Matthew chapter 12. We'll look at just verses 1 through
8 this morning. Matthew 12 verse 1. At that time, whenever the scripture has phrases like that. They're
always important. It's never superfluous. Every word is important. 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 corn and to eat.
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. But he said unto them, Have you
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 you not read in the law
how that on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane
the Sabbath and are blameless? But I say unto you that in this
place is one greater than the temple. But if you had known
what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. You would
not have condemned the guiltless for the son of man is Lord, even
of the Sabbath day. Now there are several very powerful
and important simple lessons taught in this brief passage
of scripture. First of all, we must notice
how our Lord answered these Pharisees in verses three and four. Have ye not read? Surely this is a question for
every one of us. who are Pharisees at heart, Pharisees
by nature, always wanting to correct somebody, always wanting
to teach and condemn. But we really don't know much,
do we? We really don't know much. Have you not read? And have you
not read? I asked myself, have you not
read? Do we know God's word? There's
so many things that we've spent so much more time on than we
have learning what God said. And those things that we've spent
all of our time on are meaningless. Have you not read? Haven't you read the word of
God? What an insult to these Pharisees,
no doubt. I can almost hear their teeth
grinding together when this Nazarene questions their knowledge of
the scripture. Don't you imagine? These self-righteous
Pharisees. If you haven't read the Word
of God, and what a powerful... Our Lord asks a simple question. and is able to shut up the unshut
up-able with one simple question. Have you not read? If you haven't
read the Word of God, then what are you doing going around teaching
people and rebuking people concerning the things of God? I'd like to ask some folks that
question, wouldn't you? Some people who stand up in pulpits
and presume to speak for God, and it's evident that they haven't
read. They don't read when they're
standing in the pulpit, the word of God. They just tell stories
and give their own experiences and their own thoughts and ideas
and opinions, which are worse than worthless. God, deliver me from that. And this is why it's so important
that we do read the Word of God and ask for understanding, because
in some of the responsibilities that the Lord has given us, we
need to be able to teach, don't we? Our children, and our families
as the heads of our houses, men, we need to be able to teach.
But have you not read before you begin to teach? Have I not
read? Ask God for understanding. Study
to show thyself approved unto God. A workman that needeth not
to be ashamed. Rightly dividing the word of
truth. That doesn't happen without reading. And we do this, surely we must
do this so we're not vulnerable to those who would deceive us.
Have you not read? When somebody starts popping
off about God and the things of God, are you easily drawn
in? Are you easily deceived? Have
you not read? I know many who have been deceived
by men. It's because they wear a suit
and have a Bible in front of them and stand behind a pulpit
simply because they haven't read. They don't know the word of God.
Trust in somebody else to tell them what God said. That's a
dangerous thing. The Bereans went home and looked
in the scriptures to see if these things be so that the apostles
preached. That's a good idea. If they speak
not according to this book, there's no light in them. How are you
going to know whether there's light in them or not any light
in them? Unless you've read. If they hadn't read the scriptures,
then what do they do in rebuking anybody with regard to anything
having to do with the things of God? And if they had read
the scriptures, then they don't have any excuse for their ignorance. You see how our Lord, with this
simple question, shut them up? There are some who have read
the scriptures and know that these things are so, but they
refuse to believe them. They refuse to bow to them. I
know some like this too. And I know myself enough to know
that this is me by nature. God's got to break us, doesn't
he? Like he did Saul. He got to cause us to submit
to his truth. There are those who have acknowledged
the truth of the sovereignty of God and salvation to me and
said, I can't preach that. It'll split the church. It's time for a split. If the
truth of God is going to split you. And this was likely the case
of these Pharisees. They probably knew the scriptures
pretty well in their heads, but there were some things they didn't
like. So like the Pharisees of our day, the so-called religious
big shots of our day, they just avoid the stuff that they don't
like, and they make the rest of it say what they want it to
say. But let's learn a lesson from our Lord here, either way,
in both cases, who's confronted here. He was confronted by error
in religion, religious error. Have you ever been? Have you
ever been confronted with religious error? Somebody wanted to argue
with you about why you're wrong about these things and quote
you a little scripture picked out from here and there to prove
you wrong. You may very well be one day
if you haven't already been confronted by religious error. Our Lord
answered with the word of God. Have you not read the scripture? And he told him what happened
in the scriptures. And how can you be saying what
you're saying based on what God said? Ooh, that's a good lesson,
isn't it? Make sure that when you do have
a disagreement with someone about the truth of God, that the person
that you are arguing with is arguing with God's word and not
you. Do I need to say it again for
myself? Make sure they're arguing with
God and not you. Your opinions and your deductions
and conclusions aren't any better than theirs. But God's word,
let God be true and every man a liar. You, them, and everybody
else. But if God said it, that settles
it. Now secondly, notice the words
at that time. At that time, at what time? Well, this expression draws our
attention back to the end of chapter 11, really all of chapter
11, but particularly the end where our Lord has just taught
that he himself is the sinner's rest. He didn't say observe the
Sabbath day and you'll have rest. He said, you come to me. And
I will give you rest. And now here in the beginning
of chapter 12, he demonstrates the truth that he is the sinner's
Sabbath. Isn't it beautiful the way the
Lord teaches so clear, so undeniable, so condescending to our foolishness,
our slowness of heart. The Sabbath was the day of rest. The Lord rested. in creation
on the seventh day. And he commands all men to rest
on the Sabbath day in the law. Keeping of the Sabbath day according
to the law, though, will not give you rest. The law is not
rules that we are to follow in order to be holy and acceptable
before God. The law is our schoolmaster to
bring us to Christ. The reason the Lord gave his
law was to drive us to Christ, to show that we don't honor God.
We don't set aside a day and do nothing but honor him. We
don't ever, we don't fully honor him as he's worthy with any of
our thoughts, not for a minute, much less a whole day. And so
it drives us to Christ, who is our Sabbath. He is our rest. Our Lord said, here in this teaching,
keeping the Sabbath day according to the law will not give you
the rest that you need. Come to me and I'll give it to
you. In the same way that he did in
Matthew 7, if you remember, it says at the end of Matthew 7,
he taught as one having authority. And he caused those who heard
him to say, he teaches as one having authority. No man ever
spake like this man. not as the scribes he teaches
like like he's the the one who does as he pleases that's what
that word authority means he teaches like somebody that does
what he wants to do and then in the very next chapter
at the beginning of it he demonstrated that authority when that leper
came to him and said lord If you will, you can. You have the
power, you have the authority, you have the ability to make
me clean if you want to. And he said, I will. Be thou
clean. And then right after that, that
man whose servant was lying at the very door of death and was
even dead, according to Another servant of his, he said, don't
don't bother the master with this anymore. He's already dead.
It's too late. And that man said, I am one under
authority. And I say to this one, come and
he comes and to another go and he goes. And I know this. You
just say the word and my servant will be healed. And so he taught
with authority as the one who has authority. And then he demonstrated
that authority. And that's what he's doing here.
Our Lord demonstrates what he has taught by showing himself
to be the true spiritual Sabbath rest for the sinner. Come to
me and I'll give you rest. And then he demonstrates that
the Pharisees were incensed by what they perceived to be the
disciples blatant disobedience to the law. They've disobeyed
the law. And in your presence, you can't
be in the implication here is you can't be who you say you
are, or you wouldn't let them get away with it. That's what
Simon said. You wouldn't, if you were who you said you were,
you wouldn't have anything to do with that sinner woman. But
what the disciples had profaned was not the true Sabbath, but
the Pharisees religious tradition. Even in the old Testament, as
our Lord expounded to them, David was counted blameless, and those
who were with him were counted blameless for eating the bread
in the house of God because they had a necessity. They were starving
to death. And those who labored in the
temple, the Levites, they were counted blameless, though, as
he said, otherwise they would have been profaning the Sabbath.
They worked and did things contrary to the Sabbath law, but they
did so in the temple. They did so in the service of
God, and so they will blame us also. And notice how thoroughly
our Lord destroyed this accusation of the Pharisees, how thoroughly
He destroyed it. And He did so in defense of His
disciples. Does it touch your heart to see
the Lord defending us, these disciples? We're just like us. And we're just like they were.
And our Lord defends us against the accuser. Satan is called the accuser of
the brethren. And the Pharisees were Satan's
disciples. But notice how thoroughly he
destroys this accusation. He addresses their case from
the standpoint of eating that which is unlawful on any day.
It was unlawful for David and those that were with him to come
into the house of God and eat that bread on any day, no matter
what it was. And so he addressed it from that
case of eating. And also he addresses their case
from the standpoint of violating the Sabbath itself. He gives
two cases from Old Testament scripture to address the case
before them that day. And we have here a picture of
heartless, cruel, manipulative. Religion does everything that
they do to manipulate people, to get people to do something.
You need to do something and we're going to make sure you
do something. We're going to make sure you do what we want
you to do and act like we want you to act. And they'll use promises
of heaven and threats of hell to get it done. No gospel, no
heart, no love, no compassion, no mercy. That's why our Lord
said, if you had any idea about anything having to do with mercy,
if you had any idea what God meant when he said, I'll have
mercy, then you wouldn't have condemned. The guiltless. The guiltless. When you condemn
one of God's sheep, you're condemning the guiltless. Are you ready
for that? Before God, you're condemning
the guiltless. But religion is heartless and
cruel. There's nobody meaner and nastier
and lower than a religious zealot. The Lord Jesus Christ had such
strong words of rebuke for them. And yet such tender, kind, compassionate
words for such as harlots and thieves. The law of God, clearly
in the word of God, as our Lord said, have you not read the law
of God allowed for cases of necessity, like when David and his men were
starved to death. That wasn't forbidden. That wasn't
the point of it. And the priests, when they were
in the temple doing labor, which was in service to God, they were
considered blameless for doing things that otherwise, outside
of the temple, would have been a violation of the Sabbath. That's
why our Lord said, when the priests were in the temple, they could
work and labor and do things that otherwise would have violated
the Sabbath. And there's one greater than
the temple here. These disciples, these ones that
you accused, they're in one greater than the temple. It was not unlawful
to do that on the Sabbath, which was necessary to show mercy or
kindness. And that's what he's referring
to in verses seven and eight, when he said, if you knew what
it meant, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. There were certain
things that you weren't permitted to do on the Sabbath day that
you could do if it was necessary to do it in order to help somebody
that was in trouble. In this same context, a little
later, he said, which of you, if you have a sheep that's hurt
or lost, you'll go find it, you'll go help it, you'll do that which
is unlawful to do on the Sabbath day in order to benefit yourself. And you're saying it's unlawful
for me to find one of my lost sheep and bring it home on the
Sabbath day? You hypocrites. You see, these Pharisees, the Pharisees had turned the
law which was given to point to Christ our rest, the Sabbath
law, they had turned it into a burdensome, virtually impossible
to observe. guilt-inducing bondage. That's
what they did. They were the ones that had profaned
the Sabbath day, not the disciples. And this is the way of religion.
Have you ever been in it? I've been in it. I know what
I'm talking about. Everything is wrong. Everything
is a sin according to them. And it just goes further and
further. Let's burn all of our books because they got bad words
in them. Did you know that God never said that it's evil to
watch television? Does that shock you? He never
said it's evil to watch television. Oh, but boy, I've been told many
times to get rid of my television. I hadn't done it yet. Did you
know that God never said it's evil to smoke a cigarette? You
see what the Pharisees had done? They'd made everything on the
Sabbath day evil. And religion makes everything.
You know why they do that? Because they want you to Be burdened
down under that yoke of bondage. They got you right where they
want you. They know you'll give and you'll be faithful and you'll
do everything you're supposed to do according to them. Because
if you don't, you'll go to hell for it. And they just keep adding
weight to that burden. Going to R-rated movies. Boy,
that's a, that's, that might be the unpardonable sin there,
according to some religion, or working on Sunday. Oh no. I know a lot of people would
be shocked to hear me say that. I doubt if you are. Religion
loves to preach against sin, quote unquote. And not only are
the things that they preached against not sin in and of themselves,
but even if they did preach against real sin, a sinner was never
saved that way. God doesn't save sinners by the
preaching against sin. It's by the preaching of the
gospel. Do you know what God said when he said, I will have
mercy? What he's saying is this, that no matter what you do, whether
you watch TV or don't watch TV or what kind of movie you go
to or don't go to, you are a sinner before God, a vile, wretched,
black-hearted, rebellious, wicked sinner. And what you need is
not the whip of the law. You need mercy. And the law has
no mercy. But I'll tell you who does. Come
unto me. You won't rest now? Well, straighten
up. No. Come unto him, and he'll
give you rest. He'll give you rest. God's preachers
are determined to know nothing Save Jesus Christ and him crucified
because by God's grace, we know that sinners have but one hope
and it's not straightening up. It's not turning over a new leaf.
It's not quitting things and starting things. It's coming
to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's believing on Christ and
him crucified. Come unto him and he'll give
you rest. Romans 1417, let me quote it
to you. For the kingdom of God is not
meat and drink. And that's exactly, that's one
example. There were certain things that
under the Jewish tradition, again, there were things under the law
that were unlawful to eat and lawful to eat. And the Pharisees
had twisted that all around too and made it say what they wanted
it to say. That stands for any of that keeping of the law in
order to be holy and blameless before God. The kingdom of God
is not meat and drink. It doesn't have to do with what
you eat or don't eat. Or drink or don't drink or watch or don't
watch. But the kingdom of God is righteousness. Whether you drink or don't drink,
you don't have any righteousness. Whether you eat or don't eat
certain things, you don't have any righteousness. You need to
find out about the righteousness of God, which is Christ Jesus. And peace. You need peace with
God and you're not going to get it by trying to keep his law.
Joy in the Holy Ghost. There's no joy in legalistic
bondages there. Oh, it's cruel. It's cruel It
never stops if you threw out your TV and all of your books
and your radios and everything up There'd be something else.
There'd be one more thing that you you just not there yet You'd
have to have the radio taken out of your car And where does
it all in I'll tell you where it ends. It ends with you in
hell. That's where it is Under Old Testament law, there were
certain things not to be eaten. And I'm sure the Pharisees would
be all over you if they saw you doing it. But not eating those
things won't save you. They won't save you. The issue
that needs to be dealt with is how can God be righteous and
holy and just and have mercy on a sinner like you, a Sabbath
breaker like you? Because I don't care how many
times you observe an outward Sabbath, You're a breaker of
God's law, every aspect of it from beginning to end. You're
guilty of the whole law. And I am too. And let me be clear
about one thing. The Lord Jesus Christ never broke
any law of God. Not in thought, word or deed,
nor did he condone the breaking of the law. It was Jewish tradition
that was broken here, but also he's teaching here that by the
keeping of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in God's
sight. Sunday never was the Sabbath
and Saturday is no longer the Sabbath. Christ is our Sabbath. And when we see our Lord defending
these disciples, The Pharisees were powerful and influential
and the disciples were nobodies. And these Pharisees thought that
they would lord it over them and make them guilty and accuse
them, but not with the Lord Jesus Christ standing there. How can
we not see here our Savior as the one who defends us? in the
courtroom of God's justice. He said in essence in verse six,
he said, there's one greater than the temple here. What he's
saying there is because I'm here because I am here because I am
here. These disciples are blameless
before the law because they're in me. They're
in the temple. They're blameless to do whatever
they do. And is this not the truth of
it? Technically, everything we do is sin. When we keep the Sabbath,
it's sin. Did you know that? When they
did in the Old Testament, it was sin. We don't keep the Sabbath
now. But when they pretend to, that's sin. If you don't, whatever
you did that day is sin. The plowing of the wicked is
sin. Everything we do in and of ourselves, considered outside
of the Lord Jesus Christ, is sin. And yet in Christ, we're
blameless before God. Blameless, guiltless. Because
of the Lord Jesus Christ and by virtue of our being in him,
we are blameless before God's law. He is our Sabbath. He's all of our law keeping.
He's our sin offering. He's our all and end all. Like
these disciples on this day in our text, We have an advocate
with the Father. First John 2.1, my little children,
these things are right unto you that you sin not. God's people,
we don't love the fact of what we are. We despise this flesh. We wouldn't dishonor our Lord.
We would honor him if we could. To the extent that he enables
us to do so, we shall. But I'm glad for this next part. I'm glad he didn't stop there,
aren't you? And if any man see him. Don't see him. But when you see him. We have an advocate with the
father. Who is he? Jesus Christ, the
righteous. And it's not just coincidental
or arbitrary that he doesn't just say Jesus Christ there,
but Jesus Christ, the righteous, the one who lived for me, the
one who is my righteousness before God, is my advocate before God. I'm guilty in every jot and tittle. But he fulfilled every jot and
tittle. He honored God's law in every jot and tittle. And
he pleads, not my worthiness, but his. My advocate pleads,
not making excuses for me, but he pleads his own righteousness.
Jesus Christ the righteous is my advocate. And He is the propitiation
for our sins. Did you hear that? The one who
is my advocate, my lawyer in the courtroom of God's justice
is my righteousness and my propitiation, my sin offering. In other words,
his righteousness is imputed to me Before God, I stand in him as
my representative. God doesn't look to me and my
deeds to see whether I deserve heaven or hell, glory or damnation,
acceptance or rejection. But the law looks at my advocate,
my substitute, my righteousness, my representative, and sees him
flawless. That's why I'm able to stand
before the throne of God, faultless before the presence of his glory,
because I stand in him. I stand in my advocate. Not only
has he done what I can't do, honor the law, but he's paid
for what I did do. He's my propitiation. He's my
sin offering before God. We have an advocate with the
Father. Who shall lay anything? You Pharisees,
bring it. You gonna lay anything to my
charge? It's God that justified me. We have an advocate with
the Father. We don't need one with you. We justify before God. What does it matter what men
say about us? Who is he that condemneth us?
It's Christ that died. Our Lord has just defended the
disciples here now on the grounds of law. He defended them on the
grounds of law. showing and revealing and exposing
the fact that the Pharisees' tradition was what they were
all in a fit about. It didn't have anything to do
with the law. But the disciples were not justified by the law
any more than the Pharisees were justified by their traditions.
The law vindicated the disciples, not because they had kept it
perfectly. They weren't blameless and guiltless,
as our Lord called them here, because they had kept the law.
but because Christ was their advocate before God. And we,
his people, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, will all be
vindicated before the law of God on the day of judgment, not
because of our keeping of the law. We haven't kept the law.
And we never will in this life. But because our advocate, not
only is the one who pleads our case, but he kept the law for
us. and paid for all of our crimes
against God with his own precious blood. Verse 7 shows this, that it is
by the mercy of God that we have rest. He gave them a lesson on
the law first, didn't he? Because they needed to shut up.
They didn't know what they were talking about. But then he taught
them this, as he teaches everywhere, in the word of God. Here's what
you need to find out about. Mercy. Here's what you need to
look into. Not what you need to do to please
God. You need to look into what the Lord Jesus Christ did to
save sinners. The mercy of God. If you had
any idea what it meant when God said, I will have mercy and not
sacrifice from you, not law keeping from you, not anything from you.
What God required, he received from my Lord Jesus Christ, both
in the keeping of the law and in the paying of my sin debt.
He doesn't need anything from you in regard to that. I'll have
mercy. Mercy is me not getting what
I deserve. Why do I deserve it? For breaking
the law, for not keeping the Sabbath or any of the other law.
But there's mercy with God that he may be feared. Christ is our advocate, our righteousness,
our propitiation by the free grace and mercy of God. And he said to these Pharisees,
you go find out what that means. How God has mercy on sinners
and why he has mercy on sinners because these accusers and the
accused are all guilty under God's law. and in need, in dire,
desperate, urgent need of mercy. That's what you Pharisees need
to look into, because you need it, just like these disciples
did. And because Christ was all this
and more, much more, to these disciples, when the Pharisees
condemned them, according to the Lord Jesus Christ himself,
the judge of the quick and the dead, They were condemning the
guiltless. Isn't that a blessing to say?
This probably may very well be also a prophecy of what they
will do. The Pharisees were going to crucify
the guiltless one, the innocent blood. But he's talking about
this situation right here. You can you just got through
condemning the guiltless because you didn't know what you talk
about. You don't know anything about mercy. You don't know anything
about the mercy of God. which takes a vile sinner and
washes him clean, which justifies the guilty by the precious blood
of a substitute and the righteousness of a representative. You condemned
the guiltless. If you had known what this meaneth,
I will have mercy. and not sacrifice, not your law
keeping, not for the sake of pleasing God, not to establish
a righteousness. Paul said of the Jews, they have
a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. Having not submitted
themselves to the righteousness of God, they're going about to
establish their own righteousness. How? By keeping the Sabbath,
and by offering sacrifices. that could never take away sin,
and yet doing that in order to take away their sin. No, no. Those sacrifices were to be offered
by faith in the Lamb of God, which takes away sin. And now
Christ had fulfilled all of these, and they believed not on Him.
And so they condemned the guiltless. If you had known what this meaneth,
I will have mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned
the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord even
of the Sabbath day. He'll have mercy on whom he will.
He'll give rest to whom he will. He's the Lord. Christ is saying
to these Pharisees, if you knew anything about the mercy of God,
you would not condemn those who believe on me. They're guiltless. You can't lay anything to their
charge. There's nothing to lay to their charge. You cannot condemn
them. I am their Sabbath. They've come
to me for rest. And you're still just keeping
the law, at least your idea of the law. At least when people
are looking at you, at least you think you are. And this same
Savior still calls to guilty Sabbath-breaking and everything
else-breaking sinners Come unto me and I will give you rest. May God give faith to come to
his son. Let's bow in prayer.