Good morning, let's open our
Bibles, if you would, to Matthew chapter 18. We'll start reading the first
four verses here of chapter 18. And at the same time, the disciples
came unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom
of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in
the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, except
you be converted and become as little children, you shall not
enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble
himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the
kingdom of heaven." Now this passage of scripture is written
to two people. The scripture is written to those
who will be in the kingdom of heaven, and this scripture is
also written to those who will strive to be in the kingdom of
heaven. So when we read this in verse one where the disciples,
and they ask this question more than once, who will be the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven? In other passages it says they
had a great dispute amongst them who would be the greatest. Now
why would you ask a question like this in the first place?
They had the opportunity of being with the Lord, to hear him preach,
but yet they're worried about which of them would be the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven. Well, what jumped out at me at
first is just as men and women, we have a desire for greatness.
We have a desire for glory. We have a desire for gain and
to try to acquire more. I want more. There's got to be
more, isn't there? All of these things indicated
dissatisfaction with my current place, not satisfied with what
I have. I need to know that there is
more and I can attain unto it. The problem is there's also someone
else who said these same things. You don't have to turn here,
but in Isaiah 14, the same person said, I will ascend into the
heavens. I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God. I will ascend above the heights
of the clouds. I will be like the Most High.
The same person who had dissatisfaction with his place in life was Satan
himself. So these same feelings, these
same evil motives we find are in us asking these questions,
just like the disciples did. Satan's method of deception is
subtlety. It's not open and out rebellion,
and although it comes across that way, but it may not be open
and perceive it as what it is. These were the disciples. They
were with the Lord. However, Satan's influence is
very far-reaching. Even the Apostle Peter, the Lord
said, get thee behind me, Satan, at one point, because Satan's
influence was on the Apostle Peter. You think about that.
A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Now, leaven is just
yeast, but it's microscopic. You can't see it. But yet, when
you put it in, just a little bit of dough, what does it do
to it? It has a very profound effect. So when they ask, who
is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Consider their position
and their place in this life. They were with the Lord himself.
They ate with him, they drank with him, they watched him preach,
they saw him pray, they saw him commune with his father. And
they would assume that they're safe from the dangers that we
would consider dangers in this life, external dangers, but the
problem is There were two great evils and great deceptions that
they weren't aware of, and these are internal dangers. We can
lock the doors on our houses at night and lay down in our
beds feeling like that we're safe, the house is secure. But
if the enemy is within, inside the locked house, what good does
that do me? So what are these two great evils,
great deceptions that we were all fall victim to is two things,
pride and presumption, the enemy within. What we see here in the
question that they ask, who is the greatest in the kingdom of
heaven, is number one, greatness denotes that there are degrees
of greatness in the kingdom of heaven. The second thing we notice
There's something that they could or did do to attain unto it. So who is the greatest? So there
had to be one of them by something that they did to ask that question. The third thing, the third presumption
that they make is that it's one of them. Who is the greatest
among us? They're fighting over it. The
fourth thing, is that they assume that his kingdom is full of privilege
and honor and greatness, and it would be to them. What if
the Lord had said, in answer to their question, it's John.
How would the rest of them have felt? What would that have done
to the group? Well, I know if I was one of
the group, immediately it would spark hatred towards that person,
that I was not the one, because they were fighting over it. It
would give a sense, or maybe perhaps you would react to him
with a sense of false pretense. You try to appeal to him so that
you could get something in the kingdom of heaven because you
knew he was the greatest. Or perhaps you would try to expose
him as not one of the greatest. So you try to bring him that
down. Love covereth a fault. This is not love. You would be
trying to expose him. Or perhaps they would try to
outdo him to show that, Lord, you're not really seeing things
for the way they are. Look at what I'm doing over here. I'm
doing greater than what he's doing. So perhaps it could be
one of these things. Turn over a page here to Matthew
20, verse 25. But Jesus called them unto him
and said, You know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion
over them and that they are great, they exercise authority upon
them. but it shall not be so among you. But whosoever will
be great among you, let him be your minister. And whosoever
will be cheap among you, let him be your servant." So he's
saying, if you guys are sitting here fighting over who is the
greatest, let him be your servant. They're thinking it's full of
privilege and opportunity for them. Heaven is not a system
of high seats. Our ideas are so far beneath
him, beneath what the Lord's intent of heaven is. We think
it is a place. Heaven is being with Christ.
Heaven is a place, but heaven is not a place of mansions and
rewards and things that we gain and garner through things of
this life. You know, if it were up to us, it'd be all chiefs
and no Indians. And that's what these disciples
are saying here. They all want to be chief, but
there's got to be some Indians too, and they don't quite get
that. All this does is expose our evil self-serving nature,
is really what this does when they ask a question like this.
Pride and presumption impede our view of Christ and growth
in faith. Now, the greatest experiences
of faith and teaching come from the Lord tearing us down. They
don't come from gaining benefit and the blessings in our life,
the things that we would call good things that happen to us.
The greatest experiences of faith and teaching we will have come
from the Lord tearing us down, not exalting our place. Who is
the greatest? How painful a process this is
though, being ripped apart, being cast down. It's not the way that
I would do it, but that's how the Lord works. Yet this is the
only way that I ever really truly grow. Do you want to see that
the Lord is precious? Yeah, I want to see that. Then
he's going to have to withdraw his face from you. and to show
you that it is precious. Isn't that what we just heard
in the song? How tedious and how tasteless the hours when
Jesus no longer I see. That's what that whole song is
about, is the Lord removing his face from the songwriter, John
Newton. And what that tells us is you
can have anything and everything in this world, and there are
many opportunities and temptations we'll have. But if you don't
have Christ, you can't enjoy it. It's meaningless. Those things
will go away. All those things are temporal,
and all those things won't last. But yet, He will. His life continues on and still
is. And yet, one day those things
will burn up. I'll be at a later point in my
life, and I'll be forced to be faced with God. May it be that
I have His face. May it be that I know Him, and
I'm not removed from Him. Do you want to have a high view
of Jesus Christ? Well, yes. Well, then you're
gonna have to have a low view of yourself, and that means being
torn down. There are many things that are
distractions and things that build us up and hold us up in
this life, but yet you can't just know that you need to have
a low view of yourself. The Lord has to bring you there.
Do you want to trust him to provide? Then perhaps you'll have to be
made powerless. be placed in a point where you see, I can
do nothing to influence the situation. There's absolutely nothing I
can do to change it. I can't provide for myself. I can't do
anything other than look to the Lord to provide for me. That
is what trusting the Lord is. is having everything be in His
hands and everything out of yours. It's not we trust Him to do the
things that we know we can't do. He does everything. We just
have a false sense of security around us, false sense of control.
The Lord had to teach them, the disciples, and us humility if
we are to know Him. You see, they supposed themselves
to be somebody. Lord, which one of us is going
to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And you think again
about their position. The gospel was hidden. Can you
imagine listening to the Lord be able to open up the hidden
gospel and hear His word, hear the things that He revealed out
of the gospel that no one had ever heard because He's light? They had communion with the Lord
Himself. They were used as instruments
of his power. He gave them special power to
be able to do many things that supernaturally we can't do. So
they were in a very elevated position as far as men go in
this life. But yet, they still fell victim
to pride and presumption. If they were susceptible, how
much more so are you and I? They were with the Lord himself
and yet fell victim to it. So if we look here in verse 2,
back in our text in Matthew 18, it says, Jesus called a little
child into him and set him in the midst. And I like to picture
this, the Lord calling a little child and put him in the midst
of the matters of men. You have all these men gathered
around and talking about things that men talk about, and these
are the matters of men, but yet he brings a child in the midst
of them. First, we see the offense, offense of this. This offends
our person because this is some person that's a child that's
unlearned. This child doesn't know anything. This child is
not regarded of men as someone and the Lord's bringing him in,
stopping us from speaking and trying to get our moment in the
spotlight here. The means, this is a child. This
is someone who can't do anything. If you will turn over to 1 Corinthians
1, I'll just read a few verses. 1 Corinthians 1, 20 to 21, for
in that the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. Isn't that what this is? foolishness, bringing a child
in, in amongst the matters of men? For the Jews require a sign,
the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. Unto the Jews, a stumbling block,
unto the Greeks, foolishness, but unto them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom
of God. the foolishness of preaching.
This represents the child coming in here. This is an offense.
But yet we also see in this picture of the Lord calling this child
over, this is a picture of the saving of the sinner. Did this
child know who the Lord was? Probably not. And really know
him? No. Was this child seeking the
Lord? No. This child, we have no evidence
to say he was seeking the Lord. Did this child have any understanding
of who the Lord was? This was the Lord in the flesh.
No. Did this child attempt to gain
the Lord's favor? Was he doing something that would
attract the Lord to say, ah, I'm gonna call him over? No.
Did this child render any acceptable service to the Lord that the
Lord might say, ah, I'll call him over because of what he's
doing? No. This made me think of of how
much my works appear before the Lord. When something is spilled
in my house, my kids dump a bowl of cereal on the floor, of course
they want to try to help clean it up. They're trying to help.
They're doing something. But yet in my experience, what
they're doing is just smearing it from one end of the floor
to the other and making it worse. They're not helping. But they're
trying to. They think they are. Is that
how my works appear before God? The things that I would call
a good work, the things that I would call, this is me being
selfless and doing something for somebody else. God recognized
me for that. No. These things make it worse,
whatever we do in our hands. The picture here is that he sought
me. He found me. He called me to
himself and he made me sit at his feet. That's the saving of
a sinner and that's what we see just in that picture right there
of the child being called over. He's using the least to teach
those who would be great. Well, in verse 3, what does he
say to them? Truly, verily, I say unto you,
except you be converted and become as little children, you shall
not enter the kingdom of heaven, except you be converted. What
does converted mean? What's that mean? Converted means
to turn. Let's look at a few scriptures
in the book of Acts, starting in chapter 26 to learn a little
bit, see how this is words used. This is when Paul was on the
road to Damascus and he was stopped by the bright light. In verse 15 of chapter 26 it
says, And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus,
whom thou persecutest. But rise, stand up on thy feet,
for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee
a minister and a witness, both of these things which thou hast
seen, and of those things in which I will appear unto thee.
delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom
I now send thee, to open their eyes and to turn them." What? To turn them. This is the same
word as convert. To turn them from darkness to light and from
the power of Satan unto God. that they may receive the forgiveness
of sins and inheritance among them which is sanctified by the
faith that is in me." So this is a turning. You see two opposites
here. We see the turning from darkness
to light. Turning from the power of Satan
to God. So this is, it's like a light
switch. There's no in between. It's either on or it's off. And
so that's what he's saying here. It's a turning to. So the next
chapter, let's look at Acts 9. In verse 32, and it came to pass
as Peter passed throughout all the quarters, he came down also
to the saints which dwelt at Lydda. And there he found a certain
man named Aeneas, which had kept his bed eight years and was sick
of the palsy. And Peter said unto him, Aeneas,
Jesus Christ make thee whole, arise, take thy bed, and he arose
immediately. And all that dwelt in Lydia and
Saron saw him, and turned unto the Lord." Again, this is the
same word as converted. It says they turn to, so it's
a turning to. The last thing we want to look
at is Acts chapter 7, verse 37. And this is that Moses which
said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your
God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me. Him shall
you hear. And this is he which in the church
in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in Mount Sinai,
and with our fathers who received the lively oracles to give unto
us. to whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from
them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt." So what
we're seeing is there's a turning from and there's a turning to. Again, it's from off to on. Light
switch is the easy way to think about it. But we must be given the new
man to do this. You can't in and of yourselves
just decide, I'm gonna turn. That's not gonna happen, that
won't last. This is something that the Holy
Spirit has to do in your heart. This is a work of the heart,
we've seen that right here. It's a work of the heart, it's
a turning to, a turning from, to a turning to. So if you will,
turn to one last scripture here, Ephesians chapter two. This speaks to the need of the
Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, to do something for us and in
us. In chapter 2, we're going to read these first three verses,
and I'm going to read this the way it's written. King James
does a good job in many areas in letting us know where things
are written, but this is actually the way it reads in the literal.
And you being dead in trespasses and sins, that's really the way
that it's written. We are dead in trespassings and
sins. It's not something that just
happened in my past. I'm dead in trespasses and sins
right now as I stand before you. where in times past you walked
according to the course of this world, according to what? This is how you walked, the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit, this is the spirit that
was within you, that now worketh in the children of disobedience,
among whom we all had our conversation in times past, in the lust of
our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and we're by nature the children of wrath, Edom and Esers. So
what we see here is without the Holy Spirit, without being converted,
we're under the power of the Spirit of the air, this power
of darkness, this power that's, this is what's within us, this
is the sin that's within us. And if left unconverted, If I'm
someone who is not converted in my experience in time and
in my experience in my life and when I die, I am actively under
the power and influence of Satan. There is no easy way to say that,
but that is the reality of what the scripture says. So the next
time we think maybe that there are certain things that aren't
important in here, that's the spirit of Satan in me. That's
the spirit of Satan, we're being blinded. We're serving the lust
of the eyes, the lust of the flesh. This is the power of Satan
in us. So this is a conversion from
making yourself your own God, where you're serving your own
interests, your own desires, your own promotions, the petitions
of your heart. You can make yourself your own
God in that sense, in that you're serving yourself. So you're converting
from whom I serve? Myself. I'm converted from why
I serve. Do I serve because I want something
better for me, which is most cases with me? Or is it, am I
serving because I want you to see me and what I'm doing? Kind
of like John was saying this morning in his message about
his kidney transplant, saying he wanted people to see that
he had done something here. There's the evil motive inside
of us. I've converted from how I serve. Do I serve, is it something
out of begrudgingly? Do I serve out of necessity because
I have to? It's not because I want to, but
it's begrudging and out of necessity. But I'm converted to something.
I'm converted to condemning my natural thoughts. The things
that I think by nature, they're self-serving, they're for me,
I condemn that. my natural inclinations, there's
a converting to, a turning to God is my only confidence. If
my hand's in it, I can be rest assured that it's tainted and
it's serving self and the Lord's not in that. It's a conversion
to seeking His glory. It's a conversion to seeking
His will, His righteousness, not my own self-promotions. It's
a conversion to justifying God. There's no more excuses for me.
I am the best person in the world, my wife can tell you, for justifying
what I do. I can give you a real logical
argument and I spend a lot of time doing it. So it's a conversion
from justifying myself and justifying God and condemning what I'm doing.
Conversion is something that happens day by day. It's not
something that happens once. That's regeneration. You can
only be regenerated once. That's the gift of the Holy Spirit.
But we have to be converted day by day. Every day the Lord is
going to have to turn me. Every day I see that I'm drawn
back to the flesh. I'm drawn back to serving self.
I have to be turned from this, and the Lord's the only one that
can turn me. Scripture says we must be converted and become
as little children. Now, I want to spend most of
the rest of our time here looking at what are little children?
What does the Lord mean by this? Because it doesn't mean that
physically we become little children and act like little children,
although some of us do. Little children don't stay little
children. Little children get older. Little
children grow further from the point from when they were started
as a little child. And we as parents strive to move
our children from beyond being little children. We want them
to be able to be independent. We want them to be learned. We
want them to be able to provide for their own needs. A little
child's a wonderful thing, but 40 years later, you don't want
them to still be a little child. So we want to move our children
beyond this. But this is not so in the kingdom
of heaven. In the kingdom of heaven, it takes grace to become
a little child. And so the first thing I want
us to look at with being a little child, the first thing that jumps
right out is that they are 100% dependent. A little child is
100% dependent on its parent. And you know what's wonderful
about this? They give no thought to it. You know how much time
my children worry about being dependent upon me and my wife?
They don't give any time or thought to it. And they trust when they
say, I'm hungry, that there's food. They don't worry about
that. They just know that when they say, Daddy or Mommy, I'm
hungry, they know that there's going to be food. They don't
know about how that food got there, and you know, they don't
worry about food for the next day. They know that if they say,
I'm hungry, the Lord's going to provide that. They have no
worry for their level of dependence. Turn back a few chapters to Matthew
chapter 6, verse 25. The Lord says unto the disciples,
He says, Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your
life, what you shall eat, what you shall drink, nor yet for
your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than
meat, and the body more than raiment? Behold, the fowls of
the air, they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into
barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are you not much
better than they? Which of you, by taking thought,
can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not,
neither do they spin. Yet I say unto you that even
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed into one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which
today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much
more clothe you, O you little faith? Therefore, take no thought
saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal
shall we be clothed? They have no worry for their
level of dependence. Why is that? Look at verse 32.
For your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these
things. If we're given the grace to become as a little child,
we're gonna know that God is gonna provide our needs. He knows
exactly what we need. I say this often, I trust him
to save my soul, but there's days I don't trust him to put
bread on my table. And that's shameful. That's not me becoming
as a little child. That's me looking to my own hand
to have a hand in it. And if I become as a little child,
I'm gonna look to him to do that for me too. So they have no worry
for their level of dependence. And this is the reality of things,
whether we believe it or see it or not, is the Lord's hand
is in everything that we do. There are many things that cloud
our view of that, many things that we think that we do, we
think that we have our hand in, but this is the Lord's hand in
everything that we do. Anything that we have is perceived
power and a false sense of control. And what's terrible is that I
find some degree of comfort in that, but yet that's not the
reality. The Lord's hand's in everything
that we do. We're dependent in our salvation. How much of a
hand have you had in your own faith? None. How much of a hand
do you want a part of in what God's demands are for you standing
before him? I don't want a hand in that at
all. I want to look completely to Christ to provide what's needed,
because if I have my hand in it at all, I'm going to be ruined.
I know that anything I have my hand in, it's not perfect, and
that's what God demands. We can come with nothing less
than perfection. And that's why he tells us what?
He tells us to rest. When you're resting, you're doing
no work. You're not providing anything. My children in my home,
they can rest. They can do whatever they want.
They're not working to provide to keep the house going. They're
not working to provide to worry about food's going to be there.
They're resting, knowing that their father has provided everything
that they need in the home for them to have. Philippians 4.6
says, be careful for nothing. We're not to worry about these
things and be consumed with them. So first, little children are
100% dependent. The second thing is little children
are instructable. The Proverbs say that a fool
despiseth his father's instruction, but he that regardeth reproof
is prudent, is wise. Are you someone that doesn't
like being told what to do? Most people don't, but the scripture
says someone who has that attitude and is not instructable, they
have a hard heart. They're full of pride. They're
devoid of wisdom. There ought to be more fear in
questioning God's providence. The Lord uses his providence
to instruct us, and when the Lord delivers something that
doesn't go my way to suit my life, to suit my happiness, and
me being His creation by His hands, not understanding the
whole order of things, for me to question His providence? No. There has to be more fear in
questioning the Lord and His providence. What did he say to
Job when he did? First thing he said to him, when
he appeared to him in the whirlwind was, who is this that darkens
counsel by words without knowledge? You don't know what you're talking
about. You don't understand what I'm doing and working in you.
It was those series of events that brought Job to come to repentance
and to see. He said, I've heard of you by
the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees. So I knew all these
things up here, but I didn't see it. The Lord was using all
those events that he thought were bad things in his life to
come him to the point to see that he was vile. And it was
only in seeing that he was vile that he was able to look up and
to see that Christ was all. Little children are instructable.
And you know that means that they're not easily offended.
If I'm someone who is easily offended, that means I'm not
listening. I'm worried about me being offended. Little children
are instructable. they can be corrected and not
hold a grudge and not be offended when they're in the series of
correction. Nobody likes correction, but
being offended is something we hold on to and remember over
time. You know, a month ago this person didn't speak to me when
I, you know, walked by them. So what? A child of grace will
abhor this attitude. And this is one thing that I
try to call a remembrance to myself, but remember where the
Lord found you. If I remember where the Lord
found me, I have no reason to look down on my brother or to
have a hard heart. We never graduate from being
a sinner saved by grace. It's only when we get beyond
that, we get full of pride and presumption, that's when we lose
sight of that. The Proverbs, I'm going to give you the description
the Proverbs gives of the wise and of the fool with regard to
instruction. I wrote down a few of these words.
The wise receive instruction. The wise hear instruction. The wise keep instruction. And the wise apply their heart
unto instruction. But the fool, the fool refuses
instruction. The fool will not hear. The fool
will not heed, and the fool despises instruction. So as little children,
we're to be instructable. As little children, little children
know nothing of pride. Pride and hate go hand in hand. And pride doesn't seek, or know
nothing of pride seeks to glory not over one another. Little
children don't try to glory over one another and to put the other
one down to exalt themselves. They don't know anything about
that. Little children don't know hatred. Little children glory
not in what they're born into this life with. You know, the
child of the king and the child of servant, they can play together
and they don't know any different. They're just friends and they
want to play. So all the things around us that we would know
something of pride about, that we'd say what we did or what
we are or what we were born into, none of these things matter.
And so little children know nothing of pride. Pride is a very dangerous
thing. Little children, with regard
to speaking knowing nothing of pride, Little children don't
look down on others who don't believe. Now, it's only when
I lose sight of where the Lord found me that enables me to have
a hard heart like that. Now, if I think about this, I
don't want to hear my Lord's name blasphemed. I don't want
to hear his gospel twisted and make it into something else.
And yes, that does, for a zeal for his gospel and for his truth,
I do have that. But that doesn't mean I look
down on somebody else, because how did the gospel come to me?
I know where the Lord found me. I have no ability or means to
look down on anybody else. So little children know nothing
of pride. Little children are little in body and low in stature. Galatians 6.3 says, when a man
thinketh himself to be something, when he's nothing, he deceives
himself. Don't rise above what you are. Sinner saved by grace. Pride
and presumption have no place with God's children. The proud,
the lifted up ones, the different ones, those are the ones whom
the Lord rebuked. It wasn't sinners. He rebuked
the people who thought themselves to be better than that. Isn't
that what the Pharisee said in the temple? God, I thank thee
that I'm not as other men are. The Lord in his mercy must bring
us down. Now, knowing this and experiencing
this are two different things, as we kind of said earlier. It's
like having a picture versus being there. I've had the opportunity
to go to a lot of different places in my career. I've taken a lot
of pictures, but when I try to show those to my wife, I realize
about two minutes into me telling some long story about this great
picture and, you know, being able to sit in this special place,
it means nothing. All it is is just a very figurative
representation of something that I experienced and know. I know
that I need to have my sins forgiven because God says that he will
punish sin, all sin. I don't want my sin punished.
But it's a very different thing for the Lord to bring me to a
point where I see that all I am is sin. and that it was for my
sins, no one else's sins but my sins, that Christ had to be
nailed to a tree and die. That was the only way that I
could be saved. So there's no way that I can understand what
pride is having seen and known those things. Have I been brought
down? The scripture says that a bruised
reed will he not break, and the smoking flax he shall not quench. You'll have no need of Christ
until you become the bruised reed and the smoking flax. The
bruised reed is almost broken. It's bent over. It can bear no
weight. The bruised reed, if you move
it, if the wind blows too hard, it's going to break and die.
It's still alive, but it's bent over. There's nothing more that
it can bear. But the Scripture says that he won't break. So
even though you've been put in a position of your life, different
times of our life, we're put in a position where we can't
bear anymore. I see my sin. I'm guilty before
God. I mean, it's over for me. It
says he won't break. He's gentle. And the smoking
flax is a candle wick. You can look at it, and it's
almost gone out, and your Halloween pumpkin, you can see just that
wisp of smoke coming off of it. You don't see any fire, you just
see a little bit of smoke. It's still alive, but barely.
It's got nothing left, completely burned out. Smoke may as well
be your prayers. You're barely able to ask, ask
the Lord to help you. You don't even know what to ask.
and you're asking knowing that He may or may not do anything
for you, but yet you ask anyway because you have nowhere else
to go. That's what it is to be the smoking flax, and this is
a right view of Christ. This is how we come to him, sinner
seeking mercy and seeking help. We have a lot of words, we have
a lot of voluminous words and things we think we should say
in our prayers, but what are we really saying? These are just
things we're repeating. It's just a lot of, it's just
nonsense that we're saying. But when we're truly enabled
to pray and to ask, Lord, I'm a sinner, please help me. Lord's
not gonna turn away that prayer. He says that I'm the vine, and
you are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in
him bringeth forth much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. If the branch is broken off,
it dies. The source of my life, the source
of everything I have is in him." The disciples asked, who is the
greatest? The Lord says, you don't even need to be concerned
with that. You fellas aren't even going to be there asking
questions like that. So he says, you've got to be
converted and become as a little child Well, in verse 4, back
to our text, let's try to get through this quickly. Whosoever
therefore shall humble himself to this little child, the same
is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Humble himself, that
means not rising from the ground. Well, how does one do this? How
do you be humble? Wrong question. How can I be
made humble? You can't make yourself, you
can't be humble. You can be made humble. It's
only when you know something of your shame that humility becomes
no effort at all. It's not something that you have
to do. You're in a state of being humble when you know something
of Christ had to go to the cross to pay for my sins, just mine,
and for what I am, everything I see, I do, I breathe is sin. When I'm in a state of understanding
what makes me shameful and can't even appear before God in this,
humility is not an effort at all. Humility is something that
I easily slide right into. I'm only a sinner saved by grace.
Well, how can this be? In verse five, whosoever shall
receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. How can this be? union with Christ,
all his children, his blessings, whether your prayers are heard,
his righteousness, how I treat my brother and sister, my thoughts,
my attitude, how I speak of them or to them, whether I forgive
them, if I'm being long-suffering unto them, and my love to them
is all how I treat Jesus Christ himself. You think about that. Is that how I'm treating him?
It makes me think differently how I treat my brothers and sisters
when I look at it from that point of view, because I want to treat
my Lord with honor. But it says here, if you treat one of these
little children who believe in me, he said, that's how you're
treating me. Have you been shown grace? Have you been shown mercy? Have you seen his love? Has the
Lord given you forgiveness of your sins? Has he been long-suffering
with you? What these things mean to me
will show forth in how we treat others whereby we have nothing
to gain. Because again, self creeps up
into it and then it's again serving self again. So what we've experienced
of those things of the Lord to us, we want to show forth to
others. And so in verse six, it's our last verse, but whoso
shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it
were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and
that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Offend here is not
personal feelings. Offend here means an impediment,
so something that would cause one of these little ones who
believe in me to stumble. So what is the greatest stone
of stumbling for someone who would believe in the Lord? It's
the mixing of law and grace. It's not just law because you
can say, yeah, I know that I can't come by that because I can look
and see what I've done up to this point at least is not perfect.
It's the mixing of law and grace. I don't want to be the reason
for one of the little ones to stumble because of a mixing of
law and grace. Often our pastor will say to
us, I'm not going to tell you or teach you how to live. Do
you know why he says that? Because men make laws out of
good practice. Clothes you wear, how many times
you attend church a week, maybe you attend three times a week.
You can still be just as much Hell's Child and attend three
times a week. So it's not how you give. You're commanded to give and
you should give. Well, how much should I give?
We're not held by the law anymore. If we say 10.1%, you've just
now made a law of that. and anything below that is somehow
less acceptable to God, and anything above that is somehow more acceptable.
I've done more than what the law says. So, it's not acceptable when we try
to live by law. So, men make laws out of good
practice. If you look over the page here
at verse 21 of the same chapter 18, Then came Peter to him and
said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I
forgive him? Until seven times? And Jesus said unto him, I say
not unto thee until seven times, but until 70 times seven. So
4,900 times then, is that what that means? No, what the Lord's
saying is, you forgive your brother. I'm not making a law of it. You're
commanded to forgive, you forgive your brother. There's no amount
of times. Is there instruction to the church? Absolutely. There
is many instructions to the church in the New Testament. But how
does Paul address it? He says, I speak by permission
and not by commandment. I speak by commandment, not by
commandment, but by occasion. So we're not to make laws to
ourselves or to others out of good and sound instruction. This
is a mixing of law and grace. If there's a new man inside you,
he'll respond. You don't need to worry about
that. He'll respond to the word. You're free in Christ. The law,
any law, is not made for a righteous man. And the mixing of law and
grace is a great danger. I don't want to sin. You know
what? Nobody had to tell me that. I know that sin is wrong. Anyone
who has been saved by the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ
and knows what their sin-required payment for, do you need to tell
them that sinning is wrong? No. God forbid that you do. That's
the new man inside you that sees that. He doesn't need a law.
And also in verse 6, we see a punishment. Anyone who would offend one of
these little ones, better for him that a millstone hanged about
his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. So we
see a punishment of causing one of the little ones to stumble
through mixing of law and grace. The severity of this punishment
is quick, painful, and permanent. Do they literally do this in
this time? I don't know, but it certainly is quick, painful,
and permanent. And the Lord's glory is found
in His faithfulness to His covenant, and He's not going to allow a
mixing of law and grace in anyone for whom Christ bled for. He
will not suffer it to be broken for His great namesake. That's
why there's such severity for causing one of these little ones
to stumble. Lord, and this is our prayer, call me as a little
child. Prevent me from offending one
of your little ones and keep me for your great namesake. Who
is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? We asked this question
in the beginning. We're actually given a glimpse of this in the
book of Revelations, and I'll just read this to you. It said
the four and twenty elders, they fell down before him. Four-and-twenty
elders worshiped Him, and the crowns that they were given,
they cast those before His feet. And they said, Thou art worthy,
O Lord, to receive glory and power and honor, for Thou has
created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.
Who's the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? It's the Lord Jesus
Christ. There is no degree of greatness
in the kingdom of heaven. If I'm united to him, I have
that same greatness because I'm united with his person. And so
we pray, Lord, make us to be little children and convert us.