Sermon Supplements – Page 41

Old Testament Ears (Matthew 24:15-35)

Eschatologically I am an amillennialist and partial preterist. Is that clear enough? My point exactly. To understand, you have to know the language behind the language. Have you ever had a foreign exchange student give you a puzzled look when you say that something is cool? They know what cool means, but they don’t know what cool means. They don’t know the language behind the language.

This is why I feel many go awry when looking at Biblical prophecy. They read backwards from the 21st century instead of forwards from the 1st century. They listen with Left Behind ears more than Old Testament ears. Apocalyptic literature is drenched and dripping with imagery and metaphors from the ocean of the Old Testament. I’m afraid that we are reading the New Testament with the wrong code key.

Jasper Fforde has written a series of books about a British literary detective set in a futuristic 1980’s time period. Someone has made a means to enter your favorite books. A villain now posses this technology and is capturing beloved characters. If the character is captured from a first edition, he disappears from all subsequent editions. The books are fun, anyone can understand them, but they are much more enjoyable if you have read the books mentioned.

I don’t so much want to labor to convince you of my eschatological position (eschatology is the study of last things), as of my hermeneutic (hermeneutics is the science/art of interpreting texts) that brought me to that position. The first rule of hermeneutics is that Scripture interprets Scripture. This means that the best way to read your Bible, is to read your Bible—again, and again, and again, and again. When you do this, you are much more likely to hear phrases like, “the abomination of desolation (cf. Daniel 11:31),” and “the sun will be darkened (cf. Isaiah 13:9-10),” and “coming on the clouds, (Daniel 7:13-14),” the way the Bible intends you to. Superior to any longing for you to agree with my position, is that it be said of both of us what C.H. Spurgeon said of John Bunyan:

Oh, that you and I might get into the very heart of the Word of God, and get that Word into ourselves! As I have seen the silkworm eat into the leaf, and consume it, so ought we to do with the Word of the Lord—not crawl over its surface, but eat right into it till we have taken it into our inmost parts. It is idle merely to let the eye glance over the words, or to recollect the poetical expressions, or the historic facts; but it is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until, at last, you come to talk in Scriptural language, and your very style is fashioned upon Scripture models, and, what is better still, your spirit is flavored with the words of the Lord.

I would quote John Bunyan as an instance of what I mean. Read anything of his, and you will see that it is almost like the reading the Bible itself. He had read it till his very soul was saturated with Scripture; and, though his writings are charmingly full of poetry, yet he cannot give us his Pilgrim’s Progress—that sweetest of all prose poems — without continually making us feel and say, ‘Why, this man is a living Bible!’ Prick him anywhere—his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is full of the Word of God. I commend his example to you, beloved.

Are We there Yet? (Matthew 24:3-14)

When examining Matthew 24 too many want to get to the answer before they know the question. We do this because we want our question answered. We look for the answer we want now knowing the question they asked.

An underage child asks to take the car for a spin. You answer no, but their sibling assumes a no to their brother means a yes to them. One asks the wrong question because everything must be about them, the other hears the wrong answer because everything must be about them. I think the disciples are the first brother; they asked the wrong question. They assume that the destruction of the temple must mark the end. We are the second brother. We hear the wrong answer because everything must be about us. But if we really listen to Jesus’ answer it will set us all straight because everything is about Him.

Some self-proclaimed prophecy pundits will tell you that you need to have your Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other when studying prophecy. I say that this is an arrogant and foolish notion. Andrew Perriman gives far better advice.

We will try to read forwards from the first century rather than backwards from the twenty-first century. One of the reasons why the apocalyptic language of the New Testament can be so puzzling to the modern interpreter is that we cannot help but read it retrospectively and with the advantage, which more often than not turns out to be the disadvantage, of hindsight. It is rather like words written on a glass door. Once we have gone through the door, the text is reversed and becomes difficult to decipher. To make sense of it, we must at least imagine how it must have appeared from the other side of the door as it would have been viewed by those for whom it was written.

When you do this I believe you will see that what is being spoken of in vv. 4-14 happens before the destruction of the temple in AD 70. If you stumble on v. 14 look at Romans 16:26-27 and Colossians 1:6 and give it another read. When we read the text such that it is not all about us, it is then that it becomes most helpful for us. In humbling us, we are helped.

When we read the text rightly I believe there are two major lessons the Spirit intends for us to learn. 1. Keep calm. The end is not yet. Do not be alarmed. These things must take place. Jesus is in control. 2. Carry on. The same Jesus who says that these bad things must happen, says that the good gospel will be proclaimed to the ends of the earth. Jesus is still in control, and the proclamation on the gospel is still his plan. Keep calm, and carry on.

I don’t care what your position is regarding the when of Matthew 24:4-14, if the result is a fearful, hopeless, laziness, you’re doing it wrong. Likewise, I don’t so much what you position is, if the result is a confident, hopeful, work-fulness, you’re getting it mostly right. You’re getting it right in the biggest ways.

To the kids in the back seat asking wrongly and listing wrongly, whining, “Are we there yet?” Jesus says, “I’m driving, stop fretting, we will get there when we get there. Keep calm and carry on.”

Superglue not Necessary Unless (Matthew 23:37-24:2)

This text is like superglue (if needed). But it isn’t like the covert superglue project of a son glueing two things together that shouldn’t be, say a forehead and a flashlight. No, this is the mature parental glueing together of something the clumsy child has broken.

It doesn’t take superglue to hold the end of chapter 23 with the beginning of chapter 24. It just takes clumsy foolishness to break them apart. Jesus’ lament is snuggled nicely in the midst of judgment speak; it’s cozily at home. Curse and lament, “woe,” and “o,” tenderness and wrath, these two do go together.

How? Theologians have long spoken of two wills (some even mention three) in God using a variety of labels. You may hear them mention God’s secret and revealed will, or His will of command and will of decree. They might speak of his sovereign will and moral will, or his efficient and permissive will. Still others prefer the terms decretive and preceptive will. That there are so many terms says both that there is something there, and that that something is complex.

Let’s simplify by analogy. Can you have two wills? Have you ever had to go to the dentist? Have you ever wanted ice cream and to exercise? Better, have you ever wanted ice cream and to lose weight? As far as I am concerned, both exercise and ice cream are good desires. The trick is to will them in the right proportion.

Can God have two wills? Look no further than the cross. When sinful men crucified our Lord they were violating the will of God, and yet, they were carrying it out. We mustn’t think of God’s will(s) like our going to the dentist, “I guess I have to. I want to, but I don’t want to.” The ice cream illustration is better. Ice cream is so good, illustrations become superior to other illustrations by the mention of it. A person might desire ice cream, and desire to exercise; and these desires can harmonize perfectly. Perhaps the exercise is so intense, a high number of calories must be consumed.

In God, mercy and wrath meet perfectly. It takes no superglue for these to go together. They meet in this goal, the glory of God. Jesus wills to save and He wills to damn and He does neither with a grimace. “Our God is in the heavens, he does all that he pleases (Psalm 115:3).” The will of God is always done with pleasure, because the Father delights to make much of the Son and the Son of the Father and the Spirit of them both. And this is what everything that God wills in every way is ultimately about. If you make God supremely about you, you will hollow out words like election, and sovereignty to put these two together. If you realize the cross (John 17:1, 4-5), and all creation (Romans 11:33-36) is ultimately about the glory of God, you will see that these harmonize perfectly.

If you can’t bear this, remember this, Jesus deals out nothing that He hasn’t borne. He deals out wrath, for His glory in the damnation of sinners, and He bears that wrath for His glory in the salvation of sinners.

Purifying a Fount by a Fount (Matthew 23:13-36)

Pharisees prioritize outards over innards. They fret more over an external behavioral scab than an internal existential cancer. They have ornate solid silver water bottles without a speck of tarnish on them that they have polished to a mirror shine, yet the inside is a cesspool. They only care to be seen drinking from such a bottle. They are a book wishing to be judged only by the cover.

The point isn’t about their cups and plates, if it were they would only redouble their efforts and scour all the more. The point is that they are the bottle.

The heart is the fount. All of our behavior flows out of it. You can’t purify a fountain by going down stream and laboring endlessly at gathering buckets of water, purifying them, and then dumping them back in the stream. This is what all attempts at moralism, behavioralism, and self-salvation are. If you try to cap off the flow of wickedness in one area of your life be assured pressure will build and the pipe will burst elsewhere, or more likely, in the same already compromised spot, causing greater damage. The hearts gotta flow. If it is pumping life is coming out. If you try to pump good into it, you only increase the pressure and that inflow is still filtered through your poisonous heart and thus contaminated. All self-righteousness is like trying to clean an already dirty house with a vacuum filled to the brim with refuse that has a gaping hole in the bag. All our work only adds to the mess.

And yet, our only hope for our innards is on the outside, but further out that the surface of your skin. Our hope is all the way up in the highest heaven, and yet is in flesh; Heaven enfleshed. Our salvation is achieved by someone behaving perfectly—for us—from a pure heart. There is a purifying Fount. There is a stream, that when it flows into your heart, purifies. The Outside comes in, and purifies from the inside out.

No, Brutus Really Is an Honorable Man! (Matthew 23:1-12)

Does Jesus really mean for His disciples to do “whatever (23:3)” the scribes and Pharisees tell them?

Jesus says they’re hypocrites (23:3), so do whatever they tell you.

Jesus here says their hypocrisy isn’t the variety that teaches good but lives bad; but the kind that teaches bad and lives worse (23:4), and to do whatever they tell you.

Jesus says that they lay heavy burdens on people, but do whatever they tell you (23:4).

Jesus says they do their acts to be seen by others (23:5-7), yet, do whatever they tell you.

Jesus says “but you (23:8),” contrasting His disciples with the scribes and Pharisees, yet they must do whatever the Pharisees tell them.

Jesus says they are blind guides (23:16-17), yet do whatever they tell you.

Jesus, six times tells his disciples, “You have heard that it was said [by the Pharisees], but I say unto you… (Matthew 5:21-48),” contrasting His teaching with theirs; still, they are to do whatever the Pharisees tell them.

Jesus says to beware of their leaven, their teaching (Matthew 16:6, 12), but to do whatever they tell you.

Jesus says the kingdom is being taken from them (Matthew 21:43), but to do whatever they tell you.

Jesus says that the Pharisees (John 5:37-40) don’t have God’s word abiding in them, that they search it, but are really clueless as to what it really is about, yet, they are to do whatever the scribes tell them.

Jesus asks the Pharisees again and again, “Have you not read? (Matthew 12:3; 19:14; 21:16, 42),” still, they are to do whatever the those Pharisees tell them.

Jesus, has just been addressed as “Teacher,” three times by the Pharisees and Sadducees with a smirk, but His credentials were authenticated while theirs were ridiculed (22:15-46); still, do whatever they tell you.

Jesus goes on to pronounce seven severe woes of judgment on them (23:16-37), but do whatever they tell you.

Yeah. Ok. Whatever! and Marc Antony really meant that Brutus is an honorable man.

Monotone Jesus was not, biting irony and sarcasm He knew. Don’t read Jesus as woodenly as the Pharisees read Deuteronomy 6:8 and make your phylacteries broad. Oh how pious you are; not even Jesus can tell a joke in your presence. Just to be clear, that was sarcasm.

No Partial Credit (Matthew 23:41-46)

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. —A.W. Tozer

You can think high thoughts of Jesus and descend into the lowest hell. Jesus asks these Jewish leaders what they think about the Christ. They’re Jews, of course they believe in the Christ, right? Well, they believe in a Christ. A Christ that is a composite of the parts of the Bible that they like, and their own ideas, which is really to say a Christ of their own ideas. What they really believe in is not Christ, but themselves. Technically though, they get the question right, insofar as they answer. The Christ definitely is the son of David; but while He is not less than that He is also infinitely more. You don’t get partial credit on this test, and this is the test. It matters not how else you may succeed in life, if you flub this question you fail life.

Satan is perfectly content for you to believe 99% truth if he can get you to believe a 1% damnable lie. Satan is fine with your squeaky clean morally upright life, as long as he can get you to believe something along the lines of what a Mormon, or a Jehovah’s Witness, or a Pharisee does concerning Jesus. Have you ever considered how orthodox many heretics are except for that one thing? Study church history. Study the heresies that the church most violently fought against. The key battles were concerning the person and nature of Jesus Christ. This isn’t an academic, technical, or scholarly conundrum. This isn’t a boggling question for theologians. Satan knows this. What do you think about the Christ? What you think about Him is revealed by the answer to another question: Whose son is He? We have no reason to flunk this test other than that we are willfully, sinfully, defiantly ignorant. Jesus has given us the answer.

Christ says that he is ‘humble and meek’ and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.

I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. —C.S. Lewis

Get Drunk and Love (Matthew 22:34-40)

When it comes to gods, deep down everyone is a monotheist. There can be only one. Either God is God, or the individual. All of life is love. Love is constantly being expressed. Man cannot not love. Every bit of existence we have is spent loving, worshipping, something. Yet, fallen men cannot love. In loving themselves, they hate love (John 3:19-20). Men hate light because they love darkness, which is another way of saying that they hate love.

By God’s common grace, and because man is made in God’s image, there is a muted echo of love that the unbeliever may hear and that may resound off and through the unbeliever, but it is always second-hand, always an echo and never the original tune. It is always muted, never amplified. It is always a first-grade crush on your married teacher, never marriage consummated and well aged like a vintage wine. It is like saying that you have tasted wine when a drop, a single drop, fell into your full glass of water. The world’s concept of love is diluted. You could never get intoxicated on it.

Jesus extends the cup of the new covenant, the intoxicating, behavior altering wine of His blood, that we might know love and love. If fallen man loves to hate love, how can he ever love love? Let me give you two answers, which are two ways of saying the same thing: covenant and a heart transplant. Listen carefully to the command, “love the Lord your God.” The context for this command is Deuteronomy, redemption, salvation. God, not because of anything Israel has done, calls a people unto Himself. He enters into covenant with them. And His covenant love gives His people a new heart (Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 31:31, 33; Ezekiel 36:26-27). A heart that loves Him, that loves His Son, that loves His law, that loves others, that loves His creation—that loves, really loves.

No Mere Resurrection (Matthew 22:23-33)

We are all born Sadducees denying the Resurrection. Dead men don’t believe in the Life. The Sadducees want to discredit Jesus and they don’t believe in resurrection. They want to make Jesus look foolish for believing in resurrection. They want belief in resurrection to look stupid and thus for Jesus to look stupid. They just don’t realize how synonymous their goals are. “I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).” One way Jesus could have replied to their inquisition was, “I move that we suspend this debate for a few days. Then I will present you with conclusive evidence.”

Just as the previous passage in Matthew wasn’t about taxes, this one is not about mere resurrection. It isn’t about simply learning that there won’t be marriage in heaven or that when God enters into covenant relationship with someone, that covenant is forever, therefore the person God is in covenant must be forever (Matthew 12:32). There is no such thing as mere resurrection unto life. There is the Son’s resurrection, and those who are immersed into it. All resurrection is about Jesus. Scripture is God speaking, to you (Matthew 22:31). Here God is saying, “See my Son? He is never discredited. Resurrection is true. Learn this in My Son.” If you are a slow student, don’t worry. God will repeat Himself loudly when the next week begins on Easter morn. “[Jesus] was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 1:4).

We are born dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:1). We are born dead men who try to discredit the Life. We are Sadducees who try to murder the Life. The dead cannot ultimately murder the Life, but the Life can raise the dead. The Life died that the dead might live. This is because His death was ours and His resurrection is ours. You will be as resurrected as Jesus is, for His resurrection is yours.

Taxing Nails (Matthew 22:15-22)

Thinking that this text is about taxes is like thinking that the point of building a house is driving nails. The government may spend taxes that way (“Hey we bought an outrageous surplus of nails here… hmmm… what to do? Houses!”), but the Holy Spirit does not inspire texts that way. We can learn about taxes from this text. In fact, everything that the New Testament teaches us about relating to government (i.e. Romans 13:1-7) is contained within Jesus’ response, but taxes are not the point. Taxes are the road, not the destination. What is the aim? What was the Pharisees’ aim? They wanted to entangle Jesus in His words. They do want to drive nails—in Jesus’ coffin. They want to discredit Jesus. Their questions are the hammers.

The Holy Spirit, in contrast, wants to glorify Jesus. He has the easy task. He just has to open blind eyes; “Look, there He is!” When the Pharisees test Jesus, it is like a distance jumper saying he will test the vastness of the Grand Canyon by his jumping skills. You have to foolishly think you are some kind of greatness to test Jesus. When man tests Jesus, man always fails. Jesus’ answer is brilliant and wonderful. They ask about giving taxes, He tells them to render. Don’t just give, give back to Ceasar what is his. Pause. Read slowly. Give Ceasar what is his. Do not render Caesar what is not his. The coin used for the poll tax had an image of Tiberius with the inscription, “Tiberius Ceasar, Son of the Divine Augustus.” Divinity is not Caesar’s. He is not due worship. Pay Caesar taxes, not homage.

The Pharisees fail, and yet, Jesus is going to the cross. Nails will be driven into His hands and feet, but He is using them, the rulers of this world, as His hammers. Foolish hammer. He thinks he wields himself. They kill, God raises, Jesus rules. Every time—they look stupid and Jesus looks glorious. We can give Ceasar taxes, because we know the risen King of kings who is Lord over them all. In giving Ceasar his due as an act of obedience to God, we give to God his due as the Sovereign Lord of all.

Jesus does not tax His subjects. He was taxed for them, by God, bearing the wrath they deserve. He payed our debt and rendered our due. True, he demands we die, but so that we might live. We must repent, but in repentance we turn from poison to elixir. We turn from darkness to light. We turn from death to life. Jesus does not tax; His yoke is easy and His burden is light. In Jesus we have been given a ruler none of us deserve; a King who serves, a Ruler who heals, a Conqueror who delivers, a Lord who gives. This frees you to give. Even taxes. Jesus is so great, you can pay taxes to pagan kings as an act of worshipping Him. Render Him His due.

I Want to Eat, Just Not with You (Matthew 22:1-15)

It’s not the idea of a feast we reject; it’s the Host. But the Host is also the fare. When He says, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood,” we lose our appetite. Still, the idea of a feast, we love. Adam had no problem with the garden. He just wanted to be God too. Fallen man would rather be miserable in sin, than joyful in God.

This parable makes you see the folly of sin, and specifically the sin of unbelief in the gospel. To reject the gospel of the kingdom is to reject an eternal royal wedding feast. “How can they reject the feast?” we cry. But we are them. When you know the human condition you are not puzzled that many refuse, nor by the intensity of the refusal. You are flabbergasted that any come at all.

Here is a parable chock-full of human response—some are apathetic, others persecute, one presumes, and the unexpected feast—and Jesus explains it all by saying many are called but few are chosen. Jesus explains human responses by divine election.

Election does not keep people out of the feast who want in, it brings people in to the feast who would never come.