbath reasons with them at this moment. In verse 11 and 12, He said to them, "If any of you has a sheep, and it falls into a pit on the sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep? Therefore, it   You know our God is a reasonable God.”Come now let us reason together." Isaiah chapter one. And so he's thinking through, he says, "Think about yourself, If you noticed one of your sheep and it fell into a pit, are you telling me you would debate theologically about whether you'd lift it up out of the pit? Oh don't bother because I've seen you do it, you're willing to lift your sheep up out of a pit, but you don't care about this man who can't extend his right hand, you have no concern for him. I desire mercy, not your sacrificial system. Where is your mercy for this man created in the image of God? Where is your compassion, where is your love? Let's reason together."

 By the way, there are people in our culture today that say that human beings are just animals.  It's evolutionary thinking or eastern mysticism of some sort. And so there are groups like PETA and others that say that we are equal to animals. It is not the biblical viewpoint, we are worth more than many sparrows. If God feeds the sparrows or the birds, how much more will he feed us? There's a mentality here, we are set above the physical creation in this world, we're not equal to a sheep.  Jesus is arguing from the greater to the lesser, from the more shocking to the less. "If you're going to do that to a sheep, how much more can I heal this man on the Sabbath out of compassion and out of love?"

 We don't get it here in Matthew but we get in Mark, that the moment that Jesus asked this question, which is lawful, to help the sheep or to help the man, they didn't want to answer. Because the answer was not advantageous to them, they were stuck. They could see Jesus's point, but they didn't want to concede anything, because of their hard hearts, because of their hatred. In Mark 3:4-5, Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath, to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill? But they remained silent. He looked around them in anger,  and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts.” It's one of the insights we have into Jesus's emotional life. He has passion, and here it's anger. He's angry that they will not even venture an answer because they don't want to lose the debate. “There's a man with a withered hand and you won't even answer me,” Jesus thinks.

He brushes them aside. He's not dealing with them anymore. They will not answer him, they will not be moved by his reasoning, they will not change. It's time for a show of power. The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, the Son of man is also Lord of everything, He's Lord of all, he can do anything.  He says to the man with the shriveled hands, "Stretch out your hand." By the way, is that a command or an invitation? I'm coming to believe that all of Christ's commands are invitations and all of his invitations are commands. It's one and the same. Go ahead, stretch it out.  He did, and it was completely restored just like the other. Isn't that incredible? Maybe the man had been a flute player, and could go home and play the flute again, maybe he was a carpenter and could go home and work with his tools again. He freed him from a burden with just a word. This is Jesus, the power of Christ. It shows that he is in fact, Lord of the Sabbath, he has power that no one else does. What comes next breaks your heart. Look at Verse 14. "But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus." The Lord of the Sabbath despised and rejected. His enemies have been stripped naked at this point. They're evil, they're hate-filled, they look good on the outside, they're religious on the outside but inside they're full of poisonous murder, and Jesus reveals it. They go home. Ask yourself, what were they willing to do on the Sabbath.   I wonder if that's one of the things that was left out, you couldn't plow or tie or untie a knot or you couldn't write a single letter or a double letter or you couldn't do this, but you can meet together and plot to murder the Lord's Messiah, you can do that on a Sabbath. The hypocrisy is so thick here. They meet together and they begin to plot.  Their plot is successful, isn't it? In the end they will kill Jesus, and in so doing they will open up a Sabbath rest for you and me. In murdering Jesus, the Sabbath is fulfilled. Christ dies under the wrath of God. The punishment for our sin is poured down on Him and we by simple faith in Christ can enter into an eternal rest With God. We can rest from our labor. 

In Hebrews 4:3, it says, "Now we who have believed enter that rest just as God has said. So I declared an oath in my anger they shall never enter my rest."  He said if you believe you enter into the Sabbath rest forever. You cease from your labor, you stop working for your salvation, it's over now. Christ said it is finished when he died, and so are you also finished from your labors. Through justification, through simple faith, you enter into Christ's Sabbath rest.  The Lord of the Sabbath stands and just invites you into his rest. "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and enter into my Sabbath rest. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, I'm Lord of the Sabbath, I'm Lord of all. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Come into the Sabbath rest." Have you done it? Have you entered Christ's Sabbath rest? Through faith in Christ, have you come to justification, to complete forgiveness of sins? If you have, some day you will enter into a perfect Sabbath rest. You will go to heaven and you'll rest from all warfare, all spiritual warfare, no more pain, no more death, no more crying, no more struggle, no more temptation, no more wars or rumors of wars, no more of any of that, a perfect Sabbath rest. And it’s all because of Verse 14 which says they went out and plotted to kill him. Because Jesus died on the cross, a perfect Sabbath rest.

Now you're saying, "You're leaving out one important thing, what about the Sabbath today? What about Sabbath regulations now? What about the 10 commandments? Do we still obey it? What then?" I don't have time for that today, I don't. It's on the text anyway so I'm free okay, I don't have to go into Sabbatarianism in our text today but I will give you a few guidelines. I think it is impossible that we uphold the spirit of the Sabbath on Sunday.

 I believe that God raised Christ from the dead on the first day of the week. Everything's done for a reason by the way. Because on that day he began creating saying, "Let there be light." And so with Christ's resurrection he began the new creation. The new creation, Sabbath rest, the first day of the week and not the seventh. You may say, "Pastor are you going to give us a list of dos and don'ts?" That's not my job. Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath. I don't need to do that, that's His responsibility. But I do want to say this, you should set apart this day to worship the Lord, to come to worship as you did today, not as an optional thing but as a way to honor God and submit to his authority so that you also might acknowledge your weakness as a frail human being that you need a time of rest, you need to be refreshed spiritually, you need to focus again on Christ. If you're in a family, you need to gather the family around the family altar, and you need to read Scripture and meditate and pray and sing together as a family. What do you mean “you need to,” what if we don't?  "What will happen if we don't?" I'm not doing that, that's the Pharisee question.

 Jesus says, "What will happen if we do?" Let's gather together around the family altar. If you're not married set apart some time to meditate. When I was a single man after I'd graduated from college, I loved Sunday afternoons. After church I would go and find a beautiful place if the weather permitted and go outside. I would lay under a tree and I would get the Scripture, a Psalm. I would get something that Paul wrote, something I loved, and I would just chew on it, I would meditate on it, think about it, I would reflect on it. Psalm 16, "In your presence, the fullness of joy with eternal pleasures forever more at your right hand." I would just eat it like I was eating my favorite food. I would meditate on it. I would sing. I was alone, no one heard me, and I was refreshed, ready on Monday morning for work again, to be a witness for Christ, to serve him, to move on. I would be in fellowship with other brothers and sisters in Christ. We'd eat meals together, we'd do things together. In America today we think we don't need the Sabbath rest. We need it, we need it. So refresh yourself on the Lord's day.

In Matthew, chapter 11, we  look at an invitation in which Christ is commanding, inviting us to come into his rest.  The world has a desperate need for the truth that Christ gives us here today, we have a desperate need for the peace of Jesus Christ. Is that not true? 

We watch in the streets of New York, in Barcelona and Sydney and all over the world, peace protesters with their angry faces and their burning flags and their fits of rage. We see, again, the need for the truth of this text, the peace that only Christ can give. This world is in the throes and the power of the evil one, the devil, and he is not a peaceful being. We're going to talk about that this morning, but because of our casting in our lot with him, because we as a race have joined in Satan's rebellion, we do not know the peace of God, we do not know the peace that only God can give. As we look out over the nations, we see turbulence, we see churning, we see a casting up of mire and muck. We see a great deal of unrest all over the world.

One of the most fascinating little phrases that I've noticed in the Book of Revelation happens at the end. In Revelation 21:1, it says, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea". It's kind of strange. What does God have against the sea? I think the sea is a majestic and a beautiful thing.  The ocean's a powerful but it's not a very peaceful thing. There's a great deal of churning all the time, and in the Book of Revelation, Chapter 13:1, it says, "The Dragon stood on the shore of the sea and I saw a beast coming out of the sea, he had 10 horns and seven heads with 10 crowns on his horns and on each head a blasphemous name." So, up out of the sea comes this beast. Earlier in the book of Daniel, it'd been the same thing,. It'd been the winds blowing over the sea and out of it, come a succession of beasts, representing human government, wicked human government.

The sea represents the churning turbulence of world history of the nations, and out of it come all these filthy beasts, this government which is so anti-God. Revelation 21:1 says, there'll be no more sea because there will be a king and he will rule greatly over his kingdom, the kingdom of God at that time, and there'll be no more churning up of mire and muck and sin for the old order of things will have passed away. It says in Isaiah 17:12, "Oh, the raging of many nations, they rage like the raging sea. Oh, the uproar of the peoples, they roar like the roaring of great waters." So it is as we look over world history today, we see the raging of the nations and the lack of peace, and all of that comes from the fact that we are not at peace with God. It all starts with individual rebellion against our Creator. 

We need the truth of this text more than ever before. Jesus stands before a rebellious people. Realize the context of this invitation. Jesus had denounced the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed because they did not repent, they were not accepting Christ, they were rejecting him.  Capernaum and Chorazin and Bethsaida were representative of the cities of Israel that were listening to the gospel and rejecting it. Jesus stood before that rejection and  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 for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."  He's inviting weary burdened sinners. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened," he says, "And I will give you rest." He's inviting people that are sick of sin, sick of the struggle with sin, because sin is a crushing tyrant everyday. Sin is the most vicious ruler there has ever been, and you get weary of it. You get weary of the effects of sin in your life. "Come to me," said Jesus, "All you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." Even greater is the crushing burden of a guilty conscience of knowing that you have sinned and knowing that God is holy and that the law of God stands against you, and that you're accused and that someday, you will have to give an account to God, a meticulous and perfect account for every careless word you've ever spoken. If you don't know Christ, you have no savior, and you know that you're condemned and there's nothing for you except the fearful expectation of judgement and raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. What a terrifying way to live.

Jesus said, "If that's oppressive to you, a sense of the condemnation that hangs over you because of your sin then come to me and I will give you rest."  I want to show you what the king commands. He invites weary burdened sinners and what does he invite them to do? Simply to come to him. That's all, "Come to me," he says, "And receive a gift." Nothing you could ever earn. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” It's a gift of grace. That's who he invites and invites them to come simply to Him through repentance, and faith, that's all. But then he commands something of them, and we're going to zero in on that. "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." Then he says, “…for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Now what does this mean, "Take my yoke upon you?" What is a yoke? It's a simple wooden structure that connects a beast of burden to a plow or some other piece of farm equipment. It enables them to stay, perhaps, two oxen to stay together and pull in the same direction.  There's a physical meaning of this yoke and that's the way the Bible uses it in some cases. But ordinarily, when the Bible speaks of a yoke, it uses it metaphorically. It refers to the authority of a king or a master, good or bad, over a subject or a slave. The yoke  represents authority. It's used for example, of the Egyptian's domination over the Israelites when they were slaves in Egypt. In Exodus 6:6,  "Therefore, say to the Israelites. I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with mighty acts of judgment." So the yoke represents the authority badly used by the Egyptians but the authority of the Egyptians over the Israelites.

In another instance, Jeremiah had a wooden yoke that he went around with and a false prophet came and broke the yoke and said, "God will not give us over to Nebuchadnezzar."  God said, "Make an iron one, he can't break." "There's no way that you're going to escape the authority of Nebuchadnezzar."  That's how the Bible uses the term “yoke.” It's a matter of authority of a king or a master over a subject or slave. Good or bad, that's how the word is used. What then is Christ's yoke? Jesus says, "Take my yoke upon you." Some commentators think that it's Christ's way of religion. Learn to do religion the way I'm telling you to do religion. There's some backing for this because it speaks of the yoke that our forefathers put on the necks of the descendants of Israel. It mentions that in the circumcision struggle, but I don't think that's what's going on here. The overall context of Matthew's gospel is the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus is presenting himself as the King of the Kingdom of Heaven, so when He says, "Take My yoke upon you," is he not declaring himself to be a king? Is he not in effect saying, "Stop rebelling against me, throw down your weapons of revolt and come back under my authority"? Isn't that what he's saying? "Allow me to be your ruler, allow me to be your king." I think what he's saying is, "Let me be your Lord, your master, your ruler." He's going to describe his yoke as easy and his burden as light and we'll talk about that in a moment, but I think that's what he's commanding. "Let me rule your life, obey me, submit to my authority." Now bowing the neck under Christ's yoke is an extreme burden, actually impossible for the unregenerate. For somebody who has never been born again, they would never do this, they would not bow their neck to Christ, they would not yield to Him, no matter how much He assures them the yoke is easy and the burden is light. This is the one thing they will not do.

 Charles Spurgeon put it this way, "Observe dear friends that our Lord Jesus Christ does lay a yoke and a burden upon his followers. He uses these words that none may presume to enter his service without due consideration. Religion is not a matter for the trifling. The service of the meek and lowly Christ is no child's play. There is a yoke that is to be borne by all his disciples, and the neck of self will must be bent low to receive it. There is a burden to be carried for Christ and all the strength that God gives us must be used for his glory and honor."  So there is a yoke, but then Spurgeon goes on and says this, "If you are going to come into Christ's kingdom, you must repent, and believe the good news." What does “repent” mean? It means to turn away from self-rebellion. It's impossible to do this if you're unconverted. Spurgeon said, "Some of you would not find Christ's yoke easy or his burden light. That is the very last thing you would find them to be in your present condition, but you would find his yoke to be heavy and his burden impossible for you to bear. Some of you are mere worldlings, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. It may be that some of you are self-righteous and proud of what should be your shame. In any case you are un-regenerate and our text would not be true of you, in your unconverted state." Basically you cannot obey this command if you don't come to Christ first.  Simply come to Christ, simply trust in Him, believe in Him as your savior and then you will be able by the power of the Spirit to bow your neck to his yoke. 

Now Jesus says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me." Literally, I think it means “be my disciple”. "Let me disciple you, let me teach you, let me instruct you." We must have a word of instruction, because we die from lack of the word of God, don't we? We perish from a famine of hearing the word of God. Jesus says, "I will be your instructor, I will be your teacher, I will give you everything you need. Learn from me." And he describes his yoke, as easy and his burden as light.  Now stop with me for a moment and consider how shocking this really is. Christ's yoke easy and his burden is light? Realize that already he has demanded of His disciples complete and total perfect obedience. You don't get any days off from this yoke.  Do we ever get a break from the yoke of Christ? Are not his standards perfection and nothing less? Does he not claim a loyalty higher than any other relationship we have on Earth?  It is higher than even your love for your life itself and you must demonstrate every day a willingness to take up your cross and follow, a willingness even to die.  How can Jesus call that yoke easy and that burden light? 

I think there are seven reasons why Christ's yoke is easy and why his burden is light. Let's look at them. First, because of Christ's perfect nature. How does He describe Himself in this text? He says, "I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls." If Christ were a raging tyrant who delighted to make us suffer, who took pleasure in our pain, would his yoke be easy and his burden light? No that's describing sin, and the devil, actually, but not Christ. The Kingdom of God is good news, because God is such a good king, because Christ is such a good king, and therefore because of his personal nature, his perfect nature, his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Christ is perfectly humble.  He submitted to the yoke of his father. He did everything that God commanded him to do. His will, his food, was to do the will of Him who sent Him and to finish His work, and so he was perfectly humble. We have a king who's willing to take off his garments of glory and get down on his hands and knees and wash our dirty yucky feet. He doesn't do it just once, he does it all the time. He's very humble in dealing with us, he's very lowly. He condescends and lowers Himself to take care of us. That's the nature of our king. Therefore, we can take His yoke upon us because He is gentle and humble in heart, because of His perfect nature. 

Secondly, we can take His yoke upon us and it is easy and his burden is light because of his perfected work. Christ has already borne the heaviest yoke. He's already carried the weight of our sins, and He did it right to the cross. Jesus was humble enough to die on the cross. "He who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on the cross." Because of Christ perfected work on the cross, His yoke is easy and his burden is light. We don't drink his cup of wrath, we drink from his cup that's persecution, but we don't drink it to the bottom the way He did. He drank the cup of God's wrath. Isaiah 53 says, "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted." But 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.” The Lord has laid on him might we say the crushing burden of our sin, our judgment. So his yoke is easy and his burden is light, because He's already carried the heaviest load for us when He died on the cross.

 Thirdly, His yoke is easy and his burden is light because of the simplicity of being a servant. What do you have to worry about when you're the servant of an all powerful and all providing master?  Just do what you're told, that's all. Don't fret anymore about finances. Don't be concerned anymore about the future, about your physical health. Don't fret yourself over the unfolding events, current events. You can pray for all of these things and you should, but don't be anxious over them as though you are somehow king over them. It's a simple life. The simple life of being the servant of a good and powerful providing master.Hs yoke is easy and his burden is light, because of the simplicity of being a servant.

 Fourthly, because of the perfection of Christ commands, Christ's yoke is the way that He rules your life, you bow your neck to him, you put your neck under His yoke and then he says, "This is the way, walk in it." If he wants you to go left and you go straight or right, you're going to have problems, aren't you? But might I suggest to you that straight or right is sin anyway, and God's commandments protect you from sin. 1 John 5:3, "His commands are not burdensome." No, do you know what is burdensome? Sin is burdensome, sin is the enemy. I want to fight sin with all of my heart when I see it and Christ's yoke, God’s commands,  actually protects me from the very thing that would seek to destroy me. That's why his yoke is easy and his burden is light, because it's much easier than sin. Is it not easier for a man, let's say, to resist lust than to pick up the pieces of a broken marriage after committing adultery? Is it not easier to bow your neck to Christ commands so that you don't have to face the grief of a broken world? Christ's yoke is infinitely easier and his burden infinitely lighter than the alternative, which is sin. 

Fifthly, Christ's yoke is easy and his burden is light because of the hopefulness of a life well invested under His yoke. Do it his way and you will store up treasure in Heaven. You will know that every moment the labor, the service, the sacrifice that you're giving matters.  It adds up for something worthwhile, you're not wasting your life, you're not sowing to the wind and reaping a whirlwind. You're not sowing seeds on the rocky soil or on the hardened path and nothing comes of it, instead as a result of following Christ's yoke, you are storing up treasure in heaven. You're building a kingdom that will never end, and everything you do therefore has value, it is worthwhile. As we submit to His yoke as our king and follow his ways, then our service to him lasts for eternity. It's valuable. But if you don't, your life will be blown away as dust in a storm. Your works will be torched with fire and they will burn like wood hay in stubble, and there will be nothing to show. It says in 1 Corinthians 3, "We will suffer loss." But as we follow Him, as we keep in step with the Spirit and do the good works that He's ordained in advance that we should walk in them, then we store up treasure. His yoke is easy and his burden is light, because we have a sense of hopefulness always that our life is counting and pointing toward the future.

Sixthly, his yoke is easy and his burden is light because of the powerful assistance that he gives you in bearing it. He doesn't just put a heavy burden on you and stand back and watch you as you lift it. No, that's the scribes and Pharisees. Matthew 23:4 says, "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, you tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but you yourself won't lift a little finger to help them." Is that our Christ? Oh, not at all. He dwells within us, by the power of the Spirit and any burden that he's put on us, He's already fully borne himself, he's given us an example and he steps up inside us and enables us to obey every command, to follow every inclination of His will. Hebrews 13:21 says, "May God equip you with everything good for doing His will and may he work in us what is pleasing to him."  God puts a heavy yoke on me and then gets inside me and helps me to lift it. He gives me the strength to follow. Augustine put it this way, "Give what you command, and then command what you will." His yoke is easy and his burden is light, because He assists us from within by the power of the Spirit to bear it. 

Seventhly, his yoke is easy and his burden is light because of the sweetness of the love we bear to Christ. We're glad to carry his yoke because we love Him. We're glad because in a way he's yoked right next to us walking with us. He is God with us, we're not alone. Every burden that we bear we do in fellowship with Christ, we're not alone. We have come to him and he is giving us rest. You remember Jacob served an additional seven years to get Rachel? It said the seven years that he served were as a few days to him because of his love for Rachel  and so it is with us, seven reasons why His yoke is easy and His burden is light. 

What does the king promise for us? He promises rest for your souls. Satan is an inherently restless being. Remember when God spoke to Satan in the Book of Job, he said, "Where have you come from, what are you doing? He said, "I'm roaming around on the earth.” That's what he does for a living. He roams around all the time and why? Because he's a restless being, what does he have to look forward to? The lake of fire, that's it, he knows his time is short and so he roams around restlessly, not only him but his demons too. In Matthew 12:43, Jesus speaking of demons says, "When a demon comes out of a man it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it." Satan and his kingdom are in a restless place.When you're in sin, do you not feel also the restlessness? Nothing satisfies, Christ comes to give peace and freedom from that. The Bible says, "There is no rest for the wicked," but they're like mire churned up all the time, like the waves as we said at the beginning.There are counterfeits.  Satan tries to counterfeit the peace that Christ alone can give. There's drugs, there's alcohol, there's sensual pleasures, there's careerism, there's all kinds of worldly things but none of them can take the place of the peace that Christ can give, Christ alone can give it.

What are we talking about when He says, "I will give you rest"? First of all, peace with God; a relationship of peace with God, a status of peace, that He's no longer at war with you. Romans 5:1, says, "Therefore since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." God's not at war with you anymore if you're in Christ. You have a status of peace with God, that's the rest that He gives you. It's the end of your soul, it's the goal of your soul, it's what you've been searching for all this time. I think about the pioneers in our country’s early history, going across our nation to populate the west. Can you imagine being on one of those wagon trains going across the deserts of Colorado, Utah, Nevada and coming up over the last mountain ridge and seeing a fertile valley California, where you knew at last you've reached your desired haven. This is home at last. It's well watered land, free for the taking, you can settle there, you survive. You've come to the end of your journey. That's Christ after you've searched for everything. Augustine put it this way, "You have made us for yourself O God and the heart of man is restless until it finds its rest in you."  Christ gives you peace with God and you know your sins are forgiven. 

But there's another kind of peace isn't there?  Philippians 4:6-7 it says, "Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your requests to God and the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." What is that? It's an experience of peace right now in the middle of your circumstances. Oh, but you don't know my circumstances you might say. Well, I can guess there's really only so many circumstances that people tend to go into. Christ does know your circumstances and it is possible to know the rest for your souls that God intends even in the middle of very terrible and difficult circumstances. Do you think God is all stirred up and turbulent about the current events this week?  Is God on His throne saying, "What am I going to do? I don't know what to do, it's getting confusing, help me out, why don't an angel come give me some advice." Is this our God? Not at all. He knows what He's doing. Don't you want to experience His peace through anything you go through? The peace of God, this is the rest that Christ offers. Ultimately,  he offers you a Sabbath rest in perfect face-to-face fellowship with God having crossed the spiritual Jordan. Death into His presence you will find rest for your souls in Christ But he also offers you peace with God now, forgiveness of sins, justification, He offers you the peace of God, an experience of God's peace no matter what your circumstances and then He offers you in the future peace and His presence, a Sabbath rest, an eternal Sabbath rest in the very presence of God. That is the peace that he offers here in Matthew 11:28-30, "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 for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

What application can we take from this? First, come to Christ, the gentle king, come to Him for salvation. Can I urge you if you don't know for sure that your sins are forgiven through faith in Christ, that you don't know whether you've ever come to Christ and received the peace that he alone can give, that you not walk out of here without talking to me or one of the other ministers about your soul. Come to Christ through faith, through simple faith. If you have already come to Christ can I urge you, are you bowing your neck to Him, to His yoke every day? I you're not, if you can honestly say you're not, would you not say that all the trouble in your life is connected to the fact that you won't take His yoke upon you, that you want to run your life your way, you're not yielded to the king and following His instructions. Can I urge you gently and tenderly to repent and allow Christ to be your king. Bow your neck to him, take His yoke upon you and learn from Him, become like Him, gentle and humble in heart, peaceful and trusting under the hand of a master as Jesus was under the hand of His father, learn from Him. Thirdly, live your life free from anxiety, free from concern. Live in the peace of God through prayer and through obedience and through trusting, looking forward to your eternal Sabbath rest by trusting Him no matter what you're going through, whether financial difficulties, marriage difficulties, parenting difficulties, physical health difficulties, struggles that you're having. Trust Him and let Him give you the peace that only He can give.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Matthew 11:28-30. The main subject of the sermon is how Christ graciously invites us to His kingdom.

 Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 11:28-30. I have an incredible sense of anticipation and delight in taking on these verses. I'm so excited to be able to proclaim to you the invitation that Jesus gave when he said, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, I will give you rest,” because I've found in this world that there is no rest like that which Jesus gives. It seems to me that rest is the one thing that Satan cannot counterfeit. It's a gift of God through Jesus Christ. He's offering it to all of us freely, without money or cost. He's offering it to any who will come and take it from him.

As I look around the world today,  I'm thinking much about the tyranny and bondage that fills this world.  I don't mean the tyranny and bondage of bad human government, such as that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, although that's grievous enough. I'm thinking of the wide-reaching effects of a far greater tyranny and bondage, and that is the bondage of sin and the devastation that comes to our lives through our own sin and through the effects of the sins of other people to us. I think that that sums it all up, doesn't it? When you look at the grief in your life, all of it has come through sin.  Either your sins directly and the effects of your own sin or the sins of other people, whether you knew them or not. It's a terrible bondage. We see the effects of it, too, physically in the world, don't we? We know that somewhere in the world, this morning, a drug addict is waking up and feeling the effects of last night's excesses and resolving in his heart never to do it again, and later today he'll begin again to seek to meet that craving because he's in bondage. We know that somewhere in the world today, a wife is crying her eyes out because last night, she found out that her husband has been unfaithful to her, or a husband is struggling with things like internet pornography or other forms of immorality, and he feels a bondage and he cannot break it. There's a tyranny to it, but he has no answer. We know that somewhere in this country today, a baby will be aborted because her mother sees no way out of the hopeless situation, no sense of hope, just a sense of desperation,or an old woman will lie crying in bed because her children have forgotten her through their selfishness and their busyness. They won't come to see her and won't get active in her life.

We know that somewhere in this hemisphere, perhaps in Haiti, there are orphan children that are climbing around on dump piles looking for enough food to survive, and some of them will die from the diseases that they catch there. All of this has come through the tyranny and the bondage which is sin. It's an amazing thing that Jesus stands in the midst of all of this as sin makes its powerful, boastful call over our lives saying,”I am the God of this world and there's nothing you can do to break my tyranny." A greater and stronger voice says, "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 at heart and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." What an astounding thing this is. 

We've been talking in the Gospel of Matthew about how Jesus is the King of the Kingdom of Heaven. But it's an incredibly unusual thing for a king who seeks to advance his empire to do so by standing before rebels and saying, "Please come back to me. Please come and bend your neck to my yoke and submit to my rule." Inviting rebels to submit? This is not the way it's usually done. When Alexander the Great wanted to take over the world, he got his army together and he got on his horse and he crossed the Dardanelles and he took on the Persians.  When Julius Caesar wanted to turn the Roman Republican into an empire with himself as  emperor, he crossed the Rubicon with his legions and marched on Rome. When Genghis Khan wanted to take over the greatest empire and land mass that the world has ever seen, he got together the greatest cavalry the world had ever seen. These Mongols were able to shoot at a tiny, little ring with an arrow at full gallop backwards, and conquer China. That's what you do if you want a larger kingdom. You don't do this: You don't stand humbly and quietly and spread out your arms before Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum who have rejected you and say, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." That's not the way it's done. But it is the way it's done in the Kingdom of Heaven.

We see the lion of the tribe of Judah, who is fit and worthy to take the title deed for the earth. No one else is worthy, not Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar or Genghis Khan or Napoleon or any of these other great world leaders and conquerors, none of them worthy to take that scroll. But this one is, the lion of the tribe of Judah. He is sovereign and he is powerful. He says, "All things have been committed to me by my father." He's a sovereign king, he is a lion. He rules. And when he roars, the nations will tremble. But then John says, "I saw one looking like a lamb who is slain and he took that scroll." And so, this lion, the lion of the tribe of Judah, advances as a lamb, gentle and humble in heart, offering rest for souls of people who have been rebelling against him. This is an astounding thing.

Have you entered into his rest? Have you come to Christ? Have you found him to be rest for your souls? If not, come today. Today is the day of salvation. Even if you have already come to Christ, come again and again and again. Some people think, "This is an Evangelical Baptist Church, so we're going to have people walking the aisles at the end and invitation all that, and I don't need to do that because I did that before." So you've come to Christ, and then that's it, right? Oh, no, come to Christ again, and come to him again and come to him again and again. For Jesus said to the woman at the well, "Anyone who drinks of the water that I give him will never thirst, but the water that I give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up again and again to eternal life." So as often as you're thirsty, you come to Jesus and drink. This invitation is for you, if you are a weary and burdened sinner. If you're a weary and burdened sinner, Christ is reaching out to you and inviting you to come.

I'm going to take this text and divide into three parts. We're going to look at one of those three parts today. We're going to look at whom the king invites. Later we're going to look at what the king commands and what the king promises. But I'm so excited to tell you what the king commands and what the king promises, I'll do that again also today. 

 Whom does the king invite? He invites weary, burdened sinners like you and me. And what does the king command? Bow your neck to him. Submit to his yolk. Put his yoke upon you, stop fighting against his sovereign rule. Let Him be your king. Let Him be your Lord, learn from him, and let him run your life. That's what he commands. Well, what does he offer? What does he promise? Rest for your souls, rest now, and rest for ever more. Rest in this world, the peace of God, a sense of peacefulness in your soul; that it is well with your soul. And what value could be placed on that? You can't buy it. It's of incredible value, but how much greater peace with God, positionally, that God is no longer at war with you and that your sins are forgiven through faith in Christ, and that when you die, you'll be welcomed into heaven by God himself.

So whom does the king invite? He invites weary, burdened sinners. And what does he command? Submit to him, put your neck in his yoke. And what does he promise? Rest for your souls. Let's look at the first, whom the king invites. First of all, I want you to realize that the king is God. He's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Therefore, God the Father invites, and God the Son invites, and God the Holy Spirit invites. In the Old Testament, in the Book of Isaiah, God the father invited rebellious Israelites to come to him. He said, "Come now. Let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as snow. Though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you'll eat the best from the land. But if you resist and rebel, you'll be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." Is that not the same invitation? "Come close to me, and you'll find forgiveness." It’s an invitation to forgiveness.

Later in Isaiah, he makes an invitation to feasting. In Isaiah 55:1-3, he says, "Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money in what is not bread in your life on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me, hear me, that your soul may live." That is an invitation from God the Father to the Israelites and through them to us, to come very close for feasting, to stop wasting your life on things that don't matter, that don't satisfy, and to come very close to him, to have a banquet with God Himself. We see that God the Father invites, he invites us to come. God the Son invites. 

Jesus invited again and again and again, not just here in this wonderful text, but in many places.  Speaking to his disciples in Matthew 4:18-19, walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw there Peter and John and James and Andrew, four disciples, and they were fishing. What did Jesus say to them as he walked by them? He said, "Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men." Later in Matthew 9, when he sees Matthew the tax collector sitting at the tax booth, he walks by and he says, "Come, follow me." Jesus is an inviting God, an inviting Savior, saying, "Leave behind your old way of living and come follow me." He says the same thing in his parables. His parables have in them an invitation to come. There's the parable of the wedding banquet when the father sends out messengers, servants to those who are invited to the banquet. He says, "Then he sent some servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I've prepared my dinner. My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.'" In the middle of his parables there's an invitation, "Come to the banquet." Speaking to hungry and thirsty and desperate souls in John chapter 7, on the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink." He also speaks to dead people. He speaks to Lazarus in the tomb, and what does He say? After the stone is removed, he speaks to Lazarus and he says, "Come forth," and he comes. You see, Jesus is an inviting God.

 Let me stop for a moment. I've struggled with this thing, and maybe you can help me.  Is this an invitation or is it a command? Well, what's the difference? I've thought a lot about this, and I can't resolve it. Who is it that's saying "Come"? Is he giving us an invitation, or is he giving us a command? Let's say the difference is a command is something negative that's hard and burdensome and so we have to kind of do it. Is that the truth? Are not all of God's commands delightful? It's sin that's burdensome.  What about an invitation? You say, "Well, an invitation is something that if you don't take up on, at least there's no penalty. It's a good thing that you're invited." Is that true? If you don't take Christ up on this invitation, do you realize what kind of penalty there is? Eternal hell. So is this not both an invitation and a command? I can't work it out.  The fact of the matter is it's the king, and he's inviting you to come into his presence and feast and be with him. He gives us an invitation, just like he gave Lazarus an invitation to come out of the tomb, "Come out of that tomb, Lazarus."  Aren't you delighted that Lazarus took him up on his invitation and came out of the tomb? Aren't you glad they didn't have to send somebody in the tomb and go get him? while." He came out.

On judgment day, he'll give an invitation. He will say to faithful stewards, "Well done, good and faithful steward. You've been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things." What's the next? "Come, enter into the joy of your master."  There's an invitation. In the instance of the sheep and the goats, the King will say to those in his right, "Come, you, who are blessed by my Father. Take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world."

Our God is an inviting God.  God the Father says, "Come."  God the Son says, "Come."  God the Holy Spirit says, "Come." At the end of the Bible, in the Book of Revelation, Revelation 22:17. The Spirit and the bride say, "Come. And let him who hears say, 'Come.' Whoever is thirsty, let him come. And whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life." Around the world today, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are inviting burdened sinners to come very close, to come close for salvation. This is a mysterious context, is it not? Think about the context of Matthew 11:20-30. Jesus is dealing with people responding to his ministry, to his miracles, really, and he condemns the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed because they didn't repent. "Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida," he says. "Woe to you, Capernaum, because you didn't repent." There wasn't any organized, it seems, opposition to him in those cities; they just were indifferent. They didn't care. They didn't want to change their lives. They did not repent.  Jesus  denounced these cities. And yet, he's standing there holding out salvation to any who will come. Isn't that incredible? Right in the face of opposition, right in the face of indifference, he's standing there saying, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” 

Also, it's in the context of him proclaiming, preaching divine sovereignty; that He's sovereign over all things. He's sovereign in that he prays to his Father, and his Father is Lord of heaven and earth, and his Father conceals things from the wise and learned, reveals them to little children, because it was his good pleasure. This is our Sovereign God. He says, "All things have been committed to me by my Father. I rule over all things, heaven and earth. They've been given to me. I'm sovereign over things. Sovereign over salvation and over the events of life." The sovereignty of God clearly portrayed and proclaimed here. He says, for example, "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. Come to me all you are weary and burdened." There's no seam, no division, no chapter subtitle put in there. It just flows right from verse 27 to verse 28: Divine sovereignty and human responsibility, and  an appeal to the sinner to come.

One of my favorite preachers was the Calvinist Charles Spurgeon, who believed in the sovereignty of God and was one of the greatest evangelists in history. He preached 11 sermons on Matthew 11:28-30.  Charles Spurgeon never tired of this text. He loved to preach it, because he saw the sovereignty of God flowing out into a general and free invitation. Now, you say, "Wait a minute. This doesn't make sense. How can it be? How can God be sovereign? How can there be predestination? How can there be election and still a free Gospel appeal?" I'm going to tell you, in the end, I don't really know. My own intellect, my own wisdom is limited. But there doesn't seem to be any problem for Jesus, does there? He proclaimed sovereignty in verse 27, and gives a free Gospel invitation in verse 28. He's not troubled by this at all, but does it very clearly.

 Now, I've already quoted Revelation 22:17, it says, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."  Christ sees no conflict to this; he just says, "Whosoever will, come to me and find rest for your souls." It's not a burden at all. But other scriptures teaches that no one, absolutely no one, will respond to this invitation if the Father doesn't draw them first. "No one can come to me," said Jesus, "unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day." John Murray said, "It is a moral and spiritual impossibility for sinners to come to Christ if God the Father doesn't draw him." And yet, God does draw sinners to Christ. Jesus says, "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never drive away."

How does that happen? Well, it happens in the moment of preaching. When someone stands up, like me, and says, "Jesus is saying to you, 'Whosoever will, let him come.'" The appeal goes out to the ends of the earth. The message of faith is proclaimed, the gospel is proclaimed. And that message of faith that we are proclaiming, that if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your hearts that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Faith comes by hearing the proclaimed message. So at the moment of a proclamation like this, faith springs up in the heart and people come. They come to faith in Christ. 

Reminds me, this is an illustration that I thought of on 9/11/2001. There were firemen the next day going over the rubble, and they were calling out, calling down into the rubble. Who were they calling for? They were calling for live people. It stands to reason, doesn't it? “If anybody can hear me, make a sound and we'll get you out." There's a general call going out, and who's going to respond? Those that are alive. So it is with the gospel mysteries. The Father's work goes out and regeneration occurs. Then for the first time, you hear the gospel. Oh, you'd heard it lots of times before, but for the first time you hear it as Christ and he's standing and inviting, and he's saying, "whosoever will" means me. I should come. The Gospel appeal goes out.

Now, who is invited? According to this text, you who are weary and heavy laden. He says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore." Jesus, ready stands to save you, full of pity, love, and power. That's who he's appealing to: Weary and heavy laden. The Greek literally says, "Those who labor, those who are burdened, those who are under a crushing burden and they feel the weight of it." I think of the slaves in Egypt, when Pharaoh took away their provision of grass, and they had to go out and cut their own grass and their quota of bricks was not decreased at all, and they felt the task masters lash on their backs. This is a metaphor for the burden of sin, a slavery to sin.

Some people think that this burden refers to those that are crushed by the demands of the Mosaic Law, or crushed by the burdens of the law. The Ten Commandments, we break them every day. We feel it. Some people think it's the burden of religiosity, trying to work out your salvation apart from Christ, trying to be a good person, trying to do it through religion, trying to give a little more money, or do a few more good deeds, pray a little longer, fast a little bit. Like Martin Luther, in the middle of his cell as a monk, laying on the stone floor with his blanket up in his cot. He wouldn't put the blanket on him because he thought his own physical suffering would make him more attractive to God, and that God would forgive his sin. But the problem that Luther found is no matter how much he tried to do enough for God, there was never an enough. It didn't matter how much you did in your religiosity. It was never enough, because God is holy and perfect. So then we have the weary, burdensome sense of religion crushing us at that moment. Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus said, "They tie up heavy burdens and put them on men's shoulders, but they don't lift a finger to move them." The Pharisees set up a religious system that nobody could survive. In Acts 15:10, it says, "Why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?" The crushing burden of religiosity, trying to earn your salvation through good deeds. Galatians 5:1 says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free, stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

This is religiosity, a sense that I'm going to try to save myself by being good person. I'm never going to do that stuff again. I'm going to start doing all kinds of good things. Well, how's it going? Do you find yourself pulled again and again to that stuff, the very things you've repudiated? Do you find yourself unable to live up to the perfect standards you know are in the Bible? It's a crushing burden, isn't it? The burden of trying to earn your own salvation. You never will, because God's standards are perfect. But you know, I don't think these are the burdens. I think the real burden is sin; it's not the law of God. Frankly, God's commands are not burdensome. It's sin that's a burden. Sin is a devastating, vicious tyrant and task master.

In C.S. Lewis’s  Screwtape Letters, the older uncle Screwtape talking to the younger demon Wormwood, giving him advice on how to tempt us, said, he's dealing with the topic of pleasure, say, "You need to be careful with pleasure, because pleasure really belongs to the enemy.” That's God, by the way. "Pleasure is the enemy's. We don't get into pleasure, but we have to use pleasure to entice people into sin. But we've got to wean them off it as quickly as possible. Here's the recipe for success. Ever-increasing bondage to the sin with ever-decreasing pleasure in it. That's a winning combination." You go ask the addict, "How much pleasure do you get out of your addiction?" They'd give anything to trade it if they could. But they're stuck, and so they're in bondage. So it is for all of us, in bondage to sin apart from Christ. Along with that comes the crushing burden of a sense of impending judgment from God, the burden of a guilty conscience. Job said in 31:4, "Does he not see my ways and count my every step?" Does He not see my ways and count my every step? Jesus said, "Men will have to give an account on the Day of Judgment for every careless word that they have spoken." That leads to a burdened conscience.

In Lamentations 1:14, it says, "My sins have been bound into a yoke, by his hands, they were woven together. They've come upon my neck, and the Lord has sapped my strength. He's handed me over to those I cannot withstand." Sin becomes the crushing yoke on our neck. We can't survive the crushing burden of a guilty conscience. Edgar Allan Poe in his grim story, “Tell-Tale Heart”, speaks of a man, probably insane, who killed another man and hid his body in his house. In the middle of the night, the policeman comes and knocks on the door, because the neighbor had heard a single cry. He lets this policeman in, so proud of himself that he has thoroughly disposed of the body and any evidence of the crime. He's thoroughly convinced that he's going to be able to nonchalance his way through this interview with the policeman. But as he's sitting there, he starts to hear the pounding of a heart in his ears. He's uncomfortable, because he knows what it is. It's the beating heart of the man that he's murdered. He's afraid that the policeman will be able to hear it. And eventually, under the pressure and the weight of a guilty conscience, he confesses his crime. The policemen hasn't heard a thing. So also Christian in Pilgrim's Progress feels the burden on his back of guilt from sin, and it does not come off until he comes to the cross and it rolls off into the empty tomb.

But what are we going to do to free ourselves from guilt? There's only one thing: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will take that burden off you. I will die in our place under the wrath of God. I will take all of your sins on myself and I will extinguish the wrath and curse of God for you. If you only come to me, I will take away your burden." So whom does the king invite? He invites sinners, weary and burdened sinners, and invites them to come to him. He doesn't say, "Come to a program. Come to a religion." He says, "Come to me." Come to a person. So it's not to what does the king invite weary burdened sinners; it's to whom. He invites us to come to himself. To a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. "Come to me and I will give you rest." You look to him and he can and will free you from your burden of sin. He commands that you bend your neck to his yoke. You can't come to Christ the Savior and not have him as your Lord. But Jesus comes to free you from the guilt and the burden of sin. Ultimately, He promises you a rest that only he can give.

What application can we take from this? First of all, I want you to marvel at the grace of Christ our King. We don't deserve this, do we? We do not deserve a king to stand in front of us like this, gentle and humble in heart, and welcome us back to himself. And he doesn't do it just once, does he? He does it again and again and again. As often as we need, he invites us very close to come.

Secondly, I want you to feel the burden of sin and hate it. I want you to hate sin as much as Jesus does. I want you to realize that all the grief you have in your life comes from your sin and from the sins of others to you. Therefore, I want you to feel the weight, the burden, the heaviness of sin so that you will despise it. Well, what then? Then you come to Christ. I'm appealing to any who have never come to faith in Christ that you would come today and trust in him. Do you think that you can stand before him without his forgiveness, without the blood of Christ, and survive Judgment Day? You cannot. So come to Christ today. Don't leave this room without coming to Christ.  If today, you hear him calling to you, come to him and let him save you from sin.

But if you've already committed your life to Christ, do you think this text has nothing to say to you? Suppose you're wrestling with immorality. Suppose you're wrestling as a spouse with relational problems, bickering and arguing, and selfishness. Suppose every time a trial comes in your life, you respond with frustration and irritation rather than faith. "Come to me," said Jesus, "and I'll free you from that. Come to me and I'll free you from immorality. I'll free you from internet pornography. I'll free you from abortion. I'll free you from spousal abuse. I'll free you from alcohol abuse. I'll free you from prayerlessness. I'll free you from laziness. I'll free you from unbelief. I'll free you from disrespect for authority. I'll free you from sin. Come to me."  If today, you hear his voice, don't harden your heart. That's good for every day, day after day. Come to Christ.

We'll be looking this morning at Matthew 11, concentrating on verses 25 through 27. For the third week,we are looking at the issue of divine sovereignty. According to the book of Revelation, there is a throne in the center of Heaven. In Revelation 4, "John was lifted up in the spirit and in the Spirit he saw a throne in Heaven with someone sitting on it. And it says the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, a rainbow, resembling an emerald encircled the throne. Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their head, and from the throne, came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. And these are the seven spirits of God. And also before the throne, there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In the center, around the throne were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes in front and in back."

There in Revelation Chapter 4, we have set before us in the center of everything, a throne and one who sat on it. This is God Almighty, who rules over all things. There is also set in the center of our hope of salvation, a throne as well. Is there not? It says in the Book of Hebrews, Chapter Four, "That since we have a great high priest, let us approach with confidence, the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” There is a throne of mercy and of grace, and there is one seated on that throne who dispenses grace and mercy in our lives. Yes, there's a throne in the center of my hope of salvation, but is there a throne in the center of the affairs of Earth? Is there one who rules over this turbulent churning sea of events that we read about? And is there one seated on that throne who rules over all of it? 

Jesus addresses that in these verses, doesn't he? He addresses it  saying, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and Earth,” and that's enough for me. The same Lord who rules over heaven, rules over Earth, even though somewhere on the Earth today now, there's a tyrant, planning to slaughter thousands of people with weapons of mass destruction. Even though somewhere on the Earth today, an old man will die without ever having heard the name of Jesus Christ. Even though somewhere on the Earth today, a baby will be born infected with AIDS, caught from his mother; even though people are starving and dying. Even though there may be questions of a similar scope among people sitting in the pews today. Despite all of these things, there is a God who sits on the throne and rules over the events of Earth and that throne is what Christ praises God for today.  I want you to praise Him for it, too. I want you to be able to say, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and Earth."

We want to consider the flowing together of these mighty rivers of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, for the third time. We've already seen human responsibility in verses 20 through 24: Christ denounces the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed because they did not repent. And when he proclaims over them, "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! Woe to you, Capernaum!" He's saying, "You are responsible for your failure to repent, despite the miracles, despite the evidence that I gave you of my deity, and of my kingdom, you did not repent, you just ignored me and you are accountable, you are responsible. Woe onto you, for your failure to repent." This is human responsibility.

At the end of the text, we see, again, human responsibility as the Savior, like a shepherd, invites sheep to come into the fold. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." This is an invitation from a gracious king that we should throw down our weapons of rebellion and come back into the kingdom. Again, human responsibility. But in the center of this text as we have seen in the center of Heaven and the center of our hope of salvation, we have divine sovereignty. What's so remarkable here is that it's all flowing from the lips of Jesus. and they flow together without any controversy, without any difficulty. They are  just side by side, divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

We've already looked at a number of aspects of divine sovereignty. I'll just mention them briefly. We've seen divine power in the miracles that Jesus did. He is denouncing the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed. These were displays of divine power, only God could do them. And everyone knew it. He would point to a paralyzed man and say, "Your sins are forgiven," and they would be offended, and he would say, "So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on Earth to forgive sins, I say to you, rise and walk,” and the paralyzed man did rise and walk. This was a display of divine power. Only God can forgive sins. And only God can say to a paralyzed man, "Rise and walk.” Jesus has this kind of power to forgive sins and to heal disease. 

We've also seen divine perception. Jesus said, if the miracles that had been performed in Bethsaida were performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Stop, how did He know that? Is He able to search hearts and minds? Is He able to know things that never will be? Yes, He has divine perception, Something only God could know, Jesus knew, and that extends back 2000 years in history to the city of Sodom destroyed under the wrath of God for its wickedness and perversion. Jesus said, "If I had done these miracles there, that city would still be here today." 

Thirdly, we've seen divine prerogative. As a king, He makes choices. As a king, He has the authority to make them. He doesn't need to ask permission and He doesn't apologize for what He does, He just decides.  He choose not to do miracles in Tyre and Sidon, like He did in Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. This is His divine prerogative and He exercised it, even though He was there in Tyre, and He did one small miracle there. He did not do the river of miracles in the display that He did in His hometown of Capernaum. .

Fourthly, we've seen divine praise.  From verses 20 through 24, and then verse 25, it's a remarkable connection. He's dealing with the failure of cities to repent. Jewish cities who should have known better, who should have repented. He's dealing with unbelief, He's dealing with people who are going to go to hell. “You, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you'll go down to Hades, you'll go down to the depths.” He's dealing with the most dreary and the most despicable topic and in the midst of that, in verse 25, He answers and responds and says, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and Earth.” Oh, this is jarring to us and surprising, but it is His nature, His desire to praise His Heavenly Father because He is a king who rules over all things, divine praise.

Fifthly, divine position. I love these titles. I praise you, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, side by side, they are. A measurement and the second title of His sovereignty over all things, the same throne that rules in Heaven, rules over Earth. He is Lord of heaven and Earth. He's not a tribal deity, He's not localized, His jurisdiction doesn't end at a certain place, but it covers all of the Earth. He is Lord of heaven and of Earth, for He made it in six days. He is God over all things. He's also father,  a position or a title of authority but also of endearment and of relationship, of love and compassion. A father who cares for His children and who loves them. “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and Earth.”

Then sixthly, divine preference. In verse 25, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and Earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, on the one hand, and revealed them to little children on the other.”  Our sovereign God conceals and reveals, and Jesus praises Him for both. “I praise you Father, because you conceal and I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and Earth, because you reveal.”  It's not a big challenge for us to rejoice in the second, we love a God who is self-revealing. We want to know God, we want to see Him in His glory.  God does reveal Himself, but He also conceals. He conceals, it says, from the wise and learned, and He reveals Himself to little children.

There's nothing wrong with being wise. As a matter of fact, there's a whole book in the Scripture, the Book of Proverbs, which praises wisdom. But  the wisdom that Christ is dealing with here is human wisdom, human knowledge, human academia, the intellectual pursuits of the human mind apart from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, seeking out the deep things of the universe, seeking out their conceptions of God. They will never find Him, not that way, for God has concealed Himself from those kinds of inquiries and will never be found that way. For since in the wisdom of God, God through His wisdom did not decide to reveal Christ that way, but rather only to those who've humbled themselves. “To those who are meek and lowly, to the lowly of heart, you have revealed them to little children.” To those who will humble themselves, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth. Unless you are converted to become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Jesus praises God for the concealing and He praises God for the revealing and this is His divine preference.

Seventh, divine pleasure. All things that God does, He does according to His pleasure. He's not under compulsion, He's not forced, He's not coerced, He's not irritable or out of sorts, He knows what He's doing when He sits on the throne. Aren't you glad? Don't you delight in a God who knows what He's doing and who does what He pleases in heaven and on Earth and under the Earth. This is a God of pleasure. In the end, our heavenly joy is tied up in the pleasure of God. He says, "Well done, good and faithful servant, you've been faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things. Now, enter into the joy of your master." What kind of heaven would it be if there were no such thing as the joy of our master? Oh, but He has much joy, He has much pleasure, He knows what He's doing and He's ruling over all things for His glory.  He says, "Enter into my pleasure, enter into what it feels like to be totally one with yourself, without any division any more over sin." I'm looking forward to that, aren't you? Looking forward to being as one as the Father and the Son are one, and not just by myself, but with all who have believed and trusted Him, from every tribe and language and people and nation. But He does all things according to His pleasure. He rules according to His pleasure. Even if His pleasure is a little shocking and surprising to us, sometimes. Would we ever have arranged a Gospel in which the second person in Trinity died on a wooden cross? It is not our way. His ways are different than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts as the heavens are above the Earth, and so He has pleasure in the death of His Son. Pleasure in crushing Him on the cross. Not in the thing itself, in the suffering and the pain, but rather, in the joy that's set before Him, in the end result, in a perfect new heaven and new Earth, a home of righteousness, which His death alone can accomplish. He has pleasure in that. That's a whirlwind review of the first seven.

Now, let's look, at the last three. Divine presentation. The Father commits the universe to the son. In verse 27, whereas Jesus was praising His father for divine sovereignty, so He's praying it up to God in a prayer. He's giving thanks for it. Here, He's instructing us about it. He's instructing us about sovereignty. He says, "All things have been committed to me by my Father." This is divine presentation. “All things have been committed to me.”  He is claiming here, dominion over the entire Earth. This is a remarkably shocking claim, if Jesus is not deity. If He's not God in the flesh, what kind of person would say, "I want you to know that God has entrusted the entire world, the whole universe to me."  What would you do if you knew somebody like that? But Jesus is God and this is a true statement. He never utters a word lightly. "And all things have been given to me, God has entrusted.. "  This word "committed" in the NIV, means  “handed over.”  Entrusted is a good way to put it. They've been surrendered to me. They've been handed over.  He's talking about dominion over the Earth. This is the very thing that the devil claimed in Luke 4, when he was tempting Jesus. The devil led Jesus up to a high place and showed Him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world, and  said to Him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to." The devil's such a liar. Oh yes, he's god of this world, but it's temporary, isn't it? Jesus brushed to the side and said, "I'm going to get it anyway, but not from you. I'm going to get it from my Father. He's going to entrust it to me, all things." And why? Because Psalm 24:1 says, "The Earth is the Lord's, and everything in it." The world, and all who live in it, it belongs to God, not to the Devil. Don't be deceived when the devil promises you the world. He can't deliver, for God has entrusted all things to the Son.

What has He entrusted? Everything to do with the universe has been entrusted in Christ's hands, "All authority," said Jesus, "in heaven and on Earth has been given to me," It says in Ephesians 1:22-23, "God placed all things under Christ's feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way." He's also entrusted or committed to Him, the authority to forgive sins. As we've already mentioned, in Matthew 9:6, He said, over that paralyzed man, "The Son of Man has authority on Earth to forgive sins. He also has the authority to judge sinners." In John 5:22, it says, "Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted, He has committed all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." All judgment has been entrusted to Jesus and that's what it reflects in Matthew 25, "The sheep and the goats, He's going to gather all nations before Him, and He will separate them, one from another, as a shepherd separates sheep from the goats." And why? He has the right to do it. It's been entrusted to Him by His Father.

He also has the authority to rule over God's enemies for the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 15 says, "Then the end will come, when He, Christ, hands over the Kingdom to God the Father after He has destroyed all dominion, authority and power, for He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet, the last enemy to be destroyed is death."Some day, He's going to destroy death.  Death is the last enemy. All things have been committed, but especially here, I believe, it is people who have been committed to Him. Elsewhere called the elected, the chosen of God. Many times, in the book of John, it speaks of people who are given from the Father to the Son. In John 6:37-39, "All that the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never drive away. For I've come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but to do the will of Him who sent me, and this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given to me, but shall raise them up at the last day." Also in John 10, He says, "My sheep listen to my voice, I know them and they follow me, I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all. And no one can snatch them out of My Father's hand. I and the Father are one." Then there is great high priestly prayer in John 17, "After this, Jesus looked up to Heaven and prayed,  ‘Father the time has come. Glorify your son, that your son may glorify you, for you granted him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to those whom you have given Him.’” There are people entrusted to Jesus. In effect the Father says, “Here are people, take care of them, they're precious to me, bring them to heaven, die for them, pour out your blood that their sins might be forgiven, keep them safely the rest of the way and bring them to me so that I might have eternal fellowship with them. I've entrusted them to you, bring them to me.”  In John 17:6-7, Jesus says, "I revealed You to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours, You gave them to me and they have obeyed your word." If you are a Christian, you are a love gift from the Father to the Son. The son sees you as something that's been committed or entrusted to Him. He will not lose any of you. You are precious to Him and He will protect you with His life. In fact, He's willing to pour out His life that you might be protected from wrath. This is the Sovereign God that we have.

Next, number nine: Divine privacy. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son.  No one knows the Son. You say, “Wait a minute now, I know a lot of things about Jesus. I know that he was born in Bethlehem, I know that He did such and such miracles, I know that He never sinned, I know His mother's name, I know His step-father's name, I know a lot of things. I could take a theology exam on Jesus.” Yes, but do you know Him? The Greek word is “epignosis” that means “a full complete rich relational knowledge.” Do you know Him? Jesus already answered the question. “You don't know me, not yet, not yet, no one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son.” Jesus says the goal of which there's no greater value in the universe, is knowing God.  In Jeremiah 9:23-24,  the Lord says, " ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches but let him who boast boast about this, that he understands and knows me,' says the Lord." That's what you should boast over, that should be your treasure. No accomplishment compares to knowing God, nothing.  Jesus said, "You don't know me and you don't know my father.” What He is saying is this knowledge is the essence of our life. This is eternal life.  John 17:3, "That they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom I have sent.” So eternal life is knowing the Father and the Son but we don't, not naturally and why? Well, Isaiah 45:15 says,”Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God and Savior of Israel." Really, our God is a God who hides himself.  That's what it says, “You are a God who hides Himself, O God and Savior of Israel.”

Many times in the Psalms, the Psalmist struggles with this, doesn't he? "How long, O Lord will you hide your face from me?" Do you experience this in your Christian life or do you have unbroken face-to-face fellowship with God now here on earth?  Of course, you don't because God is a God who hides Himself even to His children. David wrestled with this, he struggled. He was not in constant face-to-face fellowship with God. God was concealing Himself somewhat. God therefore does hide Himself even from His children and He hides Himself from rebels and from the wicked because of their sins. He will not hear their prayers because their sins have separated Him from them. He has hidden His face from them. This is the problem. The whole thing started with Adam and Eve hiding from God but it is God who hides His face from us. He conceals Himself and will not reveal Himself unless He wills.

The Father knows His Son, doesn't He? He delights in His Son. Do you remember when He was baptized? A voice came down from heaven saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” God knows Him very well and delights in Him. The Son knows His Father, also. John 17:25, "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you.” The Son knows the Father and the Father knows the Son, and no one can get any further in knowing God than God wills. You can't up and know God if He does not reveal Himself. You can't search Him out, you'll never find Him unless He reveals Himself. 

 Praise God He didn't stop there. Number 10 says, with divine privilege the Son chooses to reveal the Father to some.  "No one knows the Father except the Son and. . .” Stop there. Do you see that little word “and”? You say I didn't think “and” was that big a deal. Oh, it's a big deal because God could have stopped there. He could have said no one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son— end of story — the whole human race goes to hell. He could have done it. Don't think He couldn't have, He did it with the demons, they don't know God, they tremble but they don't know Him.  But he adds the word “and”.  Praise God, that there are some among us who will know God face-to-face. No one knows the Father, except the Son and those people to whom the Son chooses or wills to reveal Him. I think it's incredible. You should be if you're a child of God, right now just praising God that he has willed to reveal himself to you. It’s astonishing, especially when we sell it so cheaply, when we think so little really of knowing God; that it's really not that big a deal for me to know God. Oh yes, it is — it's eternal life and God knows that even if you don't fully. He is revealing himself to you.

God sent his Son into the world to reveal himself.  In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets, at many times and in various ways. But in these last days, He has spoken to us by his Son whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory; that's revelation language, isn't it? He's shining out God's glory and the exact representation of his being sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sin, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven. After He died on the cross for sinners like you and me, He sat down and that's where He reigns from.  In John 14: 6 and following, Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” “If you really knew me, you would know my Father, as well." From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Isn't that incredible? From that point on, we know him, and we have seen him. Philip didn't get it, did he? “Lord show us the Father and it will be enough for us.” “Oh, Philip, have I been with you all this time and you don't know me? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” Do you see that? The Son chooses to reveal.

The Son does make a choice in this matter.   “Goulema” is the verb, it's “he wills, he chooses to reveal”. He has a decision in this matter and He's a king and not everyone gets the same revelation.  Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum got something different than Tyre and Sidon did. Individuals like Simon Peter get something different than Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. Do you remember in Caesarea Philippi? Jesus asked, “Who do people say I am?  Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets. What about you? Who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter answered for all believers for all time, at that moment.  Peter said, “ You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  What did Jesus say?  “You finally figured it out, Peter, through your careful and strict inquiries.” Not at all. “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah for this was not revealed to you by man but by my Father in heaven.” Jesus chooses to reveal himself  so that we may know Him.  Matthew 11 forever removes the false assumption that Christ must and does reveal the Father equally to everyone. Sodom got no healing miracles only wrath and judgment. Tyre and Sidon got one healing miracle but not leading to their repentance.  Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum got the incarnate Son of God living in their hometown but they did not  have Simon Peter's revelation. Simon Peter got revelation unto salvation and he's in heaven now. 

What kind of application can we take from this? First of all, be humbled.  There's no stairway to heaven we can erect or construct ourselves. The doctrine has a powerful work of humbling the soul. Be one of those little children to whom God reveals all things. Secondly, be incredibly joyful; realize that if the son has revealed the father to you, and the father is revealing the son to you, and if you're his sheep, you are given to Christ, you realize nothing in heaven or on earth or under the earth will separate you from the love of God, and that you will be saved and go to heaven.  You have already won what there is to win in this world, eternal life. You have the faith that overcomes the world. 

Thirdly, be expectant. There's more yet to know about God.  Do you realize even when you die, you will not immediately know everything there is to know about God?  John 17:26, "I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and I myself maybe in them." That's forever brothers and sisters, he's gonna be revealing and revealing and revealing the father forever and ever. 

Fourthly, while here on earth, be seeking God constantly. Sometimes God will hide himself from you because your heart is prone to wander and go off into idles, so that you don't prize the love and knowledge of God properly and God wants to strip that from you. He wants to wean you off it and so he will pull back from you. At that point you know what you need to do, stop everything else, and pursue God, seek him with all diligence, even with fasting and prayer. Psalm 27:7-9 says, "Hear my voice when I call, oh Lord, be merciful to me, and answer me. My heart says of you seek his face, your face Lord I will seek, hide not your face from me." That should be the cry of every child of God in this place. Your heart speaking to you, seek his face,  seek him. 

Be sorrowful, genuinely grieving over the cities and individuals that hear this message and don't repent. Do you realize probably in this room there are people who are hearing this message, and yet have not, nor will repent?  Be sorrowful, over those who hear this and do not repent. Be steadfast doctrinally. Christ is the only savior. Is there anyone else who can reveal the Father to us than Jesus? This doctrine is under attack these days. In our own city, there is a Baptist pastor who stood up, and preached to his congregation that Christ is not the only way to God. The analogy he used was of underground river and many wells going down and water coming up out of each well Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, whatever, right in our own city, false doctrine. Be very careful there is only one way to God and it is Jesus Christ.

Be consistent in repentance, realize that as you hear this preaching just like Ezra, you're going to feel conviction of sin. Repent, be glad to repent and be rid of those things that are hiding God from you. Be evangelizing constantly. Go out, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to him, go and preach this Gospel. The Gospel of the kingdom so that people can find out who the true King is, Jesus Christ. Speak to your neighbors, your co-workers, other students, speak to them about Christ, that they might have eternal life. Delight in God's sovereignty, as much as He does. Realize that that frees us from anxiety  over the future because God is sovereign. Finally, come to Christ. If you don't know the Lord, if you've never come to faith in Christ, how could you possibly walk out of this room, out of this message, without repenting and yielding. As Jesus 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 for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

 I'd like to ask that you open to Matthew chapter 11. We'll be concentrating this morning on verses 25 through 27 in particular. This entire section of Scripture, Matthew 11:20-30 is a masterpiece really of theology and of the deep fruits of God and we began to touch on them some last week with a consideration of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. In this text today we see Jesus our Savior rejoicing over divine sovereignty and in this matter we find that the Earth is out of step with heaven. Recently I read a story about one of my favorite composers George Frederick Handel and how he composed Handel's Messiah, probably his greatest work. He was 57 years old at the time, he was in despair, drifting in life, wasn't really a success at that point. He was close to poverty, frequently went without food. He had lost his thread to some degree and didn't know where to turn. He was a naturalized citizen of England, and was away from his home area of Germany and just trying to make his way in the world.

One night in 1741, he went for a walk out on the streets of London. He just walked all night and was  in despair, came back to his room and there was a package at his door. He brought it in and it turned out to be from Charles Jennings. He was the man who wrote his libretto, the words that he would put music to. And as he began to read it, he thought about it and  was so fatigued from his night of walking that he  kind of collapsed on the bed, but he couldn't shake the Scriptures that were in his mind from this libretto.  "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. For unto us a child is born. Glory to God in the highest and hallelujah, hallelujah." It started to stir him up and started to move inside him. He couldn't shake it and so he got up out of bed and he began to work. He worked for 21 consecutive days without resting, scarcely eating, nobody came and went, he just worked until the Messiah was completed. Finally at the end, some of his friends who were very concerned about him were there at the door knocking and one of them was admitted entrance. The composer was sitting at his piano sheets of music all over the floor. He wasn't a very neat person but there was the music everywhere and there were streams of tears flowing down his cheeks, and he said, "I do believe I have seen all of heaven before me and the great God Himself." 

The hallelujah chorus, the most famous part of that entire piece of music, was focused on the climax of the Book of Revelation. Revelation 19: 6 which says, "Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters, and like the loud peals of thunder shouting hallelujah! For the Lord God almighty reigns." It's not just hallelujah. There's a reason for the praise. Why are the angels praising God at that point? Why are they thrilled?  It's because God Almighty sits on His throne, because He reigns, and in the libretto another text from Revelation, Revelation 11:15, "The kingdoms of the world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ and He will reign forever and ever." There is praise in heaven over the prospect of God sitting down on a throne and ruling on earth the way He rules in heaven. I can't wait for that to happen. Even as I was thinking about these texts this morning, I was stirred myself in my spirit. I don't have Handel's musical talent so I can't write the way he did. But my desire this morning is simple. I want you to rejoice in His sovereignty as much as the angels do in Revelation 19.  I would like you to rejoice in sovereignty as much as your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ does in Matthew 11:25. I want you to delight in it, and yet, it is not natural for us to think of it that way. Actually, naturally, we come against the sovereignty of God and have to be transformed.

"We have to repent and enter the kingdom of heaven", said Jesus. It's not naturally our state. I've read this quote before from Charles Spurgeon concerning this doctrine. It bears reading again. Spurgeon said this, "There is no attribute more comforting to His children than that of God's sovereignty."  Is that not true? Think about the events of our times. Were it not for a God who sat on His throne and ruled over all things there would be little but despair as we face the prospect of yet another war.  As General Sherman said, "War is all hell." 

Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, we believe that sovereignty has ordained our afflictions, that sovereignty overrules us and that sovereignty will sanctify us all. There is nothing for which the children of God ought more earnestly to contend than the doctrine of their Master over all creation, the kingship of God over all the works of His own hands, the throne of God and His right to sit upon that throne. On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by “worldlings”, as the truth of the doctrine of the sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah.  Men will allow God to be everywhere except on His throne. They will allow Him to be in His workshop to fashion worlds and make stars. They will allow Him to be in His almonry to dispense His alms and bestow bounties. They will allow Him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever moving ocean. But when God ascends His throne, His creatures then gnash their teeth.

We proclaim an enthroned God, and His right to do as He wills with His own. To dispose of His creatures as He thinks well, without consulting them in the matter. Then it is that we are his and execrated. And then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on His throne is not the God they love but it is God upon the throne that we love to preach and it is God upon His throne that we trust.  In all of my life, I've never found a truth, as delightful as the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That Christ would give His life for me, that through His blood, I would have complete forgiveness of sins and that when I die, I'm going to heaven. Second to that, I found no doctrine as delightful as the sovereignty of God. I have moved on in my Christian life, to the point where I really can scarcely see a distinction between the two.  I hesitate to even say second because I attribute the first to the second. It's a delightful thing. But it's not our natural state, is it? Naturally we tend to be allergic to the doctrine. Jonathan Edwards, a great exponent of the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, had the same experience. He said, "From my childhood up my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God's sovereignty. It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me. But I remember the time very well when I seemed to be convinced and fully satisfied as to the sovereignty of God, and there has been a wonderful alteration in my mind in respect to the doctrine of God's sovereignty, from that day to this. So that I scarce ever have found so much as the rising of an objection against it in the most absolute sense. I have often since had not only a conviction, but a delightful conviction. The doctrine has often appeared exceeding, pleasant, bright and sweet. Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God. But my first conviction was not so." 

Earth is out of step with heaven on this matter. We are out of step with our Savior Jesus Christ. May God grant in the speaking of my words and the moving of your hearts through the Spirit a change in that, if such a change needs to happen. And does it? I think so. In all of our cases, we still hesitate a little bit. We hold back at the sovereignty of God. Yet I've seen this whole text, Matthew 11:20-30, as an integrated whole in which this issue is brought to the fore. In the end Christ is inviting us to find rest in it. "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."  Christ's yoke is a submission to His kingship. You bow your neck, and you put it under Christ's yoke and you'll find rest for your souls. In Isaiah 1, if you resist and rebel you'll be devoured by the sword. Those are the choices that we have, and so we yield to the sovereignty of God, and find delightful rest.  "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart. I'm not a raging tyrant, but a gentle loving Savior. And you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." That's what we're working on today. That we might come to the point where we find as much delight in this doctrine of God sovereignty as Christ did. 

The section that we're looking at today is part of a larger study on the sovereignty of God. We began looking last week at three points of these things. I have listed out 10 points of sovereignty that I find in this text. We will deal with four of them today, we have already dealt with three. There are 10 points:  First Divine Power. We see  in Christ's miracles a display of kingly power. He would couple His miracle working with the proclamation, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." There's a combination of the display of His miracles and His kingly power, His divine power. Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles had been performed because they did not repent.  Secondly, we saw last time, Divine Perception. The supernatural knowledge that Christ has of what Tyre and Sidon and Sodom would have done, if they had had the same miraculous display that Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum received. This wasn't merely theory or a flight of fancy on His part, but He knows all things. He knows what was, what is and what will be. He also knows what might have been had some other things occurred. He knows all of these things. This is Divine Perception, a supernatural knowledge that only He could have. And then thirdly, we saw last week, Divine Prerogative. As a king, you have prerogatives, you have the ability to choose one course, and not the other. That's what makes you a king.  He has the prerogative to do those same miracles that He did, in Chorazin, Capernaum, Bethsaida, in Tyre and Sidon if He wanted to. But He chose not to. That is His Divine Prerogative. We've seen those three things already. 

 Now we begin with the fourth, Divine Praise. It's really quite striking.  In verse 25, it says,  “At that time, Jesus answered and said. . . .” Why is this important to me? Because it's a double emphasis on the context of Jesus's praise. "At that time." At what time? At the time when he's thinking about Tyre and Sidon and Sodom and Capernaum and Chorazin, Bethsaida, these cities. At that time when He's thinking about the failure to repent of the cities in which His miracles had been performed. At that time, Jesus answered. What do we mean by answered? Well, He's responding to the stimulus, He's responding to the situation, He's responding to the rejection. So, Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum are rejecting Him, they are not repenting, they're indifferent to Him. How does He respond? He praises God. We are out of step with our Savior;  we would do something else I think. What causes heaven to rejoice? What causes Christ to rejoice causes us to become grumbly and irritable and out of sorts and puzzled and scratch our heads and have a hard time.  Christ just looks up to His father and says, "I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth." He's praising Him, and He could have done many other things. He could have praised God for other things at that moment, He could have praised God for example for His patience and not destroying Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. He could have praised God for His mercy and grace in giving those cities such miracles. He could have praised God for His love in sending them rain and sunshine, and many physical blessings, He could have done that. He could have praised God for His mercy to those who did repent in other places. Or He could have chosen at that moment to plead for these cities, to pray for them. Or to weep over them as Jesus did over Jerusalem. He could do all of these things, but instead He praises God for His sovereignty. It's a strange thing, and I don't think we would have done it, but that's my point, we wouldn't have and so we must repent, we must change, we must look again at our Savior and our king and praise Him for His power.

The next thing we see is Divine Position and we find this in the titles that He ascribes to God, "I praise you," He says, "Father, Lord of heaven and earth," stop there. These are two titles that he gives to God. First, He calls Him, Father, then He calls Him Lord of heaven and earth. Let's take the second first. The essence of paganism, and of polytheism is of jurisdictions given to the Gods, much like a federal office. You go in there and you bring a certain document to an office and you're in the wrong place, and you're told to go to another.  Well, polytheism basically works that way. There's the God of war, and there's the God of the oceans and then there's the God of the mountains and of the valleys. Or it may work along political lines. There's the God of Moab and the God of Ammon, the God of Edom and the God of Judah. And they each have their jurisdictions, for example, the Moabite's God was Chemosh. The concept was whatever God, the God of the Moabites, Chemosh gave to his people, that's what they received, whenever they went out to battle, Chemosh would go with them. If they won, it was Chemosh that gave them the victory; if they were defeated, it was Chemosh that had given them over to the defeat. Jephthah in Judges 11:24, speaking to Moabites says, "Will you not take what your god, Chemosh gives you? Likewise whatever the Lord our God has given us, we will possess.” Oh shameful understanding of Jephthah. "Well, we get Yahweh and whatever he gives and you get Chemosh, and whatever he gives."

If the Moabites went out and fought and lost it was because Chemosh had given them up. Numbers 21:29 says, "Woe to you O Moab, you were destroyed, O people of Chemosh. He has given up his sons as fugitives and his daughters as captures to Sihon king of the Amorites." Now, Chemosh  would never hurt his people too much because without the people, there's no Chemosh anymore. Case in point, have you ever met a Moabite? Have you gone to school with a Moabite? Do you have any living in your neighborhood? Is there an outreach to Moabites that we can give money to? What happened to Moabites? They are gone as a people.  Second question, what happened to Chemosh? If you look in the yellow pages will you find a temple that Chemosh that you can go worship at this morning? Chemosh is gone, the Moabites are gone.You see the God of Israel is different. He chose Israel out of all of these nations to be His treasured possession, but He will go on whether they're extinct or not, and they know it. Therefore, He commands them to be holy or He will judge them and they know that He is not just a tribal deity but He is Lord of Heaven and Earth; He rules over all things. Therefore the Old Testament prophets in their oracles frequently would make pronouncements about Moab and about Ammon and Edom, and Syria, and Egypt, and all the world because God rules the world. When Jonah was taken on the boat by a bunch of Gentiles and they find out that he doesn't worship one of those tribal deities, he worships the Lord who made heaven and earth, they became very afraid because of God's reputation. He is Lord of heaven and earth. At one point, he specifically sends a messenger to say, "I'm going to give you the victory in the battle because of what your enemies are saying." 1 Kings 20:28, "The man of God came   up and told the king of Israel, ‘This is what the Lord says, “Because the Arabians think the Lord is a god of the hills and no a god of the valleys, I will deliver this vast army into you hands, and you will know that I am the Lord.’” “I’m not a God of the hills only or of the valleys only. I am a God of the hills, and the valleys and everything else besides. I am not a tribal or localized deity." Jeremiah 23:23-24,  “‘Am I only a God nearby, declares the Lord, ‘And not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?’ declares the Lord. ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’declares the Lord.” 

This is the God that we worship. This is the God that our Savior, Jesus Christ lifted His face to and praised, "I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth who rules over all things".  God created Heaven and Earth. God has the right to sit down on the throne and rule heaven and earth, and He does. He rules over individual nations, even Gentile ones.God chose Israel out of that nation to be His people, His treasured possession, and from Israel, He brings salvation to the world, "For salvation is from the Jews."  Christ at this moment, in verse 25, is delighting in and rejoicing in the sovereignty of His father over heaven and earth, over all things. He rules over them and can do with them whatever He chooses, because He is king, He is Lord of heaven and earth. This very sovereignty over all of the earth is what gives the Gospel its success. In the Great Commission Jesus came to His disciples and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples of all nations." Do you see the connection? Because God rules over the whole world, we are commanded to go and make disciples of all nations. If God were not Lord of heaven and earth, the gospel could not and would not conquer the world, but it will in the end. There will be people from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, because of the sovereignty of our God.  What about the first title? "I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth." This shows the relational aspect of God's sovereignty. It shows that He is not some austere tyrant King, but rather a heavenly father. It's an endearing title, a title of authority definitely, but a display of God's loving relational rule. He desires not just to be Lord of heaven and earth, but to be father. And so, Jesus praises Him, "Father, Lord of heaven and earth."

 Then we see Divine Preference, concealing to some and revealing to others, "I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because. . . .” That's very important. Why are you praising Christ? "Because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children." That's striking isn't it? I praise you that you conceal, and I praise you that you reveal. This is the praise of our Savior, Jesus Christ. God can choose to deal differently with some than He does with others, and He does. To some in this case, He conceals, and to some others, He reveals. And Christ praises God for it. He delights in it. He rejoices in it. First of all, He praises God for concealing, "I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned."  This is shocking. We tend to think of ourselves as, or tend to think of God as, a God who would reveal Himself to everyone, who shows Himself openly all the time to anybody. The whole time He's revealing, opening, demonstrating, imploring sinners to come and to sit at the banquet feast and to enjoy a full revelation of His nature and His glory. We would never think He would conceal Himself. It doesn't seem to be the God that we know or the God that we worship. From whom does He conceal? He says, "I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth that you have concealed or hidden these things from the wise and learned." This is rather striking to us as well. What's wrong with wisdom? What's wrong with learning? As a matter of fact, there's a whole book of the Bible, Proverbs, devoted to the blessings of wisdom. There's nothing wrong with wisdom, but there's a kind of wisdom and learning that Christ is singling out here. It's an arrogant human wisdom separated from God, in which humans are seeking of themelves and from themselves to learn these things, these Gospel truths.

Why did philosophers in Greece, like Plato and Aristotle and Socrates, not discover God? Because He had concealed Himself from them. Scientists, like Archimedes, did not discover God, because He had concealed himself from them. Mighty potentates, like Alexander the Great and the Roman emperors and all the other conquerors of that region of the world, had never discovered God through sheer power, because He had concealed Himself from them. It says in 1 Corinthians 1:20-21, "Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know him. God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe." God has made the wisdom of the world foolishness, and He has ordained that through those means no one will discover Him. It does not matter how intelligent they are. It doesn't matter how much they inquire. They will never find Him, because God delights to conceal Himself from arrogant people.

Isaiah 45:15 says, "Truly, you are a God who hides himself, oh God and Savior of Israel." That's a striking verse, isn't it? "You are a God who hides himself." Man will never find God if He does not reveal Himself, and God does not always choose to reveal Himself.  Christ praises God for concealing Himself, first and foremost. Secondly, Christ praises God for revealing Himself, "I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, not just because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, but because you have revealed them to little children." It delights Christ that His Father conceals Himself, but it also delights Him that He reveals Himself, and to whom? To little children.  If you're willing to repent. If you're willing to turn, to humble yourself, to turn away from your own wisdom and your own power and strength and achievement, He will show you everything. He will reveal Himself fully to you. You will see Him face-to-face. You will see His glory. You will be part of that prayer that Christ prayed in John 17, "Father, I want those whom you have given me to be with me where I am, to see my glory." We will see His glory if we humble ourselves and become like little children. Mathew 18:3-4, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth. Unless you repent and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Jesus also said, "Blessed are the spiritual beggars, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

In Mathew 23, Jesus says, "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted, for the Lord gives grace to the humble, but he opposes the proud." This is a major and a consistent theme in Scripture. Number one, God cannot be found if He does not will Himself to be found. It doesn't matter how hard you try, you will not find God unless He reveals Himself. Secondly, God actively hides Himself from the wise and learned, they chase rabbit trails and they will never find Him. Thirdly, God actively reveals Himself to the humble, to those who are like little children. Do you see then the benefit of this kind of preaching. It humbles us, doesn't it? It makes us like little children, it slays our pride so that we can bow our neck to the yoke of Jesus Christ, and He will reveal Himself fully and completely to us. Who are the little children? — Humble Jews, outcasts, like tax collectors and sinners, He reveals Himself to them. and even to Gentiles who know nothing, who were rejected, and outcast by the Jews. He will reveal Himself to them, as they trust in Him, and believe in Him.

And then seventh, we see Divine Pleasure, all things done according to God's pleasure. He says in Matthew 11:26, "Yes father, for this was your good pleasure."  What Christ delights in, God delights in. There's no dis-harmony between Father and Son. It's not wrong for Christ to delight in His Father's sovereignty because His Father delights in His own sovereignty. He says, "Yes father, this was your good pleasure." God was pleased to conceal and pleased to reveal. He's not disgruntled, irritable, out of sorts, frustrated with His rule of the universe, it's not going badly for Him. Every mighty potentate has a bad day or even a bad year. The seven fat cattle are swallowed up by the seven skinny cattle, even if you're Pharaoh, King of Egypt, but for God, it's never that way. He rules over all things according to His pleasure. Our God is in heaven and he does whatever pleases Him.

Psalm 135:6 says, "The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, and the seas, and all their depths." Now what pleases God, is it automatically delightful to us? Are there not some surprising aspects of what pleases God? Does He not delight in some things we would not naturally delight in? For example, He speaks to Israel, and He says, "He was delighted to make Israel prosper in their land, in the promised land, if they would only obey his commands but he's also delighted to crush them and destroy them if they won't." In Deuteronomy 28:63, "It shall come about that as the Lord delighted over you to prosper you and multiply you, so the Lord also will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it." That's not our way but that is God's way. He was delighted also to make Christ suffer on the cross.

 Isaiah 53:10, it says, "The Lord was pleased to crush him and cause him to suffer, and if he would render himself as a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand." God's good pleasure flowers in Christ's hand like a garden.  God delights in concealing from the wise and revealing to little children. Now, let me explain what I mean. I don't believe God finds any pleasure intrinsically in crushing Israel and expelling them from the land. I don't think He finds any masochistic delight in watching His Son suffer on the cross nor does He have any delight in concealing himself from arrogant people, but rather in the big picture, He sees the new Heaven and the new Earth, the home of righteousness where all sin is crushed and destroyed, where the devil and all of the rebels are removed and Heaven and Earth is one under His rule. That's a delightful thing and in that He delights. Just as Jesus said, "He endured the cross despising its shame for the joy on the other side, the joy set before Him, that's the pleasure of God. What God delights in, if you're a Christian, means salvation for you. It was the pleasure of God to choose you before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1:5, "He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will." It brought Him delight, He said, "Little flock, don't be afraid, it is God's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." And it is also His pleasure now that you're saved, to sanctify you, to help you to grow. It says in Philippians 2:13, "It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good pleasure."

This is the delightful thing. How can we apply this? This understanding of the sovereignty of God, of God's divine power and of His divine pleasure, prerogative and all of these things that He has shown us.  There is no end to those things we can be anxious about in this world. Did you know that? There's no end to anxiety, no end to concern, to current events, to problems. How about in the future? You look ahead in your life, there's no end to what your imagination can tell you will happen to you or your loved ones, to your bodies, to your souls, no end to the anxieties. If you do not accept this doctrine of God's sovereignty, it leaves you without a rudder on a sea of anxiety and fear and God would not have it so. He wants His people at rest and at peace with Him, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. I will give you peace if you trust in my sovereignty, rest in it."

Be confident in the rule of God. Secondly, be humbled by this doctrine. God is not asking our opinion concerning the rulership of the universe, He does not poll us, He does not need our insights. When you are praying, you're not giving Him advice as to a course of action that He should take that He hadn't considered thoroughly. That's not what's going on there. This is a humbling doctrine, and it makes us like little children, doesn't it? It humbles us, and makes us low and meek so that we can receive the full revelation of His nature and His character, be humbled. Thirdly, repent and live in the kingdom. "Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is here." The time has come for you to throw away your weapons of rebellion and allow Him to be king, because that's what He is. Let Him rule therefore over every area and every aspect of your life. Let Him rule over you and let Him rule over the world and realize that it's a good thing.  Repent therefore and live in the kingdom. How practical is this? Are there any areas of rebellion in your life? Anything that you know is out of sorts with the will of God, anything you know that's not in harmony with the word of God, Then repent from those things and take delight in His kingdom.

 How did Jesus apply this teaching? Verse 28, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Come to Christ, come to Him now, if you've never trusted in Christ, come to Him today and keep coming, find rest for your souls.

We'll be looking this morning at a majestic section  of the Scripture, Matthew 11:20-24. There's so much in here.  In 1951, a British survey ship named The Challenger, sailing over the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean and found the deepest part of the ocean ever measured. They used wide band sonar and found it to be 35,639 feet, a little under seven miles. Nine years later, human beings we wanted to go down there and look around. I can't imagine having seven miles of water over my head. But some courageous men from the US Navy got in on the Bathyscaphe Trieste, and descended down and found it actually to be a little deeper than originally measured, 35,813 feet, in that little sphere. If you take a steel ball of two pounds and drop it over the Mariana Trench, it'll take 64 minutes to reach the bottom. That's the depth of the ocean at that place.

We may have reached the depths of the ocean, but we will never reach the depths of the wisdom and the knowledge of God nor will we reach the depths of his love for us in Christ. Scripture testifies plainly to these truths. In Romans 11, after Paul has written all of these chapters of doctrine that he himself did not fully understand, I can assure you, he said, "Oh, the depths of the riches, the wisdom, and the knowledge of God, how un-searchable His judgments and His path beyond tracing out, who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has ever been His counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay Him? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen." He says that the knowledge and the wisdom of God are un-searchably deep. If we were to combine all the string in our pocket and tie it together, we could not plumb the depths of the wisdom and the knowledge of God.  So also, is the case when we come to His love for us in Christ. For it says in Ephesians, that Paul prays that the Ephesian Christians may know how wide, and long, and high, and deep is the love of Christ. And that they may know that love that surpasses knowledge. Just think about that for a moment, to know something you can't know. What that means is that we're going to search out and study some things that are going to overwhelm us. We're going to reach the limits of what we can understand. We're going to say, "I don't get it," but here it is in the text. I think that may happen for some of you today — that you might know the infinite depths of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, and that you may also know the infinite depths of His love for us in Christ, that you may be humbled and brought to your knees, as I was, with tears in my eyes, saying, "Thank you, God, for saving me."

We come to one of the mysteries of our faith, and that is the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. You wonder, how did we find this in Matthew 11? It's been there all along. No, this is not Romans 9 or some of those other passages like Ephesians 1, but there it is. I can assure you that we will not completely in the end be able to resolve this. Augustine and Pelagius debated over this. Luther and Erasmus debated over this. Whitefield and Wesley debated over this. Others have debated over this, and we're not going to finally resolve. There's a danger to going beyond what Scripture says, to try to push our understandings so that we can click it into a neat system, and that won't happen and shouldn't happen; but I think there's also a danger in going short of what Scripture says, too.

I would like to go as far as the Scripture allows. Then when we reach the end of our wisdom, when we have no more string in our pocket to drop down the plumb line, and we realize that it's still too deep for us, then we can just fall on our faces and worship God, and say, "The secret things belong to God, but the things revealed to us and to our children forever." That's what we seek to do today. We are going to try to understand the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. When you walk out the doors this morning at the end, will you fully understand and grasp, will you comprehend it? I don't think so. But I think you'll have a sense of the scope of it better than you did before, and that's my prayer. 

As I look at the text, I realize that you've got to see it in context, as always. Realize the context of anything in the Gospel of Matthew is the kingdom of heaven. You want to understand the Gospel of Matthew. Understand what it means when Jesus says, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." We've been talking about this, and I never tire of reminding you that that is the unifying theme. It is the big picture. Matthew seeks to present Christ as king. It's hard for us as Americans to really understand what that means. There is, of course, a direct relationship between kingship and sovereignty. As a matter fact, another word for a king is a sovereign. Our understanding of the kingdom of heaven really ties in directly to our understanding of the sovereignty of God. They're really one and the same. We pray frequently, “our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, that is thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” This is what we're praying, we want God's will to be done, here, in this church. We want His will to be done in our hearts. That's what it means, the kingdom of heaven. We've been seeing Jesus unfolding the kingdom of heaven. He's been giving his credentials as His right to rule. We see it from the beginning in His birth and His genealogy. He has the pedigree, as a descendant of David. He is a Son of David, He's a son of Abraham, also through whom it was spoken, all peoples on earth will be blessed, through Abraham. Jesus is definitely the fulfillment of that promise to Abraham. God had His eyes on the entire world, and as this descendant of Abraham, the Son of Abraham, came, He is that fulfillment. He is the way that through Abraham and through His seed, all nations on earth would be blessed.

He is also the son of David and therefore, the recipient of those covenant promises made to David. He is the Davidic king. The genealogy has its place. In the account of the virgin birth in Matthew 1 it is revealed for us that Jesus is no mere human king. He's not just another David, He is God in the flesh. We have there, again, another mystery we will never be able to plumb the depths of, the mystery of the incarnation, how Jesus can be fully God and fully man together. After that, we see the unfolding of Jesus' ministry, and how He proclaimed very plainly, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." He seeks to explain what that means. The kingdom of heaven therefore, is something we must enter. We're not born into it, we're born again into it. We must at some point, enter the kingdom through repentance and through faith. Repent and believe the good news. What is the good news? It is the kingdom, the good news is the kingdom, and the kind of king we have in that kingdom, that's the good news.  He preaches in Matthew 5, 6 and 7, The Sermon on the Mount, which is kingdom life: how we enter, how we live once we've entered,  and what it is,  this kingdom life through the Sermon on the Mount. Then He gives His evidence, His credentials in the miracles, and it's an incredible display of power.We're going to talk about it here in this text, because it's very relevant, Jesus gives us credentials.

As He's unfolding His right to rule, we are now getting in chapter 11, and we'll get again in chapter 12, human responses to that. Basically, we're starting to get the returns back on election night, but we're going to find out that people are rejecting Christ. We're going to find out that they are not entering the kingdom of heaven, that they are rejecting Him, that they are not repenting and believing.  Jesus is dealing with that here in verses 20 through 24 especially, for the first time. He's dealing with the issue of why it is that people do not repent, why they turn away and what are the ramifications.

Within  verses 20 through 30, we have three basic sections. From verse 20 through 24, Jesus denounces the cities in which His miracles had been performed because they did not repent.  From verses 25 through 27, Jesus is praising His father for His sovereignty, "I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, this was your good pleasure."  We see divine sovereignty right at the center of the passage and then at the end, again, human responsibility, where Christ reaches out and invites sinners to come, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." The most beautiful invitation you'll ever see Christ give and perhaps the most beautiful in all of Scripture, an invitation to come into the arms of a gentle and loving Savior, and your sins will be forgiven. At the beginning, we have human responsibility — Jesus holds these cities accountable for their failure to repent. They should have repented. The evidence was sufficient, the miracles were enough, and they're accountable for their repentance and they will pay for it on judgment day. It's a very serious word on human responsibility. If you hear the Gospel, if you have evidence presented and you do not repent, you will be held accountable for that human responsibility.  So  at the beginning and at the end of this section, human responsibility and in the center of the text, divine sovereignty. The beauty of this is that they just flow together without any kind of controversy or difficulty in Jesus' mind. He's teaching it all. He doesn't have any stumbling block over it, it's not a problem for Him, as a matter of fact, He rejoices in it and praises His heavenly father. My desire as a pastor is to get myself and also by the power of the Spirit, to that same point that Jesus was at, so that you can embrace and love sovereignty, the way that Jesus did and understand it the way He did.

Let's look in a little more carefully now at verses 20 through 24, in which Jesus speaks a word of woe to these cities: Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. Reading again, it says, "Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles had been performed because they did not repent. 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 for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum will you be lifted up to the skies? No. You will 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 that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the Day of Judgment than for you."  We have Jesus in a prophetic role here, speaking as a prophet of God, speaking even more than as a prophet of God, but speaking actually as the judge of all the earth, before whom all nations will be gathered and He will separate them, one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. This is the judge of all the Earth.  John chapter 5, "All of judgment has been entrusted to the Son, so that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father." This is the One speaking a word of woe over these Jewish cities.

It's a terrifying thing that He's saying to Capernaum that they will go down to Hades. That's a terrifying word of judgment spoken by Jesus. He denounces them, it says in verse 20. It's a strong word in the Greek, a word of rejection that He speaks of in this prophetic word of woe. Now, first of all, you must realize, this is a word of grace from Christ. You might not think it, but realize that they have not been condemned yet. There is still time. This is a word of warning from a prophet of God, even more a word of warning from the Son of God. It is grace from God to tell us this ahead of time, isn't it? We don't deserve it. He doesn't have to do this, but He does, and He presents to us, as a people, a word of warning ahead of time, and so He is gracious in this way. He doesn't owe us anything. He doesn't owe, certainly, sinners, repeated and pointed and careful warnings, and we get that in Scripture, don't we? One warning after another.  God is therefore very gracious, using this warning, a stern word of warning, to wake us up from our sin, that we might repent and come into faith.

Now, what cities is He denouncing here? These are Jewish cities — Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. They were communities clustered there in the north of the Sea of Galilee. They constituted together, essentially, Jesus' home base. This is where He lived during the years of His ministry. This is where He came back, even though He said the Son of Man had no place to lay his head, yet it's spoken of Capernaum that He returned to His hometown. This was His home area, not Nazareth, but Capernaum and this is the area that He based all His ministry in.  Jesus did most of His miracles, pouring out a river of display of the power of the kingdom of God. The people here saw things no one had ever seen before. Here, He healed the blind man by spitting on his eyes, and here He walked on water, and here, He fed the 5000 in Bethsaida.

We don't know really anything about Chorazin except that Jesus did miracles there.  Capernaum,  however, we know more about than any of these small towns. Jesus performed more miracles at Capernaum than any other city. He did more of His teaching at Capernaum than any other place. They got to see Him live here. He appeared in the synagogue and began His ministry in that area by driving out a demon, and they were astonished at the power that He had simply to speak to a demon, and the demon must obey. 

Here, He healed Peter's mother-in-law.  Peter himself lived in Bethsaida, as did Andrew and Peter, it was their hometown, but Capernaum is where his mother-in-law lived. Here, huge crowds of people thronged to Him and Jesus did so many miracles in Matthew 8 that he doesn't even describe them all. He just said He healed many people, everybody that was brought to Him, He healed them all.

In John Chapter 4, Jesus healed the royal official son, and here was where and four men brought a paralyzed man lying on a mat. They went up on the roof and dug a hole in the roof because they could not get through the throng. They lowered the paralyzed man right in front of Jesus. He is looking up a hole in the roof and down comes the paralyzed man, and it says when Jesus saw their faith, He said to the man, "Your sins are forgiven." The people were offended. How can this mere man forgive sins, and He said, "Which is easier, to say your sins are forgiven, or to say rise and walk? But so that you may know that the son of man has authority on Earth to forgive sins, He said to this paralyzed man, ‘Rise up and walk.’’’ and the man got up and walked. The people were astonished and they were filled with awe and  praised God, who had given such authority to men, and then they went about their business. They went back to fishing. They went back to their homes, they went back to their lives, and they did not repent, despite the wide open invitation Jesus gave, "I have power to forgive sins. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is here." They did not, they went back to their lives, they did nothing. There wasn't an organized movement of resistance to Jesus in Capernaum. It wasn't where He met His staunchest resistance, that was Jerusalem. It was just a matter of indifference, they just didn't care. Jesus had had His 10 minutes of fame, and now, it's back to business as usual. Oh, the incredible power of the status quo. It's like a strong gravitational pull; it pulls you back to your everyday life. The people should have said, "Wait a minute, wait, wait. What did we just see?" "What was that?" “The world will never be the same again, because this man has entered and has done this miracle. There is forgiveness of sins through Him.” They should have flocked to Him, but instead, there was indifference, and therefore, the cause of judgment is failure to repent. It is indifference.

In verse 20, Jesus began to denounce the cities, in which most of His miracles had been performed because they did not repent. Jesus told a couple of parables about this. In Matthew 22, Jesus spoke to them in parable saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Then he sent some more servants and said... Tell those who have been invited, that I've prepared my dinner, my oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered and everything is ready, come to the wedding banquet." But they paid no attention and went off. One to his field, another to his business. Indifference, business as usual, that's all. Again, in Luke 14:16-20, Jesus replied, "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited. 'Come now, For everything is ready'. Doesn't that sound like, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand? Come now. Now is the time to enter, everything is ready.” But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, "I've just bought a field and I must go see it, please excuse me." Another said, "I bought five yoke of oxen and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me." And still another said, "I just got married, so I can't come."

Indifference. It is the world's number one response to the Gospel. Not hatred, not persecution, that takes too much effort, too much energy, just indifference. "I'm glad for you, that you found something that works for you," that kind of thing. And so, they go about their lives, indifference and Jesus denounces them for this very reason, because they did not repent. Jesus is speaking most strongly, therefore, about a sin of omission, about something that wasn't done and what should they have done? They should have repented.

 It goes on today. Have you ever shared the Gospel with somebody, you present it and say, "Well, it all sounds reasonable. But what do you think is evidence that Jesus has risen from the dead? Well, what do you think?" "Well, I think He probably rose from the dead." "Really?" "Yeah." "What are you going to do in response?” "I don't know, nothing." There's no change, just indifference. They come into the same word of woe that Jesus gives in this text, failure to repent. Indifference is the scourge of the Gospel, and it's already been prophesied that it's going to go on to the very end, to the end of the world, to the second coming of Christ. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the son of man, for as in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, right up to the day Noah entered the ark. They paid no attention and did not know anything about it, until the flood came and swept them all away. That's how it will be at the coming of the son of man.  This indifference, this who-cares attitude, about Christ will go on to the end of the world. But the judgment for Capernaum and Chorazin and Bethsaida is increased. It's greater, and why? Because they had revealed to them miracles from Jesus Christ Himself. The judgment on these cities is far greater because of the miraculous display and preaching they had than it would have been if they'd never received it. This is a vital principle. The greater revelation of God that you have received and still don't repent, the greater your judgment on Judgment Day. It's what the text is teaching. The more truth you get, the more revelation, the more things flow to you from God, and you still don't repent, the greater your judgment on Judgment Day.  

Jesus had given them everything. He'd given them His own incarnate presence, He'd given them miracles, He'd given them teachings. They, as Jewish cities, had a whole heritage of law and prophets, the written word of God. They had the godly Kings like David and Solomon and Hezekiah, and they had all that heritage and history. They had what God did amazingly, restoring the Jews back after the exile. All of these things just increased their judgment because they did not repent. They had the miracles. Jesus intended the miracles to have converting power.  In John 14:11, Jesus speaking to His own disciples said, "Believe me, 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."  Jesus clearly felt that the evidence of the miracles was sufficient for you to believe the Gospel and repent. But they did not. Jesus compares these Jewish cities to some Gentile cities, and not just any Gentile cities, these were especially bad ones in the Jewish mindset: Tyre and Sidon. These are some of the worst Jewish cities, as far as the Jews were concerned. In the Old Testament, Tyre was a byword for Gentile wickedness. Now, initially, with Hiram, King of Tyre, they had a good relationship with the people of God. Hiram sent down cedar logs to help David build his castle, his palace, and then later, Solomon also received from Tyre, cedar logs to build the temple itself. Initially there was agood relationship, but when Judgement fell on Jerusalem through the Babylonians, the people of Tyre celebrated;  they were excited about that.  Ezekiel, the prophet, condemns them for that.   In Ezekiel 26-28, it's all about the wicked prosperity of Tyre. Tyre was a trading place, it had a great harbor and there were a lot of ships that went back and forth. It became a symbol later on in the Book of Revelation for Babylon. A prosperous Gentile place, where there was lots of money, lots of commerce, lots of great things going on, and no God at all, a place of wickedness. Jesus says that even the prosperous demonic  King of Tyre, is said to be Satan, the cherub in the garden of Eden, himself in Ezekiel 28. Beautiful  until wickedness was found in him. Jesus says, those cities are better than you, Jewish cities and they'll do better on judgment day than you.

Then there's Sodom. When you think of Sodom, what do you think of? It's really just a symbol of wickedness. Jesus says, "If I had done the miracles in that place in Sodom that you saw, Sodom would still be here today. Tyre and Sidon, if they had seen the same miraculous display you did, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." He is shaming these Jewish cities and showing their judgment. The greater revelation of God you have received, the greater your responsibility. From whom much is given, much is required, that's the principle, Luke 12:47-48. And what does this teach you? Not everyone is punished the same amount on Judgment Day. There's a lot of theology here.

In Dante's Inferno with the Circles of Hell, the lower you go, et cetera, it gets worse and worse.  The concept of variability of judgment on Judgment Day is coming right off this text. There's different levels of punishment. Now you say, "Wait a minute. Why punishment?" First of all, understand, there's no innocent natives.  You don't repent from good deeds, you repent from sin, and so Tyre and Sidon needed to repent and they would have repented if they'd seen the miracles. They're not righteous, they'll still be judged. But it's even worse for these Jewish cities. What about America? What kind of spiritual advantages have we had? We have more translations of the Biblein the English language than in any other language. More Bibles, more Christian publishing houses and books and spiritual aids, and Christian radio and more ministries,  more para-church work, more good solid churches, more good preaching. There's been more revivals in America than any other country by far, a pouring out, an effusion of the Holy Spirit. More missionaries have gone out from these shores numerically. God has done unbelievable work in this country. What then, for those that do not repent as Americans? What will it be for them, to have received all of this truth and still not repent? Jesus says your judgment is great. If you hear all of this and you do not repent. 

Now we come to the crux of the matter. It's a hard question. Some say it shouldn't be asked, but I'm going to ask it. Why then did He not do the miracles in Tyre and Sidon? Why did He not do them in Sodom, if they would have repented? It's a hard question, isn't it? First of all, understand the divine perception of Christ, let's remember who we're talking about here.

 I love history, I really do. One of the favorite things that historians like to do, is to write alternate histories. In other words, to go back to a moment. You know how for one of a nail, the kingdom was lost, that kind of thing? What if the nail hadn't been lost, then what? What would have happened? I read an article  a while ago about general Albert Sidney Johnson who was a great Confederate general who died needlessly on the Shiloh battlefield.This man makes the case that if Johnson had not bled to death needlessly, (it was a really pretty minor wound) that the South would have won the Civil War. He traces all back to that one moment that the man didn't have his surgeon with him to put a simple field tourniquet on and then unfolds from there a whole alternate history. It's mere speculation.  All we can do is speculate, what would have happened if.

Every Christmas, a movie comes on, that really gets into this whole thing. It’s a Wonderful Life, in which the angel Clarence comes and shows George Bailey what the world would have been like without him. He gets to go back to, not Bedford falls, but Potters-ville and everything's changed. Why? It's an alternate history. It's an alternate approach, something that didn't really happen, but this is what it would have been like if you'd never been born. But I say to you that both of these things are mere speculation. When Jesus says it, it's not mere speculation, is it? This is the incarnate Son of God and this is His divine supernatural knowledge, and He's speaking about a Gentile city, and He's saying, "I'm telling you what would have happened if I had done this up there, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes." He's also speaking back in time, 2000 years ago. "Sodom, if I had been there, they would have repented." It would still be here today. We're dealing with a fact, and it staggers me to think of the omniscience of God.  God not only knows what was, what is, and what will be. He also knows what might have been, what might be now, and what might be in the future if things go differently than He had ordained. He knows everything.

I like chess.Each side gets 16 pieces, 32 pieces, 64 squares, and all that. Do you know how many games can flow out of that arrangement? Literally, I think it's just about infinite. God knows all the possible chess games. He's got chess figured out.  I have a book  about chess about three inches thick about the subject of various chess openings. Some people make a full-time living just studying these openings and the branches out. If the person moves the pawn there and the knight comes down, then this happens. You go off into a whole area of development that way. Not only does God have chess figured out, He has human history figure out. Literally, infinite alternate universes that never happened, if this had gone on, and that had gone on. This is the omniscience of God. Not only does He know how many hairs are on your head, He knows all of this. And what is He saying? He's saying, "Those cities, Tyre and Sidon would have repented, if I had gone and done those same miracles there." Why didn’t he?

Let's eliminate some reasons. Number one: It was not too far to go, about 30 miles to Tyre. He wouldn't have had to travel across Asia and then take a boat. We're talking 30 miles up the road. As a matter of fact, in Matthew 15, He was there. He was in the city of Tyre and he did not do those miracles there. It's not because it was too far to go and it's not because it would not have succeeded. Some people say, "Well, some people don't hear the Gospel, and they don't get it because God knows that if the gospel is preached there, they'll just reject, and so He doesn't send the Gospel there." It's not what Jesus says. What would the outcome have been according to Christ? A revival to end all revivals. They would have set a record for revival, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes. It's not because it wouldn't have succeeded and it's not because Christ lacked the power to do miracles in the Gentile territory. In Matthew 15, Jesus goes to Tyre and a Syrophoenician woman comes and confronts Him. Jesus doesn't answer her a word, doesn't say a thing to her. The disciples say, "Send her away for she keeps crying out after us." Jesus says, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." He was giving an explanation for why He's not speaking to this woman. The woman comes, and in effect, throws herself on the tracks of the oncoming train and says, "I'm not moving until you deal with me. My daughter is suffering from demon possession." He says to her, "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to their dogs." She answers back, one of the great answers in all history, "Yes, Lord. But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table, isn't there some extra that could fall off the table for me?" He says, "Go home, your daughter's healed." Jesus certainly did not lack power to do miracles, but He did not pour out the miracles in Tyre and Sidon that He did in Capernaum.

 And it's not because He has no concern for Gentile nations. Perish the thought, because He's already said through Abraham, all the peoples on Earth will be blessed. He says through Isaiah, God the Father, speaking of God the Son, “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Israel and bring back those of Israel that I have kept. I will make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” He cares about Gentiles, He cares greatly about them. Why then, didn't He do the miracles up there? I don't know, but God is sovereign and He can do what He chooses. He can do miracles or not do miracles. He can come and preach in your town or not. He doesn't owe us anything. He doesn't owe us a hearing of the Gospel.

Secondly, understand His plan, His plan was always to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile. It's the way He ordained, and so He was not going to do miracles in Tyre and Sidon because He was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.

God's sovereignty. What are implications of this? We like to think of God as up in heaven doing absolutely everything He can do to save absolutely every single individual sinner. Is that true? Does not this text remove that forever?  Our God is powerful and He can do anything. So I reach the point even while preaching to you now where I just say, "Thank you, God for saving me, thank you for saving me. What did I have to offer to you? You didn't have to do these things for me. Thank you for your sovereignty. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you for giving Christ. Thank you for the river of miracles and then I read about it and I believe it. Thank you for your mercy and your kindness.

 Can you embrace this God? Understand where we're at. I wish I could just keep going because in verse 25, "I praise you, Father, I praise you for your sovereignty, I praise you that you're a Lord of heaven and Earth." Can you do that? I think that's what entering the kingdom is all about. Ultimately, we're going to have an ever increasing sense of God's rulership, ever increasing sense of His sovereignty and His might and His power. I want that. I actually want to have the same reaction in my heart that Jesus had at that moment. I want to rejoice in God and what He does.  I'm urging you to embrace the sovereignty of God, delight in it, and thank God for your salvation. If you are saved today, it's because of the sovereign mighty grace of God. It's because of His mercy to you in Christ. Nothing you or I did could ever merit it. We don't deserve it. Secondly, can I urge you to pray for blessed America? For blessed America, for your neighbors, for your relatives, for your family members, perhaps, for co-workers who have heard the Gospel again, and again, and still have not repented. Fear for them and tell them the danger that they're under according to this text, of great judgment from God if they do not repent. Thirdly, can I urge you, don't presume on God. Remember who He is. He is sovereign and powerful. I heard something a while ago that bothered me. I understand the spirit behind it, but it bothered me. It was talking about the wickedness and immorality, ever increasing immorality in our country, and the preacher said something like this: “If God doesn't destroy America soon, He'll owe Sodom and Gomorrah an apology.” That is blasphemous. He doesn't owe Sodom and Gomorrah a thing.  He can do what He chooses with America. But understand this, He is holy, and He's as holy now as He was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. He's the same God, and He doesn't owe Sodom and Gomorrah an apology, and He doesn't owe America another day to repent, either. This is the sovereign hand of God and so we must not presume on that.

If you are here and you've never come to faith in Christ, don't walk out of here without repenting and trusting Christ. Don't walk out of the doors presuming that you'll have another time to repent some other day. You don't know that. God hasn't promised it to you and He doesn't owe it to you. If today, you hear Him say, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest," do not harden your heart, but come.

Pastor Andy Davis preached on 2 Corinthians 1:3-11 to explain why God is the ultimate source of comfort for Christians facing suffering.

Please, if you would turn in your Scriptures to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. It is my intention to resume our series in Matthew next week, but our church family sustained a tragic and shocking loss this week in the death of Jim Holland, and it seemed right, and I was, I think, led by the Spirit to focus on God as the God of all comfort. You may not have known Jim, but he stood here at the door and gave bulletins every week, and did many other things besides. And many of you, all of us, I think, to a great or less degree, will miss him.  

Also, you know that there was a tragedy yesterday in our nation and our president came on the television and I was so pleased as he drew our attention to a magnificent piece of Scripture, Isaiah chapter 40, in which he said, "Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these things? He who created the starry host and brings them out one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and his mighty strength, not one of them is missing."  

Isn't that a magnificent passage of Scripture? And I'm so grateful for our President, and we need to be faithful and praying for him as he faces some incredible challenges and needs wisdom from God, and we should be praying for him because we're commanded to do so. But I'm grateful for a President that will bring our attention to Isaiah 40. And you know at the very beginning of that chapter, one of the most magnificent chapters in all the Bible, God gives a command to his prophet Isaiah, a double command in which he says, "Comfort, comfort my people says your God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins." A command from the eternal God to his prophet that he speak a word of God, a word of comfort to his people.  

And so I felt in the same way that God wanted me to minister a word of comfort to you today. And so we'll be looking at 2 Corinthians chapter 1, and immediately we're going to see our attention focused on God himself. He is the God of all comfort. Look at verse 3. It says, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort." You know, actually praising God in the midst of suffering is strange for our flesh, is it not? It runs contrary to our nature. Apart from God, we would never praise God in the midst of suffering, in the midst of trials. 

In the midst of trials, we have a tendency to murmur and complain, to upbraid, to chafe and strive, perhaps even to question God, maybe even the extreme to shake our fist at God. And we've seen that again and again. This is our natural tendency. We do not naturally praise God in the midst of suffering. But if we are regenerate, if we are born again by the Holy Spirit, we have been instructed and we are led to praise God always. And especially so, we are trained to praise him in adverse circumstances, to praise him when we're suffering. When we need him the most. 

Job, in Job chapter 1, after he was assaulted by a series of trials that probably no one in this room will ever have to undergo, the kind of day that would knock flat anybody who did not have a solid foundation, on a rock that does not move. Job, it says, "got up and tore his robe and shaved his head, and then he fell to the ground in worship", in worship. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised." That is the response of a regenerate person to suffering: praise the Lord. May the name of the Lord be praised. 

And then Paul and Silas, when they were arrested for preaching the Gospel in Philippi. And when they were scourged and beaten and exposed to public disgrace in shame and then thrown into prison, a miserable, dark place. And they were shackled by the jailer there who soon would come to faith in Christ, though he did not know it. What did they do? At midnight in the, I think, pitch blackness and darkness, because the jailer had to call for torches when he went in there, in the pitch blackness, they are praising God and they are singing hymns to his name. So I say to you that it is not our nature to praise God in adverse circumstances, but it is part of our new nature, having been born again, regenerate through faith in Christ, to praise him always, because he is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.   

 So, Paul here in 2 Corinthians, even in the midst, I believe, of great suffering still—he's still going through trial. He begins this letter with a word of praise to God. Praise be to God, he says, right from the start. Paul's heart is warmed and he is moved to praise the eternal God, and from the internal heart flows out words of praise and honor to God. 

Richard Sibbes, a Puritan theologian who wrote 300 pages on the first chapter of 2 Corinthians 1. 2 Corinthians 1, 300 pages. I only got through about 70 of it. I wish I could have read the whole thing, but I ran out of time. But he ministered comfort to me, and he was thinking and meditating on all of this and thinking about our new nature in Christ. And this is what he says, "It is the disposition of God's children after they have tasted the sweet mercy and comfort and love of God, to break forth into the praising of God and to thanksgiving."  

He said, "It is as natural for the new creature to do so, as for the birds to sing in the spring. When the sun has warmed the poor creature, it shows forth its thankfulness by singing." And he said, "It can no more be kept from it than fire kept from burning or water from cooling." We must praise our Lord. And so while it runs contrary to our flesh, to our nature, naturally, to praise God at all, but certainly not in adverse circumstances, it is right down the center of our new nature to praise him always, and especially when we are suffering and struggling. The only unshakable source of comfort in this world is God himself. 

And so I begin this message today by concentrating your thoughts and your focus on the unchangeable God. We seek many sources of comfort, don't we? Some of them are solid and worth our trust, and some of them are not. Some of them are shaky, and some of them downright misleading. We can trust in circumstances that never really come about, we can trust in people who let us down, but God is the unshakable rock. And he is the unshakable source of comfort. And to God and to God alone, must we look for this comfort. But first and foremost, we must look to him as he is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

We must look to him in his triune nature—Father, Son, and Spirit. We are praising God. We are worshipping him. We're giving him words of honor and praise, but he doesn't need it. he is self-sufficient in this matter. Before anything was created, he was blessed, and he is blessed whether we bless him or not, and he is praised whether we praise him or not. Certainly he has a myriad of angels to praise him all the time, but meditating deeply on this, I found that the members of the Trinity praise each other.  We're going to see next week as we study back again in Matthew 11, Jesus says, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth." He praises his Heavenly Father. And then the Father speaks of the Son at baptism, "Here is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." This is an eternal state of blessedness. The Triune God—Father, Son and Spirit—eternally blessed. Blessed forever. Whether we bless or not, whether we praise or not, he is eternal. And this is the one I set before you, because he never changes. He's an eternally happy and blessed God. 

But we need to praise him, don't we? We need that very deeply. Sometimes we need it more than food or drink. We need to praise him. It is good for us to praise him and all the more when we're suffering, because he is forever blessed and the only source of comfort. Now, the ultimate comfort we get from God is in the fact that he sent his Son into the world. He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one he sent into the world to be our Lord. We should fill our minds, therefore, with thoughts of God, the Redeemer. Father, Son, and Spirit, eternally blessed, never changing. 

And isn't that marvelous? We praise God when things are good. And we teach a doctrine of the unchanging God. Why is he therefore not worthy to be praised now? He was worthy a month ago, a year ago. He has not changed in his nature, and so therefore he's every bit as worthy to be praised today. He never changes. And we should fill our minds with these thoughts—with the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. We should meditate on God's priceless gift of our Lord Jesus Christ. We ought to bless God for Christ. He is our Mediator. He is our Atoning Sacrifice. He took our sins on himself on the cross. He suffered under the wrath of God that we might have eternal life. This is our Lord Jesus Christ. He died in our place.  

And we should realize the foundation of all lesser blessings, such as comfort when grieving—and that is a lesser blessing—but on the foundation of all of our lesser blessings is this greater gift of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Because it says in Romans 8:32, "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things including comfort when we're suffering." 

And so the foundation of our comfort is the Triune God, and specifically the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who sent his Son into the world to take our place, that we might have eternal life. And we can also take joy in the fact that not only is he the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but he is our Father as well through the Christ. We are his adopted children. he has only one Only Begotten Son, but we are his adopted children, and his care for us is tender and gentle and merciful. And so he deals with us like a father. He is the Father, the scripture says of mercies. The Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort. 

Now, the NIV has him as the Father of Compassion, and I won't quibble. I love the word compassion, and it's a wonderful thing that God is compassionate to us. It means he feels what we feel. He's not detached. He's a passionate being. As a matter of fact, our passions are just a dim reflection of his own passionate being. We are created in his image. But he is compassionate in that he feels with us, but I think a better translation is found in the other English versions, which all translate this word mercies. He is the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort.  

Mercy is a little bit different than grace, although they're very closely related. Grace focuses on our unworthiness. It's God's lavish provision to unworthy sinners like us. But mercy focuses on our misery. It focuses on our suffering and our misery. Wherever there is mercy, there is misery, which God seeks to alleviate. And so he is the Father of that power to alleviate misery and suffering. This is the way he is. And so wherever there is mercy, we should think about God as the source of mercy, because the Scripture says here, he is "the Father of mercies". It's a Hebrew way of speaking, saying that all mercies come from him. He is the father of them all. 

And so wherever you have mercy, you should trace it back. Streams of mercy never ceasing call for songs of loudest praise. And so we trace as the hymn writer does the streams of mercy that we're receiving back to their source, their fountain head, who is God himself the Father of all mercies and the God of all comfort. Now, what streams of mercies do we receive? We'll talk more about that in a moment. But we should recognize first and foremost, as I said, we begin by setting God right before us. If you have received any mercy from God, it is from God. He is the Father of all mercies. All the mercies you have in your life come from him. And he never changes like shifting shadow. 

And those mercies are renewed daily, are they not? The book of Lamentation speaks this way. The prophet Jeremiah sitting up on a hill, looking out over the deserted city of Jerusalem, understanding very well the significance of the desertion of that city, understanding that they were going off into seventy years of exile into the wrath of God. He sat there and wrote the book of Lamentations. And in the midst of that suffering, in the midst of that pain, he wrote this, Lamentations 3:22 and 23, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Amen. So, every day when the sun comes up and every day God renews his dedication to be merciful to a sin-cursed world, and to us in it. 

God's mercy and his grace to us in Christ is the greatest of all. You see, God must deal first and foremost with his justice. He cannot be merciful to us and at the same time be unjust. He must deal with us in our sin. Richard Sibbes put it this way, "God's attributes cannot be made to devour one another." We can't set his mercy over against his justice, and therefore his greatest mercy to us in grace is in Christ, that he would take our sins on himself that we might have eternal life. And the fact of the matter is "God could never", Sibbes says, "be the Father of mercies to us, except he were the Father of Christ. For mercy must see justice satisfied."  

God's mercy is only given to those who are weary of their sinful lives, and who want to turn away from sin, which is the source of all of our misery. And so he gives his mercy to us in Christ. And I thought about it also—were it not for God's grace and his mercy, all of his attributes would actually be our enemies. Think about it. God's goodness would terrify us, were it not for his grace and mercy to us in Christ. Why? Because out of his goodness, he must destroy us and purge the evil from his universe. God's holiness would pursue us to hell, apart from God's mercy and grace to us in Christ.  

God's omnipresence would terrify us. Would it not? Because where could we go from his spirit?  Where could we flee from his presence? He would always be there. God's omnipotence would be unleashed to our eternal destruction, were it not for his mercy and his grace to us in Christ. God's radiant glory would terrify us and cause us to tremble. It would not be our greatest hope as it is now that someday we shall see the glory of God with our own eyes and live, but rather it would destroy us. God's love even would be no balm to us, no encouragement, because it would be like a feast set for others and not for us. We would not be allowed to sit and partake.  

And so all of his attributes become sweetened to us because of his mercy and his grace. And so I say to you this morning, we must take first things first. Your sin must be dealt with through faith in Christ. You must be a believer in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You must be born again through faith in Christ, or you can receive no mercy. There can be no benefit from this meditation this morning on the unchanging character of God. It must be well with your soul before anything else can be dealt with.   

 But having done that, we see that God is the Father of mercies and the Scripture says, the God of all comfort. Look at verse 3, "The Father of mercies and the God of all comfort." So, he is the source of every comfort that we receive, and he is an omnipotent comforter with all power to comfort. So, this is the center of the message.  

Now, I'm going to move into the second point, namely why we need comfort. But you already have the meats, namely a meditation on the unchanging nature of God and his mercy to us in Christ. That is your highest form of comfort and consolation.  But why do we need comfort? Look at verse 4, it says, "He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."  The word trouble is a general term for suffering. It's anything that causes grief. The Greek word really means oppressing, oppressing, like we are olives in an olive press. Without  suffering, there would be no comfort needed.  

Now, Paul who's writing this, has gone through severe trials. Look at verses 8 and 9. He speaks of this pressure. He says, "We do not want you to be uninformed brothers about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death." That's a rare glimpse into the psychology of Paul as he's going through suffering and struggle, facing extreme persecution.  

Later in this book, in 2 Corinthians 11, he speaks of the various trials of ministry that he's going through. He says, "Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a day and a night in the open sea. I've been constantly on the move. I've been in danger from rivers and in danger from bandits, and in danger from my own countrymen, and in danger from Gentiles, and in danger in the city, and in danger in the country, and in danger at sea, and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep. I've known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food. I've been cold and naked. And besides everything else I face daily, the pressure of my concern for all the churches."  

It's a pressure-filled life that Paul is suffering through, and he doesn't expect it to abate. Not in any way. For he says in 1 Corinthians 4, "It seems to me that God has put us apostles at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. It's not going to decrease." Paul says, "Not only do I have external trials, but I have problems within, I have this thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan sent to torment me." And so it's a tough life that he's living, and so he knows the need for comfort. Life in this world automatically means we're going to face suffering of an almost infinite variety, and I believe the more faithful we are to the great commission of our Lord Jesus Christ, the more we will need comfort, not the less.  

And Paul knew about that. Now, all suffering is related in some way to sin. All suffering is related in some way to sin. Now, don't misunderstand me. I don't want you to say that because I am suffering now, it's because I have sinned. That may be true, the Book of James says that if we have sinned, we should call the elders of the church and they'll anoint us and we will be healed. Sometimes there's a connection between suffering and our own personal sin. I do not say never, but I do not say always either.  

Sometimes it just comes to us, and sometimes the suffering comes to us as a result of the sins of others. Sometimes other people can greatly let us down. We can rely on other people, build our lives to some degree on them, and they can be devastating in the way that they let us down, and it hurts. A husband or a wife, a parent or a child, a trusted friend, and an advisor—these people can betray us, they can let us down, and it's a cause of great suffering. And so sin is the root of our suffering, and suffering is the need for our comfort, all of it traced back to sin. God is an expert in dealing with sin, an expert in alleviating suffering caused by sin. And this is what he does. He is the God of all comfort, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort.  

Richard Sibbes put it this way, he said, "Our God is a God of all comfort in that he can create it out of nothing, just like he created the universe out of nothing. He can create comfort out of nothing in totally adverse circumstances, just as he spoke light into darkness, so he can bring comfort in the midst of your suffering." And what are the types of comfort that God brings?  

Well, first of all, what is comfort? Sibbes defines it this way, "A comfort is anything that allays a malady, that either takes it away or somewhat mitigates it. A comfort is anything that raises up the soul. The comforts of this life, they are not such as do all together take away sorrow and grief, but they mitigate them. They lessen the blow." So comfort is God lessening the blow. Taking away some of the pain, some of the suffering, and some of the grief. Why do we say only some? Because only in heaven, when the old order of things has passed away forever are we completely free from suffering and have no longer any need for consolation and comfort. And so the comfort comes not to completely take away the pain, but rather to soften the blow, to mitigate. What kinds of comfort does he give us? Well, he gives us the comfort of physical blessings, the comfort of spiritual blessings, and the comfort of communion through the Holy Spirit.  

First, the physical blessings. This is what we call common grace. This is God's ministry to our bodies and our physical lives. Martin Luther was counseling a man who was going through great suffering and great struggle and had worked through so many other spiritual issues, and he was still in great distress. And Martin Luther, the earthy German that he was, he said, "You know what you need to do? You need to go out and plow your field and spread manure. You need to go fertilize your field and just feel the richness of the dirt, and feel the wind on your face, and just breathe the world that God's made." But why did he say that? Because we are physical beings with five senses, with bodies, and sometimes God ministers comfort just by ministering to the body. You think about Elijah who was running for his life before that wicked woman, Jezebel, and he goes out in the middle of the desert. He wants to lie down and die. He wants to die, and why? He's just filled with despair. And what does God do? He sends an angel with a biscuit and a jar of water. It says, "Here, eat and drink, and then go back to sleep." And then he wakes him up and says, "Here's another biscuit, and here's another drink of water, and then go back to sleep." This is the wisdom of our God, and so God ministers his physical blessings. Richard Sibbes says, "There is comfort in everything that God has created," and God is the god of that comfort. In hunger, meat comforts. In thirst, drink comforts. In cold, garments comfort. In want of advice, friends comfort, but God is the God of all. He's the God of all comfort. And God ministers to our physical situations. 

God is also the minister of spiritual blessings as well, not just physical comfort, but spiritual as well. The comfort is spiritual blessings, and to a Christian, this is far greater. Is it not? To say it is well with my soul whatever my earthly circumstances. What do you think the words mean, "When peace like a river attendeth my way," or "When sorrows like sea billows roll, Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul?” This is a higher level of comfort. Is it not? In which we derive from the scripture, from the Word of God, the ability to derive comfort contrary to the circumstances that we're facing. In confusion, scripture speaks comforting wisdom. In excessive sorrow, scripture speaks an eternal perspective that brings us joy. In overwhelming doubt, scripture restores comforting faith. And in loneliness, scripture ministers the very presence of God. And at the center are the promises that God has made to us in Christ. That all of our sins are forgiven, that we've been adopted into the very family of God, that for all of us who are believers, it doesn't matter how wonderful your life has been in this world, the greatest things are yet to come, all of your best blessings are yet ahead of you, your best days are yet to come. The promises of God. 

But the highest of all is the comfort of communion through the Holy Spirit. Even the most earnest counsel of your friends and the comfort you get from having friends and family around you in a time of suffering can still sometimes feel external, like it's knocking on the door of your heart and you can't let it in. You refuse to be comforted. It's external to you, and you are not comforted. Even sometimes the words of Scripture can be like comfort standing at the door and knocking, but it's external to you.  

And you refuse to be comforted, and it doesn't come in. What you need is you need a comforter from within, somebody who lives with you and will be in you. And this is the comfort of the Holy Spirit. I think it's a magnificent thing when you think about it. In the Old Covenant, God numerous times said to his servants these comforting words, "I will be with you." He sent Moses, in Exodus, chapter 3, verse 12, he sent Moses in the burning bush, he sent him to Pharaoh to Egypt, and Moses was afraid and did not want to go. And what promise did God give him? "Do not be afraid, I will be with you." 

What does he say in Isaiah 43:2? He says, "When you pass through the rivers, I will be with you. When you pass through the waters, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, the flames will not set you ablaze."   So the old covenant promise is, "I will be with you." But the new covenant promise is better. Is it not? It's a better promise. I will be in you by the power of the Holy Spirit. John 14:16-17, Jesus said, "I will ask the Father and he will give you another Comforter to be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you." This is the Minister of Comfort himself, and he will not allow you to go without comfort. He will take the external comforts of the body, the comforts of friends and of family, and of food and rest, and a good warm bed and whatever you need physically, and he'll couple it together with the words of Scripture and the promise and the spiritual blessings, and he will drive it home until you are comforted. That is the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. 

Now, why does he comfort? What is the purpose of the comfort? First of all, it's his nature to comfort. He yearns to comfort, to speak a message of comfort to you, and if his justice is satisfied through the atoning blood of Christ in your case, through personal faith in Christ, and if his wisdom is satisfied that these comforts are best for you, then he will lavish them on you. He will pour out comfort on you because it is his nature. One could also say it's a matter of just balancing in our sharing with Christ. Look at verse 5, he says, "Just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ, our comfort overflows." In other words, if we're going to share in Christ's sufferings, we might as well share in his comfort as well. That seems to be the logic of the verse. 

But what for us are the purpose of these comforts? Why does he do it? First of all, to sustain us through the trials. Look again at verses 8 and 9, "We do not want you to be uninformed brothers about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure far beyond our ability to endure." Far beyond our ability to endure. Did you see that? "So that we despaired even of life." Did you see that? This is a hero of the faith. This is the Apostle Paul, a mighty man of God. He despaired of life, struggling and suffering just as Elijah did out in that desert, starting to lose his grip. Brothers and sisters, we are merely flesh and blood. Do you think you can make it through this life without the comfort of God to sustain you so that you keep going and accomplish and finish the task God gave you to do? He gives you comfort. Lest we be overwhelmed and lose heart, lest we lose our grip of faith, lest we become discouraged beyond all measure, he gives us comfort.  

Secondly, though, he gives us his comfort to teach us to look to himself alone. To look to God alone. Verse 9, he says, "But this happened, that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead." All of us, brothers and sisters, we have a nasty habit of relying on ourselves. If the Apostle Paul had it and needed to go through this kind of struggle to strip him of this self-reliance, how much more do we? We are self-reliant beings, and as we look inward, we can either find in ourselves the resources to cope with our problems, in which case we become prideful and arrogant, or we can look inward in ourselves and find not the resources to go on to face our problems and we despair of life itself. It's just two sides of the same coin. The problem is perspective. We're looking inward. The trials teach a Christian to look upward to God. To look upward to God. And if God is the God of all comfort, then true Christians realize this, and they return thanks to God in the midst of their suffering because God is the one who has comforted them. And may I say, just the fact that we need comfort shows how little we should rely on ourselves. We are weak beings. Don't rely on yourself, but on God who raises the dead. Now, worldly persons tend to forget that. They take in physical comforts. Their bellies are filled, their bodies are warm with the comforts of God, and there's a practical atheism in that they do not return thanks to God as the God of all comfort. But a Christian takes these physical comforts and looks upward and says, "God did it." 

I want each one of you to receive the comforts of God. I want you to have friends, church members, family members, ministering comfort. But may I say to you, every one of them is temporary. A godly mother who prays over you with tears, she is mortal. Someday, she will be taken from this world. A godly father whose strong arm supported you and trained you in the faith, some day he will be taken from us, for he is mortal. A godly spouse the same way. We are mortal. We are no eternal source of comfort, and so these comforts come from God, to teach us to look to him alone and to rely on him alone, and not on temporal things.  

And finally, God gives us comfort to equip us to comfort others. And this has the practical purpose of drawing the body of Christ together. All of us are naturally imbued with the spirit of Cain—"Am I my Brother's Keeper? What do I care? Why should I care what this person or that person is going through?" Oh no, you should care. And so God gives you comfort so that you can turn and take that same comfort and give it to somebody else. Maybe a week later, maybe 10 years later, but he means for you to do it. 

Look at verses 3 through 7, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ, our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces a new patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer, and our hope for you is firm because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so you also share in our comfort." We are meant to comfort one another. We are meant to bind together the body of Christ. We're meant to rejoice with those who rejoice, yes, but to mourn with those who mourn, this is what we are meant to do. And so if you're going through a hard time, could it be that God will comfort you in a certain way, and you're to store that up and then five years later take it and bestow it on somebody else? And this strengthens the bonds and the bands of the body of Christ. 

First Baptist Church, can I urge you to fix your thoughts on the eternal God? First and foremost, the God of all comfort, the God of all mercies, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is unshakable. He is the source of comfort.  Secondly, can I urge you to trust him through all the suffering you're going through, or will go through, and you will. Trust him through it all. Know that he is wise and knows what he's doing, and then when he comforts you in the midst of that, take that same comfort and use it for another brother or sister in Christ. And if you've already received comfort in the past, can you look around for some hurting people? Because there's some in the room today right now who need your ministry and need your comfort. Will you give it to them?  

Close with me in prayer, please. Father, we thank you for the ministry of the Word. We thank you for the way you remind us again to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, sat down at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. We thank you for that, Lord, and we pray that now you administer to those in our midst that need it the most. Minister comfort and consolation to them. Minister to all of us, oh Lord, because we're still on our pilgrim way and have not yet reached a face-to-face fellowship with you, Lord, so have compassion on us and continue to minister to us.  We pray in Jesus name. Amen. 

Today we're looking at Matthew 11:16-19. We come to a passage of scripture that you might just read over and not recognize its significance, but I think it is very significant for how we relate to our world, to the culture that surrounds us, to the expectations that they have on us. The world does have expectations. It wants us to dance to its tune.  I think it's important for us to see the examples that are set before us in the text today: the example of John the Baptist and of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and  see how they would not dance to the world's tune, but  followed instead a heavenly music that they heard within themselves. There are two different strains of music permeating this world. 

There is the song of God and of the Lamb, spoken of in the Book of Revelation. And there is the song of the devil and of the world. I was afraid in using this metaphor which comes right out of the text for us, thinking that you would be confused and think that I'm talking against rock and roll music or anything like that. That's not what this talk is about.  This is talking metaphorically about the way the world seeks to impose itself on us. The way the world wants to make us dance to its tune. But I picked up this metaphor and  thought, let's see what there is in it. There was much. 

Many of you perhaps have read C.S. Lewis's masterpiece, The Chronicles of Narnia. The magician's nephew describes the creation of the universe.  Aslan, who is a lion and represents Jesus Christ, is singing a song.  That song is the song of creation. Listen to what Lewis wrote: “The lion was pacing to and fro about that empty land and singing his new song. It was softer and more lilting than the song by which he had called up the stars and the sun, a gentle rippling music. And as he walked and sang, the valley grew green with grass. It spread out from the lion like a pool. It ran up the sides of the little hill like wave. In a few minutes, it was creeping up the lower slopes of the distant mountains, making that young world ever softer.” As the account goes on, Polly, one of the girls in the story, starts to notice the connection between the music that the lion's singing and what's happening around them.  And this is what it says, "All this time, the lion's song and his stately prowl, to and fro, backwards and forwards, was going on. Polly was finding the song more and more interesting because she thought she was beginning to see the connection between the music and the things that were happening. When a lion of dark furs sprang up on a ridge about a hundred yards away, she felt they were connected to a series of deep prolonged notes, which the lion had sung just a second before. And when he burst into a rapid series of lighter notes, she was not surprised to see primroses suddenly appearing in every direction. Thus with an unspeakable thrill, she felt quite certain that all things were coming as she said, out of the lion's head. When you listen to the song, you heard the things that he was making up. When you looked around you, you could see them."  C.S. Lewis likens creation to a song that was sung by God, the Creator.

That song permeates, and if you are regenerate, if you're born again, you can hear it, though faintly, because this created world is cursed by sin and yet there's still something of those original strains of music around us. Sadly, though, in our history, it wasn't long after that that another discordant song began to be sung — a song of rebellion, a song that our first fathers, Adam and Eve, heard and listened to and began to dance to, the sound of rebellion against our God. This is the song that Jesus is talking about here in Matthew 11:16-19. We played the flute for you and you did not dance. We sang a dirge and you did not mourn. The flute is happy music. The world is saying, "It's time to celebrate now. We have something we're happy about. We would like you to celebrate with us," but that which is highly esteemed in the eyes of man is nothing to God, and so we can't celebrate at what the world celebrates. The the world sings a dirge, funeral music. It's time for mourning, and the world is saying, “It’s time to be sad. We're sad about this and you be sad with us. You dance to our tune. You be happy when we tell you to be happy. You be sad when we tell you to be sad.” That's a tune of rebellion. But there's another song that's been sung since the coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is the song of redemption. In Hebrews 2:11-12 it says that Jesus Christ sings. "In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation," [ Jesus Christ] “perfect through suffering.” Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family; Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers."  He's not ashamed to adopt us. But look what he says next in verse 12. Who's the “he” in verse 12? Jesus Christ. He says, "I will declare your name to my brothers. In the presence of the congregation, I will sing your praises."

Praise the Lord for that song. It is a song of redemption, and Jesus came and sang it to us. He's singing to us a song of salvation. He's singing to us a song of redemption. All of creation someday will hear it plainly. All of creation and the new heavens and new earth will worship to that song, that song of redemption. Revelation 5 says, "The twenty-four elders 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. You have made them to be a kingdom and priest to serve our God and they will reign on the earth." Then the Angels join in. Revelation 5:11, "Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and 10,000 times 10,000. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders; 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.'" We've got the twenty-four elders singing, we've got myriad of angels, more than you can count, singing, and then we come in. Verse 13, "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, honor, and glory, and power forever and ever.'"

The question of the text this morning, Matthew 11, is whose music are you dancing to? Are you dancing to the world's song? Are you dancing to the song of creation and redemption that God is singing in your heart? This text calls us to stand firm against the world's music, against the world's enticing tune. In a simple sense, this is a talk on resisting peer pressure. If I were a youth minister, for example, or speaking to youth, I would talk about the importance of resisting peer pressure. That's a common theme, though, that were somehow germane only to youth, and none of the rest of us need to be concerned about resisting peer pressure. This text seems to say differently. We all need to be concerned about the opinions of the world around us, especially the ungodly ones, and how pressure affects us, how we are slightly dancing to the world's tune. Parental concern always has to do with negative influences; smoking and drinking and hanging out with the wrong people and relationships with members of the opposite sex, and these are valid concerns for peer pressure at a vulnerable time in development. But the fact of the matter is, all of us are surrounded by a world that is hostile to our faith.  I you don't realize that you're in enemy territory, you may not realize how much that music is getting into your heart and how you are gradually slowly, perhaps unwittingly, dancing to the world's tune. “To what can I compare this generation? They're like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others ‘We played the flute for you and you did not dance. We sang a dirge and you did not mourn.’” There is hope, is there not? Because apparently, the world's tune is being frustrated. "We played our music, and you did not yield to it, you did not dance to it and we're frustrated with you. Why won't you do the things we do? Why don't you like the things that we like? Why won't you celebrate when we celebrate? Why won't you mourn when we mourn?" We are God's peculiar people. We are a strange people marching to the tune that we alone can hear by faith, and this is the call from the text.

In our own hearts, there's a constant concern for human approval. You can't deny it, and I don't think it's wrong or it's bad. From infancy, little children learn how to gauge their situation by the reaction of their parents. A little child will fall down and look to mommy and daddy to see if they're hurt seriously. Have you ever noticed that? They will fall down and they'll look and see what Mommy does or what Daddy does, and if they are okay, then they feel like they are okay. A little baby will look up for approval and that is not a bad thing. It's a big part of the way that a parent influences and shapes the children from an early age, so there's nothing wrong with being concerned about other people's opinions. 

More than that, there is a system of approval and disapproval woven around us, we call it culture.  When I was over in Japan, ministering as a missionary with my wife and children, we had to learn a whole new culture. Japanese have an ancient polished and very carefully thought through culture. It all has to do with who sits where at tables and who bows a little bit lower and all of these things. What kind of honorific titles are used. We were like proverbial bulls in the china shop. We were Americans without any culture at all, so it seemed. We had to learn little by little how to do things. We were still really at the kindergarten level when we left. Japanese peer pressure is intense. All of their kids dress the same. They have a saying, "The nail that sticks up will be pounded down.” They don't look to individuality or individualism as a good thing. There's intense pressure to conform all the time.  These are not necessarily bad things. It's a concern for human approval or disapproval. What I'm getting at here is the way that there is a negative demonic or satanic pressure or music also. You listen to the media, you listen to the news stories, you listen to how they are reported, the way that they're written about. There is a value system that they're trying to get over on us so that we think the way that they think. For example, in the schools, they're trying to do what they call diversity training, so that we embrace diversity. Well, what are they getting at? Well, they're getting at what the Bible calls sexual perversion, homosexuality. They want it to be accepted, they want it to be tolerated or welcomed even. We need to think the way they think. We need to rejoice in the things they rejoice in, and call them gifts from God.   This is the kind of music that they're seeking to play, even at a very young level. The same is true on all kinds of other issues. Animal rights, abortion, as we talked about last week, cloning, feminism. All of these thoughts, we're being trained to think like the world. There's a tune out there that we're being called on to dance to. They're like children sitting in the marketplaces calling out to us. "We're playing a flute for you, you better dance. And when we play a dirge, you better mourn."

The desire to please people is not a bad thing. It says in Luke 2:52, “Jesus grew in wisdom, and in favor with God and men.  What does it mean to grow in favor with men? It means that he learned how to please people. To be a pleasing person is a good thing within its context. People with absolutely no concern whatsoever for other people's opinions are dangerous sociopaths. They're tyrants. They steam roll people and they don't care, and that's wrong, it's an evil thing. But Jesus also warned against yearning for human praise, living for human praise. Luke 6:26 says, "Woe to you when men speak well of you, when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets."  Here we get to the key issue. A false prophet is spoken well of by everybody, because they learn to tailor their message and weed it out until it is universally pleasing. If I may say specifically, they do not confront sin. They do not confront the evil that surrounds, and there is much. They do not confront it, and therefore, they are universally liked. They're universally popular. 

Jesus said, "Woe to you if that's the kind of prophet you are." John the Baptist was not that kind of prophet. Jesus was not either. They confronted sin and they bore the wrath of surrounding culture as a result. The fact of the matter is that fear of man is a great hindrance to the advance of the Gospel. Is it not? We fear to offend, we fear to confront sin. We fear to deal directly with issues because we're afraid what they may think. Proverbs 29:25 says, "Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe." A snare is something that entangles your feet and causes you to trip and fall. Fear of man, therefore, is very much like a snare for your feet. It's a hindrance to the advance of the Gospel. Ultimately,  living for the praise of man will damn your soul. Jesus said in John 5:44, "How can you believe if you accept praise from one another and yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the one and only God."

Jesus sets up competing praise. Either the world will praise you or God will praise you. But you cannot believe if you set your heart on praise from the world. It will close out your soul, you cannot hear. There were people in Jesus' age and era who were concerned what their friends would think. There were some among the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin that were believing in Jesus to a point, but they were afraid to come out of the closet, as it were, as believers in Jesus Christ. Afraid because they were afraid of what their friends would think.   In John 12:42 and 43, it says, "Yet at the same time, many even among the leaders believed in him, but because of the Pharisees, they would not confess their faith for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue for they loved praise from men more than praise from God." That's a devastating testimony from scripture. May it not be said of us that we love praise from men more than praise from God. The fear of man can keep Christians who are ready to be witnesses for Jesus Christ from speaking the gospel they know. The Apostle Paul, knowing that the Galatians were being offended by the things he was saying, said in Galatians 1:10. "Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God, or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would no longer be a servant of Christ." 

You really have to choose if you're going to be a witness for Jesus Christ. So, my question today is, is peer pressure, is this surrounding music of rebellion, an irresistible force? What is the answer? The answer within the text is, no, it is not an irresistible force. It can be resisted. Let's look at these two role models. John the Baptist first, and then Jesus. John the Baptist, we've already learned in Matthew 11, was not a reed swayed by the wind. Jesus talked about that. “What did you go out into the desert to see, a reed swayed by the wind?”  You can imagine long grass, dead brown grass and the wind is blowing in the fall, and it's just moving. It almost looks like water.  It just blows and the grass blows whatever way the wind blows. John wasn't that way. He was a mighty oak tree; he didn't sway in the breeze of public opinion. That's not the way he was. John's appearance was not culturally acceptable. I don't think that John set any fashion trends.   He wore camel's hair, which is not very comfortable and not very attractive. Functional, yes, but comfortable, no. He wore the leather belt around his waist, yes, but it was how he tied the leather belt that was so special. There was nothing to it. He did not set fashion trends, that's not why he was here. His appearance was not culturally acceptable, his lifestyle was not culturally acceptable either. His diet was locusts and wild honey.   He wasn't there to eat. That's not what he came for. His lifestyle was a rebuke, at least to King Herod, who dined on silk pillows and ordered the prophet’s head be cut off. His lifestyle was a rebuke. Hebrews 11:38 speaks of men of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground. I think of John the Baptist when I think of that. That's the way he lived.

John's ministry was shocking to Jewish sensibilities. You know why? Because he baptized Jews— this is unheard of. We were the Gentile outsiders, called by some Gentile dogs. When we turn to the Law of Moses, we would need to be cleaned up from our Gentile excesses. We would need to be washed with water. We would need to be baptized in order to become a Jew, certainly circumcised if you're a man. And so, you'd be brought into the law of Moses. But through this cleansing of baptism, John baptized everybody— baptized Jews, and that was very offensive. He's saying, "You're[the Jews] as repugnant to God as the Gentiles are."

And John's preaching was all on fire.  He didn't preach to entice or appease, he preached to convict. In John's religion, he showed a total disregard for the narrow confines of Pharisees-ism. The Pharisees called the shots for religion. I you followed in their steps, if you obeyed what they said then you were religious, you were acceptable in Jewish society. When the scribes and Pharisees said “Fast”, John ignored it. When the scribes and Pharisees said “Feast”, John ignored it. When the scribes and Pharisees said “Drink”, John ignored it. When the scribes and Pharisees said “Refrain from drinking”, he ignored it. He was not marching to their tune, they had no hold over him, and he was therefore dangerous, very much like a loose cannon.

John the Baptist lived his own kind of life. He followed only the way of God, which He heard in his mind and his heart by faith. But John the Baptist, for all of his greatness, could not hold Jesus' sandals.  He says in Matthew 3:7-8, "But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them, 'You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath, produce fruit in keeping with repentance? The one who comes after me, who will baptize not with water, but with the Holy Spirit and with fire, I am not worthy to stoop down and untie his sandals.’” As great as John the Baptist was, and Jesus said He was greater than anyone who had been born to women up to that point, he could not have carried Jesus' sandals. Why?  Because Jesus also was not swayed by men, but lived only to do the will of His Heavenly Father. He lived only for one thing, moment by moment, to please his heavenly Father. He constantly angered the religious establishment. I believe he did most of his miracles on the Sabbath on purpose to challenge their faulty understandings of the Sabbath. He was his own man and he followed in the way of God. He marched to the tune that he heard within his heart and with his mind that his Father was playing. He refused to follow man-made traditions. He didn't wash his hands or the ceremonial washings and other such Pharisaic traditions. He preached openly against the scribes and Pharisees calling them hypocrites. In John 5:41, he said, "I do not accept praise from men." Very interesting statement. We do lavish praise on him, and he wants us to praise him, but he's saying in that context, "It's not what I live for, I don't accept it, I don't live by it, praise from men." He lived only for one thing, John 4:34: "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work."

The question that we have set before us by John the Baptist and Jesus is, “How are we going to live? Are we going to live for praise from man or praise from God?”  The simple choice is, whose praise do we seek? In Luke 6:22 it says, "Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you, and insult you, and reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man; rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in Heaven." Are you willing to live that kind of a life? What's interesting is that both sides will force a choice in this matter. The Father will force a choice, the world will force a choice. They're actively competing for your loyalty. James 4:4 says, "You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." 1 John 2:15 it says, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." If you're a Christian, the Holy Spirit's living within you and aggressively wooing you all the time so that you will love God and seek his praise and seek to please him, and when you veer off and seek to dance to the world's tune, he is jealous and wants you back. Both sides force a choice.

The world  also forces a choice. “We played the flute for you and you did not dance. We sang a dirge and you did not mourn.” Both Christians and worldly folks have this in common— we both look insane to the other, we both look crazy to the other. We're saying, "How can you not believe in Christ? How can you not seek forgiveness of your sins? How can you not want to go and live with God forever and ever? How can you not seek to please your Creator who knit you together in your mother's womb, and who sent his son to die for you? How can you not live that way?" Meanwhile they're saying, "How can you not love what we love? How can you not hate what we hate and follow in the pleasure seeking that we recommend to you? How can you not?"  There's an aggressive evangelism for music going on on each side. They've got their tune and the Father has his, and He wants you to listen to his as much as the world; even more than the world wants you to listen to theirs. More than anything, I'm challenging you today to listen to the music that God is playing in your heart if you're a Christian, the music to follow him, to love what he's doing in the world, the redemptive plan, the advance of the kingdom of God, Heavenly music that you alone can hear by faith. If you are called to be a Christian, to some degree you're called to a prophetic role in this world. You're called to stand and testify on behalf of God that what the world does is evil. If you testify faithfully, you will be hated by people.

 Verse 18 and 19 says, "For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say he has a demon, The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. But wisdom is proved right by her actions." This is a pair of very unfair assessments made by the world against John the Baptist and Jesus. Very unfair, very un-truthful, very insulting. But the cause of it, I believe, is that both John the Baptist and Jesus Christ preached sin and righteousness and the world could not accept that.  Martin Luther, speaking to young preachers said, "You should always preach in such a way that when you get done people will either hate you or hate their sin." What a challenge is that? To be a genuine preacher of God and you end up with a division every time you preach. That's very, very difficult. But John the Baptist did that —and Jesus, too. Basically, I think that life is somewhat like traveling along a road and you come to a fork in the road, and we're standing at the fork saying, "Choose life, follow this way." You're bringing people to a decision, you're bringing people to a fork in the road, and that's uncomfortable for people. You're calling on them to love God more than they love their sin, to repent and turn away and enter the kingdom of God, and that's not going to be popular.

John confronted sin, and the world dealt with him unfairly. They said he was demon-possessed—the most righteous man that had lived up to that point. Jesus confronted sin, and they said the same thing about him, that he was demon-possessed. But in this matter, they charged him unfairly because he was willing to eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners, and so they pushed it beyond the boundaries that Jesus set, beyond the boundaries of sin. He didn't just eat, he was a glutton; he didn't just drink, he was a drunkard. It pushes it beyond the boundaries. Very unfair, but the motivation was the conviction that the people felt when they spoke. But the power of wisdom in the end is final vindication. Look at verse 19, it says, "But wisdom is vindicated by her actions." Vindicated. Another word for that is justified. In the end you will stand vindicated as you follow a wise course of action, as you follow God himself. Evil peer pressure leads to condemnation on that final day. Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end of that way is death.” Proverbs 13:20 says, "He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm." Following the crowd and doing evil leads to condemnation. Where are you heading? Whose music are you listening to? What is the ultimate end of your life? Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord. Proverbs 9:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." A wise life begins there. Say, "I want to live for God. I want to live for him, I want to please him, I love him, I don't want to dishonor him." That's where wisdom begins. You live like that, you'll be vindicated in the end. Even though you seem insane to your surrounding neighbors, in the end, you'll be vindicated. God's music is eternally beautiful. I wonder what that'll sound like. I love the music we hear every week from our music ministry. These folks work hard, don't they? They practice and they play and they bless with their spiritual gifts, and I'm grateful for it. But even they would say they can't compete with the new song that we're gonna hear in Heaven.

I can't wait to hear that music.  God's music is eternally beautiful. Surrounding culture's music is enticing, it's luring, it's interesting, but it's deadly. Very much like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when they were standing up and everybody else bowing down. There was that enticing alluring music of the flutes and the zithers and the harps and the lyre and all that, and they were told to bow down to the golden idol that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. We must not bow down. We must not listen. We must stand up like those nails in that Japanese proverb, and we will not be smashed down. We must be willing to stand up like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and listen to a more beautiful music. In Zephaniah 3:17 the Lord God is singing over you and in you. It says, "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save, he will take delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Isn't that beautiful? God will sing over you and you will respond also in kind. You will sing back.

In Revelation 15:2-4, it says, "I saw what looked like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and standing beside the sea those who have been victorious over the beast and his image and over the number of his name." They had reached the finish line, they were victors. They were singing, they held harps given to them by God, and they sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. "Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the Ages, who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to Your name, for you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you for your righteous acts have been revealed." We're going to sing like that  and that music will drown out Satan's rebellious tunes. We already saying "Crown him with many crowns. The Lamb upon his throne hark how the heavenly music... Heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own.” How beautiful when the sound of rebellion will cease, and nothing will be there but worship and praise and adoration. 

The hymn,”What Wondrous Love Is This?" speaks to this issue : “To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing. To God and to the lamb, I will sing. To God and to the lamb who is the great I Am, while millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing. While millions join the theme, I will sing.” That's the advancing kingdom of God. Millions joining in and singing to God and to the lamb.  And verse 4, "And When from death I'm free I'll sing on, I'll sing on, and when from death, I'm free, I'll sing on. And when from death I'm free, I'll sing and joyful be. And through eternity I'll sing on, I'll sing on, and through eternity, I'll sing on."

What application can we take from this? First, set your heart on pleasing God. Set your heart on listening to his music, pleasing him, moving to his music, dancing to his tune. You can only do this by praying and by having Jesus Christ live within you powerfully. You can only do it if you're Christian. If you're not a Christian, there’s a step before this. Come to faith in Christ, trust in him for eternal life. But if you are a Christian, you must pray and say, "Lord, set you before me, always." Psalms 16, "I have set the Lord always before me, I want to live for you."

 Secondly, renew your mind with scripture. Let the clear pure water scripture flow through your brain. Only then will you be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good and pleasing perfect will, and what the world's discordant music is. You can start to see it more and more. Recognize, therefore, the world's tunes. The way that the media is trying to brainwash us into thinking certain ways that are not scriptural. Recognize them and then reflect on your own tendencies. Could it be that you're already starting to move to the world's tune? Could it be that there's some areas in which you've become un-biblical, in the way you're living, in the way you're thinking, in your value system? If so, you must repent. You must say, "I've been living wrong, I've been thinking wrong. I need to repent and come back to your way of doing things".

Then resolve to make a stand, stand firm and be a witness for righteousness in your world. Be willing to take the abuse that John the Baptist took. Be willing to take the abuse that Jesus took, the abuse of misunderstanding.  Be willing to live for God. Finally, rejoice in your future that some day you will hear that new music and sing to God and to the lamb.