Alright brethren, let's turn
to Matthew chapter 11. Thank you so much for the gift.
I had no idea you were going to
do that, but I think it's another example of the Lord bringing
us to that part in the Scripture and our study in 1 Corinthians
and then on a day when y'all were going to do that. That's
pretty amazing when you think about it. I want to answer a
question today in the message. How is Christ our Sabbath rest? Scriptures are very clear that
the Lord Jesus Christ is the Sabbath rest of which the old
covenant Sabbath foreshadowed. He is that rest. And in this
message, I want to show from the things that Christ did for
His disciples how Christ our Lord is the Sabbath rest of all
who believe on Him. I want you to see how Christ
is the Sabbath rest of all who believe on Him. Now, we'll just
take the passage as we go. First of all, Christ is the Sabbath
rest of the believer because Christ calls us and gives us
rest. He's the one who first called
us and revealed Himself and gave us rest. Matthew 11, 27 says,
this is Christ speaking, and He says, all things are delivered
unto Me of My Father. And no man knoweth the Son, but
the Father. Neither knoweth any man the Father,
save the Son. And he to whomsoever the Son
will reveal Him." So we have to have Christ revealed to us. God our Father has to be revealed
to us. And the way Christ reveals Him
to us is by an effectual call. As I preach, This call goes out
to everybody. This is a general call. But the
way His people are made to respond to this call is Christ makes
it effectual in their heart, individually, personally. Christ
speaks personally to His child and He speaks effectually and
He says, verse 28, Come unto Me. He doesn't say come unto
a day. He doesn't say, come unto any
old covenant law. He doesn't say, come with any
works of your own or doing any work or to any work. He says,
come unto Me. Come unto Me. And He is our rest
because when He says, ìCome unto Me,î He calls us from all our
works and all our labors, and He gives us rest. Look here in Matthew 11, 28,
ìCome unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.î When he finds his child, he finds us laboring
under the heavy load of Pharisees, legal religion, legal taskmasters
with all their lists of do's and don'ts. He finds us under
the yoke of the law, trying to keep the old covenant law. He
finds us under the yoke of man-made commandments and man-churched
traditions. He finds us under that heavy
burdensome yoke of our own sin and our guilt and our fear of
death. And He says to us, come unto Me and I will give you rest. He says, I will. The law won't
do it. Your works won't do it. A preacher
won't do it. A church won't do it. They can't
do it. He says, I will. And He says, I will give you
rest. I will freely give you. Not because you earned it. Not
because you merited it. Not because you deserve it. Because
I will give it to you. And I'll give you rest. He calls you and He makes you
to know that You do not have to do any work to be accepted
of God. And when He reveals that He is
your rest, that He is the righteousness of the law for all who believe,
That He is the end of the law for righteousness. That He is
our holiness, our sanctification, our sanctifier. When He makes
you to behold He's all, He makes you to know you're complete.
And when He does that, He gives you rest in Him. The word Sabbath means cease. Cease. Stop working. You know why God gave the Sabbath?
He gave it for man. for the benefit of man. So that
it would be a mercy to them and they could rest. And everybody
could have rest. The servants and the cattle and
everybody could have rest. And that's who Christ is. He's
our rest. And when He calls you to Him,
He gives you rest. And He's our rest because He's
so gentle in the way He teaches us. Look at verse 29. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, He says. For I am meek and lowly in heart
and you shall find rest unto your souls for my yoke is easy
and my burden is light. When He says take my yoke upon
you and learn of me, you know what He does? When He speaks
that affectionately in our heart, you know what you'll do? You
take the yoke and you believe on Him. That's the yoke. It's faith. And when He says,
take my yoke upon you, you'll hear this gospel being preached
and you'll find all of a sudden, you've taken the yoke upon you.
You believe Him. Because when He speaks it and
says, take my yoke upon you, He gives you the faith and the
ability to believe Him. That's why it's such a light
yoke. He gives you all the power and
ability and the gift to do it. When He says, learn of Me, He
does to you what He did to those fellows on the road to Emmaus.
They said, did not our heart burn within us when He opened
to us the Scriptures? And that is what He does. When
He says, learn of Me, He teaches you, He opens the Scriptures
to you, and He shows you that the Scriptures are all concerning
Him and the marvelous works He has done for His people. And
when He says to you, I am meek and lowly in heart, It's the
whole way in which He teaches His child. You've been accustomed
to that strict taskmaster and those rules and those regulations
and that dryness and that harshness and that stout-heartedness and
that constant eye watching you. And Christ comes and it's such
a breath of fresh air to have somebody teaches you and that's
meek and lowly in heart. Just like Paul said, when we
were with you, we preached to you and we were gentle with you
like a nurse is gentle with a newborn child. That's how he teaches
his people. And he's our rest because he's
not only rest from all our works, he's rest to our souls. He says,
come to me and I'll give you rest unto your souls. There's
nothing like having a clean, clear conscience. Our Lord said
all those old covenant sacrifices, they were offered year by year
by year by year. You know why? Because they could
never purge the conscience. They were a reminder every year
that sin was not put away and something else had to be done
to atone for the next year. Well, when Christ came, Hebrews
10 says, He purges the conscience. Hebrews 9, He purges the conscience. so that now you know there is
no more offering for sin. When you truly know when Christ
has really made your holiness. This is what is so ironic, I
don't know the word, but this is what is so funny to me about
religion and sad, is that holiness, true sanctification, makes you
realize I don't have to be under the yoke of the law anymore to
try to be holy and godly. I've been made holy and godly.
I've got a clear conscience with God. I have rested my soul. That's when a man is made holy
and righteous. And He is that light and that easy yoke, that
peace and rest to us because His yoke of faith is light. He
calls you and says, believe on Me. No, you don't have to go
back to the law to do anything, because Christ took that heavy
burden, He took that load for His people, and He fulfilled
the whole law in perfection, and honored it, and magnified
it, and bestowed honor upon God's holy character by upholding that
law for His people. And now He says to you, the way
you establish that whole law is believe on Me. Isn't that
a light and easy yoke? And the burden He puts on you
is so light too. Because as He shows you His love
for you, and His mercy towards you, and His forgiveness for
you, and His long-suffering towards you, in everything that He sacrificed,
and given Himself, and laying down His life to purge us of
our sins, and to make us righteous with God, and accepted of God.
When He shows you all that love, and mercy, and grace, and faithfulness,
and all that He did for you. You know what He does? He makes
you want to show that same mercy and that same love and that same
tenderness and forgiveness and long-suffering to other needy
sinners. And that's the only burden He
puts on you. He says, love my brethren. Love one another. And
He teaches us not even to look to our faith or to our love because
it's horrible. And it would never measure up
to what would make us acceptable with God. But the difference
in what God does accept is there's an entire new heart, there's
an entire new spirit, there's an entire new motive. Because
seeing what He's done makes you delight to try to do something
like what He's done for you towards others. And that's an easy, that's
no burden at all, is it? Loving? Loving and forgiving
is God, for Christ's sake, is forgiving you. Alright, then
secondly, let me say this before I move to that. There is no rest
like Christ. There is no rest. You will find
no rest like our Lord Jesus Christ. And if there is somebody here
that is burdened and heavy laden, I pray He will make you hear
this call. Come unto Christ. Don't do anything. Don't come
down to the front. Don't try to shake a preacher's
hand or repeat a prayer after a preacher. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. And you'll have this rest that
He promises. I pray He'll do that. Secondly,
Christ is our Sabbath rest because He leads us throughout our lives. He leads us our entire life and
He constantly teaches us He is our life. These two things go
hand in hand, rest and life. You have rest when you know you
have life and it will never be taken from you. Look at this
in verse 1. At that time, Jesus went on the
Sabbath day through the corn and His disciples were hungry
and they began to pluck the ears of the corn and to eat. Luke
says it came to pass on the second Sabbath after the first. Now I don't know what the Jews
meant by the second Sabbath after the first, but I know spiritually
what that means. Christ is the second Sabbath
after the first. He taketh away the first. He
took away that first Old Covenant Sabbath day that He may establish
the second. And He might be unto His people
the true Sabbath rest of which that first Sabbath pictured.
He is the second Sabbath after the first. Christ is. And He
brings His children here because He is our rest and our life. He is spiritual life for us.
You that believe have eternal life because you have Christ
in you. Righteousness is life. I have
told you that when Adam sinned in the garden, he became sin.
He ceased being righteous. And that was death. That meant
death. That is when he died, when he
ceased being righteous. But the Scripture says in Romans
8, if the Spirit of Christ is in you, the Spirit that is now
in you is life because of righteousness. You cannot have life without
righteousness. And because Christ is that righteousness,
when He enters into that child that He's justified and cleared
by His doing under the law, He enters in and now you have life. You have righteousness. Because
of what He's done. Because of what Christ has done. So that's how He's our rest. You have great rest when you
know, I'm never going to die. I'm going to live forever because
Christ is my life. That gives me so much rest. And
then also we have rest because Christ is providing every temporal
thing we need so that we always have temporal life. But as long as He's pleased that
we're going to have it, until the day He's pleased that we
don't have it, He's going to provide all the bread and the
water and whatever it is we need to have life. That is rest to
me. Isn't it to you? Great rest.
So our Lord here, He is leading His disciples through His cornfield. That is His cornfield. He is
the Creator of all things. When He says later that He is
the Lord of the Sabbath day, He is saying, I am God. And I
made this cornfield. And I made this day. And I made
these disciples. And I brought them here on purpose.
And He brought them there on purpose. He just declared He
is our Sabbath rest. So He takes them now on a Sabbath
day through a cornfield and He knows they are going to be hungry.
He knows everything about His people. He knows your need before
you know your need. And He knows they are going to
be hungry. So He takes them where they can be fed and be fed something
that is a very good picture of who He is. Bread. Corn. Wheat. So they go through this
corn field and they are hungry and they don't think a thing
about it. They are with their master. And they began to pick the corn
and to eat it. He let them there on purpose because He knew they
would be hungry and He knew that they needed to be reminded He
is that Sabbath rest by providing us bread. Those two things are
so vitally connected. Bread and rest. Bread and rest. Do you remember? He connected
on another time in the wilderness when He rained down manna from
heaven, bread from heaven came down. And what did He do? He said, I have given you bread
enough on the sixth day so that on the seventh day you can rest
and you have full provision made by God so you can just rest because
I have given you bread. And Christ tells us exactly what
that was picturing. He said in John 6.35, I am the
bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. He'll
never will. Now does that give you rest?
To know you have eternal life and to know that even in temporal
things you'll never hunger or thirst? David said, I've been
young and now I'm old. I have never seen the righteous
forsaken nor his seed begging bread." God's not going to let
His people go hungry. He's just not. He's given us
life, righteousness, holiness, acceptance, and that's eternal
and that'll never end. And He's not going to let us
temporarily starve to death. He's not going to do it. So therein
He is our rest. Great rest knowing He is life.
He is life. And He is going to lead us all
our days and never let us forget that. Now thirdly, Christ is
our Sabbath rest because He defends us from all our accusers. He
defends us from all our accusers. Verse 2, 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. Now the Pharisees are self-righteous
men. They are not a group that died
out and exist no more. They still exist today. And they
may call themselves by different religious names and different
religious denominations, But Pharisees are self-righteous
folks. And what Pharisees are always
doing is they are always watching and accusing others using the
law of God. Especially the Sabbath day. Now, they do not say in our day,
they do not say the Sabbath day is the true Sabbath day. The
true Sabbath day is Saturday. It lasted from Friday to Sunday.
to Saturday at sundown. That was the Sabbath. They say
the Sabbath is Sunday now, but the scriptures nowhere say that.
Nowhere say that. Christ is our Sabbath rest. This is the Lord's day, that's
what we call it. We set it aside and acknowledge we worship God
on this day and we We want to spend time on this day in His
Word. We want to spend time with our
family and refresh on this day and rest on this day. But we
in no way acknowledge this day as a legal Sabbath at all. We only acknowledge the Sabbath
of faith in Christ. He is our rest. But the Pharisees,
Christ said they do as their father the devil. They do as
their father the devil. And I don't hesitate to say that
about self-righteous men. Christ said, I know you, you
don't have the Word of God in you. He said to them, if you
would really have believed Moses, if you really did love the Law
and want to honor the Law and believe Moses, you'd believe
Me because Moses wrote of Me. In other words, everything in
that Law was concerning Christ. But you don't believe Moses and
you don't believe me. Even though they pretend it's
that great zeal for the law, Christ said, you don't believe
Moses, you don't believe me. Pharisees are quick to accuse
others of breaking the law rather than showing mercy and pointing
sinners to Christ our rest, which is exactly why God gave the Sabbath
day. God gave the Sabbath day to give
rest to men. He gave the Sabbath day to point
men to Christ who is our rest. Pharisees don't use it that way.
Pharisees use it to deprive themselves and make others deprive themselves
and to smite with the fist of wickedness and to oppress because
the worse you can treat yourself and the more you can deprive
yourself, the more holy and godly you are. And that's a lie. That's
a lie. Brethren, there is a Pharisee
in you and there is a Pharisee in me. So our Lord said, beware
of the leaven of the Pharisees. So we want to beware not to be
guilty of it. It is that subtle self-righteousness
that makes sinners think they are righteous because of what
they do and do not do. Or holy or godly because of what
they do and do not do. Only self-righteous Pharisees
spy on one another. Only self-righteous Pharisees
are quick to point out the faults and offenses of others. And only
self-righteous Pharisees seek to regulate the lives of others. And God hates it. Absolutely
hates it. He says, They say, Stand by thyself,
come not near me, for I am holier than thou, and these are a smoke
in my nose and a fire that burneth all the day. What day? I just noticed that it says they
burn all the day in my note. The Sabbath day, so called. But brethren, if you rest in
Christ, you declare Christ. This has happened since the day
God saved me. If you rest in Christ, you trust Christ, and
you declare to men that Christ is your Sabbath rest, you will
be accused by Pharisees of being lawless because they believe
salvation is in that observance of that day. They will accuse
you. If you have fellowship with them,
light and darkness cannot fellowship. If you have fellowship with them
and can get along with them, there is only one reason. You
are compromising on this Gospel. There is no other way. Because
if you speak of Christ and say that He is the Sabbath and you
do not back down on that, they are not going to fellowship with
you. They are going to do what the Pharisees always did to Christ
and His people. They are going to point a finger
at you and accuse you. Always. But, here's the good
news, Christ is our Sabbath rest because He defends us from the
Pharisee. He defends us from our accusers. That's why Cain...
Listen to this, verse 3, "...but he said unto them, Have you not
read what David did when he was a hungred, and they that were
with him, how he entered into the house of God, and did eat
the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat?" Neither
for them which were with Him, but only for the priests." Now
the first thing to notice here is He said unto them. They didn't
open their mouth. I want you to get this and I
want me to get this. Here's rest for us right here.
You don't have to open your mouth to defend yourself. Christ will
defend you. I wish I could get this and I
wish you could get this. This is rest to know that when
Pharisees accuse you or somebody brings up something that is an
unjust charge against you, you don't have to defend yourself.
One of the best pieces of advice a pastor ever gave to me was,
don't try to defend yourself, let your brethren defend you.
And Christ will defend you. He will use your brethren to
defend you. And he'll use the Word of God. He'll defend you.
So we don't have to open our mouths. They didn't say a word.
He did the talking. And this is what the Scripture
says. He says, who is he that lays
anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies
it. Not only has justified us in the past, but it's God that
still justifies us. before all of our accusers. Satan,
Scripture says, he accuses, he is the accuser of the brethren
night and day, but he is cast down by Christ. And the Scripture
says, who is going to condemn us? It is Christ that died, yea,
that rather, that is risen again, whoever lives to make intercession
for us. He will stop the mouth of the
accusers. And then the way he does this
is Christ exposes legalists for not even having spiritual discernment
of the very law they claim to be zealous for. He said, have
you not read? Don't you know that chafed Pharisees? They prided themselves on knowing
the Scriptures and being the lawyers that could tell you exactly
what the law of Moses said and he said, you are ignorant of
the Scriptures. Remember he told them that one
time, you don't know the Scriptures nor the power of God. And he
is saying to them right here, have you never even read the
Scriptures? Have you not even read the Scriptures? They do
not understand it. Here is how you see it then.
Look at this example he gives. David was in exile. David was rejected by his countrymen. Here stands Christ. Do you know
where he is at? He is rejected of his countrymen.
He is our David. And David had a bunch of men
with him. that were His men. Christ had His disciples, His
people with Him. And David goes into the temple
where the priest was and where the showbread was. And that showbread
was holy, sanctified just for the priest. And as Christ says
here, it was unlawful for David to eat that bread. But David
ate it anyway and took it and gave it to his brethren. And
God, standing right here in this cornfield, commends him for it.
Says it wasn't unlawful at all. Commends him for it. How could
that be? How could he stand here and say David did that which
was unlawful according to the ceremonial law and yet be at
the same time commending David as having done that which was
a good thing to do? Here's how. Because David, by
taking that showbread and feeding his men who were hungry and needed
it, by showing mercy to them and providing bread for them,
David did exactly what that ceremonial law was given to teach. That
God does in Christ. That law was given to show that
whole ceremonial law and that showbread and that high priest
and all the sacrifices were given to show how God shows needy,
hungry sinners mercy. And how He provides bread, holy
bread for us, making us holy, making us righteous, giving us
life through the blood and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. He did the spirit of that law. David did the very spirit of
that law. And he didn't have any problem
doing it because he believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. He
believed Christ would come here and put Himself under the law
for His people and become guilty under the law for His people
in order that He might give us Himself the bread in great mercy. And when you behold the law and
understand what that law is teaching, David had no problem doing what
he did, although what he did was unlawful according to that
law. And guess what? God didn't have
a problem with it either. God said, that's commendable
what he did. It's commendable. But Christ
condemns the Pharisees at the same time. You know why? Because
by accusing these men of breaking the Sabbath day because they
were taking bread and taking corn and eating it, they were
doing the opposite of what the law was given for. I know that
they added to the law and this wasn't unlawful what they were
doing in that corn field. But our Lord doesn't bring that
up. He doesn't bring up the fact that they were using extra added
laws, man-made laws to accuse. He doesn't even touch on that.
The fact that they were wanting to support a day and honor a
day over Christ, they were doing just the opposite of what David
did. Pharisees who hold to a strict letter obedience of the law and
use that to accuse and harm human beings. They have not understood
why the law was even given. And they are doing the opposite
of the law. God gave the Sabbath to show mercy and give rest. And here they are using that
law to show no mercy and give no rest. He condemned them. Being under grace means we serve
God in newness of spirit, not in the oldness of letter. So
what that means is if you ever have a choice between taking
the law and accusing somebody, even if your brother is guilty,
rather than taking that law and harshly accusing them and bringing
them under law and showing them no mercy, or you have a choice
to be merciful and forgiving. and use it to show them how this
is not a good thing, but look how Christ has put away this
sin. Look how Christ has fulfilled
this law. Just point them to Christ. If
you have a choice between the two, you know what newness of
spirit does? It shows mercy. It shows mercy. Well, what if that law has been
broken and it needs to be upheld? Christ already upheld it. And
He did it so you can show mercy to your brethren. That's salvation
by grace. That's being under grace. That's
fulfilling the law of Christ, is what that is. And Pharisees
don't know a thing about it. They don't know a thing about
it. Again, Christ defends His disciples with the same lesson.
Look at verse 5. He says, "...or have you not
read the law, how that on the Sabbath days the priests in the
temple profane?" They corrupt the Sabbath and are blameless. The priest profaned the Sabbath
day by the work that was required to be carried out to do those
ceremonies. They had to cut wood, they had
to slay animals, they had to draw water, there was a lot of
work involved in performing those ceremonies. But it wasn't unlawful
to God. They were profaning the Sabbath,
but it was not unlawful to God. Why? Because everything that
they did in those ceremonies typified and glorified God's
justice and God's mercy toward His people in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now listen to this scathing condemnation
to the Pharisee. Verse 6, But I say unto you that
in this place is one greater than the temple. Here is Christ
who is the temple. Here's Christ who is the priest.
Here's Christ who is the Lamb. Here's Christ who is everything
that that old covenant law pointed to. Here He is. He's the very
end of the law. He's the end purpose for which
it was given. He's the end to which His people
are brought by teaching us what that law means. He's the very
purpose of it. And yet the Pharisees choose
the lesser old covenant letter of the law and their outward
conformity to it and reject Christ who is the greater, the one to whom all the law was
given to bring sinners to our end, to Christ. They choose that
lesser thing. He says, here is one that is
greater than all that. And they choose that lesser thing over
Him who is greater. The Pharisees always do this.
But when Christ has come to His people, we are no longer under
that law. We have got the greater now. Let me ask you something.
If you had a loved one that you loved so much, and they were
overseas in the war or something like that, and you had a picture
of them, and you had it sitting there on your desk, and you looked
at it, and it helped you so much to get through that time because
you knew they are coming home sometime. They are coming back.
And you had that picture, you looked at that picture, cherished
that picture because it just made you see them. It made you
think of them constantly. But then when they came home
and wrapped their arms around you, would you go reject them
and go back and hold on to that picture? The picture served its
purpose, hadn't it? The real person has gone. These
Pharisees were rejecting the real person so they could hold
on to the picture. And that's what they still do
in our day. They still do it in our day. Again, Christ our
Sabbath rest defends us by condemning those who condemn us. Look at
verse 7. But if you had known what this meaneth, I will have
mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the
guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath day. By saying He is Lord of the Sabbath
day, He is declaring He is God. You know, remember when He healed
the man at the Pool of Bethesda and they came and they were upset
and what they were upset about is because here is a man who
had been lame for 38 years and Christ healed this man. And you
know what the Pharisees were mad about? Because Christ told
him to take up his bed and walk and he did it and it was a Sabbath
day. Talk about callous, cruel, ungodly, having no view of Christ
whatsoever. That's all pharisaical religion.
And so they came and condemned him, and he told them, he said,
my father works on this day and so do I. And they knew exactly
what he meant. That was another way of saying,
I'm Lord, even of the Sabbath day. He was saying, I'm God. And they said, now we're going
to kill you now, not only because you've broken the Sabbath day,
but because you've said you're God. You've said you're God. And he went, you read the rest
of that passage in John 5, he went down through there, I mean,
he said, you don't have the Word of God in you. He said, you search
the Scriptures, for them you think you have life, and they
are they which testify of me, and you won't come to me that
you might have life. He said, I'm not going to condemn
you, there's one that's going to condemn you, the very law
of Moses, that you think you're keeping and obeying because Moses
wrote of me, and you don't even believe me. You don't believe
Moses, and you don't believe me. That's Christ's Word. That's what He was saying to
them by saying, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. He was saying,
I'm God who created the whole heavens and the whole universe,
the heavens and the earth, and when I had totally finished completing
all the heavens and the earth, I rested on the seventh day because
my works were finished, and I sanctified that day because I wanted it
to be a picture of me in that day when I said it is finished! And I sat down at the right hand
of God because all my works were done and I had finished making
the new heavens and the new earth and all the hosts in them that
I saved. That's why I sanctified that
day. I'm the Lord of the Sabbath day. And I gave it at Mount Sinai
again because I want my people to remember who I am. I am the rest. Right there in
the middle of the table towards God and the table towards man.
Christ said, you got me, the Lord of the Sabbath day, who
is to be sanctified by my people and kept in remembrance by my
people because I am the one that filled that law toward God for
you and I am the one that filled it toward man for God. So that
all the law is satisfied and you can rest in me. I am the
Lord of the Sabbath, He said. And He is telling them there
that having fulfilled the Old Covenant Sabbath and all the
Law, His people are now under grace and they are not under
any aspect of Old Covenant Law, period. And by doing this great
work for us, He had mercy on us apart from any sacrifice we
did whatsoever. And to all whom He gives this
rest, He has made us completely, thoroughly guiltless. Guiltless. And he says to the Pharisees,
you have exposed yourself. That's what he's telling them.
You've exposed your own self as being totally lost and totally
blind. How come? Because if you really
knew what this statement means, I'll have mercy and not sacrifice,
If you had experienced this yourself, knowing that you were saved by
My mercy and My grace and not by your sacrifices, if you knew
that, He said, you wouldn't have condemned these guiltless men
and this guiltless Lord. You wouldn't have done it. You
see, when Christ saves you, when Christ saves you, those He saves,
He shows them mercy apart from any sacrifice that they have
ever done. And so they don't delight to
condemn His people or any sinner who are guiltless. We delight
to show mercy for Christ's sake because we've experienced mercy.
When we were oppressed by Pharisees who Christ came and He loosed
us from them, We would like to loose the bands of wickedness
and to undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free
and break every yoke from off the believer who is guiltless
in Christ because that is what Christ did for us. He dealt the
bread of life to us. He brought us to His house. He
clothed us in righteousness, in His righteousness alone and
He will never hide Himself from us. And so now we would love
to deal our bread to the hungry and bring the poor that are cast
out to our house and cover the naked and not hide ourselves
from our brethren. That is all in Isaiah. When the
Lord condemned them just like He is doing right here. And He
said, this is not the rest that I have commanded. To smite with
the fist of wickedness. It is to undo the heavy burdens.
And if you had known anything at all that salvation is by grace
apart from your works, you would not have condemned these people.
Because they are guiltless. And they would not have condemned
Christ. Certainly. Now hear that brethren,
when men choose the Sabbath day instead of Christ, when they
hear you say Christ is our Sabbath day, and they defend the day
instead of Christ, and they accuse you of breaking the day because
you believe Christ is your Sabbath, understand why they do it. If
you knew anything about mercy, that I saved by mercy and not
sacrifice, you wouldn't have done this. That's Christ's Word
now. That's His Word. But by the Pharisees showing
no mercy, they deprive themselves and they make others have to
deprive themselves. And they smite and they oppress
and they condemn, especially God's people. and they prove
they know nothing about grace. But here is what Christ says
to you, Colossians 2.10. Here is what Christ says to you
when we say, listen to this now, and Christ will see to it you
are defended and that is why He is our rest. Colossians 2.10
He says, you are complete in Him which is the head of all
principality and power. You know what complete means?
Right before that it says, Christ is the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. The word complete and the word
fullness is the same word. You are all fullness in Christ. You are the fullness of God in
Christ. That is what it means. You are as complete in Christ
as Christ is the fullness of the Godhead. That is complete,
brethren. Now, look down at verse 16. Let
no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect
of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath, which
all were given to be a shadow, a picture of things to come. But the body is Christ." So he
said, don't let a man condemn you. Don't let a man condemn
you. I was going to look at the last
thing. I am just going to read this and I will come back and
look at it next time, but this is our last point. Back in our
text, Matthew 12. Christ is our Sabbath rest when
it comes to the ministry He has given to us to preach this Word
and this Gospel. Because through our Gospel He
enters the synagogue of the Pharisees and He shuts the mouths of the
enemy and He calls out His people and He heals them all. That gives
me rest. Doesn't it give you rest? There is a lot of labor involved
in preaching the gospel. Yeah, but I can do it having
great rest because I know His Word is not going to return void.
He is going to accomplish His purpose with it. He is going
to call His people out and save them. Even out of the synagogue
of Satan. Look here, now let's just read
it. Matthew 12, 9. When He was departed thence,
He went into their synagogue. Notice it says, their synagogue. He went into their synagogue.
And behold, there was a man which had had his hand withered, and
they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath
days? And they did this that they might
accuse him. They didn't care a thing in the world about that
man. Here's a man, he don't have to be healed today, his hand's
withered, it's not a life or death situation, and they did
this to see whether or not he would heal him, and they could
accuse him. Mark tells us this, he said unto them, I love how
the Lord shuts the mouths of people. Our Lord said unto them,
is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day or to do evil on
the Sabbath day? Is it lawful to save life on
the Sabbath day or to kill on the Sabbath day? See, what they
were standing there doing in their hearts, they were killing
on the Sabbath day. Christ was about to do good on
the Sabbath day. You know what their answer was?
They answered not a word. He shut them up. He shut them
up. Verse 11, 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? How much then is a man better
than a sheep? Of course they would do that
for a sheep. They were covetous. But when it came to men, this
is how callous legalism is when it comes to a man, a human being. They will accuse and condemn
and kill and show more mercy to a sheep than a man. Listen
to this. How much then is a man better
than a sheep, wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath
day? And Mark says, when he looked
around about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness
of their hearts. He exhibited anger at other times.
That's the first time it says in Scripture that he was angry.
And it was a righteous anger. Verse 13, Then saith he to the
man, Stretch forth thine hand, And he stretched it forth, and
it was restored whole like as the other. Luke says, and they were filled
with madness. Then the Pharisees went out and
held a council, Mark says, with the Herodians, their enemies. Enemies become friends in their
common hatred of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those people who claim
to be Sabbatarians and reject you, they truly put confidence
in a day because they reject you and would condemn you because
you say Christ is a Sabbath. They will side with free will,
works, religionists against you any day of the week. Any day
of the week. They did it against Him, how
they might destroy Him. But, now watch this. When Jesus
knew, He always knows, He knows everything. When Jesus knew,
He withdrew Himself from thence, and great multitudes followed
Him, and He healed them all. How is Christ our Sabbath? He
calls us to rest in Him from all our works. He leads us, He
provides spiritual and temporal bread in and by Him. He leads
us and provides us all bread of spiritual life and temporal
life in Him. And there's great rest in that.
He's our rest by defending us from condemning accusations of
Satan and his seed. And He's our rest by calling
out His sheep and healing them all through this Gospel He sent
us to declare. I've got great rest. One day,
brethren, soon, we're going to enter in to that eternal rest
with Him in glory forevermore. Won't it be good to be in a place
where there's not any Pharisees around? Won't that be good? Alright,
let's stand together. Our Father, we thank You for
this. We thank You that You've shown us Christ and called us
in Him and given us rest in Him. Thank You for life, Lord. Thank
You for constant assurance that You'll provide all for us just
as You have in spiritual matters. Thank You, Lord, that You defend
us. that there's no sin that can be laid against us by God
and there's no sin that can be laid against us by the accuser.
And Lord, we thank You that You make this word effectual at all
times, calling out Your people, bringing them to follow You and
heal every one of them. Thank You, Lord. This is great,
great rest. Christ our Sabbath. Forgive us
of our sins, Father. Call out Your people from among
the Pharisees. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.