Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Well, we're going to go into Matthew chapter 12 now and go into our next chapter in Matthew and cover this.
[00:00:08] What is a repeated issue we find in the life of our Lord, the first eight verses of Matthew chapter 12.
[00:00:18] The Bible says this.
[00:00:21] At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn. And his disciples were an hungered and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat.
[00:00:30] But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day. You know, these people starting to get on my nerves as I'm going through the book of Matthew. I'll be honest with you. Starting to get on my nerves because every time the Lord is doing something good and right there's some prune faced old dude sitting in the corner grouching that he healed a man who had had the withered, withered hand for 18 years. Or you know, whatever the case might be, there's some guy sitting there just with a grouchy face. Well, you know, I'm reading between the lines a little bit and you know, just complaining, whining, criticizing for the good that the Lord is doing.
[00:01:13] And that's just.
[00:01:16] Sometimes it just wears on me a little bit. All right, verse three. But he said unto them, have ye not read what David did when he was an hungered? And they that were with him, how he entered into the house of God and did eat the shewbread which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests.
[00:01:33] Or have you not read in the law how that on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless. But I say unto you that in this place is one greater than the temple.
[00:01:46] But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice.
[00:01:51] Ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath day. Let's pray. Thank you Lord, for the good meal you allowed us to enjoy and the fellowship you allowed us to have. And thank you Lord, for your people that are here this afternoon to hear the Word. And I pray Lord, that you would fill up their heart and their mind and their soul with your word and the spiritual nourishment that they need, that I need. And help us to gather from these scriptures here these eight verses, truths that will help us as we serve you, and not only to capture what your word says, but also the heart, the essence of it, the core of it. Because really that's what's in view here? So, Lord, bless our time in the Word here this afternoon. May it be a blessing to your people in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:02:40] Sabbath day instruction. Sabbath day law. So let's look at them really quick. Exodus. Let's look in Exodus chapter 20.
[00:02:46] Look at it from the horse's mouth, that is. Go back to the source. Let me encourage you, if you're ever studying a subject, don't. No, I don't want to say don't, but you would do well to go to the primary source of that thing and learn directly from the source what the facts are about it, rather than hearing what someone else said about it. And that's what we're doing here.
[00:03:13] Exodus 20 and verse Exodus 20 and verse number.
[00:03:22] Verse number eight. The Bible says this is part of the Ten Commandments.
[00:03:27] Let me get there myself. Here we go. Remember the Sabbath day. To keep it holy.
[00:03:32] Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.
[00:03:38] In it, thou shalt not do any work thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, or thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Okay, so when you talk about biblical Sabbath laws, here's what they are. The first law said that they must rest from work.
[00:04:10] And that rest, excuse me, included all people, all servants, as well as the animals, they were to rest. Does everybody, everybody get that?
[00:04:20] All of us know this. Okay?
[00:04:22] All that's commanded is to rest. That's all that's commanded in the Ten Commandments. All right, let's look at Exodus chapter 16. We'll go back a little bit, a little bit of trivia for you. Some of the aspects of the Ten Commandments and the Law of God are mentioned before the Ten Commandments. Exodus 16 is an example.
[00:04:43] Verse number 29.
[00:04:46] Look at what this says.
[00:04:49] And this is so good. As we remember, we were going through the Sermon on the Mount, and we were talking about how the Lord, the teachings that he was teaching, were not necessarily new, but they were capturing the heart and the core and the intention of the law of God, which the Lord was under the law. He was made under the law. And this is what he says here. Because in Mark 2:27, you've heard this verse before.
[00:05:19] Jesus said unto them, the Sabbath was made for man and not man.
[00:05:26] For the Sabbath.
[00:05:28] The Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Now, where did that idea come from? Well, he didn't invent it as being a Hebrew person under the law. He got it From Exodus, chapter 16, verse 23, verse. I'm sorry, verse number 29.
[00:05:47] He says this.
[00:05:50] Now, this is referring to the manna now, but notice what he says.
[00:05:56] See, for the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, you see that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day. The bread of two days abide ye every man in his place. Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the first command was they were to rest and they were to not work. So that goes together. The second command, as we see here, was that they were to stay in their place.
[00:06:23] But notice, the Lord says in verse 29 that the Lord gave them the Sabbath, not he did not give them to the Sabbath. In other words, the Sabbath was the servant, not the master.
[00:06:40] You see that? So the whole intention of, of the Sabbath with the children of Israel was not so much a law they had to keep, although it was that it was God gave them a day of rest so they wouldn't have to work six, seven days a week.
[00:06:57] God gave them, by law, he gave them a day of rest and said, I want you to rest this day. And they were to enjoy it, right? They were to make use of it by.
[00:07:11] And of course, the hardness of man says, no, I'm going to work all seven days. You know, I got to, you know, I got to make the dollar. Got to make the dollar. And that would lead them to violate it. But originally it was done for their benefit, so their bodies could rest, so their animals could rest and all of that. That was God's intention, right? Let's look at another one. In Exodus, chapter 16, verse number well, we'll just mention it in passing. Verse number 22, the children of Israel gathered manna for two days on the sixth day so that on the seventh day, the Sabbath, they could rest. They didn't have to gather. So that was actually, again, that's like, I don't have to go to the grocery store every day. I go by twice on the day before the Sabbath so that on the Sabbath I can just rest. I can sleep in. I can spend time with the family or whatever.
[00:08:01] You see how the Lord's eye on them is good.
[00:08:05] He's doing them good.
[00:08:08] And then, of course, we have other verses that you're familiar with. We'll go to Exodus 35.
[00:08:17] Because there were some people who would not listen to the Lord and rest for whatever reason.
[00:08:23] Exodus 35, verse 2.
[00:08:31] Six days shall work be done. But on the seventh day, there shall be unto you an holy day, a Sabbath of rest. To the Lord, whosoever doeth any work therein shall be put to death. Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath day. So that's another one. So no work. They were to rest. Number two. They were to gather. They weren't to gather manna. Number three. They were to stay in their place.
[00:08:56] Number four. They weren't to make a fire. Okay? And there's one other one in Numbers 15. Look at that, if you would.
[00:09:03] Numbers 15, verse 32.
[00:09:17] Numbers 15:32. Notice what it says.
[00:09:27] Says this. And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day.
[00:09:33] And they found him gathering sticks. They that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron and unto all the congregation. And they put him in ward because it was not declared what should be done to him. And the Lord said unto Moses, the man shall be surely put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the congregation brought him without the camp and stoned him with stones. And he died as the Lord commanded. Moses.
[00:09:59] He wouldn't listen. You see, this is not just a matter of he broke the commandment of God.
[00:10:06] It's an act of intentional rebellion against God himself. Okay? That's why it came with such a strict penalty.
[00:10:14] So in review, what have we seen about the Sabbath day? And the reason why it's important for us to nail this down is because these. Back in Matthew 12, these Pharisees are finding fault with the Lord because they are taking.
[00:10:29] They're taking wheat or some kind of grain, and they're taking the. Taking the top of it off, the ear of it off. And they're rubbing it between their hands, I guess. Rubbing the husk off, eating it. Say, see, you're breaking the law.
[00:10:44] But are they?
[00:10:48] But are they?
[00:10:49] This is why I want you to read it.
[00:10:52] Now, we know they're being accused of that. But according to the law of God, remember in Sunday school, B is biblical authority, right? Biblical authority, not tradition.
[00:11:04] But does the Bible say that they're violating the Sabbath by plucking ears of corn?
[00:11:11] It's corn. But biblically speaking, corn. The word corn only means the grain. That's what it's referring to. There's another place in Scripture that uses the term corn. Of wheat. So it's referring to the berry, the wheat berry. Okay, so just so everybody understands what we're talking about. So you take the ear off and you rub it in your hands. So you have these little kernels of wheat.
[00:11:34] You eat them. Is that violative of the Sabbath laws as you've read them?
[00:11:39] No, but the idea was, because they are removing the ripe grain from the stalk, it's harvesting.
[00:11:49] And the tradition said you're not allowed to work, and that includes the harvest. And so therefore you're violating the Sabbath.
[00:11:57] And upon that basis, they're condemning them, saying it's not lawful. Now the question is, I want to. They, the Pharisees said, you're doing that which is not lawful. But were they? The answer is no. Here's what I want you to see.
[00:12:12] Did Jesus do, like. Did Jesus do this? Oh, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
[00:12:19] And bow to the tradition. No, he was not violating the law of God as written in Scripture, which is the biblical authority part.
[00:12:29] And he was also not bowing to the tradition of man and allowing that to take the place of God's actual commandment.
[00:12:43] So as we said in Sunday school, tradition is fine so long as we don't confuse it with what the Bible actually says, because they're not the same.
[00:12:54] That's what our Lord does. The Lord did not give respect to the traditions, whether it be cleaning things or different. And he got criticized constantly for it, over and over, healing someone on the Sabbath, whether they washed their hands when they came from the market.
[00:13:09] This example right here, over and over, the Lord's getting in trouble with the Pharisees over this question. But I want you to see he is obeying the law of God as written, but not honoring the tradition of men as if it is the law of God. Okay, now, there's a few other verses regarding the Sabbath I think are important.
[00:13:35] I already read one. Mark 2, 27 says this.
[00:13:39] The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath? Matthew 12, verse 11.
[00:13:46] If you'll look at that real quick, Matthew 12:11. Look what it says.
[00:13:53] And he said unto them, what man shall there be among you that shall have one sheep? And if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it and lift it out?
[00:14:04] How much then is a man better than a sheep, wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days?
[00:14:16] Luke 6, 9. Just listen to this, just for time's sake. Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing. Is it lawful on the Sabbath days to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?
[00:14:30] Luke 13:15.
[00:14:32] Then the Lord then answered him and said, thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall and lead him away to watering?
[00:14:42] Now, you read the Sabbath law.
[00:14:46] The Sabbath law says you were supposed to rest, stay put, whatever that means.
[00:14:52] How far were they allowed to go from their place? It says, stay in your place. That's all.
[00:14:57] How far was it allowed?
[00:14:59] God didn't tell him.
[00:15:02] He didn't specify work, what kind of work, how long he could work.
[00:15:06] He didn't.
[00:15:07] So imagine your sheep falls into the.
[00:15:11] Falls into a pit.
[00:15:14] You got to get the sheep. How many of you have sheep or have had sheep? How heavy are sheep? Somebody tell me, how heavy can they be?
[00:15:22] On average, 50 pounds, 40 pounds, 70, 80. Okay.
[00:15:32] Point is, you're gonna. If a sheep falls into a pit, you're probably gonna be breaking a sweat. It's probably gonna be some work to get the sheep out, right?
[00:15:41] Like, you're probably gonna have a little bit of beads of sweat, which kind of defines work, right? If you're sweating, it's definitely work, okay?
[00:15:49] Or if you gotta lead your animals out to water. Cause after all, they have to drink to live, right? So if you lead them out to water, you know, if it's a hot day, you're going. I mean, you're going to have to walk out, you're going to do some stuff, you know, and that kind of thing. And God says.
[00:16:05] God says, remember the Lord, he says, that is not a violation of the Sabbath. Even though you're working, okay? Even though sweat is running down your face. Now, this is important in just a minute to understand what. What the Lord is arguing here.
[00:16:25] The Sabbath day controversies in the life of the Lord were one of the main reasons that they wanted to kill Jesus. You understand that? That's how obsessed they were with the minutia of the Sabbath day. Whether you could do this or do that or do this or do that. But as you can see, according to the Bible, the Sabbath laws were pretty, pretty basic.
[00:16:51] Don't work, don't kindle a fire, stay at home. Basically, that's what it was.
[00:16:57] So we know that In Matthew chapter 12, the Lord was not.
[00:17:00] None of the disciples or the Lord was violating the Sabbath laws. And besides that, he says, verse 7, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. Which is to say they weren't doing anything wrong.
[00:17:14] Go to verse number Three, when he said unto them, have ye not read what David did when he was an hungered? And they that were with him, how he entered into the house of God and did eat the shewbread which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests. So what's going on here? This is when David and his men were traveling. They were fleeing from Saul. And they go to the tabernacle where Abiathar the priest is. You remember what happens with Saul because Saul kills Abiathar as a result of all this, right? But remember, David goes and take a peek at one verse that adds a little more information to help us understand what's going on here. Look in Mark, chapter number two, and we'll come right back to Matthew. I just want you to see this because it helps us shed light on what's going on. Mark 2, verse number Mark 25.
[00:18:14] This is the parallel passage to Matthew. Notice what he says.
[00:18:18] Mark 2. 25. And he said unto them. Have you never read what David did when he had need? You see that? That's not in Matthew. When he had need and was hungered, he and they that were with him. Now let me ask you a question.
[00:18:36] So David goes to the tabernacle and there's these.
[00:18:39] I think there's 12. I'm not mistaken. There's 12 loaves of bread on the table of showbread in the tabernacle. Right?
[00:18:45] Only the priests are allowed to eat that. According to the law of God. David shows up and has nothing to eat.
[00:18:52] He's hungry. His men are hungry. And the Bible says he has need. You see it?
[00:19:01] What was the priest supposed to do? Well, first of all, what did the priest do? Does everybody remember he gave him the bread?
[00:19:10] Why would the priest do something that the priest, of all people should have known was unlawful?
[00:19:16] It wasn't allowed. Why did they do it?
[00:19:20] The priest did it because the only other option was on the pretext of the law, with the excuse of the law. Well, the law says I can't, so I can't. Sorry. Have a great day.
[00:19:33] And they go away hungry.
[00:19:37] Do you think that would be pleasing to God if. And this is the actual decision that Abiathar the priest had to make, was he expected to send these men away hungry when they had need, when he had the ability to fill it, even though it wasn't according to the law of God? That's the question that they were faced with. And you know what they did? They gave him the bread. Even though it was against the law of God.
[00:20:02] How is that right? Jesus cited this. He says, have you never read about Abiathar?
[00:20:13] You can't. When someone has need like that and they have a legitimate need and you have the ability to fill it with, do you say, well, I can't do that.
[00:20:24] That's just for the priest and you just let him starve. Would that have been acceptable to God because it was only for the priests? It would not have been. And the reason it would not have been is because there are two principles at work in that story, in the verses that Jesus cites here.
[00:20:40] The first is the principle of mercy, and the second is the principle of the sabbath day.
[00:20:45] Now we know what the sabbath day laws were.
[00:20:48] But the principle of mercy, the principle of mercy, what's being described here? And in fact, look at verse chapter 12, verse number seven.
[00:20:58] But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. You see that I will have. That's God saying, I want mercy.
[00:21:09] I'm paraphrasing. I want mercy more than sacrifice. Do you see what he's saying there?
[00:21:15] He's saying, you have mercy and you have the law.
[00:21:21] Mercy supersedes the law.
[00:21:23] That's what he's saying.
[00:21:26] That's why Abiathar gave David when he had need and he could fill it, even though it wasn't according to the letter of the law.
[00:21:33] The principle of mercy superseded that for that circumstance.
[00:21:38] Now any other time, willy nilly just given out bread, that would have been a problem.
[00:21:42] But when there was a need, mercy demanded that a.
[00:21:49] You want to say an exception. You say an exception be made even though it wasn't exactly lawful. That's what our Lord is talking about.
[00:21:56] Go back to chapter 12 again, verse number five.
[00:22:06] Or have ye not read in the law how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, that is, they do work and are blameless.
[00:22:17] Think about that. Look at John chapter number seven real quick.
[00:22:24] John chapter seven.
[00:22:42] This is a very similar passage of scripture, John 7:23.
[00:22:52] If a man on the sabbath day receives circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken.
[00:23:00] Are ye angry at me because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day, the eighth day after a man was born, a boy was born.
[00:23:13] You couldn't choose whether that was going to be on the sixth day or the fifth day, or the third day or the seventh day. You couldn't choose.
[00:23:19] But on the eighth day is when the circumcision was supposed to take place.
[00:23:22] Do you not do it because it's the Sabbath day?
[00:23:26] You see what's being discussed here? And these are real moral questions when it comes to.
[00:23:32] You have two principles that seem to be contradicting and conflicting with each other. And we deal with these things all the time. They just. Sometimes we don't connect them to this, but it's really connected. You have one principle that says we should do one thing, and one says you should do another thing.
[00:23:50] What are you going to do? For instance, the Bible says that you should obey the ordinance of man. You should obey the law, right?
[00:23:57] But when I remember when Anna was. When she worked at the mall and there was what they thought was a shooting. It wasn't, but they thought it was. And she called and said, dad, they're saying there's a shooting.
[00:24:09] The principle of being a father and getting to my daughter was far more important than the laws of the roads of South Carolina, I can tell you that.
[00:24:19] In other words, in my mind at least, it superseded. I could have said, okay, honey, and then set my cruise control on exactly the speed limit and driven there, you know, well, my daughter's in potential danger. But see, the conflicting principles, they don't conflict.
[00:24:36] They're in order.
[00:24:39] What's being described here is the principle of mercy.
[00:24:44] So in the case of the boy who's being circumcised, that has to be done on the Sabbath. When the priest. They have different offerings they gave. They had different holidays they had to keep, different sacrifices they had to make. They were sweating these animals they have to lug up onto the altar and all that kind of thing. They're breaking a sweat, they're hot, they're tired, all that kind of stuff, all on the Sabbath day. Because on the Sabbath day is when God told them to do it.
[00:25:09] So God's commandment about that particular thing overruled the other command about the Sabbath day. Does everybody follow what I'm saying?
[00:25:17] Everybody looks kind of sleepy, kind of sleepy today.
[00:25:26] Look back at Matthew 12, verse 5 again, verse number 6, rather. Look what it says.
[00:25:36] But I say unto you that in this place is one greater than the temple.
[00:25:45] You see, the priests were allowed to break the Sabbath because they were doing what God told them to do in the temple where God told them to be.
[00:25:56] So that allowed them to violate it.
[00:26:02] But here you have Jesus saying, I'm greater than the temple. That allows them to break it.
[00:26:12] See, the problem with the Jews is they thought the Sabbath was more important than Christ.
[00:26:18] And they kept it rigidly Let the animal starve, let the man go away hungry. And they kept it rigidly. And really, you should keep it rigid. In fact, Jesus himself kept it rigidly without fault.
[00:26:31] But when the principle of mercy came and there was a necessity or there was a cause for mercy, that they said, sorry, to the point. Listen, now you've read it in the Scripture to the point that there were people who were literally infirm for years and decades of their life.
[00:26:48] And because it was the Sabbath day, they said, you shouldn't heal. Do that tomorrow. And it's like, you see the Sabbath day. And the keeping of the form was all that mattered.
[00:27:05] That was all that mattered. They saw no other principle. Do you know why they thought that? It's because it was a perfect way to judge their own righteousness.
[00:27:13] I have kept the Sabbath way just so.
[00:27:17] Sabbath day, just so. I am holy. I am righteous.
[00:27:21] Listen, now, in your life and in mine, each one of us has standards that we keep, right, personal standards about what we do and don't do, where we go and don't go, what we say and don't say.
[00:27:32] I mean, about myriad things, about what we dress, how we dress, you know, all these kinds of things. We have. Each one of us has a standard that we keep.
[00:27:43] Have you ever had to break that standard?
[00:27:49] Now, the issue is if you violate a standard and you violate your own conscience, but there is no greater principle involved, then you're just breaking it and you're violating your conscience. You're defiling your conscience, which you shouldn't do. The Lord says, we need to keep a clean conscience.
[00:28:08] But if another principle is in conflict, sometimes we have to. And what we're, you know, this is often misused. We say, well, you know, my buddy wanted to go out and drink, you know, wanted to go out to the bar. So I felt like I had to go out there with, that's not what we're talking about here. That's not what we're talking about here.
[00:28:27] We're talking about two principles, right? Principles that go together. No time is the Lord telling anybody to go out to a bar and get hammered for your buddy's sake.
[00:28:37] But sometimes principles conflict, and it creates difficulties like this.
[00:28:41] And then somebody criticizing you say, I can't believe you did that.
[00:28:46] I can't believe you did that.
[00:28:49] I'll give you a good example on the subject of women wearing pants, right?
[00:28:59] A lady goes to the hospital and they give her.
[00:29:04] They don't give her a hospital gown. They give her a shirt and a pair of pants to dress into in the hospital.
[00:29:12] Now, if a woman had a. Had a view that she only wears skirts and dresses as an example, and then she shows up there, what is she supposed to do?
[00:29:23] You see what I'm saying?
[00:29:25] The principles kind of collide. And that's just one example. I know that one because I've heard of that example in particular.
[00:29:34] But the principles, the principle. One principle stands above another, and that's how you judge it.
[00:29:43] All right, let's go to verse number seven.
[00:29:47] Verse number seven.
[00:29:50] But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.
[00:29:58] I will have mercy and not sacrifice. Look at Hosea, chapter 6 Hosea in the Old Testament, Hosea 6, verse number.
[00:30:28] Verse number 6 says this.
[00:30:34] The Lord speaking for I desired mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Now, we're going to see this in a couple other places. I want to bring you to a conclusion on it. Look at Micah, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, chapter 6, Micah 6, verse number 6.
[00:31:06] Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams? Or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
[00:31:20] Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression of the fruit of my body, for the sin of my soul?
[00:31:25] He hath showed thee, O man, what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
[00:31:41] Notice the mention of mercy. Right?
[00:31:44] Look at one more. Matthew, chapter 9.
[00:31:57] Matthew 9, verse number 12.
[00:32:02] Actually, verse 11.
[00:32:04] And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, why eateth your master with publicans and sinners?
[00:32:12] But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, they that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
[00:32:19] But go ye and learn what that meaneth. I will have mercy and not sacrifice.
[00:32:24] For I'm not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Let me give you another example. This is, and it perfectly illustrates this as a principle.
[00:32:35] As a principle, Christians do themselves harm by maintaining close relationships with wicked people, running with wicked people. Does everybody, everybody get that we do ourselves harm if we maintain friendships and friendship is one thing, but spending a lot of time with somebody because their lifestyle, the way they live, and their rebellion against God will affect us. Okay, that's just a fact, right?
[00:33:12] So as a principle, my closest friends and Your closest friends should be believers who are walking with God.
[00:33:20] Everybody agree with that principle?
[00:33:22] Unless you just want to hang out with people that get drunk and, you know, and fill your mind and heart with all kind of ungodly. No, we don't want that. So this is why we have this principle.
[00:33:34] But what about.
[00:33:36] But what about if you. If you meet someone who is on skid row, someone who's a drug addict, someone who has a foul mouth, and you meet them, is it okay to take them out to have a cup of coffee or have a meal with them?
[00:33:54] You see, on the one hand, you're not. You know, it's against the principle to hang out with people who might affect you negatively. On the other one, this is exactly what the Lord did. He spent time with those people.
[00:34:09] Now, he did it with the express purpose of for the Gospel's sake, which is what we're supposed to do as well. But you could. You could, like the Pharisees, make it so rigid. No, I will not hang out with people that do that.
[00:34:21] If that person smells like smoke, I will not hang around them.
[00:34:25] I will not be seen with a person with a tattoo.
[00:34:30] God says, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. In other words, mercy supersedes that other principle.
[00:34:39] Go have your meal with that guy, with that lady, and let her know about Jesus.
[00:34:45] Let her know that you love her, let her know that you want her to be saved. Be her friend, minister to her, whatever. But you see, you can have both principles, but they're in an order, right?
[00:34:58] This is exactly what you have going on with Jesus.
[00:35:01] He's trying to help them, and they're saying, you're not supposed to be around those people. He says, mercy, let them go to hell. That's exactly what they're saying. Let him go to hell.
[00:35:12] We got to keep the law.
[00:35:14] Let the animal die. It fell into the pit. Let it die. It's the Sabbath day.
[00:35:21] You see how backward this is?
[00:35:23] This is the way they were treating the Sabbath.
[00:35:26] Now, mercy more than sacrifice.
[00:35:32] They preferred to rigidly keep the law, even if that meant neglecting mercy.
[00:35:42] Because as I mentioned before, they thought by rigidly keeping the law, they had a rule by which to measure their own righteousness.
[00:35:52] See, I always keep the Sabbath without fail.
[00:35:55] But the fact was that the fact that they were disinclined to mercy demonstrated how unrighteous they were, even though in form they kept the law.
[00:36:12] The last thing I want you to see from Matthew 12 and we'll be finished.
[00:36:18] This is probably my favorite part, although it'll be the part I do the worst at explaining is the authority that the Lord speaks of.
[00:36:31] Verse 6. Listen to what he's saying.
[00:36:33] But I say unto you that in this place is one greater than the temple.
[00:36:39] Who's he talking about, huh?
[00:36:43] He's talking about himself.
[00:36:45] He's saying, I am greater than the Temple, right?
[00:36:51] What a statement of his authority. What a statement of his place.
[00:36:56] What a statement of his place. Not only that, in the last verse, he says, for the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath day. You know what that means?
[00:37:04] That means that if because they were serving in the temple, they were allowed to violate the Sabbath. Right?
[00:37:11] If the one who is Lord of the Sabbath wanted them to violate the Sabbath and told them so they could do it because he is Lord of the Sabbath. How can you be Lord of the Sabbath? Who gave the Sabbath law? In Exodus, chapter 20, it was almighty God, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. This is God speaking with audible voice from heaven.
[00:37:36] And the Lord says, I supersede that.
[00:37:45] Who is Jesus again?
[00:37:48] He's just the Son of God, right? Oh, no, no, no.
[00:37:52] The only one that can supersede that voice speaking from heaven is that voice speaking from heaven.
[00:38:02] Hebrews chapter one, verse one. It says that God, who in sundry times divers places spake in times past and to our fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom he. You know, I could go on, but you understand what I'm saying. The only one who has authority to supersede that voice speaking from heaven on Mount Sinai is that same person, Jesus, who is very God, Jehovah, manifest in the flesh.
[00:38:36] That's the only way. I'm greater than the temple. I'm why the temple exists, right? I'm greater than the Sabbath. I gave the law. So if I want you to plow right here, right in front of me now, or if I heal this guy and I say, take up your bed and walk. Yeah, it might not. It might be a violation of the Sabbath day, but. But I'm allowed to do it because I am the Lord of the Sabbath.
[00:38:57] That's what he's saying.
[00:38:59] This is one of those indirect proofs of the deity of Christ.
[00:39:06] It's not a proof text like we were talking about with Devin and that fellow John yesterday. It's not a proof text, but it's one of those myriad places in Scripture where Jesus asserts this place that belongs only to God.
[00:39:20] I don't know about you. But I love that.
[00:39:23] I love that.
[00:39:24] Let's pray.
