Heart In Mouth Disease (Matthew 15v1-20)

You might want to rethink your after-church lunch plans.

You’ve seen the mandated signs in restaurant restrooms, saying, “Employees must wash hands before returning to work.”

According to the FDA, more than half of all employees in the fast-food industry fail to wash their hands properly.

Nearly two-thirds of restaurant workers who handle raw beef aren’t washing their hands afterward.
Employees serving ready-to-eat food at farmers markets rarely wash their hands.

In our verses, a delegation of religious leaders accuse Jesus’ disciples of failing to wash their hands before eating.  Before you say, “Ew, that’s gross,” you need to understand that the type of hand washing in question had nothing to do with their personal hygiene.  They were describing a ritual hand washing that was supposed to have spiritual value.

Jesus will use their accusation to expose the delegation as hypocrites who put the traditions of men above the commandments of God to the spiritual detriment of themselves and their followers.

The traditions of men mask what Jesus wishes to unmask – a defiled heart that needs transformation.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 The Traditions Of Men Mask Your Defiled Heart, and #2 The Commandments Of God Unmask Your Defiled Heart.

#1    The Traditions Of Men
    Mask Your Defiled Heart
    (v1-11)

From the time Moses was given the Law of God, the Jews began to interpret it to try to apply it in every conceivable situation.  These interpretations were passed down both orally and in written form.

By the first century, there were literally thousands of burdensome rules and rituals, many of which (as we will see) contradicted the very Law of God they were seeking to clarify.

These interpretations are what Jesus called “the traditions of men,” one of which was ritual hand washing.

Mat 15:1    Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus…

We’ve been pointing out that Jesus was being rejected by Israel’s leaders.  Because of it, He would return to Heaven to await His Second Coming.  We live in that time between His two comings and are His messengers to spread the Gospel.

It is significant that these scribes and Pharisees “were from Jerusalem.”  They seem to be an official delegation, sent to discredit Jesus in the eyes of the people.

Mat 15:2    [saying], “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”

It’s likely that the disciples did wash their hands for hygiene before eating.  The scribes and Pharisees were talking about a very particular ritual hand washing that had nothing to do with hygiene.  In fact, your hands needed to be clean before you observed ritual hand washing.

Listen to one description of the ritual:

The method of washing is by pouring ½ pint of water over both hands from a receptacle with a wide mouth, the lip of which must be undamaged.  The water should be poured over the whole hand up to the wrist, but is effective as long as the fingers are washed up to the second joint.  The hands must be clean and without anything adhering to them; rings must be removed so that the water can reach the entire surface area.  The water should not be hot or discolored and it is customary to perform the act by pouring water over each hand three times.  Care must be taken that the unwashed hands do not touch the water used for the washing.

After washing, lift your hands chest-high and say the following blessing (if you intend to eat more than two ounces of bread): “Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us concerning the washing of the hands.”

Rub your hands together and then dry them.  Be careful not to speak or get involved in anything else until you’ve recited the blessing on your bread and swallowed some too.

This ritual washing was performed to correct what the Jews considered an impurity, e.g., coming into contact with Gentiles, or having been in the marketplace.  Such activities, they said, rendered you “unclean” with respect to worshipping God.

Since Jesus and His boys were in Gentile territory, rubbing elbows and hands with them, tradition demanded that they ought to be washing their hands often.

It’s interesting to note that Jesus’ disciples no longer engaged in ritual hand washing.  It seems they were growing, at least for the time being, in their liberty in Christ.
Mat 15:3    He answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?

When you asked Jesus a question – especially one that was an accusation – you were in the intellectual big leagues.

Jesus’ answer to their question is indirect but insightful.  They were talking traditions of the elders.  He was talking commandments of God.  Commandments always trump traditions.

Jesus provided an example of how a tradition of the elders was allowing, and even encouraging, sin.

Mat 15:4    For God commanded, saying, ‘HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER’; and, ‘HE WHO CURSES FATHER OR MOTHER, LET HIM BE PUT TO DEATH.’
Mat 15:5    But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God” –
Mat 15:6    then he need not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition.

The fourth commandment given to Moses on Mount Sinai was to honor your father and mother.  Later in the Law, in the Book of Exodus, the Jews were instructed to uphold the fourth commandment to the point of being allowed to putting to death anyone who disrespected his father or mother.

A big part of honoring father and mother in the Jewish culture was caring for them in their old age.
It obviously put a physical and financial burden on the children; but it ought to be a blessed burden to bear.

The Jews started looking for a loophole.  They started looking for a way to keep their property and possessions for themselves, without having to care for their elderly parent or parents, but without technically violating the fourth commandment.

Some rabbi suggested that you could make an oath declaring that your property and possessions were dedicated to God.  It was referred to as Korban, which is translated, a gift.

Here’s how it got around the obligation to care for your parent(s).  The laws governing oaths were such that you could not really renege on an oath.  So if you said, “whatever support I might have given to my aging parent(s) is Korban,” then it was dedicated to God, and you were free from your obligations to use it for your parent(s).

In other words, they elevated a general principle in the Law regarding oaths to a position higher than the fourth commandment.

The catch was that you need not really give your property and possessions to God; you retained full ownership and use of them.  You only had to dedicate them with an oath.

This devious interpretation of the laws regarding honoring parents and oaths was simply a ruse that allowed you to break God’s commandment.  It elevated the traditions of men above the Word of God.  It was wicked.

Mat 15:7    Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:
Mat 15:8    ‘THESE PEOPLE DRAW NEAR TO ME WITH THEIR MOUTH, AND HONOR ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR FROM ME.
Mat 15:9    AND IN VAIN THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE COMMANDMENTS OF MEN.’ ”

Isaiah was addressing Jews in his own time, but what he said applied equally well to the Jews of Jesus’ time.

“Hypocrite,” as you know, derives from the Greek stage.  Actors portrayed their parts by wearing masks.  Hypocrite means behind the mask.  It came to have a decidedly negative connotation.

Mat 15:10    When He had called the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear and understand:
Mat 15:11    Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.”

This is a short parable.  Jesus will explain what He meant in a minute.  We already understand what He meant – that the heart of every man is defiled.  It is full of all manner of wickedness.

By “heart” we mean the inner person; the real person – our mind, will and emotions.

The traditions of men, when they contradict the Word of God, mask a defiled heart.  The religious leaders were not just allowing people to keep their property and possessions.  They were telling them it was spiritual to do so.  They were making them feel good about breaking God’s Law.

You don’t want to mask your defiled heart with some religious tradition that tells you that you’re OK.  That’s exactly the kind of thing that keeps a person on the broad road that leads to eternal damnation.

Any religion that suggests that you can somehow work your way to Heaven by doing good deeds, or by participating in ceremonies or sacraments that contribute to your salvation, is a hypocritical masking of your defiled heart.

You want God’s commandments to expose your defiled heart so it can be transformed.

#2    The Commandments Of God
    Unmask Your Defiled Heart
    (v12-20)

Billy Graham likes to say, “the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart.”

There is something wrong with us, and we know it.  Religion, philosophy, and to a certain extent, the social sciences – all these are man’s attempts to discover and then make right what is wrong with us.

What is wrong with us is that we inherit a sin nature from Adam and Eve.  We are defiled from within and cannot hope to reform our hearts.  Our hearts must be transformed by Jesus Christ.

Mat 15:12    Then His disciples came and said to Him, “Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?”

I’m not sure what motivated this question.  It could come from either a positive or a negative perspective on the scribes and Pharisees.  The disciples could have been saying, “Wow, Jesus; you sure told them”; or they could be worried that The Lord had offended an official delegation.

Whatever their motive, it tells us that there will be times that God’s truth offends others.  If we do offend – let’s be sure it’s the Word of God doing the offending, and not our personalities.  After all, we want men to hear the Gospel and be saved.

There’s an old word you hardly ever hear anymore – winsome.  It means generally pleasing and engaging often because of a childlike charm and innocence.  We could put it in one of those word-plays people seem to love so much when retweeting, by saying, “Be winsome in order to win some to Christ.”

Mat 15:13    But He answered and said, “Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.

Jesus had previously told a parable about an enemy sowing tares among the wheat.  He interpreted it as nonbelievers growing alongside believers who would at His Second Coming be separated only to be cast into Hell.

The scribes and Pharisees Jesus was dealing with were tares among the wheat.  Not all of them; we remember Nicodemus, for example.  But certainly this delegation, and most of the rest.

Being part of a powerful majority doesn’t make you right.  Being right according to God’s Word is what makes you right.

Mat 15:14    Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.”

The scribes and Pharisees considered themselves spiritual guides to the spiritually blind.  It was a description they used.  But they themselves were spiritually blind and their leadership could only result in a path to the pit.

Jesus said, “let them alone.”  What terrifying words to come from the lips of the One Who loved the world of men so much that He came to die for their sins.

It meant God was leaving them alone, at least for a time, to reap the consequences of their unbelief and disobedience.  Sometimes it is God’s judgment to leave a person to experience the consequences of their own refusal to believe.

Mat 15:15    Then Peter answered and said to Him, “Explain this parable to us.”

By Jesus’ answer we understand the parable to be the comments regarding what goes into, versus what comes out of, the “mouth” of a man.

Mat 15:16    So Jesus said, “Are you also still without understanding?

Not really what you want to hear from Jesus.  They ought to have been a little more perceptive by now, or so Jesus thought.

It’s a good question to ask ourselves.  What is it I still am without understanding about with regards to my walk with The Lord?  If I can identify it, I can do something about it.
It’s nothing to be ashamed of.  All of us are deficient in some aspect of our spiritual lives; all of us are still works in progress.

Mat 15:17    Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated?
Mat 15:18    But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.

The scribes and the Pharisees were all about ritual hand washing making you more spiritual.  No matter how clean a persons hands were – either hygienically or ritually – what they put in their mouth with those hands was going to be digested and eliminated.  Good hygiene will keep you healthier, but it has no effect on you spiritually.

Ritual cannot have any effect on you because the real you is who you are in your heart – in your mind, will and emotions.

The real you is revealed by what comes out of your mouth.

Now obviously you can lie about what is in your heart and fool people.  You can’t always review a persons words and know what they are truly thinking or what they are really like.

This isn’t a teaching on how to speak.  The simple idea Jesus was communicating is that physical rituals like hand washing cannot transform your already defiled heart.

Jesus described the human heart for us:

Mat 15:19    For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.
Mat 15:20    These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”

What you put in does not and cannot defile you.  You are already defiled.

Maybe you haven’t, for example, murdered anyone, or committed adultery.  Well, you have.  If you’ve ever been angry at someone, or ever looked upon someone with lust, Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount, you’ve sinned and are guilty of murder and/or adultery because you’ve done it in your heart.

This is where God’s commandments come in.  They are how we discover we are defiled.  The nonbeliever can read them and thereby understand that he or she has broken them.  He or she will further see that since these are defilements that they were born with, no amount of reformation can help them.

Evangelist and author Ray Comfort has done a nice job of renewing our understanding that we can (should) use God’s Law – especially the Ten Commandments – to show nonbelievers that they are sinners who deserve Hell but can have Heaven instead by trusting in Jesus.

A typical Ray Comfort tract will say,

Do you consider yourself to be a good person?  Most people do. However, most of us differ as to the definition of “good.”  The Bible says that God is good, and the Ten Commandments are His standard of goodness.

Then he states one or all of the Ten Commandments and follows it with something like this:

The Bible says that God will punish all murderers, rapists, thieves, liars, adulterers, etc.  He will even judge our words and thoughts. On Judgment Day, will you be found to be guilty or innocent of breaking His commandments?

The Ten Commandments show a person their defiled heart and their need for the salvation that Jesus alone can provide by believing on Him.

Let me tell you a personal anecdote.  It’s about my boyhood experiences with Roman Catholicism.  I’m not accusing all Catholics of what I’m going to explain; but, for me, it was how the traditions of men masked my defiled heart.

When we were learning about going to confession in our catechism class, I asked if we would be forgiven all of our sins, even if we forgot to confess one or two.

The answer I received was, “Yes.”  When I went to confession, I chose to “forget” certain more terrible sins; but that was OK, because they were covered by the priest’s absolution and by my repetition of Our Father’s and Hail Mary’s.

The whole exercise was, to me, an outward ritual that masked the fact that it was from a defiled heart that my behavior sprung.  I might have gone on thinking the ritual was going to save me in the end and, like billions of other people in all the religions of the world, woke up in Hades to await judgment for my sins.

Jesus is also describing your heart, and my heart, right now, as being defiled.

When I am born again, I receive God the Holy Spirit into my heart; I receive a new nature from God.  I become a new creation.  Old things pass away; all things become new.

But I still have the flesh to contend with and I always will.  If I yield my members to my flesh, I am capable of all the horrors Jesus listed, and many others as well.

I cannot allow any traditions of men – even my own – to mask the sin in my heart.  Sin doesn’t need masking; it needs slaying.  I am to “put to death therefore what is earthly in [me]: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5).

That sentence was written by the apostle Paul to the church in Colossae.  It wasn’t an altar call for nonbelievers.  It was a call to holiness for believers, a warning about the defiled heart.

Because we have died with Christ (Colossians 3:3), we have the spiritual power to slay the earthly, fleshly desires that want to control us.  In another passage Paul called this “reckoning” ourselves to be dead to sin but alive in Christ (Romans 6:11).

Am I fooling myself about sin that I am harboring in my heart – thinking that by going to church, or having devotions, or serving The Lord, it is somehow covered?

It isn’t.  Sin is always dealt with the same way – but putting it to death, not by keeping it barely alive and feeding it every now and then.  I can’t manage sin; I must murder it.

I don’t want to leave us there, wallowing in our defiled hearts.  Jesus didn’t leave us there.  He left Heaven, became a man, to take our place as our Substitute and die on the Cross for our sins.

His sacrifice and subsequent resurrection provide the power so I can say “Yes” to God and “No” to sin.  I am indwelt by the Spirit of God.  I can yield my members – my body – to God and not to the flesh.

My defiled human heart need not defile me as I walk in the Spirit and deny the flesh.

Traditions, by themselves, are not evil.  We all have family traditions, and it’s OK to have church traditions.

Traditions go bad when they mask the defilements of the heart; when they tell us we are spiritual for doing something, even though what we are doing cannot possibly transform our hearts.

God’s Word always trumps traditions.

GhostTrusters (Matthew 14v22-36)

I think I met Tim Burton.

It was over ten years ago.  Geno and I were in a Peet’s Coffee Shop in Tarzana.  We were talking about a Tim Burton movie that was not yet released when one of the other patrons said something to us like, “I’ve just seen the pre-releases for the film, and they look great.”

Meanwhile the barista greeted him by saying, “Good morning, Tim.”

I’m pretty slow.  Dense would be a better descriptor.  It wasn’t until it was too late that I realized it was Tim Burton.

Ever since then, I’m always on the look out for famous people.  They can be harder to recognize than you might think.

In our verses, the disciples don’t immediately recognize Jesus.  When He comes to them walking on water in a storm, they first mistake Him for a phantom.  Only after He speaks to them do they recognize Him.

He gets in the boat.  Then, for the first time, they recognize something more about Him.  They “worship” Him, saying, “truly, You are the Son of God.”

These are Jewish boys who have the first five books of the Bible memorized.  They know you are to worship only God.  To bow down and worship anything or anyone else is blasphemy,

They were therefore having their first glimmer of the fact that Jesus was God and man – fully God and fully man in a union we cannot totally comprehend.

What can we learn for ourselves as we recognize the God-man?  I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 You Have The God-Man Interceding For You, and #2 You Are God’s Men (and Women) Interacting For Him.

#1    You Have The God-Man
    Interceding For You
    (v22-33)

How could Jesus be omnipotent yet weak?  How could He leave the world and yet be present everywhere?  How could He learn things and yet be omniscient?

He can because He has two distinct nature that retain their own properties yet remain united in one person.  He is fully God and fully human simultaneously.

Wayne Grudem, in his systematic theology, writes,

When we are talking about Jesus’ human nature, we can say that He ascended to Heaven and is no longer in the world.  But with respect to His divine nature, we can say that Jesus is everywhere present: “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20); “I am with you always to the close of the age (Matthew 28:20).  So we can say that both things are true about the person of Christ – He has returned to Heaven, and He is also present with us.

When Jesus was on the earth in His first coming, though He remained fully God with all the attributes of deity, He voluntarily divested Himself of the independent exercise of His divine attributes.  He chose to live as a man in complete submission and obedience to the will of God the Father in the power of God the Holy Spirit.

You see this, for example, in His temptation in the wilderness by Satan.  He could easily have turned stones into bread, but He divested Himself of the independent exercise of His divine attributes and acted as fully human, in complete submission and obedience to the will of God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The twelve were on a kind of working retreat to learn how to proceed in the Lord’s absence in between His two comings.  Recognizing that Jesus was God was the next lesson for His disciples.

Among the things they will learn in these verses about Jesus as the God-man is that He intercedes for His disciples in Heaven, and He is with them always while they are on the earth.

Mat 14:22    Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away.

The previous verses describe the feeding of the five thousand – which was really more like a crowd of twenty thousand when you include women and children.  In the Gospel of John we learn that the people were ready to make Jesus their king.  It wasn’t for the right reasons, so Jesus “sent them away.”

The disciples were reluctant to leave as well.  Jesus had to make them “get into the boat.”

The people weren’t repentant, and the disciples weren’t ready.  The Father’s plan was for Jesus to pour Himself out into these guys and then fill them with the Holy Spirit after Jesus ascended into Heaven.

Success – or what the world would label success – can be a distraction from spiritual things.  We judge by outward appearance, by physical criteria like numbers, when God would have us concentrate on inward growth and spiritual criteria.

Mat 14:23    And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there.

Have you ever hosted a big event and, when the last guest finally left, you just crashed?  The Lord’s version of “crashing” was to ascend a mountain to be alone with God the Father.

What is important to our story is to see that Jesus ascended, as it were, and was interceding the entire time His disciples were on their journey.  Meanwhile His disciples were in a boat together on their way to minister to folks on the other shore.

It sounds like the situation we find ourselves in everyday Jesus is gone awaiting His Second Coming.  Jesus is ascended, not to a mountain but to Heaven, where He intercedes for you. Meanwhile you are sent out to minister to folks.

If that is the picture God is drawing for us, we learn from it that it’s not going to be smooth sailing on the earth.

Mat 14:24    But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

Three and one-half miles out, the disciples were making no progress whatsoever.  On land we’d say that they were spinning their wheels; but, in this case, they were using paddles to get nowhere.  Skimming their paddles??

They’d been in a spot like this once before, in chapter eight; but in that storm, Jesus had been with them on the boat.  Now He was conspicuously absent.

Everything in this section is preparing them for Jesus’ absence between His two comings.

What good was it to them that He had ascended the mountain to pray?  How could Jesus help them?  They were about to find out.

Mat 14:25    Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea.

The “fourth watch,” as time was reckoned, was from 3:00am to 6:00am.  They had been on the boat all night and were exhausted.  It was the darkest hours before the dawn; it was the last possible moment.

This in between time in which we live, waiting for The Lord to return; it’s gonna be quite stormy.  The Lord’s Second Coming is at the end of the seven year Great Tribulation.  The final days of the Great Tribulation will be so bad that people on the earth will think humanity cannot possibly survive.  It’s going to get darker and darker before the Son of Righteousness returns to save His people.

Leading up to the Great Tribulation, in the church age in which we live between the resurrection of Jesus and His return in the clouds to resurrect and rapture His church, there are going to be afflictions and sufferings and persecutions.  Christians have been, and will continue to be, martyred.

But because Jesus is the God-man, we’re not alone in the boat.  Not ever.

He’d been praying, and I don’t think it’s going too far to say He had been praying for them in their situation in the storm.
No matter your situation, the Father sees it, and the Son is interceding for you in it.  Hebrews 7:25 tells us He ever lives to intercede for us.

“Jesus went to them.”  In their case, He physically went to them.  That isn’t true of us; but it isn’t really necessary for us, either.  We have something – Someone – that these disciples had not yet fully received.  We have God the Holy Spirit residing in us.

Plus – because He is God as well as man, Jesus is omnipresent, even if He is physically in Heaven.  I don’t understand it, but it’s true.

For just a moment, let’s think of Jesus having divested Himself of the independent exercise of His divine attributes.  Praying for His guys, the Father finally, in the last watch, releases Him to help them.  But He tells Jesus to get to them… on foot.

The Father could have allowed Jesus to calm the storm with a word.  He could have raptured Jesus over to the boat.  But in this instance He wanted His Son to go on foot.

In perfect human obedience, divested of the independent use of His deity, The Lord descended the mountain and walked into the Sea of Galilee, walking on the waves and through the wind for three and one-half miles.  He did it to please His Father, but also because He loved His disciples.

Jesus walking on the water, in the storm, shows the lengths He’s willing to go to help us.  It’s a very human show of love – something we can relate to.

Mat 14:26    And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.

I can’t fault them.  I would have screamed like a little girl.

Their help came, but not in a way they could have ever imagined.

The important thing to note is that nothing can separate us from The Lord.  He’s never absent; we may perceive it that way, but it isn’t true.  If it’s the last watch, darkest before the dawn, when we are physically and spiritually exhausted and all hope seems lost… He’s praying for us, to strengthen us for the trial.

I need to be honest.  We can’t always say that The Lord will calm the storm in the nick of time.  Some ships sink.  Paul the apostle, for example, was in more than one shipwreck.  The Lord preserved him through them, it’s true; but Paul was eventually martyred.

Let’s face it: There are lifelong trials.  You may have a chronic condition, for example, that you must live with.  Using Paul again as our example, he had what he called “a thorn in his flesh” that The Lord chose to not deliver him from.

Jesus may not “come” walking on the water, to end the storm, but He is no less with us – praying for us, to strengthen us.

If the storm takes us, we’re better off, are we not?  To be absent from our bodies is to be present with The Lord.

Mat 14:27    But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”

They heard His voice and it calmed their fears.  The Lord still speaks, does He not?

There is His Word, alive and powerful.

There is the still, small voice of the Spirit.

There are still metaphors and similes, visions and dreams, by which are fearful hearts can instantly be quieted.

If you are struggling today, you need such a word from your Lord.

Mat 14:28    And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”

What???

I honestly don’t know what to make of Peter’s request.  Commentators are split as to whether it was a shining moment of faith, or another of Peter’s presumptions that would turn out badly for him.  (Which it did).

Mat 14:29    So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.

Mind you the wind and the waves had not subsided.  I give Peter props, but I don’t think the lesson for that morning was, “get out of the boat and go to Jesus.”  In the Gospel of John we learn that it was the Lord’s intent to board and immediately get them to their destination.  As soon as He got on the boat they were there – covering the last three and one-half miles supernaturally.

Peter’s request reads like an interruption to me.  Feel free to disagree; it can’t really be decided one way or the other.

Mat 14:30    But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”

Whether he was supposed to get out of the boat or not, there is a lesson for us that every Bible study on this passage points out.  If you’re going to walk by faith, keep your eyes on Jesus and not on your circumstances.

Mat 14:31    And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

I would have let Peter flounder for a while.  Teach him a lesson, as it were.  Jesus helped him “immediately.”

If someone is calling on The Lord, repentant and humble, let’s help them as quickly as possible.

Peter received a gentle correction from Jesus.  I’ve noted over the years that Christians are overly sensitive to even mild corrections, let alone rebukes.  At least the ones that come from other well meaning, caring believers that see them going in a wrong direction – that are afraid they will sink because they are no longer walking with their eyes securely on The Lord.

Toughen up!  Be willing to hear a correction. Then analyze it to see if it is accurate.  It just might save you from drowning.

Let me throw this out too.  When was the last time you received a gentle correction from The Lord?  It stands to reason that, since we are all spiritual works in progress, correction would be a regular experience.

I think we can get overly sensitive to The Lord correcting us, and slough it off without doing anything about it.

Mat 14:32    And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

If I’m one of the other eleven guys, I’m thinking the storm would have ceased a little quicker if Peter hadn’t wanted to get a personal lesson from Jesus.

There is a sense, and it is pointed out by most commentators, that the boat represents the church during Jesus’ absence in between His two comings.  We are all “in the same boat” and should therefore maintain a unity of purpose rather than promote ourselves.

Mat 14:33    Then those who were in the boat came and worshiped Him, saying, “Truly You are the Son of God.”

Exactly how much they understood about what it meant to be “the Son of God,” we don’t know.

The remarkable thing, as I already mentioned, is the fact that all of them, without any hesitation, “worshipped Him.”  They knew Jesus was a man; now they knew He was God.

Jesus was absent interceding for them, but He was present among them, too.  Nothing could separate them from His love. Their time – our time – on the earth in between His two comings will be rough sailing.  It will be exhausting.  It will seem darker and darker.

All the while His prayers and His presence sustain us because He is the God-man Who loves us.

#2    You Are God’s Men (and Women)
    Interacting For Him
    (v34-36)

The arrival at the opposite shore, and subsequent healing ministry, seems like a quick footnote.  I think it’s a continuation of the lesson The Lord was teaching His disciples.

They had been together journeying and had learned a valuable lesson about who Jesus was.  Out of the boat, they learn a valuable lesson about what Jesus does.

If the boat represents the church, the idea is that the Lord’s prayers for and presence in the church prepares us to go out to minister to others who have great spiritual needs.

In the New Testament Book of Ephesians we are told that, in the church, we become equipped to do the work of the ministry.  Most of that “ministry” is stuff that takes place out in the world.

Let’s see The Lord among the people and get inspired about our own interactions out in the world.

Mat 14:34    When they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret.
Mat 14:35    And when the men of that place recognized Him, they sent out into all that surrounding region, brought to Him all who were sick,
Mat 14:36    and begged Him that they might only touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched it were made perfectly well.

Do you think it would be going too far to say that Jesus was walking in the midst of another sea – a sea of humanity?
We use that expression, and so does the Bible (e.g., in Revelation 17:15) to describe the human race.

I think the fact that, in this case, it was by touching the hem of His garment that they were healed draws our eyes to Jesus feet and to His walking among them.

Once before He had healed when a woman reached out and touched the hem of His garment.  He had been walking through a crowd, with folks pressing against Him; e had been walking through the sea of humanity.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see wave after wave of sick individuals coming to The Lord, touching the hem of His garment, and immediately being healed.

What’s up with the hem?

Num 15:38    “Speak to the children of Israel: Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners.”

Blue seems to be associated with Heaven.  The color blue on the hem of the garments of the Jews was to be a reminder to them that they were a unique people, a heavenly people.   As they dressed each morning and as they saw one another throughout the day, they were to remember they were pilgrims on this earth, headed for a heavenly city whose “Builder and Maker is God.”

Jesus is going to explain to His disciples that He would be leaving for Heaven, but that they would remain to do the work of ministering to people.  This episode pictures that for them.

He was on the earth, robed, as it were, with humanity so that as the God-man He could minister salvation to the lost.  We don’t wear robes with blue tassels, but we are robed – spiritually speaking.

One of the illustrations we are given throughout the Bible to help us understand our relationship with Jesus has to do with clothing.  We are depicted as standing before The Lord in filthy, vile robes. When we are saved, He exchanges our filthy robes for His robe of righteousness.

In His absence, therefore, we are robed with His righteousness as His representatives in order to minister the Gospel.  It’s as if people can still ‘touch’ The Lord because we are among them, sharing the Gospel.

Dance Mom (Matthew 14v1-21)

I’m guessing the answer is “No,” but did you ever wonder why William Shatner was suddenly dropped as spokesperson for priceline.com?

A 2012 article explaining why was titled, Priceline Kills the Messenger Because Ads Worked Too Well.

The problem was that Shatner was too closely identified with his character, The Negotiator, and Priceline was moving to focus on its fixed-price discount instead of the name-your-own-price business.

They killed-off his character in an ad that had him saving folks out of the back of a teetering bus that he was unable to exit from in time before the vehicle made a fiery and spectacular crash into a ravine.

“Don’t kill the messenger” is a phrase you hear from time-to-time when somebody is called upon to deliver bad news.

It’s not usually associated with delivering good news; but it ought to be.  Historically more bearers of good news have been killed than bearers of bad news.

Obviously the Good News I’m talking about is the greatest news of all, the Gospel by which men are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  Multiplied millions have been, are being, and will yet be martyred for being its messengers.

Among the most notable messengers was John the Baptist, forerunner of Jesus Christ.  For telling the truth that accompanied the Gospel, he was imprisoned, then beheaded.

It forms the backdrop for our study of the first twenty-one verses of Matthew fourteen.  I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 There Is Always A Sinister Plan To Silence You As God’s Messenger, and #2 There Is Always A Spiritual Plan To Utilize You As God’s Messenger.

#1    There Is Always A Sinister Plan
    To Silence You As God’s Messenger
    (v1-11)

Our focus comes out of verse thirteen where it says, “when Jesus heard it, He departed from there.”  What He heard is in verses one through eleven.  It caused Him to withdraw, with His disciples, and give them an object lesson – which we see in verses twelve through twenty-one.

Mat 14:1    At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the report about Jesus

“Herod” was a family name, and that is why we can be easily confused about which Herod is meant.

“Herod the Great” was the Herod who slew the children after the birth of Jesus.
“Herod Antipas” was a younger son of Herod the Great.  He was not really a king, but merely a tetrarch – the ruler over a portion of the kingdom.  He is the Herod in our verses who had John the Baptist killed.
“Herod Agrippa” is the Herod who slew James and imprisoned Peter.  He was a grandson of Herod the Great.
Finally, “Herod Agrippa II” was the Herod before whom the apostle Paul was tried.  He was a great-grandson of Herod the Great.

Warren Wiersbe writes, “All the Herods had Edomite blood in their veins and hated the Jews.  They were treacherous rulers who in the Bible typify the ‘god of this age.’  Like Satan, all of them were liars and murderers.”

Keep that comparison to Satan in mind; it will come into play when we make our application of these verses to our own lives. We’ll see that nonbelievers act as Herods in our lives to try to silence us.

Mat 14:2    and said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him.”
Mat 14:3    For Herod had laid hold of John and bound him, and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife.
Mat 14:4    Because John had said to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.”
Mat 14:5    And although he wanted to put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet.

Herod had been married to the daughter of Aretas, King of Nabataea in Arabia.  During a visit to Rome, Herod fell for Herodias, who was the wife of his brother Philip.  Herodias was a granddaughter of Herod the Great, so Philip, her husband, was also her uncle.  Herodias had a daughter named Salome.  Herod Antipas was a half-uncle of Herodias.

In spite of all these entanglements, Herod Antipas ran off with Herodias.  Herod’s wife then returned to her father, King Aretas, and he waged war against Herod – one he would lose.

Adultery… Incest… Divorce.  John boldly spoke out against their sexual sins.  Earlier I said it was truth that accompanies the Gospel.  God’s messengers are called upon to deliver the whole message, not just the parts they enjoy or happen to agree with.

Did Herod really think John had risen from the dead?  Probably not.  If you don’t believe the truth, any lie will do.

By imprisoning him, Herod temporarily silenced John, at least from speaking in public.  It’s as far as he could go politically since the people recognized John as a prophet.

But Herodias had other plans.

Mat 14:6    But when Herod’s birthday was celebrated, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod.

This would be Salome, Herod’s step-daughter, who commentators suggest was in her late teens.  At that time, at these type of banquets, the women would be off by themselves, leaving the men to drink.  When it says that “she danced before them,” you can be certain that it had the atmosphere of a strip club.

As a princess, this was unheard of; it just wasn’t done.  Yet in this case, her own mom put her up to it for her own selfish ends.  Not exactly mother-of-the-year material.

It may be less sordid, but today when a dad or a mom follows their lust and commits sexual sin, they are thinking of their own satisfaction rather than the welfare of their children.

Mat 14:7    Therefore he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask.
Mat 14:8    So she, having been prompted by her mother, said, “Give me John the Baptist’s head here on a platter.”
Mat 14:9    And the king was sorry; nevertheless, because of the oaths and because of those who sat with him, he commanded it to be given to her.
Mat 14:10    So he sent and had John beheaded in prison.
Mat 14:11    And his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother.

You may have heard someone say, jokingly, “Nemo didn’t have a mom.”  It’s a reference to the fact that many parents choose to skip the opening scene in the Pixar film “Finding Nemo,” in which Nemo’s mom is killed by a barracuda while defending her eggs.  It’s a nod to parents trying to shelter their kids from disturbing images.

Herodias would have been OK with the barracuda.  If it wasn’t bad enough that she had Salome dance, she had her ask for a man to be executed, and then carried his head on a platter back to her mom.

By the way, in case you were wondering, the Jewish historian, Josephus, reports that Herodias and Herod Antipas were eventually in exiled by the Roman government.  Salome decided to join Herod and Herodias in exile rather than be alone.  The emperor had sent them to Spain and as she was passing over a frozen river, the ice broke and she sank in up to her neck and died.

Not wanting to lose face, Herod was OK with John losing his head.

Who’d of thought adultery would lead to murder?  I know who.  As the Church Lady used to say, “Satan.”

Sin breeds sin; sin permeates your whole way of thinking, darkening your judgment.  We ought to therefore pursue holiness in even the smallest things so that one bad thing doesn’t lead to another.

Herod and Herodias provide a good example of people being taken captive by the devil to do his will.  They surrendered to the passions of their flesh and, next thing you know, they were doing things even they once would not have done – like prostituting your own daughter or murdering a man you knew was innocent and telling the truth.

What this tells us is that there is always a sinister plan to silence you as God’s messenger.  When Satan is in power over a government, the plan is to imprison you or kill you, as we’ve seen throughout history and see happening today.

Our situation is less brutal but no less sinister.  Nonbelievers are still taken captive by the devil to do his will and, if he can’t imprison or kill you, he will persecute you.

While he is mounting direct assaults, the devil is also working to undermine you in more subtle ways.  You have to believe he is always strategizing to destroy things like your reputation, your marriage, your family, and your testimony.

It sounds serious, and it is.  What can be done?

It’s simple, really – so simple that we often neglect it.  Keep yourself in the love of God by spending time with The Lord, by walking in obedience, by fellowshipping with His saints, by serving others for His sake.  The simple, everyday Christian life will be all the defense you need.

Don’t get me wrong – you will be assaulted.  But when the storm comes, you’ll withstand it because you’ve been building on the Rock that is Christ.

Let me therefore say this one more time: Right now there are sinister, savage plans against you, to rob, kill and destroy your life.  Some of those plans have yet to be put into motion, but they will be.  Don’t help out the devil by neglecting your spiritual life.

#2    There Is Always A Spiritual Plan
    To Utilize You As God’s Messenger
    (v12-21)

Satan isn’t the only one with a plan.  God has a plan for you, too, and we see that in the feeding of the five thousand.

Mat 14:12    Then his disciples came and took away the body and buried it, and went and told Jesus

I’m not sure what John’s disciples were doing for the several months while he was in prison.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t easy.  It reminds us that serving The Lord can be rather demanding.

I wonder if Satan throws tantrums when things like this happen?  He had John killed and, instead of hindering John’s disciples, they
risked their own lives to give him a proper burial; and then they went and joined-up with Jesus.

In other words, the devil’s worst brought out their best.  Not to forget, too, that John was in Paradise, hanging-out with Abraham, David and the rest of the Old Testament saints.

Mat 14:13    When Jesus heard it, He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities.

Jesus “departed.”  It was a strategic move; not one born out of fear.  Having been rejected by the religious elite, Jesus had been explaining to His disciples what was going to occur between His first coming and His Second Coming.  He had been preparing them for His absence – for when they would carry-on His work on the earth as messengers of the Gospel.

His withdrawal was an object lesson.  Or, I should say, it provided the opportunity for His lesson, seeing that “multitudes followed Him.”

Mat 14:14    And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.

If there were such a thing as Jesus Goggles, when you put them on, this is what you’d see.  The mass of humanity, “sick” with the dreadful, deadly disease of sin, on the verge of physical death that will mean, for them, eternal suffering in Hell separated from God, Who loves them, Who is not willing that any should perish, but all come to eternal life.

Do we “see” them?  The test for whether or not we see them is whether or not we are “moved with compassion for them.”  And the evidence we are moved with compassion for them is that we do something to help them.

Let’s take a situation we see everyday – the homeless.  It seems there are at least two extremes:

Thinking “they” are all con artists who could be working if they really wanted rather than mooching off of “us.”

Or, throwing money and resources at them without any accountability in order to ease our guilty consciences.

With Jesus Goggles, we see real human beings who need Jesus Christ – even if they are being less than honest.  And we act to assist them in ways consistent with treating them with dignity but also expecting accountability.

Here comes the object lesson.  Bear in mind Jesus withdrew on purpose to prep His disciples for their work in between His two comings.

Mat 14:15    When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.”
Mat 14:16    But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
Mat 14:17    And they said to Him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.”
Mat 14:18    He said, “Bring them here to Me.”
Mat 14:19    Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes.
Mat 14:20    So they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained.
Mat 14:21    Now those who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

It was a crowd of maybe twenty thousand people.  Their needs were overwhelming; no way they could be met with the physical resources available to the disciples.  Practicality, logic – call it what you will – said, “send [them] away.”

Ah, but where is the compassion in that?  There isn’t any.  Get compassion is lesson one.

The disciples went to Jesus, but with their own plan, which was born out of a lack of compassion and which discounted the supernatural.

One of the biggest problems in the life of a church is the lack of reliance on The Lord to do above and beyond what we ask or think.  It is having begun in the Spirit only to end up relying on our own ideas and resources.  It is to concentrate on the physical rather than the spiritual – the natural rather than the supernatural.

Having said that, please notice what The Lord immediately said: “You give them something to eat.”  The disciples thought their resources insufficient when, in fact, they had all they needed to accomplish the task.

They only had to give The Lord the five loaves and two fishes, and He would multiply it.  It’s not a matter of stretching your resources by being more frugal.  It’s that God acts in ways that are beyond your asking or thinking.

In their case, they had to give everything that was available to them.  We are rarely called upon by God to literally give everything.  But we are called upon to give, and to do so regularly and sacrificially.

I’ve quoted stats before that show the majority of Christians give nothing or almost nothing to the work of the Gospel.  If we sow sparingly, we’re going to reap sparingly.

The Lord took what He was given and “looking up to Heaven, He blessed and broke” and gave it to the disciples.  He gave them loaves and fishes sufficient for the need.

This doesn’t mean you won’t ever have to go grocery shopping; or that God will always provide physical resources in abundance.  It means that you are to discover, by looking to Heaven, what is God’s plan to minister to the people He puts before you.

“The disciples gave to the multitudes.”  Do the math.  If there were twenty thousand people, each of the twelve disciples would be responsible for distributing food to over sixteen hundred people.  That’s a lot of work!

In all this talk about Heaven’s plan and provision don’t forget that being a messenger is hard work – even exhausting work.

“So they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained.”  Twelve disciples; twelve baskets.  If this was for the disciples, it teaches us that God doesn’t neglect His servants – although you should expect to be the last one to be served.

This section ends with the final count – five thousand men, plus women and children, giving us the number we’ve been using, twenty thousand.

There are a bunch more lessons in this episode, but we don’t want to miss the forrest for the trees.  Jesus had told a series of parables describing the ministry of His disciples during His absence in between His two comings.  They were to go throughout the world sharing the Gospel as His messengers.

We are His messengers who live between His two comings.

Messengers of the Gospel can expect nonbelievers to try to silence them.  The devil is loose, taking captive nonbelievers to do His will.  He is a liar, a thief, and a murderer, so you can expect subtle, sinister, but savage, plans are being formed against you.

God has plans for you, too.  You discover them when you look upon the world the way Jesus always does – with compassion.

Compassion isn’t real unless it manifests itself in acts of compassion as you give of your resources, regularly and sacrificially, to minister to others.  When you do, God multiplies your ministry as He sees fit.

Thistle While You Work (Matthew 13v24-58)

Top employers are known for providing an outstanding workplace environment for their workers.

If you work for Google there are on-site doctors and medical services to keep employees healthy.  You’re served free lunch and dinner.  Massages, yoga, and car washes are also part of the package.  Oh, and there’s a bowling alley on-site.

Facebook employees get free transportation, dry cleaning, a company gym, and meals.  In addition, there’s a candy shop on-site, a vending machine filled with free computer accessories (in case you forget any at home), and free bike repair.

At SC Johnson & Son, the makers of such brands as Glade, Pledge, and Windex, there’s an on-site employee concierge to handle all of life’s chores.  Concierges send packages and flowers, pick up groceries, shop around for the best deals on car insurance, take your car in for service including oil changes, and even stand in line for concert tickets.

Wherever you work to earn your daily living, all of us Christian are additionally tasked with what the New Testament calls “the work of the ministry” (Ephesians 4:12).  We are equipped in the church to go out into the world to do the work of the ministry.

What kind of workplace environment is the world?  While your particular conditions may vary, overall you can expect an adverse workplace environment.

I say that because of our text in chapter thirteen of Matthew.  Jesus has just explained to His disciples that in-between His first and second comings, their work was to spread the Gospel.  He expressed it as a parable, the Parable of the Sower, in which they were the sowers and the seed was the Word of God.  He promised them incredible returns of thirty-fold, sixty-fold, and even one hundred-fold.

Their workplace environment, however, would be adverse.  The devil was also going to be at work in the field, seeking to hinder the progress of the Gospel.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 The Kingdom Will Prevail Despite Your Adverse Work Environment, and #2 The King Prevailed Despite His Adverse Work Environment.

#1    The Kingdom Will Prevail
    Despite Your Adverse Work Environment
    (v24-52)

Chapters twelve through fifteen of the Gospel of Matthew are a hinge upon which history turns.  The nation of Israel rejected Jesus as their King and, with Him, they rejected the establishing of the kingdom on the earth.  Jesus would return to Heaven to await His Second Coming when all Israel would be saved, receive Him as King, and enjoy the kingdom on the earth.

The question that naturally arises is, “What is going to happen in-between these two comings?”  The answer is the mystery revealed through the seven parables of chapter thirteen.  The Gospel will be seed spread by sowers into the soil of men’s hearts until the final harvest at the Second Coming of Jesus.

But, as I already said, disciples are not the only sowers, and we should expect opposition and, therefore, adversity.

Mat 13:24    Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field;
Mat 13:25    but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.
Mat 13:26    But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.
Mat 13:27    So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’
Mat 13:28    He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’
Mat 13:29    But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.
Mat 13:30    Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ‘ ”

Rather than spend time commenting on the details of the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, let’s get right to Jesus’ commentary, beginning in verse thirty-six.

Mat 13:36    Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.”
Mat 13:37    He answered and said to them: “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.
Mat 13:38    The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one.
Mat 13:39    The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels.
Mat 13:40    Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.
Mat 13:41    The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness,
Mat 13:42    and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Mat 13:43    Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

We are not the only sowers at work.  An enemy sows the seeds of weeds among the wheat.  The enemy is Satan himself, who vigorously opposes the Word and the work of God.  The weeds that Satan sows are called “the sons of the evil one.”

Just as through the course of the age Christ will work through those who are “the sons of the kingdom,” so Satan will work through those who belong to him and become his instruments to oppose the Word of God.

Earlier in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus said He was able to “bind the strong man,” referring to Satan.  Had the Jews received their King and His kingdom, the devil would have been bound.  In fact in the Book of the Revelation, one of the very first things Jesus does upon His Second Coming is have Satan bound with chains and thrown into the abyss for a thousand years.

In-between the two comings of Christ, Satan is unbound.  He goes about the earth like a roaring lion, seeking to devour.  He is a liar, a thief, and a murderer.  And he’s not alone.  Fully one-third of the created angels followed him in his rebellion and are now organized like a military force to wreak havoc upon the earth.

A person doesn’t have to be demon possessed to be a son of the evil one.  In fact being possessed would make them easier to spot.  The Bible says nonbelievers are taken captive by Satan to do his will.  He is able to influence them to oppose what is good and godly and to thereby sow weeds.

I’d say having sons of the evil one, who we cannot always distinguish from believers, makes for an adverse workplace.  At the very least we must be constantly on our guard, being led by the Holy Spirit, so as to not be deceived by those who may even profess to be Christians but remain dead in their sins and are tools of the enemy of the Gospel.

I should mention that the parable is not teaching that we should tolerate sin among the people of God.  There are clear directives in the New Testament that tell us to pursue holiness; and when and how to discipline sinning believers.

OK, so this sowing mission is not going to be as easy as we might have been led to believe by the promise it would succeed.  The other parables emphasize the same idea.

Mat 13:31    Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field,
Mat 13:32    which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”

You might hear criticism that the mustard seed isn’t really “the least of all seeds.”  Well, it was the least of all the seeds farmers worked with in the first century in Israel.  And, if that’s not a satisfactory answer, I’m told the word for “least” doesn’t have to mean “smallest” but can mean “smaller.”

Jesus had just told the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares which put His disciples on notice they would face serious opposition.  Nevertheless the kingdom of Heaven, which is the rule of God in men’s hearts spread by the Gospel, will grow and cannot be stopped.

Like a mustard plant, it will grow from meager beginnings into something unexpectedly great.

We have the advantage of history and can see some of what Jesus meant:

Eleven men met in the upper room with Christ on the eve of His crucifixion.
One hundred and twenty gathered to pray between His ascension and the descent of the Spirit on Pentecost.
In Acts 2 it increased to three thousand.
In Acts 4:4 the number was about five thousand.
At the close of the Book of Acts it could be recorded that the whole world had heard the Gospel.

With the incredible growth, however, comes opposition and adversity, represented by “the birds of the air” who come and “nest in its branches.”

While it is possible to interpret the birds as something good, it seems unlikely that is what Jesus intended.  I say that because, in the Parable of the Sower, birds were evil – the agents of Satan used to snatch away the Gospel.  Thus it’s unlikely they would be something good just a few verses later.

The seed’s growth attracts the presence of evil – depicted as birds – to dilute the church while taking advantage of its benefits.
The work we have been given, the work of the ministry, will succeed; but our workplace will be infiltrated by evil.

Mat 13:33    Another parable He spoke to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.”

While it’s possible to interpret the leaven as something good, it again seems unlikely that this was what Jesus intended.  In other passages, Jesus Himself used leaven to represent the false teaching of the Pharisees, and the unbelief of the Sadducees.

The Parable of the Leaven, then, continues with the theme of these parables, namely that efforts will be made by our enemy to contaminate its growth and health from within.

You might summarize these last two parables by saying that the devil attends church.  He gathers with us in order to divert our resources and to try to corrupt us from within.

Mat 13:34    All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without a parable He did not speak to them,
Mat 13:35    that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: “I WILL OPEN MY MOUTH IN PARABLES; I WILL UTTER THINGS KEPT SECRET FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.”

The Scripture Jesus referred to was Psalm 78:2.  We saw in our last study that parables were a kind of secret language meant to reveal truth to believers while concealing it from Jesus’ enemies.

Jesus wasn’t trying to keep anyone from getting saved.  He was talking to the people who had heard His preaching and who had witnessed His miracles, signs, and wonders, but who hardened their hearts to reject Him.  To them no further revelation would be given than what was already sufficient to have saved them.

Drop down to verse forty-four:

Mat 13:44    “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

In the Old Testament, Israel is called God’s treasure:

Psa 135:4    For the LORD has chosen Jacob for Himself, Israel for His special treasure.

Exo 19:5    Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.

It’s not hard to see Israel as God’s hidden treasure in-between Christ’s comings.  Could it not be said that by scattering the Jews all over the world that God “hid” them for Himself?  For many centuries it looked like Jews would be exterminated.  Certainly very few people held out any hope they would be preserved and be a nation again in their ancient land.

But that is exactly what happened.

Mat 13:45    “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls,
Mat 13:46    who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

If the treasure is Israel, the pearl represents the church.  Commentators point out that, just as a pearl is something beautiful formed from an irritation in the oyster’s flesh, so the church is formed from the wounds in Jesus’ flesh as He died on the Cross.

While building His church, composed of Gentiles and Jews, The Lord is also preserving Israel as His chosen nation and will return to fulfill all of a His promises to them.

The Parable of the Dragnet depicts His Second Coming in the light of the devil’s activities to ruin things.

Mat 13:47    “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind,
Mat 13:48    which, when it was full, they drew to shore; and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away.
Mat 13:49    So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just,
Mat 13:50    and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

We’ve already said that an angel binds Satan and casts him into the abyss.  Now we see that angels will separate believers from nonbelievers.

Believers who are alive on the earth at the time of the Lord’s return will enter into the thousand year kingdom as its citizens.
No unsaved person will enter the Lord’s millennial kingdom.
The destiny of the wicked ultimately will be “the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Jesus meant the wicked would be cast into “the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14-15).  The wicked, however, will not immediately be consigned to the lake of fire; initially they will go into Hades, evidently by experiencing physical death.

The wicked will be detained in Hades until they are resurrected for judgment before the Great White Throne (Revelation 20:11–15), after which they will be consigned to the lake of fire for eternity.

Mat 13:51    Jesus said to them, “Have you understood all these things?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.”

I think it’s cute that when asked if they understood, they said, “Yes.”  Even after Jesus rose from the dead, they were still unsure of these things – they were still asking The Lord if He was about to establish the kingdom even though He had been preparing them for its delay.

I’m not suggesting they were lying.  They understood what The Lord was saying on some level.  It would make greater and greater sense to them as time progressed; and especially as they were filled with the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.

We are similar to the disciples in that we could say we understand all these things, while simultaneously we know that there are multitudes of things we have yet to discover about The Lord.

Mat 13:52    Then He said to them, “Therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.”

Jesus considers His disciples to be trained “scribes.”  It means we are to be teachers and interpreters of the Gospel.  We draw from what was old – the Jewish Scriptures we call the Old Testament – as well as the new revelations that accompanied the new age in between the two comings of Christ that we call the New Testament.

You don’t have to be a scholar, or to have letters after your name that indicate further formal education.  Teach what you know about Jesus and be growing in that knowledge.

The current form of the kingdom, while Jesus is in Heaven, will prevail.  The Word that is sown will produce thirty-fold, sixty-fold, a hundred-fold.  It will grow – it has grown – from a meager beginning to include people throughout history from every nation, tribe, people and tongue.  When The Lord returns He will find faith on the earth and saints will be welcomed in to the kingdom on the earth.

Along the way we must expect the activity of Satan opposing us at every turn.  Our work will succeed, but our workplace can be filled with adversity as our enemy sows alongside us, sits next to us, and seeks to undermine the work.

No one said it was going to be easy.  It wasn’t easy for Jesus, either.

#2    The King Prevailed
    Despite His Adverse Work Environment
    (v53-58)

The chapter ends sort of abruptly with the story of Jesus’ last visit to His hometown of Nazareth.  I see a little of what could be called pathos in it – meaning, it causes me to feel sympathy or sadness for The Lord.

Fully God, He was fully man, and His time in Nazareth was adverse to His work.  Nevertheless He prevailed and completed His mission.

Mat 13:53    Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these parables, that He departed from there.
Mat 13:54    When He had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, “Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works?
Mat 13:55    Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas?Mat 13:56    And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?”

The Winter Olympics are happening.  As always there are a lot of human interest stories as you get to know individual athletes.

Erin Hamlin took home the bronze for the United States in women’s luge singles.  She became the first American to medal in the luge as a single.

I was reading an article about her.  It said,

It happens all the time to Ron and Eileen Hamlin.  They go shopping someplace around their home, pull out a credit card and get asked the same question as soon as somebody sees their name.

“Do you know Erin Hamlin?”

Those questions won’t go away anytime soon.  Not now.  Not after what the pride of Remsen – a little town with no stop lights and where everybody knows everybody else – did Tuesday night.

It’s inspiring.  Small town pride in one of their own excelling on a big world stage.

Why wasn’t Jesus ‘the pride of Nazareth?’  His fellow citizens had watched Him grow-up and lead a perfect life.  They knew firsthand His humility as they traded with Him in the carpenter shop.

After leaving Nazareth He had performed miracle after miracle, sign after sign.  He defeated demons by the legion.  He taught with authority as no one before Him ever had.

Upon His return you’d think there’d be a banner… A parade… The key to the city.

Mat 13:57    So they were offended at Him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house.”
Mat 13:58    Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

Maybe Jesus’ thirty years of ordinary was too much for them to overcome.

I mean, if you’re an olympic athlete, you’ve been training all your life.  Your friends and neighbors recognize your talent and hope you can represent them in the Olympics or as a pro athlete in some league.

Jesus never did anything that indicated He was the Messiah.  What He did was necessary – learning obedience, living a perfect, sinless, quiet life.  But to suddenly burst on the scene as the Savior of the world.  Well, it was too much for the people of Nazareth to digest.

Not forgetting for a moment that Jesus was fully God, as fully man, this was hard.  I know guys in the ministry who have thrown in the towel for things way, way less than what Jesus endured at the hands of family and friends.

“Thank you, Lord, that you prevailed – that You went to the Cross, died for our sins, rose from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and are coming again.”

The Sew Must Go On (Matthew 13v1-23)

Have you experienced that moment when spelling things out-loud to each other no longer keeps your kids or grandkids from understanding what you’re saying?  It can be awkward.

My folks kept me uninformed by speaking broken-Italian to one another on those occasions when there were secrets to be kept.

Jesus had a language – He had a form of spelling things out – that was meant to reveal truth to His disciples while concealing it from His enemies.  The language I’m referring to was parables.

When we think of parables, we think in terms of the dictionary definition, which is, “a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson.”  Illustrations usually help reveal meaning; but that’s not so in the case of parables.

Jesus will make it clear that He used parables to speak to His disciples in a way that His enemies could not understand.

Why would He do that?  His enemies had rejected Him as their King and they had rejected the kingdom that He would have established had they received Him.  He would be returning to Heaven to await a Second Coming to earth when He would be received as King and when He would establish the kingdom.

In-between these two comings of Jesus Christ, something previously unknown to mankind was going to occur.  Jesus will call it His “church” in chapter sixteen.

The church, and the church age in between the two comings of Jesus, was a mystery that Jesus needed to reveal to His disciples but that He wanted to conceal from a His enemies.

He spelled-it-out, as it were, in parables that only believers could understand.  There are seven parables in this chapter and, while I wish we could look at how they all connect, today we will look only at the first and most famous, the Parable of the Sower.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 The Age In Which You Live Was A Mystery Jesus Concealed From His Enemies Through Parables, and #2 The Age In Which You Live Was A Mystery Jesus Revealed To His Disciples Through Parables.

#1    The Age In Which You Live Was A Mystery
    Jesus Concealed From His Enemies Through Parables
    (v10-15)

In verses one, two, and three you read,

Mat 13:1    On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea.
Mat 13:2    And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.
Mat 13:3    Then He spoke many things to them in parables…

Then, in verse ten you read,

Mat 13:10    And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”

Speaking in parables was something brand new, something Jesus had not done previously.  It was a whole new way of communicating that the disciples didn’t see coming.  It was so unusual that their first question wasn’t “What does the parable mean, but rather, “Why do You speak to them in parables.”

Mat 13:11    He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

A word about the word “mysteries.”  In the Bible, a “mystery” is something that was previously unknown and unknowable that was being revealed.  In Colossians 1:26, for example, Paul speaks of, “the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.”

Something was getting ready to happen that was previously unknown and unknowable.

God’s activities on the earth while Jesus is in Heaven awaiting His Second Coming are the mysteries of the kingdom revealed in these seven parables.

His disciples would understand the parables, but His enemies – those who had rejected Him – would not.  Jesus would spell it out for the saved.

Let’s start with His enemies, in verses ten through fifteen.

Mat 13:10    And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”
Mat 13:11    He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.
Mat 13:12    For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.
Mat 13:13    Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
Mat 13:14    And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘HEARING YOU WILL HEAR AND SHALL NOT UNDERSTAND, AND SEEING YOU WILL SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE;
Mat 13:15    FOR THE HEARTS OF THIS PEOPLE HAVE GROWN DULL. THEIR EARS ARE HARD OF HEARING, AND THEIR EYES THEY HAVE CLOSED, LEST THEY SHOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, LEST THEY SHOULD UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEARTS AND TURN, SO THAT I SHOULD HEAL THEM.’

Jesus quoted from the sixth chapter of Isaiah.  It related a time in Israel’s past when the Jews had refused to receive God’s Word.  Jesus said it was also a prophecy that was being fulfilled in His day as the Jews were rejecting Him.

This is not a general teaching about certain people being unable to hear the Gospel and see Jesus.  It is a specific prophecy about the people of Jesus’ day who saw His miracles and heard His teachings but made a personal choice to reject Him.  They hardened their hearts to the Word, and to the works, of God.

They had rejected the light, so they would be given no more light, but rather would be left in the dark.  Even what they had would be taken away – meaning in part that their King would ascend into Heaven.

The disciples were looking forward to the kingdom on earth. They argued over who would be greatest in it.  As late as His ascension into Heaven, the disciples were still asking if it was going to be established.

Jesus turned His attention to preparing His disciples for the delay of the literal kingdom on earth.  He didn’t stop ministering to others, but His focus was on the disciples who would carry-on the work of spreading the Gospel.

One thing to realize is that the time of the parables ended relatively quickly.  It only lasted from this point until Jesus was crucified.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t read them or that we don’t learn from them.  They are a rich vein of spiritual knowledge.

I’m saying that Jesus Christ’s disciples are not to keep anything secret.  I’m saying that we are in the church age described by these seven parables and ought to be about the business of evangelizing.  The Gospel – all of it – is to be preached and explained in the clearest terms possible.

For example on the Day of Pentecost, when Peter preached the first sermon of the church age in which we are still living, did he use parables?  Did he try to conceal the truth?

Of course not.  He preached Christ, and Him crucified for our sins, and risen from the dead on the third day.

In that huge Pentecost crowd there were certainly Jews who had been enemies of Jesus, who had been spoken to in parables they could not understand.  But the time of the parable concealing truth had passed and the Gospel was going out to all of them, to whosoever would believe, with clarity and with the power of God the Holy Spirit.

The rest of chapter thirteen gives us an overview of the church age.

#2    The Age In Which You Live Was A Mystery
    Jesus Revealed To His Followers Through Parables
    (v1-9 & 16-23)

The seven parables in this chapter describe the church age from start to finish.  They go beyond the church, through the Great Tribulation, right up to the Second Coming.

This mystery age starts with, and continues by, the preaching of the Gospel, represented by the Parable of the Sower.

The rest of the parables explain other aspects of the age, e.g., the Parable of the Dragnet in verses forty-seven through fifty, which describe the separation of the righteous and the wicked at the very end of the age.

The Parable of the Sower is crucial because it describes the activity that starts the age and that will characterize it right up to its end.

Mat 13:1    On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea.
Mat 13:2    And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.
Mat 13:3    Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow.
Mat 13:4    And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them.
Mat 13:5    Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth.
Mat 13:6    But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.
Mat 13:7    And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them.
Mat 13:8    But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
Mat 13:9    He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Let’s get right to Jesus’ own comments about the parable.  He tells us what is important to notice about it.

Mat 13:16    But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear;

As much as His enemies could not decipher the language of parables, the disciples were meant to understand them.

Mat 13:17    for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

The “prophets” and the “righteous” of the Old Testament all spoke of the time that their Savior would come.  They looked forward to it, down the corridors of history.  But they could only see it by faith.

As privileged as they were, the first century followers of Jesus were more privileged.  They could see Jesus, hear Him, feel Him, fellowship with Him, in ways no previous saint could have truly experienced.

But He would be leaving them, returning to Heaven for a time.  With Jesus in Heaven, the kingdom of Heaven is not now a visible, earthly organization existing in a specific place.  The kingdom of Heaven is the rule of God in the hearts of believers through the power of His Word and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

The disciples would be commissioned to go into the whole world preaching the Gospel.  Their mission could not ultimately fail, but they would meet with varying degrees of success, as would others after them, until the coming of Jesus.

Jesus compared their activities to a sower sewing seed.

Mat 13:18    “Therefore hear the parable of the sower:
Mat 13:19    When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside.
Mat 13:20    But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy;
Mat 13:21    yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.
Mat 13:22    Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.
Mat 13:23    But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

The first sower was Jesus, then His immediate disciples, followed by all the disciples made after them – whosoever believes in Him.  You and I are sowers.

The seed is the Word of God.  The soil represents the hearts of men.

Just like a seed, the Word of God has life within it.  It simply needs to be broadcast in order to accomplish its purpose.

Scholars point out that parables can be a little tricky to navigate.  Every detail in a parable doesn’t necessarily represent something.  We need therefore to be careful to not go beyond the teaching of the parable.

If you want to know where to start figuring out more about this parable, I’d suggest it’s with the word “hear.”  It’s repeated nineteen times in this chapter.  That level of repetition is significant.

We can think in terms of the four soils as four different people who “hear”; or as one person who “hears” the Word at different times in his or her life.

Let me demonstrate how it can be true of one person.  We all know people who maybe seemed completely hard to the Gospel, as if the devil snatched it away, but who later came to Christ.  No one person, it seems, is limited to one type of heart throughout their lifetime.

For the sake of our discussion let’s think about four different people.  The first thing to notice is that all of them are said to “hear the Word” in a way that makes them responsible for what happens next.

In this I see the grace of God at work upon each and every human heart to make it possible to believe in Jesus Christ and be saved.

God must take the initiative of bringing people to salvation by calling all people everywhere to repent and believe the Gospel (Acts 17:30).  He must enable those who hear the Gospel to respond to it positively in faith.  Unaided by grace, man cannot choose to please God or to believe the promise of salvation held out in the Gospel.  As Jesus said in John 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”

But thanks be to God, Jesus also promised, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).  The Father and the Son draw all people to Jesus, enabling them to come to Jesus in faith.

The Holy Spirit has come to “convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8).  Even though nonbelievers “are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart” (Ephesians 4:18), the Lord opens people’s hearts to respond positively to the Gospel message (Acts 16:14) and his kindness leads those with hard hearts toward repentance (Romans 2:4-5).

In His sovereignty, He has even positioned people for the very purpose “that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27 NASB).

God thus frees our will to either believe or to not believe.  As I said earlier, we “hear” the Word in a way that makes us responsible for what happens next.

Why do some people respond to the Gospel and get saved while others do not?  In the end, the answer to that question cannot be given.  It is a mystery in our normal use of the word – something we cannot determine.

Jesus does give us some insight as to why a person upon whom God’s grace is working to free their will resists and does not respond by faith.  It has to do with things that affect and influence the human heart.

Obviously a lot has been written and said about these various soils, but I think a simple key is to notice that they represent three adversaries, three influences, which we will immediately recognize when we see them together.

In the first case, the devil snatches away the Word.

In the next, the problem is what we would call the flesh.  The person is unwilling to sacrifice or suffer in the flesh for the sake of Jesus.

Physical ease is preferred to spiritual growth.

In the third case, the problem is the world.

The world, the flesh, and the devil.  One is an outer enemy, the other an inner foe, the third a relentless adversary. They are the result of Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden.

We always think of these three as our spiritual foes after we are saved, and that is true.  But they are the enemies of nonbelievers, too, which influence the freed will against receiving Jesus Christ.

For example we have in the Bible the story of the rich young ruler.  He wanted to follow Jesus, but when The Lord told Him to sell all he had, the things of the world exerted too great an influence upon him and he chose to resist the grace of God.  He’s an example of God freeing the will but of the world interfering.

Maybe that helps explain why, sometimes at least, it’s after a person has lost everything that they respond favorably to the grace of God.  The world can no longer exert its influence upon them.

There are anecdotal stories, not biblically verifiable, about the rich young ruler being Mark (who wrote the Gospel of Mark) or even Barnabas (prominent in the Book of Acts).  Those are probably not true, but what could be true is that at a later time the rich young ruler heard the Gospel again and did receive The Lord.

Then there is the case of the Hebrew Christians written to in the Book of Hebrews.  Because of severe persecution, they were stumbling and falling back into Judaism.  They are an example of God freeing the will but of the flesh interfering.

As for an example of the devil snatching away the Word, we could cite the crowds that followed Jesus.  When The Lord started talking about a deeper commitment to discipleship, most of the crowd quit following Him because they were shallow.

Jesus was preparing His disciples for the age between His comings.  They would preach the Gospel like farmers broadcasting seed.  There was life inherent in the seed, but still many hearers would resist it.

Nonetheless a sower ought to not become discouraged. It is the job of the sower to broadcast seed – not to create results.

And while there would be many throughout the church age who would resist the Gospel, it would also produce an amazing harvest.

Mat 13:23    But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

I read that farmers in the first century would be ecstatic to get a ten fold return on their seed.  This is a promise of incredible blessing.

The Parable of the Sower doesn’t teach that only 25% of people will be saved.  It commands us to broadcast the Word of God so people everywhere will “hear” it and, by God’s grace, be freed to respond to it – in one of these four ways.

If we look at ourselves before we were saved, we can see times we heard the Gospel and let the devil snatch it away.  Or times we caved-in to the flesh.  Or times when we desired the things of the world more than the things of God.

Since we are saved, we also recall that time when we said “Yes” to God’s drawing us to Christ, repented of our sins, and were born-again into the family of God.

As believers, we still battle the world, the flesh, and the devil.  But we battle them from a place of victory and with the empowering of God the Holy Spirit living within us.

Signing Off (Matthew 12v38-50)

I’m sure you are aware of the sign-language snafu at Nelson Mandela’s funeral.  But did you follow the story to its conclusion to hear the reason the interpreter gave that he was signing gibberish?

Following the event, he said that he had “a history of violent schizophrenic episodes and may have hallucinated that angels were flying into the stadium.”

Our text today in the Gospel of Matthew involves a problem with signs.  In this case, the signs were perfectly clear, but the crowd was acting like they did not understand them.

The Jewish Scriptures indicated that when their Messiah came, the miracles He performed would be signs to them by which they would recognize Him.  He would do things like heal lepers; exorcise demons; give hearing to the deaf and sight to the blind; and raise the dead.

Jesus had done all that and more.  Nevertheless the religious leaders had the audacity to say to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”

Asking for a further sign when Jesus had given them so many was evidence of their settled unbelief.

Their insincere request was a game changer.  Jesus told them He would give them a sign – but when you understand what it was, you see it would be too late for them to stop the national consequences of their unbelief.

Their unbelief would put on hold God’s program of establishing the kingdom of Heaven on earth that had been promised to the physical descendants of Abraham.  Meanwhile Jesus would build a new, spiritual family by calling-out to whosoever would believe – Gentiles as well as Jews.

We will see how all this unfolded as we finish-up chapter twelve.  As we do, we’ll see ourselves in relation to the sign Jesus spoke of – His resurrection from the dead on the third day.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 The Third Day Is All The Sign You Need, and #2 Everyday, Jesus Is All The Savior You Need.

#1    The Third Day Is All The Sign You Need
    (v38-45)

Our text is a significant turning point, not just for Israel as a nation, but for the whole world.  It sets the stage for the age in which we live, the church age – the time between the first and the second comings of Jesus.

Mat 12:38    Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”

Comedian Seth Meyers, announced as the new host of TV’s Late Night, developed a recurring skit in which he mentions something outrageous from the news and then says, “Really?”

This verse would make for a great “Really?” segment.  Pharisees – after Jesus healed lepers, cast out legions of demons, made the deaf hear and the blind see – you wanted to see a sign.  Really???

Mat 12:39    But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

If there was any doubt about their sincerity in asking to see a sign, Jesus dispels it by labeling them “evil and adulterous.”

To emphasize how tragic unfaithfulness to God was, it was compared to adultery.  It was spiritual adultery.
Since it was against God and His pure love, it was particularly bad, so it was further labeled “evil.”

Notice, in passing, Jesus referred to Jonah and the incident with him being swallowed by a great fish as a true story.  It resolves once-and-for-all any questions about whether it really happened.

What was “the sign of the prophet Jonah?”

Mat 12:40    For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

In the next verse Jesus describes the results of Jonah emerging from the “great fish.”  The “sign” of Jonah was his resuscitation after three days and three nights which enabled him to complete his mission.

Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the great fish, then resuscitated, so Jesus would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, then resurrected.

Jesus knew He was going to the Cross.  He knew He was born to die as the Substitute for every human being.  By His death and resurrection He would save us from our sins.

A quick word about “three days and three nights.”  Although a Wednesday crucifixion has been suggested by some scholars, we believe Jesus was crucified on Friday, then raised on Sunday.  He was in the tomb for a portion of three days; it is most accurate to say He rose “on the third day.”

The Jews reckoned a portion of a day as a day.  It shouldn’t surprise us; we do it, too.  If you make a hotel reservation for three days and two nights, you don’t really spend a full seventy-two hours in the room.  You’re there a portion of three days.

For the Jews, the description “three days and three nights” could be as short a period as twenty-six hours, or as long as seventy-two hours.

Mat 12:41    The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.

The full impact of this statement can be lost on us since we are not Jews.  You’ll recall that Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh because he didn’t want God to save them.  Jewish attitudes towards Gentiles had not changed all that much by the first century.  For Jesus to indicate that the Gospel was going to go outside of Israel, to Gentiles who would be saved, was an incredible statement.

To further predict that the “men of Nineveh” were saved while the Jews hearing Jesus were lost and would be condemned, and that the Ninevites would be among those sitting in judgment over them, was heavy.

Jesus was “greater” than Jonah in every way.  The thing I want to concentrate on is His greater compassion.  Jonah was forced by God to complete his mission of taking the Gospel to people he hated.  Jesus, moved with compassion, willingly left Heaven and came to earth, then died voluntarily to save people who were the enemies of God.

Mat 12:42    The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.

The “queen of the south” is the Queen of Sheba, who travelled about a thousand miles to visit King Solomon just to hear his wisdom.

Solomon was a son of David, but Jesus was the greater Son of David, the Messiah.  The Jews would not come to Him even though He travelled so much farther than a thousand miles to share the ultimate wisdom of God’s plan to save sinners.

Once again a Gentile received the Gospel, through Solomon, while the Jews rejected it in Jesus Christ.  These examples are setting us up for the coming chapters in Matthew in which we will see the shift in God’s program on the earth between the two comings of Jesus.

Jesus followed with an illustration:

Mat 12:43    “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none.
Mat 12:44    Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.
Mat 12:45    Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.”

There may be insights here into the psychology and activity of demons – but that is not the point of the illustration.  Demons may feel uncomfortable in “dry places” and be unable to “rest” wandering through them; but that doesn’t mean we’d all be better off in Arizona.

Jesus was illustrating the state of Israel as a nation.  Earlier in this same chapter He claimed to be able to “bind the strong man” and “plunder his goods” and take over his “house.”  The strong man was Satan, and by extension all his nefarious, dry-place hating demons.

Jesus had, in effect, cleaned house in Israel.  The nation was empty of demons in the sense that Jesus defeated them.  The house was ready to be occupied by The Lord, their Messiah.  He was ready to establish His reign of righteousness on the earth with Jerusalem as His headquarters.

But the leaders of the nation would reject Jesus.  He wasn’t welcome in His own house.  They would hand Him over to Rome to be crucified.

He would rise from the dead, but instead of setting up the kingdom, He would ascend into Heaven to await His Second Coming.

The word for “empty,” describing the house in the story, can be translated “unoccupied.”  When the nation of Israel said “No” to Jesus, it left the house He would have established unoccupied.

It was a limited time offer, this offer to establish the kingdom.  That’s why you read at the end of the Book of Acts,

Act 28:28    “Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!”

In other passages we are told that Israel’s kingdom will be delayed until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in.

In the void left after the nation refused their King and His kingdom, the devil remains unbound and, in one sense, he continues to occupy the house, and even be a worse occupant than ever.

Fewer than forty years after Jesus ascended into Heaven, in 70AD, Titus and the Roman legions sacked and burned Jerusalem and the Temple.  The Jews were scattered all over the earth, and persecuted, for the next almost two thousand years before miraculously returning to their land.

The whole world became a much worse place than ever as Satan, who could have been bound, instead continues to roam about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

The Pharisees asked for a sign.  Jesus would give them a sign.  His death, burial, and resurrection was the sign.  It would, however, be too late to avoid the national consequences that would come upon Israel for having rejected their Messiah in the face of overwhelming testimony and evidence, the signs, of Who He was.

Pause for a moment to realize something precious.  Everyone after Jesus rose from the dead is able to ‘see’ that great sign.  It is the physical, historic evidence and proof that Jesus is Who He says He is and that He finished what He was sent to do.

I think it was Christian recording artist Don Francisco who had a song that proclaimed, He’s alive!  He’s alive!  He’s alive and I’m forgiven; Heavens gates are opened wide.

Nonbelievers have their objections to the Gospel; they have their questions.  But, end of the day, we have the ultimate proof.
The third day is all the sign you need to know Jesus is the God-man, the Savior of all men – especially those who believe.

#2    Everyday, Jesus Is All The Savior You Need
    (v46-50)

Chapter twelve closes with an incident in which Jesus might be seen to be disrespecting His mother and brothers.

He wasn’t.  He simply took advantage of their arrival to finish His thoughts about this new age that was beginning in which the kingdom on earth was being delayed.  It wouldn’t be so much about the physical descendants of Abraham by birth as it would be about the spiritual descendants of Abraham – both Jews and Gentiles – who experience the new birth.

Mat 12:46    While He was still talking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him.
Mat 12:47    Then one said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.”

Another Gospel (I believe it’s Mark) tells us that Jesus’ earthly family thought He was over-stressed.  It’s been suggested that the Pharisees sent for them and exaggerated the situation.

If you were saved later in life, and have family members who are nonbelievers, it’s not uncommon for them to think you’ve gone too far into this Jesus-thing; that you are a Jesus freak.

I don’t want to get distracted from the main message, but let me say a word about Jesus’ mother and brothers.  There is a false teaching that Mary remained a virgin after Jesus was born; it’s called the perpetual virginity of Mary.

There’s a companion teaching – just as false – that Mary was herself conceived immaculately in her mother’s womb.

If that’s the case, who were these “brothers?”  Two possibilities have been suggested by those who worship Mary:

The first is that they were sons of Joseph from a previous marriage.  That cannot be true, or Jesus would not be the rightful, legal heir to the throne of David.  Joseph’s firstborn son must be the rightful, legal heir.  If there were previous sons, it would disqualify Jesus.

The second possibility is that the word for “brothers” simply means “relatives,” and that these guys could be cousins.  Possible, but very unlikely.  While the word can refer to other relatives, its normal and literal meaning is a physical brother. There was a Greek word for “cousin,” and it was not used. Further, if they were Jesus’ cousins, why would they so often be described as being with Mary, Jesus’ mother?  There is nothing in the context of His mother and brothers coming to see Him that even hints that they were anyone other than His literal, blood-related, half-brothers.

The simple, obvious explanation is that after Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary had other children.  She was not immaculately conceived and she did not remain a virgin.

More important to notice is that Mary had no special access to Jesus.  In the words that follow we will see that Jesus didn’t drop what He was doing to listen to her.  If you’re trying to approach Jesus through Mary, she won’t be any help.

Mat 12:48    But He answered and said to the one who told Him, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?”
Mat 12:49    And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers!

This was not disrespectful; not at all.  It was powerful – a powerful illustration of a shift in God’s dealings with Israel, with Gentiles, and with the Gospel.

Jesus came to His own – to the Jews.  They rejected Him.  The kingdom would have to wait.  In the mean time, the Gospel would go out beyond Israel to the whole world.  Jesus would establish a spiritual family based on faith in Him that knows no racial or ethnic distinctions.  It will be distinct from Israel.  He will call it, in chapter sixteen, the church.

Mat 12:50    For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”

This doesn’t mean you earn or maintain a spot in the spiritual family by working hard to do God’s will.  You enter the family by believing in Jesus:

Joh 6:29    Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

Once you are a believer, once you’ve been born-again, born from above, born spiritually, you are enabled by God the Holy Spirit to “do God’s will.”

In context, this is the perfect close to the events of this chapter.  It ties it all up.  Rejected by the nation, Jesus would return to Heaven, to await His Second Coming; and in the mean time, the Gospel would go out to “whosoever will believe,” and “whoever” does believe will be indwelt by God the Holy Spirit to be enabled to do the will of God.

If you are a Jew by physical descent from Abraham, everyday Jesus is all the Savior you need.  You shouldn’t be looking for your Messiah anywhere else because He’s already come and is coming again.  You get saved just like we Gentiles get saved – by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, receiving the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Tragically, Israel will continue to reject Jesus into the Great Tribulation.  They will welcome and receive, instead, a political and military leader who will turn out to be the antichrist and their nemesis.

In the end the Bible says “all Israel will be saved.”  A remnant will survive and they will look upon Jesus and receive Him as their Messiah as He returns to the earth.

In the mean time… in-between time… We ain’t got fun!  By that I mean to highlight once again that we live in a war zone – a spiritual war zone.  The strong man is not bound, nor are his demon followers.  The unoccupied house that is our world has a squatter living in it and ruling over it.

In this conflict we are described as “more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”  Let me read the entire Bible passage in which our status as conquerors is highlighted:

Rom 8:35    Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Rom 8:36    As it is written: “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE KILLED ALL DAY LONG; WE ARE ACCOUNTED AS SHEEP FOR THE SLAUGHTER.”
Rom 8:37    Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
Rom 8:38    For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
Rom 8:39    nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

These things can and do all occur and yet they cannot in any way alter Jesus Christʼs love for you.  You may not ʻfeelʼ the love, but it is always just as present, just as powerful, as ever.

Absolute confidence in His great love is how you conquer.

Charles Spurgeon spoke of the confidence great men and women of God had in God’s love in ages past:

They did not speak of Christ’s love as though it were a myth to be respected, a tradition to be reverenced; they viewed it as a blessed reality, and they cast their whole confidence upon it, being persuaded that it would bear them up as upon eagles’ wings, and carry them all their days; resting assured that it would be to them a foundation of rock, against which the waves might beat, and the winds blow, but their soul’s habitation would stand securely if founded upon it.

Everyday, with Jesus, you are more than conquerors.  So much more.

For one thing, you have His sweet fellowship 24/7.
For another thing, He has prepared good works for you to discover as you follow Him.
For another thing, He has given you the promised Holy Spirit to indwell you, to give you the enabling to obey God and deny the flesh.
For another thing, Jesus has promised you that He will complete in you the work He has begun.
For another thing, He is preparing for you a glorious entrance into Heaven, where He’s been building you a custom mansion.

The United States Army has had several slogans over the years.  You probably remember Army of One, and the current slogan, Army Strong.

From 1980 until 2001 their slogan was Be All that You Can Be.

A good slogan for us, as the Lord’s army, would be More than Conquerors.  Look any of the troubles and afflictions listed in that passage in the face and say, “I am more than a conqueror through Jesus Who loves me.”