Back to Matthew chapter 12, if you would. So let's set up this simple event again in our minds. The Lord leaves a cornfield with his disciples where he had just confronted the Pharisees who prided themselves on knowing the law and obeying the law. And the Lord revealed that they didn't know the word of God. He revealed that what they taught was contrary to the scripture. And he told them as plainly as you can say anything, that his disciples were sinless because of who he is. He's the Lord of the Sabbath. salvations of the Lord, not by the law, not by the deeds of the law.

And he comes to this synagogue, and there's a man with a withered hand in that place, in that synagogue, the Jewish synagogue, where the teachings of the Pharisees, not the word of God, not the gospel, not the truth, because the Lord had nothing but rebuke for the Pharisees and their teachings, which were based on salvation by the law and the keeping of the law. And he walks right into that synagogue, and there was a man there which had his hand withered in verse 10, Matthew 12. And they asked him, saying, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days? that they might accuse him.

Now there was probably these, maybe the same men who confronted him in the cornfield with his disciples were there too, but obviously others were there and they had the same issue. The law, the keeping of the law. Is this in accordance with the law? Is grace consistent with the law? Well, again, grace is consistent with the law because Christ, the grace of God is found in Christ, who is himself our law-keeping, our righteousness. What they taught was not consistent with the law. Because their demands upon men, like Paul said, they put a burden upon sinners that us nor our fathers were able to bear. In other words, to keep the law of God in order to please God. No man has ever been able to bear that burden.

By the deeds of the law, Romans chapter three, shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God. No flesh, nobody. God looked down upon the children of men to see if there were any that did seek God. And they were all gone astray. They were all together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good. No, not one, not one single one. And yet their so-called gospel or their message was do good and God will be pleased with you. contrary to the law. Paul said of the gospel, we don't deny the law, we don't destroy the law, yeah, we establish the law. In the gospel, the law is satisfied because Christ, as our last Adam, as our representative before God, honored the law fully in thought, word, and deed, and paid for our not honoring the law with his precious blood.

And so you see the confrontation here was regarding the law, is it lawful? Is it lawful? It's not lawful to say, I'm gonna do my best and expect God to be happy with that. That's not lawful. It's not lawful to say, you walk down an aisle and say, repeat a prayer after me and you'll go to heaven when you die. That's not lawful. And sinners are gonna find that out too late. What is lawful is for God's son to save his sheep by his free sovereign grace based on his redeeming blood and his perfect righteousness as our representative. That's lawful. And that's the conflict here.

With these men, he went right up in there where they taught that. I can't get over that. Right up in there. He said, and then he asked them, he said, 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? And none of them could sit there and say, no, I wouldn't do that. You know, it's gonna cost me something to keep the Sabbath. So I would get, you know, they're not gonna confess that. But he nailed them, didn't he? He called them on it. They're hypocrites.

But what he's saying there too is he came there to save his sheep. A person came to save another person. He came to save his sheep that had fallen into the pit. of error and man-centered, freewill, up-to-you religion. God wrote a whole book saying that salvation was up to Him. So come to Him. And they're still saying it's up to you. It was up to you in the garden, and look where that got us, the whole race falling into sin. It was up to them at the cross, and we mocked, spit on, punched in his face over and over. They all stood there and punched him in the face. Can you imagine a more graphic way to express hatred than to rip a man's beard out and punch him in the face and make him bleed? mocked him, put a crown of thorns on his head and mocked him.

And in that same spirit, they tried to confront him here, for what reason? That they might accuse him. Who is it that's called the great accuser? That's the devil. That's why he told the Pharisees and the religious Jews, you're of your father, the devil.

And how much is a man better than a sheep? Verse 12, wherefore it is lawful to do well. on the Sabbath days. It's lawful for God to save a sinner anytime, anywhere, any way he wants to because of Christ and what he accomplished on Calvary. We preach Christ in him crucified. And then he saith to the man, stretch forth thine hand. The one thing that he couldn't possibly do. That's how he saves sinners, too, by demanding the one thing that a sinner will never do, and that's believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel command was believe, repent. He commandeth all men everywhere to repent, the scripture says. Believe, repent, and then The apostle Paul teaches that we're to preach the gospel if peradventure God might grant repentance to those who must repent. He got to give it to you now. If you're going to stretch forth your hand, he's going to have to give you the power to do that or you're not stretching it. That's the gospel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to me. What was his call to sinners? Come to me, I'll give you rest. Come to me that you might have life. And what was his message also? No man can come unto me. That's what we're seeing here. Stretch forth thine hand.

If he'd have said, say this many Hail Marys and this many whatever they call them, he could have done that. but it wouldn't have saved him. If he'd have said, go to the priest, you know, and confess your sins to the priest and he'll absolve you of your sin, he could have done that, but it wouldn't have put away one of his sins, not one sin, it would have just heaped sin upon sin is all that would do. That's what it's doing today. Heaping sin upon sin upon sin in this disgusting systemized religion monetized system of monstrous lies that exalts man and presumes that man has the very ability to forgive sin. Even his enemies back then knew who can forgive sins but God only. When he said, thy sins be forgiven thee. And they know that now. But they're willing to lie to sinners. for their own benefit, their own profit.

How much is a man better than a sheep? And he said to him, stretch forth your hand. And he stretched it forth. He did the impossible. And that's what happens when a sinner believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. He does the impossible. And it wasn't up to him, it was up to God. This man here in our text, he wasn't saved because he made a decision that day. He was saved because Christ made a decision to come right where he was in the pit and lift him out. You see the illustration?

What man of you, having a sheep that's fallen into a pit, will he not lay hold on it and lift it out? Is that what Christ did for you? Religion talks about, oh, you know, wooing sinners. You could woo that sheep all you wanted to and it wasn't coming out of that pit unless the son of God laid hold on it and lifted him out.

What did he do for Simon Peter when the winds and the waves were boisterous and he began to sink? And Simon cried. He knew what was going on, didn't he? Because he said, Lord, save me. I think that's the best prayer any sinner ever prayed right there. You talk about to the point, Lord, Master, my Lord and my God, save me, save me. He's gonna save somebody, isn't he? He's the savior. His very name is that he shall save his people from their sins.

What about you? Are you sinking yet? Are you helpless yet? Are you withered yet? Have you spent all you have yet? Gotten only worse. That's who he came to save. Lost sinners. Not seeking sinners. Not decision-making sinners. lost ones. This man was in the pit. And the physical is just a picture of that. He couldn't stretch forth that hand. That's the last thing he's going to do. And the last thing you're going to do is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ when you're in the pit of religion. The pit of it's up to you. the pit of he wants to, God wants to. No, no. God doesn't want to do stuff. He just does them. He just does them. And if your religious system doesn't allow for God to be God, then you're going to have to bow. You're going to have to get rid of it. You're going to have to call that dumb like Paul did. That's dumb. All of my religion of me doing this and me keeping that and me following that, it's dumb that I may win Christ and be found in him not having mine own righteousness.

And he sayeth, stretch forth. Thine hand, and he did. Isn't that amazing? Remember doubting Thomas, you remember what he said? Except I reach my hand and feel the nail prints and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. And then just a little while after that, he's falling on his face at the feet of God's son saying, my Lord and my God. What happened in between there? The Lord Jesus said, be not faithless, but believing. He still does that when the gospel is preached. He still does that. That's why we preach it. It's the power of God unto salvation, not the power of man's will. It's the power of God unto salvation. And if you ever get a glimpse of the Christ of this book, who created the universe without you, and he'll accomplish the new creation of a new heart without you two. Then you'll bow to him, you'll cry to him. You'll fall at his feet too.

Then the Pharisees went out. The Lord pulled one of his sheep out of the pit. And you know what they did? They went out and held a council against him, how that they might destroy him. Destroy him You know, that's what religion is doing today Absolutely destroying him They've got God Waiting over in the corner to see what you're gonna do That's their sad attempt to destroy The almighty son of God, who said, my hand is not shortened, that it cannot save. They absolutely destroy him. They take counsel together, how they might do that. They're all in on it. Religion's still in on it. They're all in on it. I could sit here and name you the names, and you'd know who they are. The most famous ones, anyway. We just talked about one of them a minute ago. Their business is to destroy God's Son. But the thing about that is, that's Satan's mission, too. He's gonna bruise the heel. And that was Satan, too, at the cross, in men and just himself. And what did they set about to do? To destroy the Son of God. And what did they do? They just accomplished God's purpose, His eternal purpose of grace and power to save.

And I tell you this, if your attempt to destroy him in your heart fails, and he just accomplishes his purpose of grace in you, in spite of you, you're gonna praise him from now on for it. You're gonna thank him forever for his almighty grace. He saved Saul of Tarsus with almighty grace, not waiting on you, grace. And when is religion gonna reconcile that? When are they gonna come clean about that? How that the Lord said, come unto me, and then said, you can't come to me, except God does something for you. You see, they're talking about you doing something for Jesus, make a decision for Jesus, but the Lord Jesus said, my father's got to do something for you if you're gonna come to me. When are they gonna come clean about that? Not unless God opens their heart to the truth of the gospel. If he found a sheep in that pit, he can find one in any pit, can't he?

Antichrist in everything that they did and said and thought. And he found one of his sheep there in that pit. He's still in that business. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad he's still in that business?

If we read, let's at least read Mark's account in Mark 3, Mark 3 verse 1, because I want to show you one final thing. I'm looking up another scripture that I just thought of, because I want to... Well, you're turning over there. I know you're there already, but I'm going to look something up real quick.

Mark 3, 1 through 6, we're going to see another account of this same event. Mark 3, 1. He entered again into the synagogue, and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day, that they might accuse him. And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth, And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days, or to do evil, to save life or to kill? But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out. And his hand was restored whole as the other.

So we see that the Lord was angry with them. He was angry. How could he not be? How could he not be? They questioned him on the law, the one that wrote the law. They questioned him regarding the Sabbath. Who is the Sabbath? And I can't say what angered him the most, but I know this, the Lord loves his sheep. And by their system of religion, that man had no hope whatsoever. And they were in the business of stealing hope. And the Lord was angry with them. And you know, they were angry with him. They sought to kill him. That's the way it is with all of us by nature. I'll say this by nature, God wants to kill us too. You know how I know that? Because that's what he's going to do. If you die in your enmity against God, he's going to kill you and he's going to put you in hell. He told his disciples, fear him who has the power, the authority to kill the body and put you in hell. That wasn't a hypothetical. He not only had that power, he's gonna exercise that power in the case of many, many countless sinful wretches that die despising him.

So his, his anger and their anger is representative of all of us by nature. We're angry with God. We refuse to glorify him as God. And he's angry with us too. By nature, we're the children of wrath, even as others. Ephesians chapter one. The carnal mind is what? Enmity against God.

Now what's the solution to that? Verse 14 of our text, Matthew, back in Matthew chapter 12. Then the Pharisees went out and held a council against him, how they might destroy him. How is the enmity between us and God going to be destroyed by his son being destroyed in our place for our sins. They plotted the very event that was the reason why Christ could save his sheep from the pit. This is how he's going to do it, by them destroying him, at least in the sense that they were able to. They destroyed the temple and he said, I'll raise it up again in three days.

The Lord Jesus Christ made peace, the opposite of enmity, through the blood of his cross. And so in the very context of Christ saving a sinner, one of his lost sheep, we see foreshadowing what he did on Calvary to save sinners. How is a sinner saved? Well, they're saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord. He's Lord of the Sabbath. He's Lord of everything. The Lord, if you look that word up in the Greek, it says, he who owns and has the power of deciding. That kind of rings a bell, doesn't it? That's the power that religion gives to you. But no, no, that's his power. That's his authority. That's his prerogative. Lord means the prerogative is his. He said, shall I not do with mine own what I will? Who's gonna stop him?

So the gospel call is to bow, submit. That's what he said in Romans 10 about the Jews. They have a form of godliness, but they have not submitted. They haven't bowed to the sovereign Christ who saves whom he And how does he do it? They're going to destroy him. Through the enmity of man, God used their enmity. They took counsel. All the Jews and Gentiles, all the religious bigwigs of the day stood up against God's holy child, Jesus. But what they did was whatsoever God's hand and counsel had determined before to be done.

How a sinner is saved? By the Lord, by the eternal purpose of God, by the mercy of God in Christ, by the precious blood of God's Son. If he's going to save a sinner now, that's how he'll do it. and through the means of the preaching of Him in all of those characters as Lord, as just, but also the justifier of those who believe on Him.

May God come where we are and give us the power to obey the gospel command and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.