Lord Jesus did so many of his
miraculous works, works of healing on the Sabbath days? Or why he
so often went out of his way to do and teach things which
he knew, he just knew, would be terribly offensive to the
Pharisees? How does the Son of God meet
rebel sinners? What is the nature and purpose
of the Sabbath day? Who is Jesus Christ? Was he just
a man, a good man, but just a man as many blasphemously assert? Or is he both God and man in
one glorious inseparable person? Does it really matter? What's
involved in the Lord's call, in the call of grace? How is
it that God calls sinners to life and faith in Christ? How
is it that dead men are made to believe? What effect does
the gospel have on people who hear it? These are all questions
which are clearly answered in our text this evening, and decisively
answered. Turn with me, if you will, to
Luke chapter 6. Hold your Bibles open at verses 6 through 11.
In these short verses, the Holy Spirit gives us a brief but very
instructive narrative of the healing of a man with a withered
arm on the Sabbath day. Now, like all our Lord's miracles,
This miraculous bead of Christ is a picture of the saving operations
of God's grace in and upon chosen sinners. If you're saved by God's
grace, this is a picture of what the Lord has done for you. The
miracle was performed specifically to give us an instructive picture
of God's salvation. Read it with me as we go along,
and I'll show you four things in this passage. I trust the
Holy Spirit will be our teacher. First, let's look at verses 6,
7, and 9. The first thing we see here is
a deliberate confrontation. And it came to pass, also on
another Sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught.
And there was a man whose right hand was withered. And the scribes
and Pharisees watched him. They were always watching him,
always watching him. Whether he would heal on the
Sabbath day, and this is the reason that they might find an
accusation against him. They wanted something to charge
him with. Some way they couldn't, they couldn't deny his doctrine.
They couldn't refute what he taught. So the only recourse
they had, if they would not bow to and accept and acknowledge
his doctrine, their only recourse is to defame him. So they watched
him, to find an accusation against him. Then verse 9. Then said
Jesus unto them, I'll 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? the preaching of the gospel is
always confrontational, always. God's servants are sent to his
enemies in enemy territory, where hostile men and women with arms
against God stand in rebellion against him. And they are sent
to confront men and women not to cuddle them, not to cajole
them, not to make a bargain with them, not to temper them, not
to make them feel good about being enemies against God, but
they are sent as ambassadors of God himself to confront men,
to get in the face of many women with the claims of God Almighty
and demand that they bow. That's our business. That's our
business. That's what the church is supposed
to do. That's what preachers must do. But I say, you really
get in people's face. That's what I'm here to do. I
intend for folks to understand the claims of God Almighty as
sovereign Lord. He demands one thing from everybody. Bow down. Bow down. You're going to bow to him or
perish. You're going to bow to him or
he'll kill you. You're going to bow to him or
he'll send you to hell. There's no such thing as faith
in Christ apart from surrender to him as Lord. Now this is what
our Lord demonstrates as he confronts these Pharisees. Hold your hands
here and turn over a few pages to chapter 14. Luke chapter 14. There's so much needs to be stressed
in this day of easy believism, in this day when folks are told
if they'll walk down an aisle, say a little prayer, sign a little
card, and everything will be alright. day where folks say
you make a decision for Jesus, say I believe in Jesus and everything's
okay. There's no such thing as salvation. There is no such thing
as faith in Christ. There is no such thing as believing
on the Son of God apart from surrender to him as your Lord. No such thing. They called people
that lied to sinners and they get them in the church and tell
them they're saved. And now they're trying to tell us that, you know,
there are folks who are saved and then we have classes on discipleship. We're going to teach these lost
rebels, since we've told them they're saved, we're going to
teach them how to be disciples. Now, you'll get to heaven if you're not a
disciple, but if you really want to be a good Christian, then
we're going to teach you to be a disciple. Let me tell you something. If
Bobby Estes and Don Fortner belong to God, if we believe on the
Son of God, we're his disciples. There's no such thing as a believer
who isn't. Look what he says here, verse 25. There went great
multitudes with him, and he turned and said unto them, if any man
come to me and hate not. What a word, what a word. It doesn't mean despise, it doesn't
mean me angry with. It doesn't mean
to abuse. That's not the word. It's the
same word to choose. And our Lord said, Jacob have
I loved thee, so have I hated. Hated. What's he talking about?
If you're going to come after me, your mama and daddy, your
husband, your wife, your brothers, your sisters, your sons, your
daughters, must not be thought about. Don't even consider them. Just pass them by. Just pass
them by. That doesn't mean that you neglect
responsibilities as son or daughter or husband, father, wife, anything.
It simply means that you don't allow anyone or anything to interfere
with following Christ. That's what it's talking about.
Hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brothers
and sisters, yes, and his own life also. Well, you know, I'm
not comfortable. I won't. Forget it. Forget it. You despise those things that
would turn you from Christ, keep you from Christ, let nothing
keep you from it. And he cannot be my disciple.
Verse 27. Whosoever does not bear his cross
and come after me cannot be my disciple. Now, bearing your cross,
folks, You know, somebody finds out they've got arthritis, and
they say, well, I just have to bear my cross. That's not what
we're talking about. Your neighbor gets arthritis,
too. That's not bearing his cross. What's he talking about? In the
confession of Christ, in following Christ, in doing the will of
God, believers see what it's going to cost. They say he's worth it. And they
deliberately follow Christ, knowing the cost, knowing the pain, knowing
the consequence. If you don't bear your cross,
you cannot be my disciple, the master says, verse 28. And that
explains what he's talking about. For which of you intended to
build a tower, sets not them first and counts the cost? Preachers
these days tell fathers, no, you decide right now. Don't consider
the cost. Our Lord says stop and count
the cost. You see, if you follow Christ, you can't follow him
except deliberately. If you follow Christ, you can't
follow him except you count the cost. Sit down first and count
the cost. If you're not willing to pay
the price, don't pretend. Look at what it says. Counts
the cost whether he has sufficient to finish it. Lest happily, after
he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all
that behold it begin to mock him, saying, this man began to
build and was not able to finish. Or what king, going to make war
against another king, sets not down first and consulteth, whether
he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against
him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet
a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage and desires conditions
of peace. Someone asked me one time, I
was sitting, this has been a long time ago, I was sitting in Duke
Hospital, process of taking some treatments for cancer and I was
reading a book called True Christianity and the fellow saw the book and
asked me, he said, what does it cost to be a Christian? And I talked to him a little
about the gospel and I had to go for my appointment and I left
him with these words, never saw him again, don't have any idea
what God did or didn't do for him. I said, nothing from you,
but all of you. That's what it costs. Everything. Everything. You can't pay a price
to get to be a believer. You can't pay a price to get
to be a child of God. But Bob Pontzer, if you and I
are his disciples, we give up everything. Everything. Set down
a count to cost. giving up everything. Verse 33,
so likewise, and let's see if we can make book on that. The
fellow said, so likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not
all that he hath, everything he possesses, every right he
presumes he has, every ambition he has, all that he has, he cannot
be my disciple. Turn back again to our text.
And we see this confrontation clearly exemplified by our Savior
here. Our Lord Jesus Christ deliberately
confronts these Pharisees, both by his words and his works. He
always does. The Son of God always confronts
sinners at their point of rebellion, at the point where they are most
likely to stand in opposition to God, at the point where they
are most likely to say no and demand surrender. Isn't that
interesting? Preachers try their best to avoid
that point. Preachers try their best to,
let's not, no, let's find some way to make everybody feel good
about themselves and what they're doing. The Son of God always
meets sinners where they rebel and says bow, always. Our Lord
met the rich young ruler at just that point. He said, go sell
everything you've got and follow me. And that rich young ruler
went away, counting the costs. He said, oh no, I'm not going
to do that. I'm not going to do that. And he met that Samaritan
woman in John 4 at her point of rebellion. He said, go call
your husband. And he stirred up that which
was her most cherished point of rebellion, and she surrendered. the difference between saving
grace and those who never experience it. This is exactly what we see
in our text. Here is just one of those many
examples of our Lord confronting self-righteous religious hypocrites
on the Sabbath day. Did you ever notice how often
he did this? How often he deliberately performed his wondrous works
on the Sabbath days? Did you ever wonder why? Why
did he choose the Sabbath day? This man with the withered arm?
It's on the Sabbath day. We read in Mark 1 of a demoniac
who was in the synagogue on the Sabbath day, out of whom the
Lord cast the demons. We read of a woman with an issue
or with an infirmity for 18 years on the Sabbath day in Luke 13.
He healed her. There was a man with a dropsy
in the next chapter on the Sabbath day. He healed him. There's that
lame man in John chapter 5 on the Sabbath day. He told him
take up his bed and walk. These things aren't done accidentally.
No, no. They were done, they were performed
on the Sabbath day for the calculated purpose for which our Lord had
come into the world. I'm sure his purpose involved
many more things, but here are at least four reasons why he
did these things on the Sabbath. First, to show us what he had
declared in verse 5, that he is Lord of the Sabbath. He picked
the Sabbath day to assert his claim of dominion over all things
as Lord. He picked the Sabbath day, he
came to his Pharisees and he said the Son of Man also is Lord
of the Sabbath. And now he seems to say by way
of example, now I'm going to show you, I'm Lord of the Sabbath.
The Lord of the Sabbath is Lord over all. it's the Sabbath day, who kept
the first Sabbath day. It's Christ who fulfills the
Sabbath day, and it's Christ who rules the Sabbath day, rules
over everything. As such, because he is both God
and man, Lord of the Sabbath, this God-man could never be brought
into objection to the Sabbath. Somebody said, do you remember
Several years ago, some of you may have seen a movie portraying
Oliver Cromwell, an overthrowing King Charles in England. And
Cromwell stood forth, and this is a cry that had been taken
up by Puritans and other folks from that day, said, no man is
above the law. No man is above the law. He's
right. No man but the king. And wherever
you've got an absolute king, a king who makes the law, he's
not under the law, he rules the law. And the Lord Jesus Christ,
while he is a man, submits himself to the law and is in all things
obedient to the law, yet here he demonstrates himself as God
as well as man, as Lord over the law. This one is the one
who made the Sabbath and rules it. Secondly, the Lord Jesus
chose the Sabbath day to perform this miracle of mercy on this
poor needy soul in order to expose and condemn the meanness and
hypocrisy of religious hypocrites and legalists. As it was in our
Lord's day, so it is now. is no point, no place, at which
religious legalists are more hypocritical, more bound by religious
traditions and customs, more mean-spirited than in their efforts
to impose and enforce their imaginary Sabbath laws on other people.
And you stretch it beyond that, it's no stretch at all. Religious
people are never more mean-spirited than in their attempts to dictate
and dominate the lives of other men by their standard. I've been
pastoring for 30 years. I know I don't look anywhere
near that old, but I've been at it for 30 years. You know one question
I've never had? I've never had it. I've never
had anybody anywhere ask me this question. What should I do? with regard to themselves. What
should a Christian do? Should a Christian go there?
Should a Christian wear that? Should a Christian do this? Should
a Christian enjoy that? Should a Christian not do this?
It's always in reference to somebody else. That's what hypocrites
do. They try to control your life
rather than their own. These Pharisees could not answer
our Lord's question about the Sabbath, whether it was right
to do good on the Sabbath or evil, because they would not
answer it, lest they expose themselves. You see, they had raised this
question. They said, let's watch it, so
we can accuse it. Here's this man. If he doesn't
heal him, we can tell everybody he couldn't heal him. And we
can tell everybody he's cruel. He's cruel. If he does heal him,
then we can tell everybody he broke Sabbath day. So the Lord says it's his right
to do good or evil. If they answered the question, then everybody
would say either they are cruel and mean, or they're willing
to break Sabbath day. So they're caught in their own
trap. These religious hypocrites would have preferred to see this
man's arm stay withered till it went to the grave. than see
their traditions broken. Some of you have been around
such religion. They prefer their religion and
the rigors of the law and what they interpret the word of God
to be than mercy and goodness and kindness. They excuse their
meanness in the name of honoring God. Our Lord Jesus chose to perform
this miracle of mercy on the Sabbath to show us plainly the
true nature and purpose of the Sabbath as it was established
by God. The Sabbath day, like all other
ordinances of the legal Mosaic age, was designed and instituted
for the purpose of showing us the gospel of Christ. It was
never intended, God never intended it, to be a day of mere religious
bondage, because he liked to see men not have fun. That was
not his purpose. The Sabbath day was designed
to show sinners how God does needy sinners good. eternal good,
everlasting good. Does sinners good who need somebody
to do something for them good? Does sinners good who deserve
eternal evil? The Sabbath day was ordained
to show us how God has purposed from eternity to save life by
the obedience of Christ. It was a picture of Christ's
finished work and of our resting in him, ceasing from our works
in him forever. And another reason why our Lord
did this on the Sabbath day was to display the fact that he's
come to fulfill and forever put an end to the law of the Sabbath. Now, we read earlier this morning
in Matthew 5, where our Lord said, I came not to destroy the
law, but to fulfill it. And folks accuse us of saying
Christ destroyed the law. No, no. Well, then you say the
law's still in effect. Oh no! Oh no! No, no, no! A thousand times no! No, he fulfilled
the law! That means he ended the law forever. This is what the book says, isn't
it? Christ is the E-N-D. That spells end of the law for
righteousness to everyone that believe it. All right now, look
at verse 8. Second thing we see here is a
narrative, in this narrative, is a display of a divine characteristic. Look at this, for just a minute,
this first line. But he knew their thoughts. Isn't
it amazing how the Holy Spirit, as he gives us the gospel narratives,
just almost casually, almost nonchalantly, throws out these
things that display the divinity, the Godhead of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Lord Jesus is that one who
is the omniscient, all-knowing God. He knew their thoughts. Neither is there any creature
that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and
open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. The reason
for this is to make us see clearly that he who is our Savior is
and must be God Almighty. He is God over all, blessed forever. Now this can't be stated too
emphatically or too often, especially in these days of religious compromise.
The other day, tell us then, several weeks ago, when you get
past 50, you know the days run together. Shelby and Faith and
I were out, I think Doug was with them, we were at one of
the shopping centers in Lexington, and I get to hold onto Grace
and keep her when they're busy looking for stuff. I was outside,
had her on my shoulders and we were walking around, and two
Mormons approached me. Those little fellas carried little
black satchels, white shirts, and black ugly ties. They asked me some questions.
Of course, you know, they usually ask leading questions. They never
come right up and ask you what you want to know. And I knew
who they were and they asked some questions. I cut to the
chase. I knew I had to get back. I said, I want to know one thing
from you and we can talk. What do you think of Christ?
And they began to talk. Well, you know, he's a good man.
He's a God. I said, but the book says this
man is God. Well, we believe he is a God.
I know you do. That's the reason you're going
to hell. He is God. He is God. If he's not God, his obedience
is useless. If he's not God, his death is
useless. If he's not God, his intercession is useless. If he's
not God, he has no merit. by which to save a sinner, which
you acknowledge because you declare you've got to contribute something
to him for the accomplishment of salvation. Nothing is more
humbling at the same time, more comforting and encouraging to
believing hearts than our savior's omniscience. I am humbled by
the realization that he knows everything. Oh I thought He knows everything. I'd blush for you to know just
a tide of what he knows. He knows everything. How humbly
I bow before him. He knows something else too.
He knows I trust him for all my righteousness and all my redemption. And like Peter, I lift my heart
to him and rejoice to know, as I weep before him, Lord, you
know all things. You know that I love you. You
see, believers are not hypocrites. Believers don't pretend. Believers
don't try to fake these things. Believers are men and women who
acknowledge, honestly acknowledge and confess their sin, and confessing
their sin, acknowledge and confess their faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ and rejoice that He knows what nobody else can know. We
love Him. We trust Him. We follow Him.
Our Lord Jesus Christ then gives us here an example of a very
decisive call. Look at verse 8. He said to the man with the withered
hand, and that's a particular personal call. I don't have any
idea how many other people were there. I don't have any idea
how many were there with other needs. I'm quite sure that they
were not all on the Sabbath day in the synagogue perfectly whole
in body, soul, and spirit. But our Lord here calls this
one man, and he does so in a very distinguishing, discriminating
way. He separates him from all other men. He calls him no one
else. And that's what made the difference.
Who makes you to differ from another? How come you believe
the gospel somebody else doesn't? Sit beside you, hear the same
message. Don't hear anything, because you heard his voice and
he calls his own sheep by name. It is not that I did choose thee,
for Lord, that could not be. This heart would still refuse
thee. Hast thou not chosen me? Be sure
you see this too. Our Lord called this man to do
what he had absolutely no ability to do. Isn't that great? Here's this man with a dried
up, withered stump of an arm. Withered, dead, just dried up,
useless. And the master says to him, arise,
stand forth, stretch forth your hand. Well, if he could do that,
Morley wouldn't have been there. But the master said, do it. Now
this is given for a number of reasons but listen carefully. I stress this because you folks
say sinners are dead and they have no ability to repent and
believe and a man can't be called to do what he has no ability
to do and held responsible for it. Who says who? The master says to this man,
arise, stand forth, stretch forth your hands. And he says to you
who are dead in sins, come to me. He says to you who are dead
in sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He says to you
who are dead in sins, arise from the dead and Christ will give
you life. Well how could that be? Read
on. And he did so. What did he do? That fellow did what he couldn't
possibly do. He stretched forth his hand. He stretched it forth. He didn't stretch forth his hand
by the mere exercise of his will. He'd been willing it a long time.
He didn't just decide that he would stretch forth his hand.
He didn't just muster the power from within so that he could
stretch forth his hand, but rather he stretched forth his hand because
God Almighty commanded the dead arm to stretch forth and it did. Well, Pastor, how can that be?
Exactly this way. You can read it later, Luke 18.
The disciples saw that rich young ruler going away, and the Lord
said, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than that fellow to get to glory. And they said, well, who can
be saved? And the Lord said, with men it's impossible, but
with God all things are possible. That means, buddy, if God left
us to ourselves, we would sit with our withered arms in our
dead corpses till hell consumed us. But he didn't leave us to
ourselves. We have heard men preach, deaf
preachers in the world, and never believe, never live. Oh, if all
the voice you hear is the voice of this man, all you hear is
a man's voice rattling off of these walls, it'll do you no
good. But if God speaks, If God speaks through this empty,
worthless pipe to your heart, dead sinners arise and come to
Christ. They come to Him. Come to Him.
The man stretched forth his hand at the command of Christ and
was made whole. How do the dead live? The hour
will cometh and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of
the Son of God. And they that hear shall hear.
Lazarus come forth. Well, he can't come forth, he's
dead. But he's dead. Not anymore. What made the difference? Well, Lazarus chose Jesus. Lazarus decided to let Jesus
into his heart. Lazarus gave his heart to Jesus. That's not only blasphemy, that's
idiotic blasphemy. He's dead. How did he come forth? The Lord Jesus said, Lazarus,
come forth. And the dead came out of the
grave. One more thing here. Look at
verse 11. And they were filled with madness
and communed with one another what they might do to Jesus.
And the crowd was divided. That's always what happens with
the gospel of God's grace. Always. You talk about a divider
of men. The message of grace and the
work of Christ in grace separates sheep from goats and wheat from
chaff. It separates the precious from
the vile and it divides men. The Lord Jesus was satisfied. The sinner has come to know him.
The disciples were edified and strengthened and comforted and
worshiped him. The Pharisees were enraged. And that's where we'll leave
them. That's where we'll leave them. What do you do? Divide
the crowd. Divide. The gospel always divides
men. False prophets try to mullify
them. Tear down the gospel, get everybody together. The gospel
always divides men. Believers rejoice in it. Unbelievers are enraged by it. The grace of God divides men.
Not those who preach it, not those who experience it, but
the grace of God divides men. There was a division among the
Jews because of Christ everywhere he went. And Merle is still so. In your house and mine, In your
neighborhood and mine, in churches you've been in, churches I've
been in, wherever I go, there's always a division. Always. Believers
rejoice. Unbelievers are enraged. Now,
I call you, come to Christ. Arise. Come to Christ. I said, but you said I was dead.
That's right. That's right. You can't come.
But you may. You may. And if you come, it's
because the Son of God himself has called you. Amen.