Luke chapter 6 and verse 6. And it came to pass also on another
Sabbath that he, that is the Lord Jesus, entered into the
synagogue and taught. And there was a man whose right
hand was withered. And the scribes and Pharisees
watched him, whether he would heal on the Sabbath day, that
they might find an accusation against him. But he knew their
thoughts and said to the man which had the withered hand,
rise up and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood
forth. Then said Jesus unto them, I
will ask you one thing, is it lawful on the Sabbath days to
do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it? And looking
round about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth
thy hand. And he did so, and his hand was
restored whole as the other. And they were filled with madness,
and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus. Amen. May the Lord bless this
reading from his word. The Lord made it his practice
to worship on the Sabbath day and to use the opportunity that
was granted by that to minister the gospel to all who gathered. And here, once again, in this
little passage in Luke chapter six, we find the Lord and his
disciples attending the service in the synagogue, and the Lord
teaching those who were present. However, we also discover as
well that there were those who gathered not to worship, not
to learn, but to accuse. And just think about that for
a moment, just ponder that for a moment. Here is God in the
flesh. Here is God the Son explaining
the truths of scripture, ministering the gospel of salvation and preaching
grace to sinners. And there are men present with
the sole purpose to obstruct Christ and accuse the son of
God of sin, to find cause to condemn him. It is perhaps worth noting that
this did not deter the Lord from doing what he did. The Lord was not fearful or intimidated
by these men. Though between them and the Sadducees
and the Herodians they had all the levers of power with which
to oppose the Lord and his disciples and ultimately to take his life. There was a boldness in the Saviour
that we do well to notice and I suggest we cannot but admire. He confronted these men in their
own strongholds and exposed them for the petty hypocrisy that
they had. But think on this too. Also present
that day, was this man with the withered hand. It was his right
hand, which likely meant that it prevented him from doing manual
labour and very probably impoverished him and his family, if he had
one. But where is this man? Where
is this man? He's in the synagogue on the
Sabbath day He's waiting upon the Lord. I don't know if he
went to this synagogue regularly or whether he was there specifically
because he knew the Lord would be present. I do know that he
had a need that he could not cure. He had a disability that
no doctor could fix. and he had a desire to be in
the presence of the Saviour. And a needy man in the presence
of the Lord Jesus Christ, what better fit could there be than
that? I'm glad that these Pharisees
gave the Lord a hard time. I'm glad that they goaded him
and pushed him to do what he was most happy to do, which was
heal this poor man. It's good to be found waiting
upon the Lord. especially under the sound of
the gospel, especially in the way that the Lord has appointed.
And this poor fellow, he didn't even need to call on the Lord
or to seek to gain his attention as other people did from time
to time. These Pharisees, these scribes,
they did it for him by their challenges, to the Lord on that
day. How wonderful are the ways and
the providences of the Lord when he uses and engages the opposition
of the world to provoke and bring about mercy for his people. Think on that for a moment. None
of us like to face hardship and opposition of flesh or of this
world or of troubles. But if we saw these troubles
in their proper guise, in their proper garb, as vehicles by which
the Lord helps us, as the means by which our needs are met, and
the channels by which divine alleviating goodness flows and
is ministered to us with God's suitably corresponding mercies
being applied to our needs. I think we would begin to cherish
and value our troubles as simply the precursors of blessing. The one who was told to stand
forward to be blessed that day was the man with the withered
hand. Had he not had that withered
hand, he would not have been told to stand forward to be blessed. It was the son who needed help
that was granted that assistance. And I don't doubt for a moment
that the Lord knew this man was present and he fully intended
from the very beginning to do him good. And yet he waited until
the malice of the Pharisees had been voiced in order to allow
us, his church, to see brought out into the open the contradiction
of the world against him, and especially that of the religious
world, both to the gospel and to the person of Christ. We're
told that Christ knew the hearts of these men. He knew their thoughts. The Lord searcheth all hearts
and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts. In truth, nothing
has changed since Moses told us that God saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The hearts
of men have not improved, They've not softened towards the gospel
in the intervening centuries, and nor has the purpose of the
Lord to show kindness to his people and to do his church good. There is a continuing, ongoing
antipathy towards the church, and there is a continuing, ongoing
desire on the part of the Lord to do his people good. This is
the great contest, this is the great contradiction in the world. And these Pharisees, with their
works' righteousness and their legalism, were tools in Christ's
gracious hand to bless this poor sinner with a withered hand. And I want us to note how Luke
tells us that Christ looked round about upon them all. As the Lord was standing there
in the synagogue, as he was teaching, as he called this man to step
forward into the midst of the room with his withered hand,
we're told that the Lord looked round about upon them all. That's
what Luke says. Mark's a little bit more emphatic. Mark tells us that he looked
on them with anger, with anger, being grieved for the hardness
of their hearts. And that's the true state of
the human heart. It is hard, it is adamant, it
is corrupt. And it is why God must intervene
and make a change in us, for we can never make a change in
ourselves. What is required is a new heart. And this is what the Lord has
promised the elect. In Ezekiel 36, he says, a new
heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within
you. and I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh. Our gospel is the gospel of sovereign
grace, whereby God in mercy freely gives what we lack and graciously
bestows what we need to make us acceptable to himself and
fit for his presence. Praise God. And here's another
little lesson from this passage. Christ's instruction to this
poor man with the withered hand graphically demonstrates the
precise point that we're making. The Saviour said to the man,
stretch forth thine hand. And there was no protest from
the man, just obedience. He doesn't say, I can't. He does not say, I've not been
able to do that since my accident or my illness or my youth or
I've never been able to do that. He just did it. He did what he
hitherto could not do. He stretched forth his hand. Now the point here is that Christ's
Word came, Christ's instruction, Christ's admonition came with
enabling power. Robert Hawker, the old commentator
and preacher, he had a lovely phrase for this and we'd all
do well to remember it, I think. Christ's biddings are enablings. Christ's, if you've got a pen
or a pencil handy, Christ's biddings are enablings. except the Lord
had accompanied his command with power, except the Lord had softened
the sinews of that man's hand, except the Lord had moistened
the flesh and strengthened the bones and supplied the ability
to obey, no movement would have occurred. The power was not in
the arm and it came not from the man until Christ put it there. And that's the whole point of
grace. There are countless preachers
who weekly berate their hearers to try harder, work better, believe
stronger, exercise yourselves more for the prosperity of the
church and the well-being of society, or even for their own
spiritual growth, what they know of it, when they neither have
will nor power to do so. And there's no point in me coming
to you week by week with a list of self-help improvements. You can work all you like to
make your church organisation into a well-oiled machine with
a mixture of scolding and flattering and encouragement and criticism,
a carrot and a stick. But as far as spiritual life
is concerned, You're beating a dead horse unless the Lord
enables with a word of quickening power. And just finally, the
question again was about the Sabbath, but it was merely a
pretext for criticism and condemnation. These men would have left this
poor soul without a remedy rather than tarnish their own self-righteous
standing in their own eyes and in the eyes of their peers. The
true nature of their attitude was revealed when they burst
out of the synagogue in their anger and schemed together how
they might harm and hurt Jesus. Matthew and Mark say how they
might destroy him. Such was the anger, such was
the wrath that burned within them against the Lord that they
came out of the synagogue that day, having heard the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, preaching and seeing a miracle. And they
came out and they said to one another, how are we going to
destroy this man? and ultimately this is the true
motive of a man's heart. And it reminds us that the kingdom
of Christ and the kingdom of Satan are irreconcilable. The seed of the woman and the
children of the wicked one can never agree. We're told that
these men were filled with madness. and they sought to destroy Christ. Filled with madness, they sought
to destroy Christ. And indeed they did, insofar
as they were able, because they crucified him. And as with the
man with the withered hand, the Lord allowed their wicked hands
to put him to death, yet all the time he intended good for
his people from their wicked actions. However, Soon there
will come a day of reckoning and we should not forget that
judgment and destruction of the enemies of Christ is as much
a part of Christ's mission as the redemption and salvation
of the elect. The time is coming when Jesus
will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend. and shall
cast them into a furnace of fire, there shall be wailing and gnashing
of teeth. These little passages from the
Gospels are in many ways simple and straightforward, and yet
the truths that lie behind the acts of Christ and the actions
and thoughts of men reveal the deep underlying divisions of
light and darkness, good and evil, life and death, flesh and
spirit. How blessed we are to have been
given wisdom to seek the Lord while he may be found and to
rest upon him for all our needs. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today.