Matthew chapter 12. Notice the first few words of
the first verse of Matthew chapter 12. Again, these words, at that
time, at that time, it's Rather unfortunate there is a chapter
division here because we may be tempted to divorce this, what
is said in chapter 12, from the words of chapter 11. And we ought
not do that because these are vitally connected. at that time. Well, at what time? Well, it
was right after he said these words. Look at verse 28 of chapter
11. He said, Come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. This is an earnest call to the
needy. He says, come unto me. It's not come to the front of
the church. That's not what we say to you.
We don't say come to the altar. There is no altar in here. We
have but one altar and he's in glory. We don't say come to the priest. We have a great high priest,
Christ Jesus. Well, do come to him, but we
don't say come to an earthly priest. Fact of the matter is
every believer is a priest himself or herself. You can go directly
to the great high priest yourself. And we don't say, come to the
baptistry. I mentioned Wednesday night that
baptism is vital, it's important, it's an ordinance, but it doesn't
have anything to do with the salvation of your soul. That's
not how sins are washed away. Sins are washed away in another
fountain. That's a fountain filled with
blood. And then we don't say, come to
the law. Our Lord Jesus didn't say, come
to the law. And kind of file that away in
your memory here for a second. He didn't say, come to the law. And he didn't say, come to the
church. He said, come unto me. He didn't even say, and I tread
carefully here, he didn't even say, come to the doctrines. Now,
I believe and love the doctrine of grace. I know a lot of times people,
they've said to me something like this, well, I think I've
come to understand the doctrines of grace. Well, and I don't want
to be too picky, but really it's just the doctrine of God. If
you look through the scriptures, whenever the Bible, in most every
instance except for maybe once, one time, but most every time
the word doctrines, that is with an S, doctrine with an S in the
plural form, whenever it's used, it's about false doctrine. And
I know we have doctrine. Doctrine is vital. Doctrine is
important. We love the doctrine of God.
The doctrine of God's very teaching of our Lord. But our Savior,
He doesn't even say, come to the doctrine. I don't think there's
anybody in here who believes the doctrine of God's sovereign
grace any more than I do. I expect some of you believe
it as much as I do, but I don't believe anybody in here believes
and loves the doctrine of grace any more than I do. But we got
to understand this. The life of the doctrine is the
one we come to, and that's Christ Jesus. He's the life of the doctrine. You see, the doctrine's like
the skeleton. But He's the life of all of it.
He's the flesh of all of it. He's the blood of all of it. He says, come unto Me. Well,
what is it to come to Him? Well, hold your place there and
go to John 6 and let's see if this doesn't clarify this. What does it mean to come to
Christ? Because we are all times saying
to people, come to the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Savior Himself
says, after He talks about the Father reveals Himself to whom
He willed, He says to everybody, to everybody who is needy, to
everybody who is burdened with sin and guilt, He says, come
unto Me. Well, what is it to come to Christ? Well, I know this, it isn't a
physical movement. And this is the awful thing that
the so-called invitation system, this is the damage that it's
done because for the last, oh, 165 years or so, preachers have
started saying, come to the front. Jesus did all of this for you,
now surely you can do something for Him. You can step out and
come down here and make your decision for Jesus. It isn't
a physical movement. It isn't coming to Him physically.
It isn't coming physically down here before the pulpit. It's
a spiritual movement of the soul. And I would say this to you,
oh sinner, come to Jesus Christ and don't move a muscle. How's that? Is that okay? Don't
move a muscle. You see, salvation is a work
of the heart. We're in the heart business.
We minister, we seek to minister the hearts of men and women and
boys and girls. And I hope to preach to you,
every time I preach to you, from my heart to your heart. And the
Savior says to the hearts of needy sinners, come unto me. What is it to come to the Savior? Well, I think He sets it forth
as well as it can be set forth as the Savior of course does
here in John 6 and 35. And Jesus said unto them, he's
speaking about himself being the bread of life. He said, I
am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. There's that word, there's the
root word come. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me, that's the same thing.
What is it to come to the Lord Jesus Christ? It's to believe
Him. It's to rest in Him. It's to
lean all of the weight of your soul upon the omnipotent Savior. It is from the heart to come
to Christ Jesus. I don't want you to come to me.
Well, I need to talk to you about my soul, preacher. You need to
talk to God about your soul. I'm telling you everything I
know when I get up here to preach to you. When I finish preaching
tonight and like this morning I preach to you, I've given you
the gospel. That's all I can do for you.
Well, I think you can make things a little more clearer to me.
The only one who can make the gospel crystal clear to you is
the Holy Ghost. And our business is just to set
forth the record that God has given. That life is in His Son. And he that hath the Son hath
life. And he that hath not the Son
of God hath not life. The one who can make this understandable
for you and believable to you, the one who can make this real
to you, is God Himself. It always bothers me whenever
somebody says, well, I talked to a personal worker. That's
what we used to say. I remember being back in Army
and free will religion. The preacher would preach. And
then he'd say, now, if you come to the front, I've got people
who'll go back with you to an inquiry room and they'll help
you. No, they can't help me because
they need help themselves. Only one who can help the helpless
has got to be almighty. Isn't that right? He's got to
have all power. He's got to have all power in
heaven and in earth. He's got to have all power over
Satan to drive him out. He's got to have all power over
death to give me life, take away the death and give me life. He's
got to have all power over all things. Christ Jesus does. And
He says, come unto Me. Come unto Me. This is a coming
from the heart. It's an approaching unto Him
in the soul, and from the soul, in worship, and in commitment,
and in absolute trust and confidence. To whom does the Savior call
to come to Him? Well, go back here to verse 28
of chapter 11 of Matthew. He says, all that labor and are
heavy laden. You know, when the Lord issues
forth a call to come to Him, like in John 7.37, He issued
this call, If you're thirsty, come to Me
and drink. You know who the call is for?
The thirsty. He says in John chapter 6, He
says, Come and eat of Me. Who will eat of Him? The hungry. And right here in this passage,
He says, Come unto Me. Who will come? Who's this for? It's for somebody who's got this
need. They're laboring and they're
heavy laden. And you know who creates within
them this awareness of laboring under sin and laboring under
the law that they can't keep? You know who creates that awareness? The same one who creates the
awareness of thirst. And the same one who creates
the awareness of hunger. The Lord Himself. Oh, that God
would make us to be weary, weary with this world, the toils of
this world, the labors of this world, the labor of trying to
work ourselves into God's favor, the labor under the law, to make
us so weary. Lord, I'm absolutely worn out
trying and striving and working and laboring. I need rest. And he says, come to me. Come
to me. I'll give you rest. I'll give
you rest. That's what he promises to give
to us. Rest. And he's got to give it. He's got to give it or he won't
get it. He gives it as a gift. You don't
earn it. You don't barter for it. You
don't bargain for it. He has to give rest. You can't
buy it. You don't merit it. He gives
rest. He gives rest to the soul. It's a gift of His grace. He
gives it freely. Now it cost Him dearly. It cost
Him His life's blood. It cost Him all the sufferings
and the agonies of the cross. It cost him the suffering of
the wrath of God in his soul. But he gives it to us. He gives
it to us. He gives us rest. Well, what
is this rest? Well, it's the rest of knowing
that our sins are all forgiven. They're all under the blood. And if God the Spirit ever convinces
us of that, we will have rest in the soul. That there's nothing
separating us from God. When the Spirit of God takes
the Word of the Gospel, and makes the Gospel real to us, and by
faith we come to Jesus Christ, He gives us the rest of knowing
we're justified. We're justified before God. God will never charge us with
any guilt, with any sin. Because we don't have any sin. We don't have any guilt. It's
all been paid for by the blood of the Lord Jesus. We're righteous
in God's sight. God has pronounced us to be justified. And that does give us rest. He
gives us a rest in the conscience. I'll tell you what the conscience
of man, this is what it requires. Perfection. And the conscience
won't be happy with anything less than perfection. So that's
why if you're trying to do something to earn God's favor, you know
what your conscience will tell you? It ain't enough. Ain't enough. You can't get any rest. You can't
get any peace. Where does the peace have to
come from? It comes from the Lord. He gives
us rest in the soul. Rest in the soul. I'll give you rest. It's the
rest of forgiveness. It's the rest of being made the
righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. It's the rest of being
accepted by God. He gives us rest. Now, look at chapter 12 verse
1. At that time, at that time, right
after He said these words, at that time, having just spoken
about the rest that He gives, our Lord Jesus, on purpose, went through a field, knowing
There was some folks watching. There was some legalists. They were spying out his every
move. What's he going to do? And knowing that they were watching,
his disciples, and we would presume that he himself, but the scripture
says that his disciples, they plucked some grain. And they
began to rub the grain off in their hands and then to eat it. Our Lord did that, took his disciples through this
field of corn or whatever kind of grain field it was, knowing that these enemies were
watching him on the Sabbath day to see what he and his disciples
would do. He did this to expose the uselessness
of their legalistic religion and to set himself forth as,
and here's the title of the message, the Lord of the Sabbath. The
Lord of the Sabbath. You see, it was never his intention
to get along with these people. I mean, if he'd wanted to get
along with these people, knowing that there's over there watching,
they'd never done this. Because this sort of thing would
really aggravate a self-righteous Pharisee. They go walking through the field.
I mean, I can just visualize them walking through, can't you?
And the man said, boy, Master, we sure are hungry. He said,
well, there's some grain. Pick some grain and eat. Think
it's all right? You hungry? Yeah. Well, I said
pick some grain and eat. They picked it off and began
to break off the kernels and eat it. That tastes pretty good. Of course, although I have had
some sweet corn before it was cooked, it tasted pretty good
with the milk in it. I don't know what they were eating,
but they munched on it and they got some relief from it. He wasn't trying to get along
with these with these Pharisees because they're poles apart. I like to get along with people. I do. I like, don't you? I don't
like turmoil. I don't like people to be at
odds with one another. I don't want to be at odds with
anybody and don't like other people to be at odds with me. When it comes to the things of
God, we don't believe in peace at any cost. There's one gospel. And we take
a stand for that one gospel. Now if there's somebody who preaches
the gospel and loves the gospel of Jesus Christ, they're my friend. They may not want to be identified
with me. And that has happened. That's
okay. I'm still going to pray for them. I'm going to pray for them. If
somebody believes the gospel and somebody preaches the gospel,
They love the message of God's sovereign grace. They love the
message of salvation by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, salvation
by the imputed righteousness of the Son of God. They preach
salvation altogether by grace alone, through Christ alone,
revealed in the Scriptures alone, by the power of the Spirit of
God alone. I'm going to pray for them. I'm going to lift up
their names to God in prayer and say, Lord, bless their ministry.
Whether they want to have anything to do with me or not, that's
beside the point. I'd like to be a peacemaker. I think there's been a lot of
turmoil within the so-called sovereign grace movement that
is really an absolute shame. That's the way I look at it.
It used to be, and I'll just be Just to be absolutely honest
with you, it used to be, you know who the enemy was? The free
will Armenian preacher. Preaching works religion. Preaching
salvation by your decision. Salvation by something you do.
But now there's fussing and fighting and this has been going on for
a while amongst people who believe sovereign grace. It's an awful
thing. It's an awful. That's the way
I look at it. It's an absolute awful thing. And I don't divide
with people. If you want to divide with me,
that's your business. But I'm not writing anybody off
who believes the gospel. I know when we moved to Almonte,
they'd had a split before I got there. Folks in the church, they
told me this. They said, you know, so and so.
Of course, I didn't know who the people were, but they said,
this is what happened. And I'd see them in town, see
them on the street. And as I walked by, I'd go speak
to them. How are you? And they'd just look that way.
That's awful. What kind of Christian attitude
is that? And I just think the The enemies
of the gospel, it gives him a reason and a cause to just mock the
things of God. It's a terrible thing. I'll speak to anybody. If you've wronged me, I'll still
speak to you. And I'll tell you why. God has forgiven me of everything. He has forgiven me of everything.
And old so-and-so hadn't done near to me what I've done to
God. And God says, I freely, I fully,
all forgive through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not going to hold a grudge.
I'm not going to get mad at anybody. If you believe sovereign grace,
if I see you, I'm going to speak to you. And if you just absolutely
turn away and you refuse to speak to me, you better watch. I'm
liable to go after you and say, did you hear me? I said, hello.
Because I'm that way. I'm that way. But we don't believe
in peace at any price. We're not going to forsake the
gospel in order to have peace with people. Here's our Lord
Jesus. And here's the Pharisees, they're
the strictest religious sect in the world. To the average person, a Pharisee,
they were the saints of the day. And our Lord Jesus, He couldn't
have any communion with them. Well, what communion can light
have with darkness? None. None. So I don't understand why we
don't, as a church, why don't we participate in things like,
I suppose y'all have a day of prayer, there's a national day
of prayer and things like that. I know when we was in Almonte,
they'd invite us, everybody, all the churches meet down around
the flagpole at the high school. We'll all pray together. Now, I can't go to that. That's compromising the gospel.
How can I get along with those people? We're calling on different
gods. I'm calling on the God who's
sovereign, who's holy, who's just and righteous in all His
ways. They're calling on the God who needs man's help. We're
poles apart. I don't believe in that kind
of peace. And here's our Lord. He goes out through the field
and His disciples and He spies those Pharisees over there. They're
just over there watching, licking their chops, wondering what he'll
do next. And he just deliberately, his
disciples deliberately plucked the grain, began to eat. Verse 2, But when the Pharisees
saw, they saw, they said unto him, Behold! That word, behold, is a word
that's to grab your attention. Behold! You know what your disciples
are doing? It's unlawful. They do that which is not lawful
to do on the Sabbath day. Because you see, picking the
corn, they consider that reaping. And then breaking off the kernels,
that's threshing it. They are working on the Sabbath
day. They said, it's not lawful. He said to them, haven't you
read what David did? When he was hungry and they that
were with him were hungry, how they entered into the house of
God, they ate the showbread right off the table of showbread. which
was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with
him, but only for the priests. But they were hungry. Or have
you not read in the law how that on the Sabbath days the priests
in the temple profaned the Sabbath and are blameless? What does
that mean? They worked in the temple. That's
what it means. They worked in the temple. And
according to your reasoning, they blasphemed, they profaned
the temple. Yet they're blameless. Let me tell you something. If you seek acceptance with God
by obedience to the law, you've not only got a long, hard road
ahead of you, it's an impossible task. That's absolutely impossible. You see, these men, when they
talked about the Sabbath, you've got to understand, the old rabbis,
they added to the laws that God gave. They added ridiculous laws. Somebody said it would take nearly
six days to read all the laws that they came up with pertaining
to the Sabbath observance. Ridiculous laws. That's a hard life, to live under
the law. And my friends, the law can't
save you. The law can't help you. Why did
God give the law? He gave the law to expose guilt. Here's what the Apostle Paul
said, I had not known sin, but by the law. And he says by the deeds of the
law there shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. Well why did
God give the law? Why did he give all the law?
To show us our guilt. To show us our neediness. There
is no rest to be found in law keeping. You see, this all ties
together. He says, come unto me and I'll
give you rest. At that time, he goes through,
they pick the corn, and the Pharisees say, oh, they violated the Sabbath
day. These people were laboring. They
kept the people of Israel laboring and worrying about all the laws
that they had to keep on the Sabbath day. And I read, I read
that most of the Jews felt this way. They hated the day. They hated the Sabbath day to
come up because they had so many laws that they had to abide by.
They were miserable. They're miserable. You see, salvation
by law keeping is a miserable life. It's absolutely miserable. You know what's the good life?
Come unto me, and I'll give you rest." The Lord said, notice
He says in verse 6, but I say unto you that in this place is
one greater than the temple. He's speaking about Himself.
Greater than the temple. He said, but if ye had known
what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, you
would have not condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man
is Lord even of the Sabbath day. What was the law of the Sabbath
day? I can give it to you in one word.
Rest. Rest. He says, come unto me and
I'll give you rest. And if you go to the law, you're
not going to have any rest. If you run to your works, you're
not going to have any rest. If you run to anything that is
required of you, if you run to and embrace a salvation conditioned
upon something you must accomplish, you won't have any rest in your
soul. But if you come to the Lord Jesus
Christ, drawn by effectual grace, He says, I'll give you rest.
No rest out there for the law keeper. No rest out there for
the Sabbath day observer. No rest out there for those people
who seek to do things to merit favor with God. The only rest
for your poor soul that you'll ever find is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He says, come to me. Come to
me. I'll give it to you. And I say, oh God, draw us and
then we'll come to you. Now what do we say? Lord, draw
us and we will come to you. You are the Lord of the Sabbath.
And I will rest in you. I wish we had the words of that
song, Come Unto Me. We don't have that in our song
book though, do we? Remember singing that years ago? Come
and hear the blessed Savior calling the oppressed. Come to me and
I will give you rest. Something like that. We don't
have that song so we will just have to sing something else.
But anyway, come to the Savior and He will give you rest.