When He uttered the words, "Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me," it is to me evident that there was an allusion to the wavering let it be but for a moment of John's soul. No sooner had Peter pronounced to Jesus the truth of His person, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," than Jesus holds the secret no longer. 32. If he were willing to follow the Lord, it was for what he could get. So Philo the Jew calls the Logos, or word, , "an healer of diseases" x, and God our legislator, , "the best physician of the diseases of the soul" y. It ought to have been John's place to have proclaimed the glory of Jesus; but all things in this world are the reverse of what they ought to be, and of what will be when Jesus takes the throne, coming in power and glory. 3 And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth. (v) He was moved to compassion by the world's bewilderment. In this we have another striking illustration of the same principle, because this miracle, in point of fact, was wrought long before the healing of the centurion's servant, or even of the leper. The Talmud lays it down: "The husband is bound to bury his dead wife, and to make lamentations and mourning for her, according to the custom of all countries. But, from first to last, what a trial of spirit, and what triumph! 3. If we consider that this was his office and the end of his coming, if we remember that this was the reason why he took upon him our flesh, why he shed his blood, why he offered the sacrifice of his death, why he descended even to hell, we will never think it strange that he should gather to salvation those who have been the worst of men, and who have been covered with a mass of crimes. Let those who have so little experience of what man is, even in the regenerate, beware lest they impute to the Baptist such an acting of a part as shocks us, when Jerome imputed it to Peter and Paul in the censure of Galatians 2:1-21. The delivered demoniacs are, to my mind, clearly the foreshadow of the Lord's grace in the latter days, separating a remnant to Himself, and banishing the power of Satan from this small but sufficient witness of His salvation. There must be the mouth to praise the Lord, and speak of the glorious honour of His majesty, as well as eyes to wait on Him. We cannot force a man against his will to accept Christ. When he came into the house, the blind men came to him. In Matthew 8:18-22 Jesus directed those who came to Him voluntarily as disciples. Considerable time, it is true, elapsed between the two facts; but this only makes it the more sure and plain, that they are grouped together with a divine purpose. So now we have, in the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, another fact containing a principle of great value, that His grace towards the Gentile does not in the least degree blunt His heart to the claims of relationship after the flesh. That's the greatest thing that God can do for you. The disciples, it should seem, being yet weak, had to seek for an answer to the Pharisees' cavil, and, therefore, bring it to Christ, and he heard it (Matthew 9:12; Matthew 9:12), or perhaps overheard them whispering it to his disciples. So He got into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own city. So, when more is added, He says, "All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. We must always remember that Christianity exists, not to discourage, but to encourage; not to weigh men down with burdens, but to lift them up with wings. They cavilled at it; why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? It was the little foreshadowing of what will be when the Lord has joined the remnant in the last days, and then fills with blessing the land that He touches. No doctor can cure a sick person who goes to him in a completely hopeless frame of mind. There never can be strength in the soul till forgiveness is known. Jesus did not mean that the tax collectors and sinners needed Him but the Pharisees did not. Then he caught a glimpse of the reaper's face; and the reaper was Martin Luther; and Luther's friend saw the truth in a flash. Verse Matthew 9:12. As soon as they lay hands I know God's gonna heal me, you know. Sure enough the blood count had suddenly changed. The Lord works in delivering power; but withal the power of Satan fills and carries away the unclean to their own destruction. Let us look at them one by one. I told you that was his headquarters. The motor car, the railway train, the aeroplane were in the beginning regarded with suspicion. 11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. john 8 32) Matthew 9:12 (King James Version) 9:1 And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city. The man who walks with Christ walks in radiance of joy. Here we find our Lord, after sending out the chosen witnesses of the truth (so momentous to Israel, above all) of His own Messiahship, realizing His utter rejection, yet rejoicing withal in God the Father's counsels of glory and grace, while the real secret in the chapter, as in fact, was His being not Messiah only, nor Son of man, but the Son of the Father, whose person none knows but Himself. They had entered the service of their country's conquerors, and they amassed their fortunes at the expense of their country's misfortunes. "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. We are not truly Christian until our Christian belief issues in Christian action. However that may be, he was certainly saved by the faith of his friends. We are living in a changing and an expanding world. On this the Lord takes another step, when one said to Him, "Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee." The people might have failed, but, surely, there were some differences surely those that were honoured and valued were not so depraved! He was in his calling, as the rest of them whom Christ called, Matthew 4:18; Matthew 4:18. The rent was to be made standing. These tax-gatherers were universally hated. This verdict of the Pharisees was due to certain attitudes of mind. So these blind men came to Jesus with a very inadequate conception of who he was. May the Lord's hand be upon your life this week. Evidently it is the change of dispensation that is in question and at hand, the cutting off of the fleshly seed for their unbelief, and the bringing in of numerous believers in the name of the Lord from among the Gentiles. . He "went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people." It is most probable that he had indeed been a sinner, and that he was convinced that his illness was the result of his sin, as it may very well have been; and without the assurance of forgiveness healing could never have come to him. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, "Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.". Far from lowering the position of His servant, He declares there was none greater among mortal men. (ii) The woman with the issue of blood crept up behind Jesus in the crowd and touched the hem of his cloak. Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32). No matter what the great purpose might be, He was there for faith. The term Son of David describes Jesus in the popular conception of the Messiah. In Matthew 9:1-8 we see Jesus curing the paralytic by forgiving his sins; and we hear the scribes accusing him of blasphemy because he claimed to do what only God can do. None can justify themselves in their unbelief, by their calling in the world; for there is no sinful calling, but some have been saved out of it, and no lawful calling, but some have been saved in it. Their eyes were so blinded by their own ideas that they could not see in Jesus Christ the truth and the power of God. There was a poll-tax which had to be paid by every male from the age of fourteen to the age of sixty-five, and by every female from the age of twelve to sixty-five. We, so often like to routine God, put him in a box, combine him to a method and especially if, if that method has worked at one time.And I'm guilty of this. It might well have been that they had taken up a popular cry just because everyone else was shouting, and that, as soon as Jesus had passed by, they would simply forget. Rabbi Alexander said, "The sick arises not from his sickness, until his sins are forgiven." What He was introducing could not mix with Judaism. Read full chapter Matthew 4 Matthew 6 New International Version (NIV) Now I can imagine that that was a tremendous disappointment to his friends. Bain, the psychologist, said in a very different connection that the sensualist has what he calla "a voluminous tenderness." 4. He was there for the express purpose of glorifying God. Matthew 4:1-11; Matthew 4:12-23; Matthew 5 Commentary. We seem completely borne away from the ordinary level of our gospel to the higher region of the disciple whom Jesus loved. "Suffer me first," he says, "to go and bury my father." We have, first, the sower sowing the word. There are those who cannot do other than pray, for life has laid them helpless, and their prayers are indeed the strength of the labourers. Wise and good men should be as physicians to all about them; Christ was so. Mark gives them in the end of his second and the beginning of his third chapters. They were offering men a religion which was a handicap instead of a support. After this, in the chapter we have the positive hindrance asserted of what man counts good. "Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven." He said, Follow me; and the same divine, almighty power accompanied this word to convert Matthew, which attended that word (Matthew 9:6; Matthew 9:6), Arise and walk, to cure the man sick of the palsy. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." The Church, which is His body and bride, has a far more intimate place, even though true of the same persons. It was meant to identify a Jew as a Jew, and as a member of the chosen people, no matter where he was; and it was meant to remind a Jew every time he put on and took off his clothes that he belonged to God. Departing from there, He went into their synagogue. She was not simply a poor woman lost in the crowd; she was someone to whom Jesus gave the whole of himself. And Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; your faith has made you whole. But the Lord could not send her away without a blessing, and without a blessing reaching to His own glory. It was the tassel on the robe of Jesus that this woman touched. Their state had long been that of a man whom the unclean spirit had left, after a former dwelling in him. He said. We attempt to pour the truth of new discoveries into creeds which are based on Greek metaphysics. We can then picture the scene in the house of the ruler of the synagogue. Reviewing, then, these closing incidents of the chapter (ver. Hence, here it is a question not merely of cleansing, but of forgiveness, and forgiveness, too, as that which precedes power, manifested before men. I was known as a rebel and as a nonconformist and every other thing that they could say, because I couldn't see going along with just the traditional things of the denomination. 9:36 When he saw the crowds, he was moved with compassion to the depths of his being, for they were bewildered and dejected, like sheep who have no shepherd. When He reaches the house, minstrels were there, and people, making a noise: the expression, if of woe, certainly of impotent despair. The Jewish leaders, who should have been giving men strength to live, were bewildering men with subtle arguments about the Law, which had no help and comfort in them. If the meal was in Jesus' house, Jesus' saying becomes even more pointed. This is something to remember in a day and an age when the individual is in danger of getting lost. It was not more truly Christ's kingdom as man than He was God's own Son, His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased, who was now to be heard, rather than Moses or Elias, who disappear, leaving Jesus alone with the chosen witnesses. Thus he taught us to expect and prepare for reproach, and to bear it patiently. This is another section that contains discipleship lessons. Rabbi Ami said, "There is no death without sin, and no pains without some transgression." He was never outside Palestine, and there was a world which was waiting. In it we will look at a certain deadly stance toward God and his work.". Such an examination will make us willingly allow ourselves to be washed in the same fountain with the most impure, and will hinder us from rejecting the righteousness which he offers indiscriminately to all the ungodly, the life which he offers to the dead, and the salvation which he offers to the lost. Peter, the good confessor of chapter 16, cuts but a sorry figure in chapter 17; for when the demand was made upon him as to his Master's paying the tax, surely the Lord, he gave them to know, was much too good a Jew to omit it. (iii) Jesus was healer. In the next scene, then, we have the disciples as a whole tried by a sudden danger to which their sleeping Master paid no heed. Even in Rome the flute-players were a feature of days of grief. 1. that scarce themselves know how to hold, A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least. The very next scene, the case of Jairus, the ruler, shows it. . "Nothing like this," they said, "was ever seen in Israel." When by the conversion of Matthew the fraternity was broken, presently his house was filled with publicans, and surely some of them will follow him, as he followed Christ. 9:1-8 Jesus embarked on the boat, and crossed to the other side, and came to his own town. (iv) They practiced a religion which consisted in outward orthodoxy rather than in practical help. Jesus had first of all to be sure that these men sincerely and earnestly desired the healing he could give. In Matthew 9:31-34 we see him curing a dumb man, and his enemies ascribe the cure to an association with the devil. They still exist in the east and W. M. Thomson in The Land and the Book describes them: "There are in every city and community women exceedingly cunning in this business. They that quarrelled with him were the Pharisees; a proud generation of men, conceited of themselves, and censorious of others; of the same temper with those in the prophet's time, who said, Stand by thyself, come not near me; I am holier than thou: they were very strict in avoiding sinners, but not in avoiding sin; none greater zealots than they for the form of godliness, nor greater enemies to the power of it. It is the power of grace. As leaders, the Pharisees view themselves as the "healers of Israel." "That ye may know," He says, "that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins," etc. But if He here does not go beyond a hint of that which the Gentiles were about to receive on the ruinous unbelief and judgment of the Jew, He does not keep back their own awful course and doom in the figure that follows. But I see no sufficient reason to refuse the impression that John found it hard to reconcile his continued imprisonment with a present Messiah; nor do I discern a sound judgment of the case, or a profound knowledge of the heart, in those who thus raise doubts as to John's sincerity, any more than they appear to me to exalt the character of this honoured man of God, by supposing him to play a part which really belonged to others. Matthew 7:9. answers to a state of mind which doubts whether God gives in answer to prayer at all, or at least gives what we desire. . 12 On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. W. B. Yeats tells of Lionel Johnson, the scholar and poet. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands." And the same day, when the even was come, He saith unto them, let us pass over unto the other side.
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