Let's look at Matthew chapter
12. When I turned there, I was glad
to see Brother Ian Potts and his wife Rachel and their children
made it to New Jersey. They're going to spend a few
weeks in the Northeast. And he's filling in for Clay.
So Clay preached 12 times in 14 days. And so Ian showed up. And you can guess who got asked
to preach. But I wish I was there to say
hi to him. It's a pleasure to have them
in the country with us. And maybe they'll travel out
this way sometime. but in uh september uh i got confirmation
this morning uh september 15th i'll be in danville i'm gonna
preach there um travel a little bit that sunday evening uh preach
there tuesday and then wednesday i'll be down in crossville tennessee
on the 18th uh preaching for donny but Brother Bob's gonna
bring one message, I'll keep reminding us, but one message
that Sunday, September 15th, and then Brother John Reeves
will be here to bring your gospel to you Wednesday, the 18th in
September. So, I'm gonna say it out loud
early, so that way it's locked in in its commitment. I want
you to. All right, brethren, Matthew
12. I was reading through Hosea as I worked on that. And Hosea
6, 6 says, for I desired mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge
of God more than burnt offerings. And I looked at other scriptures
where our Lord uses the same phrase. And there are several
places that say the Lord desires mercy and not sacrifice. He said,
I don't want anything that you do. I want what I've done. And
several places he says this in Old and New Testament. Some people
say, well, there's an Old Testament God and a New Testament God.
No, there ain't. If you've got somebody telling
you that, find somebody else to tell you about God. It's the same. Same
as it was in Hosea, it's the same as it was in Matthew 9 we
just read, and the same as it is here in Matthew 12 and in
our day. the Lord out of his love for
his people, he became the sacrifice. And those that love him as they
have been loved, when we look up, Brother Scott Richardson,
they teased him, called him a mountain genius, and it's so. He said,
love that looks up is adoration, love that looks to our brethren,
crossways, is admiration, and love that looks down is mercy.
And the Lord said, I'm going to be pleased with mercy. I'd
like to show mercy. I'm going to love my people.
And I won't have nothing out of them. They're going to know
that this love solely of me. And this is a pure love. This
is because I'm holy. Holy. Brother Clay, I hear that
in the voice of the angels didn't cry out, love, love, love. They
cried out, holy, holy, holy. This is a holy love that he has.
So Matthew 12 verse one. At that time, Jesus went on the
Sabbath day through the corn. And his disciples were and hungered
and began to pluck the ears of the corn and to eat. But when
the Pharisees saw it, they said in him, behold, thy disciples
that do which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day. And
this occurred, you never see the disciples and the apostles,
they don't go up to the Pharisees and start picking up the Pharisees,
do they? It's always the Pharisees picking at them. They was going
to go worship God. They wouldn't bother nobody.
They had something to say, didn't they? Verse 3. But he said unto
them, Have ye not read what David did when he was in hunger, 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? Or have ye not read the law? how that on the Sabbath
days the priests in the temples profane the Sabbath and are blameless. But I say unto you that in this
place is one greater than the temple. But if ye had known what
this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. You would
not have condemned the guilty. For the Son of Man is Lord even
of the Sabbath day. And when he was departed thence,
he went to their synagogue. And behold, there was a man which
had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, is
it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days? You say it's all right
to eat corn. Can you heal? That they might
accuse him. They're asking him questions,
getting tangled up in his words. Just you say it and we'll go
and get you. And he said to 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 of it and lift it out?
How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is
lawful to do well on the Sabbath days. Then he saith to the man,
Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth, and
it was restored whole like as the other. Then the Pharisees
went out and held counsel against him, how they might destroy him.
The Lord shows us necessity here in this verse 1, and then he
shows us the mercy that he's going to give. There was a need,
and then there was a mercy provided. And here in verse 1, we see the
necessity. Look at verse 1. And at the time Jesus went on
the Sabbath day through the corn, they were heading to church.
And his disciples were unhungered and began to pluck the ears of
the corn and to eat. Our Lord and his disciples are
walking through a cornfield." Now this ain't sweet corn like
we eat. This is wheat. That's what it is. They called
it wheat. They called it corn. So they're walking through a
wheat field and it was a road going into town. and there's
groceries growing on both sides of the road. I don't know if
you've ever seen that, but that's just an old country town, and
they're walking through there. And there's wheat growing on
each side of that road, same as our day. And they were on
their way to service. And while they were on their
way to services, the disciples were hungry. They were hungry.
And old Matthew Henry said this, and I loved it. I don't normally eat breakfast,
and I don't normally eat before I have to preach. Or I'll eat
just a little bit on Wednesday evening, and then by the time
I get home at 8.30, that's why I keep eating so late, and I
got extra weight on me. I'm ravished. I want to eat everything. And it makes me sleep better,
I guess. But Matthew Henry said likely they woke up early so
they could get to church on time. And while they was getting ready
to go to worship, Christ spoke to them until it was time to
go to worship. And they gladly missed breakfast
to listen to him speak. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Wouldn't
that be worth it to miss a meal to hear him speak? As they walked
through this field of wheat on the way to service, they picked
off an ear of wheat here and there. They'd take some, and
they rubbed it between their hands, and they ate the kernels. All
that chaff fell off, and they ate the kernels. It was a dry
breakfast cereal. You can buy it at the store. This ain't something
that's uncommon. This was perfectly legal, and
this was not theft. It wasn't. In Deuteronomy 23,
it says, when thou comest to the standing of corn of thy neighbor,
thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand. but thou shalt not
move a sickle under thy neighbor's standing corn. If you're walking
by, you don't go harvest his corn, but you just get you some
sweet, rub your hand, eat it, and when he comes by your place,
maybe he's tired and hungry, he'll grab a piece of yours,
it ain't hurting you, you ain't gonna miss it, and he'll give
enough energy to get him home, and that'll be fine. The Lord
gave us that law in Deuteronomy 23. They were not the only ones
on that road walking that day to services, were they? Verse
two. 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." What they're saying is it's unlawful. What Deuteronomy
23 says is perfectly fine, isn't it? But they had their own canons.
They had their own rules. The Pharisees did. We'll end
up seeing they changed this after this time frame, but here's what
their canons said, their rules. He that reaps on the Sabbath
day ever so little is guilty of stoning. Do you reap on a
Sabbath day? And they clarified further in
their rules. It says plucking of ears of corn
is a derivative of reaping. It's like a legal document. They
said, now, if you take this one ear, that's reaping, and that
ain't legal. Well, the Lord didn't say nothing about that. They
said that. They made up their own rules. Israel went to the
Lord one time, and they said, we've been doing these ceremonies
and things, and for 70 years, it's wearing us out. We're getting
tired. And God said, who told you to
do it? You're the one that did it. I didn't put this on you.
You put this on you. I didn't tell you to do that.
I thought he said that. Well, let's go look it up. No,
he didn't say that. They said it. But these Pharisees had added
to the word of God. We're not to take away from the
word of God. If he said it, let every man be a liar and God be
true, right? We have to like it. That's actually
required by law. You have to agree with consent to the law. But
it's so, if he said it. And we're not to take away from
it. Not to ignore it. It says in Revelations 22, 19, Don't you take away from it.
So that's what Paul was talking about. He said, I've not shunned
to preach the whole counsel of God. We come to some, as we work
through books, there's things like Donnie said, I don't want
to preach on divorce. I want to preach on marriage.
But that's what they come to. And that's what we need to hear
that day because that's what the Lord has for us. We're not to take anything
away from it. So, well, I know it says that,
but we just do this anyway. It's how we always did. No, God
said so. Proverbs 30 says every word of God is pure and he's
a shield unto them that put their trust in him. add thou not to
his word, lest he reprove thee, and thee be found a liar." Don't
take away from that word and don't add to it. But the Pharisees of that day,
they added to the things of the word of the Lord. He gave it
plainly to Moses in Exodus 20, he said, Remember the Sabbath
day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and
do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath day of the
Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work, nor thy son,
nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy
cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates." Nobody's
gonna do any work. Well, if we look at that as the expender
of energy to accomplish a task, we're breathing, ain't we? We
gotta eat food, don't we? We have to roll over in bed.
We can't just lay still and not breathe 24 hours, can we? So
we have to have a little bit of wisdom with it, don't we?
When the Lord's our wisdom, He's about to explain the rules to
us. This is His law and He's gonna explain His law to us.
Christ is the one, we remember that, who gave the law. He's
the lawgiver. This is His law. If anybody knows
that He does, He was the one that was made under the law.
He gave this law so He could be made under it because we broke
it and He never broke it. He understood it. He not only
understood his law in the purest sense that we could ever think
of, but he also knew those canons, those rules that they added to
it, and he knew what they took from it, and he knew their hearts,
and he knew their minds of those Pharisees that were persecuting
him. AT&T had a big data breach, and they had a couple years worth
of text messages released, so I guess I can go Google them,
or somebody has them. They got recorded, and they had
that Madison account years ago, names got leaked, who's been
cheating on their wives or something. Oh man, everybody got nervous.
They're gonna find out the truth. What do you think God sees? We
see the outside. God looks on the heart, and that'll
terrify somebody that's apart from Him. And if He gave a new
heart, that'll comfort the one that said, well, He's gonna look
on the thing He gave me, and if He gave it, it's good. That's
so, isn't it? The Lord looked on their hearts,
those that are persecuting. The Lord, he's a lawyer, a true
representative, an advocate, a mediator. He sets the precedent
for the necessity. He reminds them of a previous
case. Just like a good lawyer, he looks at the precedent. Look
at verse three. But he said to them, have ye
not read what David did when he was in hunger 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. He wasn't allowed to do that. Neither for them that
were with him, but only for the priest. There in 1 Samuel 21,
David and his men went to a Himalaya and they asked for regular bread.
They said, hey, do you have some sourdough, whatever kind of bread
they had that wasn't a showbread? Do you have some of that? We're
hungry. And they said, we don't have any. We don't have any to
give you. All we have is a showbread. And so the priest ended up giving
them the showbread. David said, Lord said, give it
to him. I give it to him. All right. You're okay. You said,
Lord said so. And they ate it and they went on their way and
it was fine. It was fine. But we looked at his eye, didn't
we? He went to that priest's office out of pride, not out
of necessity. David and Emman, they were hungry.
And Lord, and he said later on, I've never seen Lord's people
begging bread. But Uzziah went in out of pride, not necessity,
and the Lord struck him with leprosy. He said, what are you
doing in here? Why don't you touch that incense and quit it?
And had 83 men warn him. That's what the Lord says the
wise seeks counsel, but the fool at the reproof of many won't
hear it. You hear the same thing out of seven different faithful
men of God and say, no, that's foolish. Ain't wise. Uzziah didn't
listen to him. He was struck. We understand
the necessity of hunger, don't we? You get hungry. Well, you can't think right.
Hey, we're gonna worship God. We're gonna get real holy and
fast for three days. All you're thinking about is cheesecake. There's a fast given by the Lord
that's approved. And that's when you can't eat.
You're a mess of heartbroken. Here, eat something. I can't eat. You
chew it and you spit it back out. Can't even swallow it. God
gives that fast, but when we think we're gonna be so holy
and I'm just not gonna, I'm gonna go on a water fast for three
days so I could be more spiritual. You're gonna think about food
all the time, not spiritual food. Solomon said in Proverbs 6, men
do not despise a thief if he's still to satisfy his soul when
he's hungry. We understand that, don't you?
If somebody's stealing from you and they got everything good going
in life, I don't like a thief. I don't like a time thief. I
don't like a property thief. I don't like any kind of thief.
Stolen valor gets me riled up good, too. People pretending
to be veterans and they're not. But if somebody was stealing
from you, if they went out in your garden and picked tomatoes and they
had little children with them and their cheeks sunk in and
hungry, ugh. Let me run the house and get
you something. I'll make you a bologna sandwich. Come on now, that's fine. You
don't mind that, do you? You understand. Mankind can understand
that. But what a hard question to ask
these men that teach. The Lord asked them these questions.
They taught the word of the Lord every week. They knew what it
said, but they had no discernment and they had no understanding.
Oh, they knew the scriptures, but they didn't understand what
it meant. He says, have you not read? Well, right in their occupation,
threw it right in their courts. Isn't that what it says? How's
that make you feel? Have you not read? That's an
arrow to their pride, isn't it? And let it go. Now, is that patient? Should the Lord have killed him
right then for disrespecting his word? That's patient, isn't
it? But it seems like an insult.
He said, have you not read? Maybe we ought to. People say,
I got a Bible. Maybe we ought to read it. That's what Donahoy
said. Maybe we ought to read it sometimes. There's some necessity in keeping
the Sabbath day, too, in case they did read about David, whom
they know so much about. He will address the law that
they loved even more. Verse five. Or have you not read the law?
You stand on this law, ain't you read it? Same thing Paul
said, wasn't he? You that want to be under the law, ain't you read
it? Ain't you heard it? Don't you know what it says?
How that on the Sabbath days, the priests in the temple profane
the Sabbath and are blameless. I went and read what the requirements
of a bishop are. You know what the first one is?
Blameless. Is that you? How you holding
up? Is that me? Who do you know that's blameless?
God said his priests are blameless. It said they defiled the Sabbath,
yet they're blameless. They're blameless. Because of
our capital P preacher. The Bishop of our souls. Because
he's blameless, and we in him, and he fulfilled this law, that's
how these were blameless. And he said, go do that. Just
like he told Hosea. That breaks the law by him marrying
somebody outside of his house. and the bride of Hortus. He ain't
allowed to do that. God said, go do it. All right.
And he went and did it. And he said, that's a picture
of my son. The father said, that's a picture of my son and the bride
I gave him. That's what we're gonna do. But we understand the
law from our understanding. We apply our thoughts, our wisdom,
our experiences, and our emotion to what God says and don't understand
him from what he says. So he's teaching them. He said,
have you read in the law how that the Sabbath days, the priest
of the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless? Did you know
that every physical Sabbath day, those priests defiled that day?
They had to kill the beasts. They weren't just breathing work.
Now, this is an occupation, isn't it? They butchered them. They
had to go out there and kill them, and they had to cut them
up the way they're told to. They had to gather the fires and get
that going and burn them the way they're supposed to burn.
But it was never charged against those priests why it was a necessity,
because God said so. He said, do it this way. Well,
now it had to be done. It was in service of the Lord. They
weren't breaking the fourth commandment and doing that. They were honoring
God in it. Here comes the true necessity.
He's given us to show them they had to do that, didn't they?
Well, yeah, they had to. Wise, just like Stephen. That's
what the scripture says, isn't it? That's what God says. I'll
change my doctrine whenever this book changes, and it ain't changed.
He's God and does not change. That's what he says, isn't it?
Now he gives him the true necessity, verse six. But I say unto you
that in this place is one greater than the temple. You love your
heritage. You love this holy place. But
I'll tell you something about this holy place. There's one
greater than this holy place standing. It's the one that in
it pictures. If the work to have service at
the temple was good enough not to make those priests guilty,
how much more of the disciples laboring with Christ would be
free from breaking the law of Christ? Walking with him and
going to do what he commanded. They're free. They're free. That's
liberty. You know that? Go down to House
of Idols and buy meat if it's cheaper. Go to a fish fry. Do
what you want. We're free from the law. I don't want to bring
reproach on the gospel. Right? Should we send more that grace
may abound? God forbid. God forbid. Get that out of your
mouth. What's wrong with you? You know better than that. He
said there's one that's greater in this temple. Those Jews had
great reference for this temple. That's what they're accusing
Stephen of blasphemy in the temple and the law, right? This holy
place. As great of a place as these Pharisees held for the
temple, They were in the presence of the very God it symbolized.
Standing right in front of them, speaking to them. It's not a
symbol of God, it's the fullness of the Godhead in a body was
the one telling them. And they wouldn't hear him. Verse seven,
but if you had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and
not sacrifice, you would have not condemned the guiltless.
He told Peter, he said, don't you dare say something's unclean
that I said is clean. Don't you touch, touch not mine anointing.
Do my prophets no harm." He said, you wouldn't have said that about
them if you understood what this meant. If you understood these
scriptures, you wouldn't say what you're saying about my disciples.
Christ says you didn't truly understand the story of David.
You clearly did not understand what the commandments of God
actually mean. And you do not, do not know what
was meant by Hosea 6.6. This is merciful to him. He didn't
leave them to their selves. He's telling them. He's warning them.
Like we looked through those plagues in Egypt. Every third
one had no warning. And what a great warning that
was to us that God doesn't owe us a warning. But he's merciful,
and he's telling them. People say, well, God elected
people to hell. No, he didn't. It's man's fault, period. We're
without excuse. The Lord is gracious and merciful,
and it rains on the wicked same as it rains on us. And if man
goes to hell, it's his own fault. That's so. The Almighty God of heaven and
earth, the one that we just willingly and desperately offended. We
spit in his face. We were at war with him. We are
war. We're entity. That's all that
we are. It's in us. Fighting tooth and
toenail. He delights to show mercy. And
he said, I ain't gonna take anything out of your hand. I'll send what's
required, and then I'll accept it, and I'll accept you in that
land. That blood's gonna be on you, and I'm gonna look, say,
ah, pass over, I don't state nothing there. There's no sin. Well done, you did a great job.
Lord, when did we ever do that? We never saw you sick, we never
saw you hungry, we never. He said, if you did at least
these, you done it to me. But those other ones said, I did this,
and I did that, and we did this. We did a lot of stuff. We're
strong. We got a good track record. What mercy, isn't it? Remember,
the law is our schoolmaster. It's not given for us to perform.
It's given to us to prove our inability. It's just that one
that brings us to Christ. Keep the Sabbath. How can I? How can anybody? We don't really
understand what it means. But God, Christ, who gave the
law, is also able to fulfill the law. He was the fulfiller
of the law. We're not to try to complete
the law, we're to look to the one that's able and has finished
it. Jotted every I, or crossed every T, he did all of it, it's
him. Verse eight, for the son of man
is Lord. Hope we get that. He's Lord, even of the Sabbath
day. You're concerned about a Sabbath,
whatever you're concerned about. Wasn't that a good life lesson?
The mail ain't run yet. I wonder if the mail's gonna
run today. He's the Lord of the mailman. Well, sit down and have
your sandwiches, all right? Get you a scoop of ice cream,
you'll be fine. He's Lord, even of the Sabbath, even of the Sabbath. What's our true necessity? Our
substitute, that bread from heaven, more than our physical bread.
And food's necessary, isn't it? The work of the Lord, the service
to him, the furtherance of the gospel is necessary, but Christ
our Sabbath is necessary for our eternal souls. We have to
have him. What do we need in such great
measure? Mercy. Mercy. Mercy. Verse nine. And when he
was departed thence, he went into their synagogues, their
synagogue. Christ went on a service. He
didn't let an argument keep him from attending worship. It didn't
make him late. It didn't make him stop going.
He kept going. Verse 10. Some old scholars say
this man was a bricklayer and he didn't have the ability to
work physically anymore. But more importantly, this shows
us we don't have the ability to sacrifice to God spiritually. Let's picture our withered hand,
the thing that we work with, our hands. We can't please God
in ourselves. Completely impossible. We can't
keep a Sabbath day. You think of the heart of these
Pharisees. You think about that. Here's a crippled man right there.
Think of their heart towards him. They didn't address him.
They didn't say hi. They used They used this crippled man,
this handicapped person, to try to entangle the Lord on a Sabbath
day. No compassion. 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 a Sabbath day, will he not lay
a hold of it and lift it out? Right there, right in that, should
have struck him dead. What's wrong with you picking
on this crippled man? No compassion on a cripple. He kept going. He's teaching, he's teaching,
teaching them. Coming at a different angle.
I'll tell you this way, I'll tell you that way, I'll go around
the back way, we'll type it up, hand it out, print whatever we
gotta do, put a sign up. Over and over and over again.
What mercy. Our master walks this earth.
While he was here, another canon of the Jews was, if a beast fall
into a ditch or a pool of water, if food can be given it where
it is, they'll feed it till they're going down the Sabbath. They
said, if you had a sheep or a goat or whatever, cow that got in
a ditch, you could go over and you could throw food down to
it until the Sabbath was over, then you can go get it out of
the ditch. But if not, if you couldn't throw that down there
to them, you could get pillows or bolsters and you bring that
and throw that down and it can climb itself out. That's like,
you know, putting kitty litter down in a snowstorm, get your
traction on your tires. You can throw board down in there
and you can let it walk out itself. It could save itself. You could
just help it. That was their rules. And then
after Christ's time on this earth, that was changed. They changed
their rules because of this. He got them, didn't he? They
changed it to, if a beast fall in a ditch or a pool of water,
it's forbidden for a man to bring it out with his hand. But if
he can give food where it is, he can still go through food
to it. But you can't throw those pillows and bolsters down there.
You can't even help. They changed the rules because of what he
said. What man among you have one sheep? You know, people don't
normally have one sheep, do they? Why is it one sheep by itself?
Oh, just 100 times. Herd animal, ain't they? They
need other sheep. You got at least two or three,
they'll go crazy. You got to have more of them together. They
need to be with other sheep. So if you had a lot of sheep,
one dine really is putting us in perspective. If you had 300
sheep, well, I lost a sheep today. My house is terrible. Well, we
got 299. We're good to go. It's not that big of a deal.
But if all you had was one sheep, and that one sheep, that one
thing you found precious, the one thing you had to have to
live was down the ditch, wouldn't you go get it? Wouldn't you go
get it? That's all you got. That's all.
My all is down in that ditch. Wouldn't you go get it? Lord
came down for one sheep at a time, didn't he? He did. What man shall
there be among you that shall have one sheep, and if it fall
into a pit on the Sabbath, they will not lay a hold of it and
lift it out. He lifted us out of that barren
pit. Of course we would go get it. And it's lawful to get it,
even under these extra laws that the Jews had put on there. The
Pharisees had put on the Word of God. What they added to it
wrongfully, it's still right to do it. Verse 12, how much
then is a man better than a sheep? You get this. Boy, you talk about
putting it in perspective. He explained this to them where
they got it. And he said, now you agree with me. Now how much
more important is a human being than an animal? Wherefore is
it not lawful to do well on the Sabbath days? Ain't it right? I'm doing him good. I'm giving
his hand back to him. Isn't that a good thing? Wouldn't
you be happy if that happened? You would be merciful to a soulless
animal on a Sabbath day, but not to a man. Getting a sheep out of a ditch,
that'd be doing well. That's doing a good thing, isn't it? How much
more would it be right for the Lord of the Sabbath to do good,
to show mercy to a man? That's the problem. I still don't
see him as Lord. He's, oh yeah, God, my buddy, man upstairs,
flippant, right? No Jesus, no God. No Jesus, no
God. That name is Lord. Don't tell
me about your savior. Tell me about your Lord. Don't
tell me about who bailed you out of jail. You tell me about the
ruler and reign that put you in jail. There's a difference. For Christ to be merciful to
us, it must be in the confines of love towards his people. Do
you know that? It's in the confines of love,
which can't be contained. Here's what we're gonna do. You
want rules to live under? Paul told us plainly in Galatians
5. The fruit of the Spirit's love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against
such there's no law. There's no restraint. Well, it's
Sunday. We can't be good. We can't be kind to an animal.
We can't be kind to you. No, do it all you want. Like
I said, if there's light in the house, you're going to see it
through the windows. Love away. I want to serve God. Me too. Be gentle and long-suffering.
You either were a teenager or have had teenagers. Have you
ever had teenagers look at you and say, you're just so impatient,
and you're not understanding, and you're not doing right by
me. What are you doing? You're being as long-suffering
and as patient as you can for not bending them over your knee right then
and lighting them up. It's a hard thing to go through, but what
do you do? You keep being long-suffering, and you keep being patient, because
I used to be a 16-year-old knucklehead, too. Not that you all be in knuckleheads. I'm using this as an example.
You all read that in a book somewhere. And I wasn't either. I was a
perfect child. But that love and that forgiveness
and that meekness, though it may not look like what we think
it ought to look like in our puny minds, do it all you want. Do it without measure. Cut loose
on it, buddy. They ask, is it lawful to heal
on the Sabbath? There is no law against Christ healing a broken
heart on a holy day. You get down. When's he gonna
save his people? Wednesdays and Sundays or Tuesdays
if you're in one place, Thursdays and up. This is when the word
goes forth. This is when the great physician
heals the heart in the preaching of the gospel in person. Look
at people in the eye, in the people business. He's in the
people business. Never worry about why you're doing something
on a Saturday. The Lord of the Sabbath's gonna save his people.
So he proves it in the show in this order, isn't it? They ask
him, is it unlawful to be gentle to a brother or sister during
service? Or is it lawful for us to have joy? Isn't it okay? These things make you happy.
Be as happy as you want to be. Turn your frown upside down and
be happy. Quit being so grumpy all the
time. Be as happy as you want. Lord said so, it's fine. Verse
13. And he said to the man, stretch forth thy hand. He proved his
point, he showed the necessity, he talked about mercy, and now
he's merciful. Stretch forth thy hand. And he
stretched it forth. What did he say to Hosea? Go take you
a wife of Hortums. What happened? And he went and
took him a wife of Hortums. Stretch forth your hand. There
it went. And he stretched it forth and
was restored whole like as the other. Isn't that wonderful? We have withered hands, we can't
serve God, we can't work, we can't walk, we can't wash, we
can't do nothing. So I got a thief nailed to the
cross, and the Lord says, stretch your hand out, do it. And then
we do it. And he says, live, dry bones,
and dry bones live. And he says, I'll walk in your
feet, and then we get to walking. And he said, you're gonna ask
me, and we ask him. He said, now I'm gonna do it,
and he does it. And he said, then you're gonna thank me for it. And we
thank him for it. Isn't that good? Some people find that good. These didn't. Martin Luther said
that, when I look to myself, I don't see how in the world
that the Lord would save me. He said, but when I look to him,
I don't see how in the world everybody in the world don't
believe him. Isn't he majestic? Isn't he wonderful? Why wouldn't
you love him? Fall in love with him right now.
Come to his feet, beg him for mercy, find him faithful. You ain't got nothing to do with
it. That's good news for somebody that can't do nothing. Somebody's
got, if you have withered hands, that'd be good news to you. But
others, verse 14, then the Pharisees went out and held counsel against
him how they might destroy him. We got to kill this fella. He's ruining everything, just
like Stephen. He's ruining this holy place.
He's ruining our canons and our rules and the way we do things.
We've always done it this way. And he's telling us that we ain't
nothing. He's calling us sinners. He's saying there's a chance.
He ain't saying there's a chance. We might be wrong. He's saying
we're the ones that's wrong. And then he's being nice anyway. He's merciful. Dead men hate
mercy. Don't you? Jonathan Wilson didn't
come help me with that fence up in Alaska. He showed up. I
didn't ask him. He just showed up one day, and
I said, what are you doing here? He said, I'm helping you take down this fence.
I said, why? He said, I knew you wouldn't ask me. You're too
proud. That's right. My whole life I've heard that.
You need help? Nobody helped me when I was in prison. Don't need no
help now. That's us. And the Lord said,
I'm going to do it all. Somebody give you a gift. You
want to give them something? Well, here, I got something. That ain't a
gift now, is it? If you have to ask for it, it ain't a gift.
If we have to trade something for it, it ain't a gift. And
the Lord said, I'm just going to give them life. I'm going to give them mercy
and graces. And they said, let's kill him.
I plug your ears. I don't want to hear this anymore.
Get him out of here. Destroy him. Why did they do that? They didn't
have a necessity on the Sabbath. They didn't require the Lord
of the Sabbath. Do we have a need for Christ
our Sabbath? Do we have a need for his loving mercy? When this
message goes forth of who man is and who Christ is, man will
either plot to destroy the Redeemer or they'll stretch forth their
hand to him, one of their own. We sing that sometimes, don't
we? Reach out and touch the Lord as he passes by. He's here right
now. He may not be here this evening or tomorrow or the next
day or whatever. Right now, right now. Now's the day of salvation.
Reach out and touch the Lord as he passes by. You'll find
he's not too busy to hear your heart's cry. He's passing by
this moment, your need to supply. Reach out and touch the Lord
as he passes by. Isn't that wonderful? That's good, isn't it? All right. Brother Mike and Trevor, if y'all
would hand out the elements. You're choosing the love of people
who deserve no love, who have earned hell. And in
spite of ourselves, Lord, you've chosen to gather us together,
to teach us, cover us, and clothe us. Shed your blood and cover
us in it. Thank you Lord for being that sacrifice. Thank you for gathering us, saving
us, guiding our way. Lord be with
us. Remember us. Look upon us and see your son. Father, we thank you, Lord, for
gathering us here at this moment under the sound of he teaches us, he shed his blood
for sinners. For those of us who cannot keep
the law, who cannot earn thy merit, who cannot please thee
in our flesh by anything that we do, he shed his blood as a
token to cleanse us, to wash us, to make us clean. He gave
us this table, remembrance of his work. His body was his broken,
his blood was his shed for us. Oh, Father, teach us, Lord, what
it really is to examine ourselves, whether we be in the faith. Are
we trusting him alone for all our salvation?