Good morning. Good to see everyone
this morning. So many visitors here for the
holiday weekend. Delighted to see you. If you
would open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 26. Matthew chapter 26. Before we
begin, let's bow before our Lord in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverent is your matchless name. Father, we come into your
presence this morning carefully, reverently, daring only come
before your throne in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, pleading
his obedience as our only righteousness, pleading his blood as the only
payment that we have for our sins, pleading his precious person
as the only way we could be accepted in thy presence. Father, we bow
and worship and we I pray that you would speak to us this morning
through your word, that you'd send your spirit upon us, and
Father, that you'd give us a special hour of worship, that we might
be enabled by faith to see the glory of Christ our Savior. Father,
to see him with faith, have faith mixed with everything that we
hear and believe on, rest on our Lord Jesus Christ. Cause
his name to be glorified in everything that is said and done here this
morning. And I pray that you'd set the affection of each heart
upon him, that we would keep all these other things of this
life in their proper place of insignificance compared to our
Savior, and set our affection on him. Father, we pray for our
country and our world at this time. We know that you're the
king, that you're the one who's in control. Father, we pray that
you would turn the hearts of those who lead this world to
wisdom and calmness and peace, that you would preserve the peace
of your people. Father, that you'd heal and comfort
those that you brought in the time of trouble and trial. Father,
we thank you for our homes, our families, our children. Father,
I pray your richest blessing be upon our homes and that you'd
give leadership and wisdom Mercy. Father, we beg mercy for our
souls. And what we pray for ourselves,
we pray for all of your people who meet together this morning
to worship. Father, cause your word to run well everywhere that
it's preached to the glory of Christ our Savior, to the salvation,
comfort, and edification of the hearts of your people. All these
things we ask, and we give thanks in that name which is above every
name, the name of Christ our Savior. All right, our text begins this
morning. Matthew chapter 26 will begin in verse one. And it came
to pass when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said unto
his disciples, you know that after two days is the feast of
the Passover and the son of man is betrayed to be crucified.
Now the next two chapters cover the events of two days. It's
the day of the Lord's sacrifice and the day before. A lot happens
in those two days. During these two days, we'll
see this in just a moment, a woman comes and anoints the Lord with
precious ointment. Judas enters into agreement with
the high priest to betray the Lord. We'll see the Lord's mock
trial. We'll see his suffering and death
for the sin of his people. We'll see his agony and Gethsemane
as he leads up to that time of his suffering. He's actually
betrayed by Judas and brings that crowd out there and his
mock trial, and his suffering and death on Calvary's tree.
Now that's a lot to pack in to two days, isn't it? And as we
begin looking at these two days, I don't want to, I want to be
very careful not to do this, to not just give a history lesson
of these two days. You know, our job is to declare
the meaning of what's going on here, to preach Christ from these
things and tell what he's accomplished during his suffering at this
time. In short, here's the message
of these two days. By his suffering and by his death,
Christ our Savior fulfilled every Old Testament type and picture
of the sacrifices. Obviously, he'll fulfill the
picture of the sacrifice lamb, Christ our Passover, sacrificed
for us. died at the very moment they're
offering that Passover, killing the Passover lamb. He fulfilled
the picture of the sin offering, the trespass offering. He fulfilled
the picture of the scapegoat being led out into the wilderness,
taking the sin of God's people away, never to be seen again.
He fulfilled the picture of all those sacrifices, morning, noon,
evening sacrifices, all the annual sacrifices. And what the Lord
suffered in those two days as he fulfilled those pictures of
those those sacrifices, he suffered as a substitute for his people.
He suffered for their sin, bearing the punishment that their sin
deserves, and by his suffering and by his death, the Savior
fully, eternally saved his people from their sin. He completely
put the sin of his people away. By his obedience unto death,
the Savior made all of his people the righteousness of God in him. Those Old Testament sacrifices,
thousands and thousands, millions probably of sacrifices. By the
one sacrifice of Christ, he satisfied God's justice against the sin
of his people forever. God's not angry anymore. The
blood of Christ took away all the sin of God's people that
made him angry. And there is not one blessed
thing left for the creature to do to obtain salvation. Christ
did it all. He accomplished it all. And he's
the one that will apply it to the hearts of his people through
the preaching of the gospel. Now, in a nutshell, that's the
gospel message that's in the next two chapters that we'll
begin looking at today. And when you think about all
that, we're getting ready to step on holy ground, aren't we?
This is holy ground. Now, whenever this gospel is
preached, the pictures of the events of these next two days,
there are always three reactions. There's hate, there's faith,
and there's indignation. And that's the title of our lesson
this morning. Hate, faith, and indignation. And how I pray that
the Lord deliver us from hate and indignation and give us faith
in Christ. Here's the first reaction to
the gospel of Christ. It's hate. Look at verse three.
Then assembled together the chief priests and the scribes and the
elders of the people under the palace of the high priest who
was called Caiaphas. and consulted that they might
take Jesus by subtlety and kill him. But they said, not on the
feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people. Now the natural
reaction of flesh when we hear the gospel, the gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace in Christ Jesus, is hate. The flesh hates
the gospel of Christ. That includes your flesh and
my flesh. Our flesh even today still hates the gospel, still
hates what the gospel says about us, And the only reason any of
us here this morning love the gospel of Christ and want to
hear the gospel of Christ is God's given us a new nature,
the nature of the spirit. If you love the gospel, it's
the spirit that loves it. The flesh still, still fights
against it. And I tell you why the flesh
hates the gospel of Christ so much, because what the gospel
says insults the flesh. I mean, the gospel has to kill
the flesh. I mean, you know, the flesh has
got to be killed. The flesh is going to hate that.
The gospel of Christ insults the intelligence of man. The
gospel says you can't be educated in the kingdom of God. You can't
see, you can't understand the kingdom of God unless you've
been born again. You can't understand it. The
gospel of Christ insults the wisdom of man. The gospel says
you can't understand how God saves sinners. I don't care how
smart you are, you can't understand it. You can't understand how
God saves sinners. You can't see Christ and believe
him. unless the Spirit's pleased to reveal Christ to you. The
gospel insults the righteousness of man. You know, all our life
long, we've been told we're good boys and good girls, but the
gospel says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,
and we can't do anything but sin. We're not good. There's
none good. No, not one. The only righteousness
that there is, the only goodness, the only righteousness that's
ever been produced, the only righteousness God will ever accept,
is the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ, not ours, but his. The gospel insults the very nature
of the flesh. Our nature is dead in sin. I mean, the gospel says our nature
is offensive to God. That's why Christ had to come
and save us. Well, our nature is offensive to God. The gospel
of Christ insults the religion of the flesh. Now, man is dead
in sin, but man is very, very religious. He's a religious creature. Man inherently knows we're separated
from God. Something's got to be done about
that. Man inherently knows we've sinned against God. We know that
we must stand before God in judgment. And man just inherently knows
that something's got to be done to pay for that. But man is dead. By nature, man is dead. So we
don't know what can be done. to bridge the separation between
us and God? We don't know. Man is dead in sin and we don't
know how to pay for our sin. We make up many wild ways, but
we don't know what can be done. What payment will God accept
as payment for our sin? We don't know because we're dead.
So man makes up many crazy inventions. We make up religious activity
and religious thoughts and religious doctrine. We think if we stay
busy enough in that, God will be happy with us. Man by nature
thinks somehow we can work hard enough, I can change my habits
enough, I can quit sinning enough, somehow make God happy with me. Look back at Isaiah chapter one.
This is what God says in the gospel, in his word, about man's
religion. The gospel and what God says
about it insults our religion and our religious activities.
Isaiah 1, verse 10. Hear ye the word of the Lord,
ye rulers of Sodom, and give ear unto the law of our God,
ye people of Gomorrah. You see what God's saying there?
He's not talking there to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.
He's talking to religious people, the religious leaders of the
day. In your religion, you're no better off than people of
Sodom and Gomorrah. That's what he's saying. Read
on, verse 11. He said, To what purpose is this
multitude of your sacrifices unto me? What purpose is all
this multitude of activity, saith the Lord? I'm full of the burnt
offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts. I delight not
in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he-goats. When you
come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand,
to tread in my courts? Bring no more vain oblation.
Incense is an abomination unto me. The new moons and the Sabbaths
and the calling of assemblies, I cannot, away with, it's iniquity. Even the solemn meeting, your
most solemn meetings, they're iniquity. Your new moons and
your appointed feasts, my soul hates. There are trouble unto
me and I'm weary to bear them. And when you spread forth your
hands, I'll hide my eyes from you. Yea, when you make many
prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood."
Now, that insults man's religion, doesn't it? But that's what God
says about it. God hates man's religion. God hates it. When
a man, a sinner or sinful man, woman, sinful creature tries
to work their way to God. God hates them. And man in return
hates God. You know, people, people in religion,
it's not that just they're mistaken. I mean, they're good intention,
but they're mistaken. No, sir. Man by nature hates
God. Hates God. And God's just not
going to wink at it and tolerate it because they're good intention.
God said it's iniquity. He said, I'll not hear it. I'll
not see it. God says the only way we can be made righteous
is by the obedience of Christ. Not ours, the obedience of God's
Son. The only way our sin can be forgiven is not us straightened
up in fine right. It's the blood of Christ. God
says the only way our sin can be cleansed, the only way you
can be washed white as snow is in the blood of Christ. God says
the only way we can be accepted is in the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Man by nature hates that. I just,
I want to be accepted in my own self, you know. This is why human
religion has to rely so much on music and lighting and sharing
and feelings and getting people whipped up into a frenzy, you
know, because those are the things that makes the dead flesh feel
religious. See man's religion, they like feeling that way. But
boy, you give them the bare preaching of Christ. His flesh hates it,
don't they? They hate it. And man hates that
message so much. We're still like Adam today.
I want to kill God. I want to take him off the throne.
So I go on doing the religion that I want to do. I want to
keep on going doing this religion, you know, that makes me feel
good. But don't do it on the feast day. Now we've got this
feast day schedule, you know, don't mess up our sentimental
feeling, our pretty little scenery, religious scenery we have here,
you know, let's do it another day, but don't, don't, don't
mess up the pretty picture that I've got kind of painted for
myself. Don't do it on the feast day. It's just hate. It's the natural reaction of
the flesh to hearing Christ preach. All right, here's the second
reaction to the preaching of Christ is faith. Verse six, Now,
when Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper,
there came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious
ointment and poured it on his head as he sat at meat. Now,
all through his earthly ministry, the Lord had told his disciples,
and we think of his disciples as the 12, but there are others,
they're all around too. There are women who helped in
things. There are more than 12 people
around. And all through his earthly ministry, the Lord has been telling
his disciples, he must suffer and die. I mean, I just try,
I forgot to try to go back and count for so many times. He told
him plainly, he wasn't making it a secret. He told him plainly,
I got to go to Jerusalem and suffer and die. This is the whole
reason why he came. Now he's here telling them precisely
it's going to happen in two days. Now, the 12, you know, that we
think of as the disciples, they just don't get it. They still
don't get it. But this woman did. This woman
did. Now, remember, immediately before
this, what's been going on, what we've been looking at here in
Matthew, the Lord's been teaching his people, his disciples, about
the kingdom of God. When he's gonna return again,
He'll reign over that kingdom. His servants will serve him.
His servants will be there and worship him face to face. And
they'll all be gathered together. He's been teaching them that
this is the kingdom. He's been telling them about his second
coming. Now he's telling them, but before he comes again as
king, he must go and suffer and die. He's got to offer the sacrifice
that he came for. He must shed his blood to purchase
the kingdom. before he can come again as the
king over it. Before everybody sees him wear
the crown of glory, they're going to see him die on the cursed
tree. Before he wears that crown of glory, he's going to wear
the crown of thorns. What are thorns? They're what grow from
the ground God cursed. He's wearing that crown of thorns
showing he's bearing the curse of the sin of his people. Before
he comes in a crown of glory, he's got to die wearing that
crown. of thorns bearing the sin of his people. Before he
sits down on the right hand of the majesty on high, he must
sacrifice himself to satisfy his father's justice and put
away the sin of his people. Before he can ascend back to
heaven, he must suffer and die. He must shed his blood. So when
he gets to glory, he's got blood to offer. He's got blood to plead
as the mediator of his people. Before his people can be brought
into his kingdom, Christ has got to put their sin away and
make it so they can come into his kingdom. Now the 12 just
do not understand this yet. They just don't understand. But
this dear lady did. God gave her faith to believe
this message of salvation through the sacrifice of Christ, through
his blood. The Lord gave her understanding.
He didn't give the 12. She understood. The Lord's getting
ready to suffer and die for her sin, for her sin. And she knew
somehow the Lord's gonna be cut off and it's gonna be very unlikely
that she's gonna be able to take his body, to get his dead body
and wrap and anoint his body for the burial the way that the
Jews normally did. So she came to anoint the Lord's
body for burial now. She might not have a chance in
two days. She's got the opportunity now. And she takes it and does
it now. And she's doing this for his
death, because of his death. I know that because what the
Lord says in verse 12. For in that she has poured this
ointment on my body. She did it for my burial. She's
doing this as an act. This is a special thing she's
doing for his burial. And it's an act of faith. It's
an act of faith identifying with Christ the Savior. It's an act
of faith clinging to Christ our Savior. She's identifying with
the Savior, and buddy, she's putting her money where her mouth
is. Now this ointment is very, very expensive, and she's taking
that which is of value to her and pointing it on Christ. It's
just showing she's giving up everything to trust Christ alone. You know, you think of the value
our flesh puts on our good works. I mean, this is why the flesh
hates the gospel, because we have no good works. But you think
of the value our flesh places on what? Buddy, you got to get
rid of that. She's taking that which is most
precious to her and pouring it out, saying, I trust Christ alone. All of my salvation is going
to be accomplished by his death, his burial, and his resurrection
for me. She's honoring the Savior. with
what she has. That's what faith does. You see,
faith in Christ is not just some dead thing that we keep secret
in our hearts. Faith always acts. Always. It's just like love. Love always
acts. It has to. Faith does too. It has to act. It has to identify
with Christ. And that's what believer's baptism
is all about. And it's our Lord's commandment.
It's faith acting, identifying with Him, publicly claiming He's
my salvation. It's His death. It's His burial,
His resurrection. That all my salvation, all my
hope is in Him. It's tied up in Him. It's not
just tied up in Him, it is Him. That's what faith is. Faith has
to act. But you know how else faith has to act? It has to. God-given, living faith has to
act in this way. Good works toward others. It
has to. This passage is why I tell you
so often, a good work is a work that's done on the body of Christ. The Lord calls this a good work,
and it's the only thing he called a good work in his earthly ministry,
is what this woman did, pouring this ointment out on his body. It's something that she did for
the glory and comfort of his body. Now, the body of Christ
is his people. The body of the Lord Jesus is
not here. You can't do something on his physical body now, can
you? But you can't get his people. He called his people, they're
the body, I'm the head. A good work is a work done to
help God's people. I mean, just the smallest thing.
Our Lord said a glass of cold water, just a small, whatever
it is that you can do, whatever it is that you have the opportunity
to do. It's doing it for the glory of
Christ. But you know, everybody in the
room, Bennett, she did this on the body of Christ. She poured
this ointment out on the body of Christ. But everybody in the
room benefited, didn't they? They all smelled that ointment.
That was all poured out on Christ, but everybody else benefited.
Now, if you want to do a good work, I'll tell you what you
do. You do something, whatever it is that's in your power to
do, to help one of God's people. If somebody needs something,
give it to them. If somebody needs something done, do it for
them. If somebody's hurting and just, you know, give them a hug
and tell them you love them. Say a kind word. It's just whatever
it is you can do, do it. Do something that costs you,
costs you some effort, costs you some time not to be seen
of men, not to get praise and recognition and thanks of men,
but out of love. Because you love Christ and you
love his people. Don't do it because you think
you have to. If you think you have to, whatever. Do it if you want. This is not something that you
have to do. It's that you want to. It's that you want to. That's
how faith acts. You know, if the Lord lays it
on your heart to do something for somebody, don't just wonder,
well, are they going to think that's dumb? Are they going to
understand what I'm doing? Don't worry about that. If the
Lord lays it on your heart, just do it and forget it. Let's do
it. That's what a good work is. And
you know why a good work is done? The sacrifice of Christ for your
sin. It's out of love for Christ. This woman came and anointed
the Lord's body for burial. She's doing what she's doing.
Why? Because of the sacrifice of Christ for her sin. It's doing
it out of love. And I've heard it said, I don't
know, you know, this precious ointment, perfume, I don't know
how long that smell stayed on his body, on his head, on wherever
she poured it on his body. But sometimes I wonder, as the
Lord was suffering and dying, could that sweet ointment still
be smelled? I don't know, but I know this,
as he was sacrificing himself to God, the Father smelled a
sweet smell, didn't he? a sweet savor that satisfied
his justice and made him lovingly accept his people. Oh, what a
sacrifice. Here's the third reaction. And
this is unfortunate, and I kind of hate to end here, but this
is the order in which they appear. The third reaction to the gospel
of Christ and these acts of faith is indignation. Look at verse
eight. But when his disciples saw it,
They had indignation, saying, to what purpose is this waste?
For this ointment might have been sold for much and given
to the poor. Now the disciples here, they react with indignation. The word means displeasure at
seeing the act of faith of this woman. Now this is a genuine
act of faith. And these other believers reacted
with displeasure, indignation. And they did it because they
did not understand what she was doing. They didn't understand
the motive of her heart, why she was doing what she was doing.
I kind of think about these men sitting around saying, oh, I
knew better what to do with this, you know. No, they didn't. They didn't. They didn't understand.
And I tell you, we need to be very careful about this, having
this reaction ourselves. You know, we just don't know
why people are doing what they're doing. We don't know the motive
that's in their heart, why they're doing what they're doing. And
I tell you why we need to be careful, this reaction, because
every believer here is still in the flesh. We're still in
the flesh. Yes, there's a new man that believes
God and loves God and loves the gospel. He's in a body of sin,
a body of fleshly sin. And we're all prone to act with
this weakness and sin, because that's what the flesh is. And
I show you how all this indignation started. Look at John chapter
12. Here's John's account of this same event. And here's how
it all started. These true believers were easily
led astray. They were led astray into this
indignation. John chapter 12, verse three. Then took Mary a pound of ointment
of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus and
wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with
the odor of the ointment. Then saith one of his disciples,
Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, why
was not this ointment sold for 300 pence and given to the poor?
This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he
was a thief and he had to bag and bear what was put therein.
And then Jesus said, let her alone. Against the day of my
bearing, has she done this? Judas was the one who would betray
the Lord. This man's a reprobate. And he
led these other disciples into this feeling of indignation.
Now, they had true faith in Christ, but see how easily they were
led astray, led into this indignation toward this woman, a true act
of faith in Christ. Now, this is just, I mean, it's
an example that poured itself out right after our Lord has
been teaching in these last chapters about the church on earth. It's
made up of a mixture. Remember how often he taught
us that the church on earth is made up of a mixture of believers
and unbelievers. There's always tares among the
wheat, always. Judas is an unbeliever. Now we
know that now, don't we? This man is a reprobate. That's
what we know now. But they didn't know that yet.
He was a thief. They didn't know it yet. At this
time, Judas was a trusted leader in the church. He was a trusted
leader among God's people. He was so trusted They made him
the treasurer, and he'd been stealing from them all along.
And he so easily, because of his position, so easily led them
into having this bad attitude. I tell you, we gotta be careful. We gotta be careful here. We
are to follow our leaders as they follow Christ. We're to
follow our pastor, the people that preach and teach as they
follow Christ. But we gotta be very careful.
that we're following Christ, not a man. Gotta be careful about
that. Because if, you know, if we just follow, I mean, I'm the
best of men, the best of men, the best of God's preachers.
If we're just following a man, following his logic, following
his will, we're gonna be led astray. You know, what we need
to pray is that the Lord will give us faith in Christ. So we hear Christ preach, we
believe Him. We believe him. These other reactions
come far too easily for us, don't they? Hate comes far too easily. Indignation comes far too easily. In our world today, I mean, don't
people automatically react with those two reactions to anything
anybody does? I mean, anything, anybody does. Somebody has got to point out,
wait a minute, I hate that. Wait a minute, that offends me.
We got the same flesh. We got the same flesh. We need
to pray that the Lord give us faith. Faith to believe. And
a little bit of wisdom in dealing with each other in love. And
just thinking maybe my brother, Maybe my sister, they're doing
something here, and you know, it could be they know something
I don't. When's the last time you met somebody that felt like
somebody knew something they didn't? Everybody knows now,
I know everything, and you know, you know less than me. Could
be my brother or sister knows something I don't know. Could
be. Maybe we'll just, the service, whatever it is they're doing,
they're the Lord's servant, maybe I'll just leave them to the Lord
and stick to my own knitting. Might be a good idea, wouldn't
it? Might be a good idea. I'll get into this in the message
in a little bit. It's amazing to me how well believers
just get along so swimmingly when the issue's Christ. When
we're working together to serve him and worship him, we're seeking
him, we're wanting to hear his gospel and glorify him. It is
just amazing how swimmingly we'll get along. But you make anything
else the issue, there's going to be indignation. I don't know
about you. I've had my fill of that. Maybe
God just set our affection on Christ. It'll be a smoother ride. All right. Well, Lord bless you.