February 17, 2013
Scripture:
Scripture:
Scripture:
A thought came to me from Hebrews 2:9. Earlier we sang, “Look, sinner — look, unto Him and be saved.” Maybe we should have a hymn “Look saint — look, unto Him and be blessed.” We don’t stop looking at Him when we get saved. He is no longer “lifted up”, but exalted — “crowned with glory and honour.” Yes, He did lower himself, but God hath exalted Him. As we are occupied with Him, may our hearts be lifted up.
Hymn 350 - I will make you fishers of men
Prayer
Last time, I told you a story about Mr. Darby. He showed a dying man how the Lord Jesus is a shepherd, seeking His lost sheep. I told that story because Jesus was looking over the people and referred to them as sheep. I think that it is really interesting how the Lord Jesus calls one thing, another to illustrate what it really is.
Matthew 9:37 & 38
The Lord Jesus was talking about the harvest here. A harvest is a crop that is ready to be picked. Labourers are people that help the farmer pick the harvest. When I was younger I spent a summer helping a farmer harvest his crops. We harvested hay, wheat, oats and corn. That summer I was a labourer. The Lord isn’t a farmer, so what was He harvesting? The Lord is harvesting people: people that are ready to receive his salvation.
Matthew 4:18 & 19
Jesus was calling these fishermen to be fishers of men. They were going to go and bring lost people to salvation. Here again the Lord is using an illustration to describe something. Jesus called people sheep because sheep stray and that is what people do. We sometimes do things that we are not supposed to do. Jesus was calling these men to be fishers of men because, when fishing, you attract the fish with bait; we need to attract people to the Lord by the way we act.
Matthew 10:1-3
At the beginning, Jesus was looking for labourers; now He has found twelve men to be his disciples. We see that Jesus used each of these illustrations to show that there are lost people in this world and that it is His desire that they all come to salvation.
Luke 20:34-47
Last week we saw the Sadducees bring an incredible story to the Lord—of a woman who had had seven husbands—with a question about the resurrection; and our Lord showed them how ridiculous their question was. The Sadducees didn’t even believe in the resurrection!
These men looked at the eternal world as if it worked the same way the natural world does. It doesn’t. People who are against the Bible today often think the same thing; but Heaven and Earth are different. They’re run by different laws of life. You aren’t born and don’t die in Heaven. The second law of thermodynamics—everything tends toward decay—doesn’t apply in Heaven. You don’t marry, have children, or need to sleep there. It’s a different world with different circumstances. Only those with their names written in the Book of Life are allowed in, so make sure you register now!
Verse 36a. is amazing. We aren’t given many details about being equal to angels, we just need to make sure that we’re in the resurrection of the just, not the unjust.
Again our Lord answers the questioner and not just the question. In verse 37 He goes back to the Old Testament. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all died in Genesis; but God didn’t say, “I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”, but rather, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”. According to God, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still around. This shows that there is an existence beyond this life.
These three men had promises made to them that still need to be fulfilled. If there is no resurrection, these promises can’t be fulfilled, which means that God isn’t God. The Sadducees really revered the Pentateuch—the five books of Moses—so Jesus went all the way back to those books to illustrate this. He is now placed at the right-hand of the Father because of the resurrection!
Jesus answered these questions so well that the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees were afraid to ask anything else. Hopefully they felt some conviction!
Jesus then turned the tables on these men and asked them a hard question about Himself in verses 41-44, and made a key point. Jesus is both man and God. He is perfectly human, and yet divine; a rightful Jew, and yet called Lord. As a human, He was able to meet us where we were, and as divine He is able to lift us to where He is. He will make His enemies His footstool during the Millennium, but right now we—who were enemies—have been brought into the closest human relationship with Him: Bride and Bridegroom.
This chapter ends with a warning about scribes, and verses 46-47 sound like all the marks of a Pharisee! We can see what end awaits them, foretold by the One who can see the other side of the veil.
One thing that these scribes did was take advantage of widows, and in the next chapter we’ll see a widow—maybe one they stole from—who our Lord says gave more to God than all the rich people who were giving of their treasures.
Hymn 338–I love my Saviour, my precious Saviour
Prayer