Well, I'm going to bring a message
this evening on Sabbath questions. You'll notice that when I read
these Pharisees and scribes, they were interested in the Lord
and His disciples, breaking the Sabbath, doing things that's
unlawful to do on the Sabbath. And you know the scribes and
the Pharisees, they were the greatest enemies of our Lord.
And they were the greatest enemies of His people. And they were
like dogs, just like dogs, just like a pack of dogs, constantly
barking, constantly attacking, constantly nipping, following
the Lord, just barking continually. There's a particular place that
I run, and they've always had a dog there, it'd always come
out on me. And one of them's a little old beagle, and I'd
just, I'd scare it to death, I'd charge at it, and it'd just,
wah, just scream, howl as far as it could go, and it'd run
behind the house. I got one now that's, I mean, it's a mean dog.
It's really mean. And so when it comes out on me,
I'll do it that way, but it comes right back. So when a woman sees
me, she puts her dog up because he'll bite. I believe he'll bite
me. And that's the way these fellas was with our Lord. They
were just like dogs, just in a pack, just charging at him,
barking and biting and nipping. They were hounds right out of
the pit of hell itself, after the Lord Jesus Christ. They were
good at asking questions. They were good at asking questions.
Remember over here in verse 30 of chapter 5, it says, But the
scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying,
Why? Always why? Why do you even drink
with Republicans and sinners? And you remember back up there
in verse 33, and they said, Why did our disciples of John fast
off and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees?
But yours didn't change. Oh, they had all kinds of questions,
but they never had any answers. And here they ask two questions.
Two questions about the Sabbath. About the Sabbath. Why do you
that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath? Will He break
the Sabbath by healing this man on the Sabbath? And you see,
these men were against not only the Lord Jesus Christ and his
enemies, but they were enemies of his people. They were great
questions of his people. When they wouldn't ask the Lord,
they'd ask his disciples. They'd ask his disciples why,
because they figured they could deal with them. But they were
against the Lord's people. They were against Christ himself.
And look at how, firstly, they used questions to trap Him. They
used questions to trap Him, to accuse Him, and to show Him as
being lawbreakers. But look here at how they were
against the disciples. In verse 1 of chapter 6, here
in Luke, it says this, And it came to pass on the second sabbath
after the first, Now, I could tell you what that means, but
it wouldn't mean nothing to you. And we don't even know that because
we're not law-keepers anyway. So, you know, second Sabbath
after the first. But anyway, they were going through
the cornfields. And as they were going through
those cornfields, going on the road, cornfields were there,
they saw, they went out in those cornfields, and disciples plucked
ears of corn, did eat them, rubbing them in their hands. What they
were doing, they were picking this grain, and they would get
it, they would rub it in their hands to get the husk out of
it, and then they'd eat it. They'd eat it. And you know whether
it was actually corn, or whether it was barley, whether it was
wheat, that's what they called all of it, they called ears,
cheese, whatever. But here they were, they were
eating this, And then they said, certain of the Pharisees said
unto them, Why do you that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath
days? Well, let's see if it's lawful
to do this or not. Look over in Deuteronomy 23.
Deuteronomy 23. Let's see if this is lawful or
not. You know, that's one thing about
people that wants to bring works and law into this business of
salvation, into this business of acceptance with God. They
always end up acting more than what it actually says. They add
their traditions, they add their opinions, they add their convictions.
But here in Deuteronomy 23 and verse 24, let's just give you
an illustration here of what our Lord said. When you comest
into your neighbor's vineyard, then thou mayest eat grapes.
Thy fill at thy own pleasure. Just eat. Just go on your walking
through it. Just pick grapes and eat. Eat at your own pleasure.
But don't you dare put and take a vessel in there in your neighbor's
grape vines and fill that vessel up and take them home with you.
That's what he's saying. You take some of them loaves,
don't you think? But you go through there. They're grapes. I made
them. I caused them to grow. Just eat all you want. And then
watch this, and when thou comest into the standing corner of thy
neighbor, then thou mayest cut the ears of thine own hand, pick
them, help eat them. But don't take your sickle, go
down there and start cutting it and carrying it to the house
with you. You see, that's what he's showing. There's nothing
wrong with these men going through. There was no law against it.
There was no law against it. But I'll tell you something about
hypocrites, Pharisees and scribes. They love trifles. Knit pickers. You know where the word knit
picker come from? Back when everybody wore wool, folks would walk up
to their clothes and just start picking You know, ambitions.
Oh, I see something over there. And that's why it started coming,
nitpickers. And that's what these hypocrites
do. They just constantly coming up,
picking things. Picking. Old John Bunyan called
them old pick things. Instead of being thankful, they
picked at everything that they shouldn't be thankful for and
found fault with. And this way they were hypocrites, love trifles,
nitpickers. Here are these disciples. And
this is what they're thinking. Here are these disciples of this
Jesus of Nazareth. They're breaking the law and
he's permitting it. He's allowing it to happen. And
you know, and we done seen that it's not against the law. It
was not against the law for them to go into a man's court and
pick corn and eat the corn. Now, I'm sure that some people
probably didn't like it and would probably run somebody up, why
you eating my corn for? And do that. But it wasn't against
the law. And look what our Lord Jesus
said about them over here in Matthew 23. Look what our Master
said about these kind of people. And you'll meet people like this.
You'll meet them. They'll just worry you to death
with questions. Why this? Why that? Why do you do this?
Why do that other thing? But look what our Master said
about it. There in verse 23. Woe unto you, scribes, Matthew
23, 23. Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you have paid tithe of mint,
and anise, and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters
of the law. You have left off judgment, and mercy, and faith.
You ought to have done the other things, but you leave what's
most important undone. Now watch this, you blind guys,
we're straining the gnat. Now if I had this glass of water
sitting here, and there's a gnat in it, I'd try my best to get
that gnat out of there. I don't want to drink no gnats.
I don't want no gnat going down, if I can help it. And I'd try
to get that out of there. While I try to get that out,
I'll be talking to you, and then a camel gets in it, and I just
ground down that drink like that, not thinking anything about it.
And that's what he said you've got to do. He said, you are so
meticulous that you'll strain out a nap, do everything in your
power to get rid of a nap, and a camel will come along, and
you ain't got sense enough to try to keep from drinking it.
So he's showing that they'll take the big things, The big
thing is it's obvious to everybody else that y'all not have anything
to do with, and they'll go over here and take this little old
bitty tiny thing that absolutely amounts to nothing and make a
major production out of it. And that's what he's saying here.
And oh, beloved, there's an arithmetic to true religion. You know that?
True religion, there's a Bible arithmetic. Brother Henry's got
a message on the house, spiritual arithmetic or something kind
of like that. I haven't listened to it yet. But I know that there's
an arithmetic to true religion. And these fellas didn't know
it. They put second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth,
things way on down there. When the scriptures put things
first, perfect. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God. Start out with one, seek first
the kingdom of God. One Lord, one God, one faith.
And then, this one thing I do, the Apostle said, this one thing
I do. Forgetting the things of the
divine, how fresh course. Set your affection, not affections,
affection. So you see there's an arithmetic. But these men put last things
first. They wasn't interested in the
kingdom of God. They wasn't interested in mercy.
They wasn't interested in judgment. They wasn't interested in the
hungry belly being filled. They weren't interested in men
who needed something to eat. I've seen them. They were interested
in whether they'd done something on the Sabbath day they shouldn't
do. They put in things of indifference.
And oh my, the Scriptures have so many things of indifference.
They put things like prophecy first, and personal convictions.
All of us got personal convictions. I've got personal convictions
about the way people dress. I've got personal convictions
about where they go. I've got personal convictions
about how they talk. I've got all of them. But they don't have
nothing to do with the gospel. And I keep them to myself. But
does a man know Christ? Does he embrace Christ? Does
he have faith in Christ? Does he have only one righteousness
that he stands before God in? And that's why when you meet
people, the first thing they'll ask you is, how do y'all deal
with somebody that commits adultery in your congregation? How do
you deal with somebody that gets drunk in your congregation? And
they want to know how you deal with this and the other. They
don't ask you if you preach Christ. They don't ask you if you believe
in the gospel. They don't ask you what you think
of Christ. And that's the way these men
was. Instead of seeing those fellows being hungry men, needing
something to eat, they said, why in the world are you letting
these disciples eat? here on the Sabbath day, breaking
the law. Oh, bless God, look what our Lord does now. He didn't
even let these fellas in. Here, this, I love this. And
Jesus answering them. Now they asked His disciples. Here's these men accusing His
disciples. Accused of being disobedient,
being lawbreakers, Well, guess who answers for them? And Jesus answered them. Our
Lord answered for them. He said, you better go and have
this. Ain't you grateful we got an intercessor? Ain't you grateful
we got someone who takes up our case? Our Lord took up these
men's case. He took up their cause against
these men. You see, there's an accuser of
the brethren. There's one who accuses the brethren day and
night before the throne of God. And we give him plenty of admonition,
there's no doubt about that, because of the infirmity of our
flesh. And I often doubt myself wondering how much does he justly
have to accuse us of. But thank God, when we are accused
by a scribe, by a Pharisee, or by the devil himself, we have
someone that answers for us. Jesus answering them. He didn't
say, disciples, I'm going to give you something to answer
with. You stand up there to Him. Tell Him what you believe. Stand
up against that law. Stand up against that legalism. No, no, He answered for them.
Look over in 1 John 2. Oh, you know, this blessed my
heart soul. You know, we don't have to answer
for ourselves, and these men here didn't have to answer for
themselves. He didn't have to answer for
themselves. My little children. Oh, that's a person. My little children. I'm writing
some things to you, and I'm telling you that you sin not. Oh, don't
sin. It's not a good thing to sin.
It's a bad thing to sin. It's an awful thing to sin. And
if any man sin, we have an advocate. We have a lawyer. We have someone
in the very presence. Who is this advocate? That's
with the Father now. with the Father in the very presence
of God where we're being accused. Where these men are being accused
by the scribes and the Pharisees. We have an after with the Father.
Who is He? Jesus Christ, our brother. One who identified with
us. And He's the righteous. We're
not about His. That's what happens here. These fellows start accusing
them and our Lord answers them. And thank God we don't have to
answer for ourselves. Now back over in our text. Look
what our Savior said. Jesus answered them, Have you
not so read so much as this, what David did when he himself
was in hunger, and they that were with him? How he went into
the house of God, and did take and eat the show, where it gave
also to them that were with him, which it was not lawful to eat,
but for the priests alone? Huh? First thing he asked them,
have you not read? You, you fellas, you scribes,
you embarrassees, you folks know the Bible. You folks know the
scriptures. Have you never read where David
went into the very house of God itself over there in Nauvoo? And Himalak was the high
priest at that time, Abihuah was the high priest at that time.
And he was hungry and all those men that were with him, and he
was being hounded to death. And he said, give us something
to eat. And he took that shogunate, twelve loaves of bread, that
was on that table. and those priests they changed
that bread once a week and then that bread was for those priests
and those priests alone But these men were hungry. They were made
after God's own heart. They were faint. They were weak.
And he said, take this bread. It's better for you to eat than
for you to perish. It's better for you to eat and
get away from your enemies. And he was really taking the
bread of life that came off that table that templified our Lord
Jesus. Amen. Don't you know what David
did? And not only did David take it
for himself, but he gave it to everybody else that was hungry.
I mean, he passed that bread out among the rest of them at
some point. David, being a type of our Lord Jesus Christ, you
know, Christ is David's son, and he started passing out that
bread. He did what our Savior does for us. He passed out the
bread. And oh, my Lord, he ate the show
bread. Not just any bread, the bread
that was for the priest. It was only lawful for the priest
to eat. And our Savior said, Behold,
a greater than David's here. That's what he's saying. That's
what he's saying. If David had done that, and God
allowed that to happen, and God blessed David, and David was
the king over Israel, you're going to nitpick and fault find
and trifle around over men picking some corn on the Sabbath day
and rubbing it in their hands in the evening? Listen to your own word. That's
what he said to Nicodemus. He said, Nicodemus, you're a
master of this world. You don't know these things? Have you not read? That's the
first thing. Have you not read? Oh, he ended him up with the
word. Then look what he says. And he said unto them, The Son
of Man is Lord of the Sabbath also. Oh, the Son of Man is Lord of
the Sabbath. When was the Sabbath made? Most people think the Sabbath
wasn't made until the law was given. But look in Genesis 2
with me, just a minute. When was the Sabbath made? When
was the first Sabbath? When was the first day of rest?
That's what Sabbath means, day of rest. That's what it means. When was the first day of rest? Verse 1, Thus the heavens and
the earth were finished, and all the host of them, and on
the seventh day, God ended his work which he had made and he
rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. When was it? When all the work
was finished. It was a day of rest. God did
rest from all the work that he had done. This is a day that I set aside.
Not only that, and it says in verse 3 that God blessed the
seventh day. It was a day of blessing. A day
that He blessed people. It was a day that He blessed
Himself. It was a day that He said, My work is done. And it
was a day of grace for me, the day that Adam was made. The last
thing he made was Adam. And the first day he lived on
God's earth, when God breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life, it was a day of grace, the first day on the face of
this earth, he entered into that rest. He didn't have to do a
thing but get up and enjoy God. Get up and rest. He just had
God ready. He hadn't read anything. God
said rest. God said rest. God finished the
work. And man enters into the rest
that's provided for him. God didn't make the Sabbath day.
When God made the Lord Jesus, the Lord was the one who made
the Sabbath. God made all things by him. And
he didn't make it to be a burden, but a blessing. Men had to eat
on the Sabbath. And the Pharisees did just like
Adam did. Here he was, he had been on a
day of rest, and he ended up destroying all the rest he had
for himself and everybody else. He destroyed the rest. How did
he destroy it? By working, by disobeying God,
by traditions. And they were just like Adam.
They, beloved, destroyed what the meaning of the Sabbath was
by their traditions, by their ceremony. And now Christ is our
Sabbath. He is our rest. And a man enters
into his rest, he has to, first of all, cease from his own labors. When you cease from your labors
and enter into Christ, you've entered into rest. Amen. Huh? Ain't that right? He said,
I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. I'll tell you what a man can
do and what he can't. I'm the one who made this day for a man.
I'm the one who made the rest. I'm the one who finished the
work. I'm the one who finished this thing. Now rest. These fellas
couldn't rest on the Sabbath day for themselves. They didn't
want nobody else to rest. And then watch what happens now.
So now that's what they was with these, against his disciples.
Why do ye that which is not law? Thank God Christ answered for
it. And then in verse 6, watch what
happens. It came to pass also on another
Sabbath. I don't know how long later it
was, but like I said, there's like a pack of dogs following
him around. But he entered into the synagogue and he taught.
That was his custom. That's what he done. All the
time. Goes into synagogues and he would teach. He would stand
and he would teach the people in those synagogues, and while
he was in there, there was a man who brought him with him. That
means it was paralyzed. It wouldn't work. It didn't have
any strength in it. That don't mean it was shrunken
up. That means that it just didn't have any power. It didn't have
any strength. The other hand was fine. He could do anything
with it. But this hand, he couldn't do a thing in the world with
it. He couldn't grip it with it, couldn't do nothing with
it. And then watch what it says, and the scribes and the Pharisees,
they're in that synagogue with him, and still listen to his
teaching. They see that man with that withered
hand, that frozen hand, that weak hand, that hand with no
ability, no power, and the scribes and Pharisees watched him, watching
him. whether he would heal on the
Sabbath day and why they wanted to find out if he's gonna do
this and I was watching him like a hawk that they might find an
accusation against him. Ain't that a hawk? Wouldn't you
hate to be the kind of person who went around just trying to
find something wrong with somebody so you could accuse them all
the time? That'd be a miserable way to live. But I can remember
being like that in religion, that I just looked at what people
did, where they went, things like that, and it just kept me
tore up all the time. I judged their whole relationship with
God on where they went, what they did, how they dressed, how
often they went to church, how they gave... I judged everything
on whether they had television. There's people up there with
Joe Terrell in them. And some of those Netherland Reformed
and Dutch Reformed churches. Three hundred member churches. And when the elders and the deacons
go around visiting every once in a while, and they let them
know that when they come in, they take their televisions and hide them
in the closet. Cause they don't want them to
be caught with the television. Ain't that awful? And out of
those 300 people, when they get ready to take the Lord back,
they examine every person in that congregation. And that's
only about five or six will now take the Lord's table. The rest
of them is not fit. That's sad, ain't it? That's
the way these fellows was. Instead of seeing whether Christ,
do you see the spirit of Christ? Do you see the love of Christ?
Do you see the peace of Christ and joy of Christ? And oh my,
here they're watching him, watching him. What's he going to do on
the Sabbath? That they have this maliciousness
about. This horrible maliciousness. It's just a slow-burning hatred. And oh, this is the way they're
thinking. He had taken the authority to forgive sins. And he ain't
with Republicans and sinners. And his disciples go fast. And this man's healing here can
wait until the Sabbath is over. Why is he weren't good today?
But oh, I told you. Our Lord asked questions. I told
you this Sunday night. Our Lord asked questions, not for information
and to answer us in the questions. And look, here's a perfect illustration
of it down in verse 9. But he knew that a falsehood
said to the man which is with the rib of hand, rise up, stand
forth in the midst, he rose to the fore. Now watch this. Then
said Jesus unto them, I'll ask you just one thing. Now I don't
know how many times he'd do that. He'd ask them, let me ask you
one thing. Then ask him a question after, just let me ask you one
thing. Is it lawful on the Sabbath day,
on the Sabbath days to do good or to do evil, to save life or
to destroy it? Anybody, I mean a child could
answer that. The answer's in the question. The answer's in the question
itself. Those fellows didn't have a clue. Where are they going
to go? What are they going to do? What are they going to say?
Well, of course it's the right thing to do to save lives. Sure it's the right thing to
do to do good. Huh? Is it lawful? Now what he's saying
is, if you claim to know what's right and what's wrong, to do
on the Sabbath day, give me your opinion about this. Is it right
to do good or evil? Surely it's wrong to do evil,
but is it right to do good? If you do evil on any other day,
or try to do good on Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or
Thursday, that's one of the Psalms. But this little book of one of
them says rather, you know, you've got Monday in line, you've got
Tuesday in line, you've got Wednesday to cheat, you've got Thursday
to steal, so you don't do that on Sunday. That's honestly, it's
in one of these psalm books. That's what he says, give me
your opinion. Is it wrong to do evil on any other day? Well,
of course it is. So it'd be wrong to do evil on
the Sabbath day. And you evil! That's what our
Savior's saying. You've got evil in your heart.
You've got evil in your thoughts. You've got maliciousness in your
heart. And then He says, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath
day? I mean, why? If it's good to do it on any
other day, why wouldn't it be good to do something good on
the Lord's day? The day of rest, huh? Oh my! Is it right to save life? If
it's right to save life on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, why
wouldn't it be right to save life on the Sabbath? If it's
wrong to destroy life any day during the week, why would it
be wrong to destroy life on the Sabbath? So they ain't got a
next time, no. Why not today? Why not today? Should I not do
good? Why not today? Should I not save
a life? Why not today? And oh, here's
an opportunity to express love for God and to show that we serve
the true and living God. This is God's day, and I'm going
to express my love and submission to God. And here's an opportunity
for me to express my love for my neighbor and do something
good for my neighbor. Ain't that right? And oh my,
them fellas were down there and he asked them those questions.
The answer was in it. Then, oh my, he says back up
there in verse 8, but he knew their thoughts. That's why I
asked them this question. He knew their thoughts. He knew
why they were watching him. He knew that they weren't accusing
him. He knew they weren't going to find fault. And oh my, this
proves that he's God in that question of fact. He's omniscient.
You see, he has perfect knowledge of men's thoughts. He knew where
the fish were when he told them to drop his net. He knew the
fish had money in his mouth. He knew men before he ever met
them. Where they was, what they was
thinking, what they was doing. He told Philip, I saw you under
that tree. And all right, he has perfect
knowledge of men's thoughts. Perfect knowledge of men's thoughts.
Now this should humble us. This should really humble us,
that he knows our thoughts. He knows our thoughts. He knows
our vain ones. Our vain thoughts. He knows our
worldly thoughts. He knows our cleverest thoughts. He knows every thought, every
single one of them. Thoughts that pass through our
mind. Look over in Psalm 19 just a minute. All the thoughts that
pass through our mind. When we're reading the Bible,
when we're praying, And that's one of the most frustrating things
in the world is to try to pray or try to read the scriptures
and your mind just wanders everywhere under the sun. Oh, that's so
frustrating that all Christ knows the thoughts that pass our mind,
the thoughts that men's eyes never see, men's ears never hear. But Christ sees them, He knows
them. Look at Psalm 19 and verse 12. Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret,
secret faults." Oh my, look over here at Psalm 90. In Psalm 90, verse 8. Oh, Christ knows us, knows our
thoughts. Cleanse Thou me from sin. God,
be merciful to me, the sinner." Look what he says here in verse
8. Psalm 90, Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret
sins, in the light of Thy countenance. There ain't nothing we think,
nothing we do, that he don't see and he don't know. He reads us just like reading
the book. That ought to humble us. That ought to humble us.
All right, look back over in our text. He knows good thoughts. He's not accustomed with this.
What is it lawful on the Sabbath days to do good or to do evil,
to save life or to destroy it? Which one would you have me do?
Destroy it? Do evil? And then he gave this man, look
at the power that he gave this man to believe. And he said there
in verse 8, he said to the man which hath a withered hand, that
man, rise up. Now he's in this synagogue full
of people. Stand forth in the midst. Come down here where everybody
can see you. Stand down here where everybody
can see you. Stand down here in the midst. I want everybody to see you.
He got up and rose, stood down there in the middle of everybody.
Stood forth. Everybody see what's going on. And then all of my, and our Lord
did all of his miracles out in the open. All his miracles were
done out in the open. He's not like these shysters
and hubsters and that. There was no deception. He wanted
everybody to see that there was no deception. There was no trickery.
There was no flicking of the lights and manipulating people
and that kind of stuff. There was no pushing a man's
leg up and then act like you're pulling it back out. None of
that stuff going on. Wasn't putting people in the
congregation, you know, and getting them to get up and throw their
crutches away and say, the Lord healed me and go running down
through there, you know. Oh, it wasn't none of that. Our Lord,
when He done a miracle, in fact, He just said, stand there, huh,
and then watch this. And looking round about above
them all, looking on them, looking on His enemies, those who watched
Him, those with that maliciousness in their hearts, He said, just
by an act of His will, just by His Word, He said, He never touched
this man. He said, wherever he was at when
he was teaching, he stayed right there. He said, stretch forth
your hand. That man can't. That man doesn't
have the ability. If he could stretch forth his
hand, he would have done it years ago. Stretch forth your hand. He can't. But he did. Why? Because with the command
comes the power. With the command comes the ability.
When Christ calls, men obey. When Christ speaks, things happen. And that's all he said. Stretch
forth your hand. And that old boy just, you know, there's that
hand, he can't move, he just went. It's like that. Everybody there
saw it. Wasn't no hands laid on. Christ
spoke. The man believed Him and His
power and His ability and His censure and His hand was restored
whole as the other. Oh, you'd have thought everybody
in that place would have been weeping and rejoicing and giving
thanks and said, Oh, what a wonderful miracle. Oh, God made this man
able to go back to work and make a living with his hands. Now
you won't have to beg. You won't have to depend on somebody
else. He'll have the use of both of his hands. You'd think they'd
have just rejoiced in that. But watch what happens. And they
were filled with madness. Filled with madness. And that's
exactly what's madness. It's one thing to be angry. They
were filled with madness. To the point of insanity and
hatred. Oh my. And they communed with
one another. They got together and started
saying, what are we going to do with this man? What are we
going to do? We've got to get rid of him. We've got to get
rid of him. We've got to get rid of him. We've got to do something
with this man. And oh my, let me show you this
and I'll wind it up. Look in Matthew 5. Here are men
who were lawbreakers. Here are men that proved, proved
that they were doing evil on the Lord's day, on the Sabbath
day. I shouldn't call it the Lord's day, the Sabbath day,
Jewish Sabbath. Gentiles were never under the Jewish Sabbath,
never. And they were filled with madness, they were lawbreakers.
They dishonored God, they dishonored Him. It says here in verse 22
of Matthew 5, verse 21, excuse me, Matthew 5, 21. You have heard
that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, and
whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of judgment. But I
say unto thee, that whosoever is angry with his brother without
a cause shall be in danger of the judgment." My, my, there
they... See, the law goes past that. It goes to the motive. It goes
to the desire. It goes to the intention. See,
that's God's look on the heart. And He knows this, that if you
have the opportunity, If you hate a man so bad that you wish
he was dead, if you had the opportunity and wasn't afraid to go to jail,
you'd kill him. And God marks it down if you
hate him. He marks that down as murder. That's what he's doing. Marks that down as murder. And
watch what he says. And whosoever shall say to his
brother, Raka, that is a vain fellow, you're just a useless
person, shall be in danger of the council. But whosoever shall
say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hellfire. Oh my, they were
doing evil. And this is proof of the sins
of the heart and of the nature. And then Mark real quick, and
then I'm through. Mark chapter 3. Here's the same story. Mark chapter 3 and verse 5. Same
thing that's happening. And look what it says where our
Lord says, and it looked round about upon them. Mark chapter
3 and verse 5. Verse 4. Here's the same time,
the same situation. And he said unto them, is it
lawful to do good on the sabbath days, to do evil, to save life,
and to kill? But they held their peace. Now watch this. There
over there it said he looked round about on them. And when
he looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for
the hardness of their hearts. Being grieved for the hardness
of their hearts. Oh my, our Savior, He knew exactly what was in their
hearts, what their intents were. And here His enemies, these hounds
from hell, worried about the Sabbath and missed Christ Himself. Worried about what somebody else
was doing and missed the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, my. Sad, ain't it? Sad. That's why if you ever get an
opportunity to talk to somebody, don't care what subject they
bring up, bring up the Lord Jesus. Bring up the Lord Jesus. Someone
asked me the other day, he said, What do you think about the preeminent
return of Christ? I said, I don't know anything
about that. I said, I know who's coming. I said, I know Christ
is coming. And I said, that's who I want
to see. I said, when he comes, that's
all I'm interested in. And you don't got to talk to
him about Christ. He said, what about rewards? I said, well,
I don't know anything about them either. I said, I know Christ
is my reward. So you see that whatever they start, take them
to Christ. That's what our Lord, He took
them to the Word. Don't give them little debates and arguments.
You're wasting your breath. Talk to them about the Master. Our Savior, our gracious Father,
thank you for allowing us this privilege. Privilege, indeed
a privilege. Bless you. together with the
people of God. Thank you for the dear saints
and the attention they gave us tonight and paid attention to
your word. Oh, we thank you for it. Thank
you for what you taught us tonight, Lord. God, help us to not be
hypocritical, not to be hypercritical, not to be fault finders, nitpickers,
make much over trifles. Please, God, keep us from those
things. Help us to manifest the love and the grace and the forgiveness
and the mercy, the tenderness and compassion of our dear Savior. Help us, O Lord Jesus, to honor
You. In Christ's name we bless you. Amen.