THREE TABLES

                                                                    THREE TABLES 

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:34-40.

Introduction

Jesus had been doing battle with theological legalists and theological liberals. The Pharisees, the theological legalists, had just asked Jesus back in Matthew 22:17, “Tell us then, what is Your opinion? Is it right, [some render this word as “lawful”], is it lawful to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” In other words, is it in accordance with the Old Testament Scriptures to pay taxes to Caesar? To which Jesus gave His famous reply, Matthew 22:21, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.

Then the Sadducees, the theological liberals, the ones who don’t believe in the Resurrection and angels, also tried to trip Jesus in His words. Matthew 22:28, “Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?” Jesus replied telling them that at the Resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but will be like the angels in Heaven. Yes, you Pharisees, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.”

“When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at His teaching” Matthew 22:33. Should we pay taxes? Yes! Should we believe in the Resurrection? Yes! Why? Because the Scriptures and the power of God tell you to.

Verses of Scripture could be piled up about paying taxes, the Resurrection, and the power of God. And it’s all about knowing the Scriptures, including the Old Testament.

But that wasn’t my sermon. That was merely my introduction! With that background, I’d like us to consider Matthew 22:37-40 in particular.     

 

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-40.  

A Table for God

Jesus had been dueling with the Pharisees, then the Sadducees who were all trying to trip Him up in His words. Now it’s the turn of an expert in the Law. Notice what Jesus says is the first and greatest commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” That is part of the Shema in Deuteronomy. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children.” Deuteronomy 6:4-6b.

What was the promise that God made in Jeremiah 31:33-34 picked up again in Hebrews 10:16? “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time says the Lord. I will put My laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” God has written His laws on your heart, soul, and mind!

What laws? God’s laws! What are God’s laws? Hint. There’re ten of them. The Decalogue, God’s ten words, i.e., the Ten Commandments, have been written by God the Holy Spirit on every Christian’s heart. Think about that. Paul says, “For we know that the law is spiritual” Romans 7:14a. And we know that spiritual things are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14). Your heart, like the Ark of the Covenant of old, now contains the Ten Commandments! Wow!

God spoke ten commands, i.e., ten times we read, “and God said, ‘Let there be…, Let Us…’” etc. in Genesis 1, as He spoke things into being. No doubt there is a relationship between those ten words spoken by God and the ten words, as in the Ten Commandments.

Are you able to rattle off the Ten Commandments like you can the Lord’s Prayer? Anyway, loving God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind has to do with what we call the first table of the Law. It’s a table for God.

A table, if you don’t know, is a tablet, like the two tablets of stone, upon which the finger of God had written the Ten Commandments, you know, the ones that Moses came down the mountain with.

God, the same LORD who brought Israel out of Egypt the land of slavery, has brought you the Christian out of the world, i.e., the land of slavery to self, sin, and Satan.

Pharaoh was a puppet of Satan. Pharaoh represented the Devil. All of us are in bondage to Satan till the LORD our God sets us free from our captivity to sin. Once He sets you free, then He gives you a new heart, a new nature, and a new record. He writes His laws on your heart and mind.

Now, firstly, you are to have no other gods but God. Secondly, you are not to form any false images of God in your mind or physically by your hands. And you have certainly not to bow down, i.e., submit to any of them. Thirdly, you are not to take the LORD’s name in vain. You are not to misuse His name. And fourthly, you are to work diligently six days a week. But you are to set aside one day out of every seven to Sabbath, i.e., is to rest. Sabbath means rest, i.e., rest in God.

Put God first in everything. Form no idols. Always honour His name. And whether you’re a butcher, baker, candlestick maker, or even retired, honour God by doing stuff for six days, but mind and rest one day in every seven. Go to church on Sunday and rest in the Lord, i.e., rest in the finished work of Christ.

The Lord’s Day, i.e., the Christian Sabbath, is a window through which we glimpse Heaven. Take away the Sabbath and you take away a picture of Heaven, i.e., Christians at rest with the Lord in their midst.

His covenant promise to us, as stated in Jeremiah 30:32 for example, is, “So you will be My people, and I will be your God”. This is God’s Covenant Promise, and is a refrain repeated throughout the Scriptures. And what is God’s Covenant Law? The Ten Commandments including the preamble, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” Exodus 20:1b. Therefore, “You shall have no other gods before Me” etc.

God uses covenant language as He covenants with you, His people. In any covenant, generally, there is a preamble stating who the covenanting party is with a bit of history, then the covenant stipulations, which, of course, have certain penalties attached or implied for breaking any of them.

  Therefore, when Jesus says, that the first and greatest commandment is, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”, He is simply summarizing the first table of the Law. And, in accordance with the 1^st Commandment, He is putting God first.

Then He goes on to talk about the second table. Before we look at the second table, i.e., the table for your neighbour, let us summarize. The first four Commandments teach us our duty towards God.

1.     No god but God. 2. No images of God. 3. No misusing His name. And, 4. No forgetting to honour Him by taking one day’s rest every week.

How do you keep the first table? You’ve to do so by using the new spirit that God has given you along with your new heart, i.e., the spirit of love. You keep the first table of the law by loving “the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” out of gratitude for what He has done for you in Jesus Christ.

A Table for Your Neighbour

The second table of God’s Law teaches us our duty towards our fellow human beings. Now, if you’re anything like me, and I know you are, because we’re all fallen human beings, you’ll find some people harder to love than others.

Though not always true because we’re fallen, but it’s usually easiest to love mum, dad, i.e., parents, then sisters, brothers, i.e., siblings, then friends. However, you’ll find as you go through life that there’re some people who bring out the worst in you, maybe the playground bully, some religious nutcase, or some politician, just fill in the blanks.

Anyway, some people seem to have a gift of showing you that, like chips and bashes, and old beer and wine stains on a wooden table, there still remain sin-stains on your heart. There is a residue of sin that can spoil the beauty of the new heart that God has given you, the new fleshly table or tablet with the Law written on it by His finger, i.e., your heart.

However, if you find yourself detesting, i.e., hating another human being, the good news is that, for the Christian, the Holy Spirit will convict your spirit of this wrongdoing, i.e., this breaking of God’s Law. Which of the Ten Commandments specifically teaches us not to hate? Yes, the “You shall not murder” Commandment, i.e., the 6^th Commandment.

Jesus summarizes the last six Commandments, i.e., the second table of the Law by saying, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Where did He get that idea from? Yes, Leviticus 19:18, “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:18.

How do you love your neighbour as yourself? By honouring fathers and mothers, i.e., all those in lawful authority, by not murdering other human beings either physically or spiritually, i.e., by hating them in your heart.

By being sexually pure before marriage and during marriage, by not stealing possessions from others, including their good name, by not telling lies, i.e., distorting the truth, and by not sinfully desiring or coveting or lusting after things. Dead easy! Not!

Some people think those signs you see on approaches to motorways are funny, the ones that say, “Wrong Way. Go Back”. The two tables of the Law, or, as summarized by Jesus in these two commandments about loving God and your neighbour as yourself, are a signpost. The Commandments point you to Jesus.

Of the two commandments, i.e., the summary of the two tables of the Law, Jesus says, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Jesus is speaking of the Old Testament when He says, “the Law and the Prophets”. Another way of saying Old Testament is Old Covenant. The Old Testament or Covenant shows us our need for a new covenant.

In Acts 15:10 Peter calls the old covenant with all its stipulations, “a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear.” The Apostle Paul puts it like this in Galatians 3,

“Why, then, was the law given at all? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator. A mediator, however, implies more than one party; but God is one.

Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.” Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. Galatians 3:19-22.

The administration of the covenant under Moses was very strict. There was the Moral Law, i.e., the Ten Commandments, there was the Judicial or Civil Law that applied to Israel as a corporate body. And then there was the Ceremonial Law. The Ceremonial Law essentially was the Gospel in the Old Testament, wherein everything, from Circumcision to Passover, Tabernacle to Temple, animal sacrifices to High Priests were all signposts pointing to Jesus.

But now that the reality to which the signposts were pointing has come, the Ceremonial Law has been done away with. We can study, gather and apply general principles from Old Testament Judicial or Civil Law, but it has gone with the dissolution of Israel as a Theocratic state with the coming of Christ, and especially at the demolition of the Temple. However, the Moral Law, i.e., the Ten Commandments, remains.

The Presbyterian Church of Babinda up in Far North Queensland had a huge block of wood with the Ten Commandments written on it standing behind the pulpit, forcing the congregation to view them every Sunday. The church building was demolished in a cyclone during the 1980s. The only thing left standing was the huge block of wood bearing the Ten Commandments!

It’s interesting to note the word “hang” in, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” These two commandments summarizing the Ten Commandments are the two well-driven nails upon which the whole of the Bible, Old and New Testaments, like a picture hangs.

The Ten Commandments, and as summarized by Jesus in the two commandments, love God and neighbour, are revelation of the character of God, in whose image and likeness we have been made. Christians are being remade into that perfect image.

A Table for Two

Jesus brings the two tables of the Law together. The writer to the Hebrews says,

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” Hebrews 1:1-3.

Jesus, the Son, is the “exact representation” of God’s being. Who is Jesus? Jesus is God and Man in one Divine Person forever. Jesus is the One who is answering the question that the lawyer put to Him to test Him, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Then Jesus summarizes the two tables of the Law.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

If Jesus is truly God, then you are to love Him as God. Jesus first in all things. No false images of Him. No using His name as a swear word. Remembering Him at work, rest, and play, and that we rest in Him.

And if Jesus is truly Man, then we are to love Him as we love ourselves. Honour Him as you would your parents, look out for His wellbeing as in not murdering Him in any way shape, or form. Be faithful to Him as a bride to her Husband, His Church being His bride. Not stealing from Him, including not stealing any of His glory. Not denying or lying about Him. And not coveting anything but Him.

Jesus is the incarnation of God. Isaiah says that He is our covenant. Of Jesus, God says, “I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles” Isaiah 42:6b, (see also Isaiah 49:8). Jesus is God’s Covenant Promise, and He is His Covenant Law. Everyone on Judgment Day will be judged by and against Jesus. As Peter says in Acts 10:42,

“And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead” Acts 10:42.

Jesus is God clothed in the garments of human flesh. He is the Middle Person in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Three Persons, but one God.

Where does the love come from with which you are to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself? Love comes from God. God is love. Love is eternal because God is eternal. The eternal Father eternally loves the eternal Son and the eternal Spirit, just as the Son eternally loves the Father and the Spirit, and as the Spirit eternally loves the Father and the Son.

So, we see then that each Person in the Godhead loves the Other Persons. Each Person, therefore, loves God and He loves His Neighbour as Himself. Each Person is looking out for the wellbeing of each of the other Persons, and for the Godhead as a whole. Thus, God loves God and His Neighbour as Himself.

When God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” He did so by writing His Covenant Law, albeit in positive terms, upon his heart. Paul in Romans 2:15 alludes to this when he says that the Gentiles, “have the requirements of the law written on their hearts” and talks about their consciences either accusing them or excusing them.

So, to be made in the image and likeness of God, whatever else it means, means that we were designed by God to reflect Him by loving God and our neighbour as ourselves. But we don’t! How do we know we don’t? God’s Law shows us that we don’t. And the Holy Spirit convicts us. And we look away from ourselves to the Saviour of sinners. i.e., Jesus, for forgiveness.

Jesus is God’s Law as it were with arms and legs. He loved God with all His heart, soul, and mind, and He loved His neighbour as Himself. Indeed, He kept God’s Law in its entirety perfectly! And He did it for love. “For God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” John 3:16.

The Son honoured His Father by being obedient to Him even unto death. And, by dying on the cross to pay for our sins He has reconciled us to God. Jesus Christ is the two tables of the Law in the flesh.

The Gospel is the spirit of the Law. The spirit of the Law is about loving God and your neighbour as yourself. Therefore, not only is Jesus the Law of God with arms and legs, but His also the Gospel of God. The Law convicts us of our sins and the Gospel forgives us of our sins.

Conclusion

Jesus is the perfect picture of God and man reconciled. He has two natures. He is God and He is Man in perfect harmony. And He is the table for two so to speak. He is where we meet with God, just you and Jesus.

Because of Him you now can sit down with God and sup with Him. Because of Him, you the Christian, are no longer at war with God and with your neighbour.

Because of Him you are now able, albeit imperfectly, but, unlike before you were converted, you are now able to love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, and love your neighbour, including even the unlovable, as yourself.

CHANCE & DESIGN

                                                                 Chance & Design

With God nothing is left to chance. All is by design. God’s sovereignty over His creation means that everything is under His control. There is great comfort in knowing that even seemingly random things, like a sparrow or a hair from our heads do not fall to the ground outside of His attention. Yes, God designed it that way.

This, of course, inevitably brings up the questions of man’s freewill and the origin of evil. Very much related, both are by design. However, one must quickly add that this is not to say that God is the author of evil. Yes, ultimately, evil would not exist (with its attendant suffering) if the eternal God had not created His creation and mankind. But, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’ Genesis 1:1.

God’s eternal plan to give His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, a people, and a kingdom in which only righteousness dwells, was planned in the Godhead. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are bringing it to pass. The Fall of angels and mankind was part of that plan.

Adam and Eve had freewill while being tempted by an already fallen Satan. As Man’s representative, Adam exercised his freewill to side with Satan against God. After the Fall he still had a freewill. However, post-Fall he now had something he did not have pre-Fall: a sinful nature. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. We all die because we are sinners. We sin because, like Adam, we have a fallen or sinful nature.

The Fall of Man through Adam was part of God’s grand design. God had created Adam with a good nature, i.e., holy, righteous, and with a true knowledge of God. However, though forewarned of the consequences, Adam wanted to be like God knowing good and evil, i.e., determining good and evil by his own standards. The forbidden fruit was an outward test for Adam on probation. By Adam eating the forbidden fruit, mankind has set itself up as God. The great evil is that Man would rather suffer in this life, die, and go to Hell, than have God rule over him!

Immediately upon Adam’s (and mankind’s) Fall, God began to reveal His abhorrence of sin and evil and His remedy to deal with it. Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). One has only to trace the genealogy of Jesus’s humanity from Adam to His birth to see that it was by design. His ancestors went through many narrow escapes as the Serpent and his seed tried to destroy the Seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15). ‘But when the fulness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons’ Galatians 4:4-5. To be born under the law is to be born under the condemnation of the law. But not Jesus. Unlike us, the law showed Him to be righteous and perfect in every way, and as such, the perfect Redeemer. Jay Adams says, ‘The cross was not merely an act of compassion and mercy directed toward mankind; it was a cosmic event in which God demonstrated who and what He is before all the universe.’

God has left nothing to chance, past, present, or future. Christians have a glorious future to look forward to with Him on the new earth because He has designed it that way. Therefore, though we may miss it, every little thing is significant to God. So, call on Jesus. Why? Because, ‘We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose’ Romans 8:28.

GOD, SPARROWS, & HAIRS

                                                    GOD, SPARROWS & HAIRS

Meanwhile, when a crowd of many thousands had gathered, so that they were trampling on one another, Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, saying: “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.

“I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Luke 12:1-7.

Introduction

Jesus had been doing battle with the scribes and Pharisees. He’s been calling them many names and had been pronouncing many woes on them. “You foolish people! Unmarked graves!” and so forth.

At the tail-end of Luke 11 we see that the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had begun to oppose Him fiercely. They were besieging Him with questions. They were trying to catch Him out in something He would say.

As generally happens whenever there is a scrap, a crowd gathers. However, this is a crowd of many thousands. And they are trampling on top of each other. Jesus turns to His disciples and says, “Be on your guard against of the yeast of the Pharisees” Luke 12:1. What is this “yeast of the Pharisees”? Jesus tells His disciples that it is “hypocrisy”.

I’m not much of a baker. In fact, I know next to nothing about baking. However, I do know that yeast or leaven is something that works its way through a whole batch of dough. It’s what makes dough puff up when it’s baked. The Pharisees are puffed up religious people. And they have risen against Jesus! What is the problem with the Pharisees? Again, it’s hypocrisy.

As you know, a hypocrite is an actor, a stage-player. These Pharisees are religious phonies. But Jesus can see right through their charade. He’s exposing them for the phonies they are. And He’s not afraid of them.

He is warning that hypocrites and those who are like them are in danger of hellfire. No, Jesus is not scared of them. And He is telling His disciples not to fear them. Then He says,

“I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell.”   

Did you get that? The disciples of Jesus Christ are to fear God not men! It’s a reverential fear. A respectful fear. In other words, it’s infinitely better to have God as your Friend than your enemy.

So, that’s the background to what we’re looking at. The main verses I’d like us to focus our attention on is Luke 12:6-7:

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Luke 12:6-7.

God

Have you ever noticed how much the Bible is about numbers? Five sparrows. Two pennies. Even the hairs on your head are numbered. Hair today. Gone tomorrow?

Whenever I’m on a break from army chaplaincy I grow a beard and let my hair grow longer. But off comes the beard and click go the shears whenever it’s time to get back into it. It’s all about army discipline. Jesus has been disciplining His disciples. Fear God not man. Men can only kill your body. But God can destroy your body and then cast you into that terrible place called, Gehenna, “hell, the fires of Tartarus, the place of punishment in Hades,” which that word here means according to the Analytical Greek Lexicon Revised.

If you were there, and you heard Jesus talk like this, your knees would be knocking. You’d be trembling like a leaf. You’ve just watched Jesus take head on the scribes and Pharisees. And these puffed-up hypocrites are all fired up against Him. Gnashing their teeth! You’d be thinking that they would be coming after you too. Guilt by association and all of that.

Well, that’s what Jesus is going on about. He’s telling His disciples not to fear men who can kill only your body. Rather you’ve to fear God who can kill your body and throw you into the place of torment!

Have you ever faced an angry mob that wanted to punch your lights in? I remember one time as a youth being chased by a gang of boys. They were throwing bricks that were whizzing past my head! Somehow, I managed to escape. However, that evening I was at a youth club and saw a bunch of them. My legs started to shake, then my whole body as I invisibly made my way toward the exit. I managed to escape unscathed again. But I was terrified that they would catch me!

If you’ve known that kind of fear, then you’ll know what Jesus is talking about here. If you know what it’s like to fear an angry mob, then multiply that fear by a million when it comes to God! Yet Jesus did not fear the angry mob. How brave was Jesus? He feared God not man. And the good news is that He is the One who looks out for you.

Look, Judas Iscariot was one of His disciples, one of the twelve. There we go with numbers again. But Judas was a hypocrite. And the worst kind of hypocrite is a religious hypocrite. “Brood of vipers!” Jesus called them. “Whitewashed tombs!” Clean on the outside but full of dead men’s bones in the inside. Hypocrites!

So, there you are. And you see all of this going on. And you’re scared. And Jesus has been literally putting the fear of God into you. He wants you to tremble in the presence of Almighty God, and the fear of what God can do to you. Then He starts telling His disciples about sparrows, and the number of hairs on your head. Why? Comfort! He wanted to fortify His disciples.

Birds

How many times have you said to yourself words like, “I’m gonna read my Bible more”? Have you ever seen those “How to read the Bible in one year” things advertised? What is it they say about the road to Hell? It’s paved with good intentions or something like that? Why is it that Christians of all people have so much trouble reading God’s Word?

Too busy? Too tired? Not good at reading? I don’t understand all that Old Testament stuff? I can relate to that. I think I was about sixteen when I resolved to read the whole Bible from cover to cover. I got through Genesis. Started flagging in Exodus. Then gave up when I got to Leviticus. How would I have managed when I got to the Book of Numbers, what, with all those numbers?

God likes numbers, including the Book of Numbers. Why? Comfort! It’s to fortify His people. Abraham, “count the stars if you are able to number them.” God wants to teach you from His Word. But if you neglect the Bible, how will He comfort you? If you don’t know God’s Word, how will you be fortified, you know, strengthened? Your knees will be knocking with the fear of men. And you will have little or no fear of God.

Your ignorance of Scripture is the Devil’s greatest weapon against you. The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. Learn how to wield the sword. It’ll save your life, body and soul. For therein are the words of life.

How did Jesus handle Satan the tempter in the wilderness? “It is written! It is written! It is written!” And Jesus didn’t quote the Devil just any old verse. He knew how to apply the Scriptures to His every situation. One of the Old Testament verses He quoted the Devil was Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4.

Do you know what comes a couple of verses after Deuteronomy 8:3? I prefer the NKJV which says in Deuteronomy 8:6, “You shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him.” The NIV uses the word revering instead of fear, “walking in obedience to Him and revering Him.” Are you getting the impression as we look at this text that Jesus is thinking Old Testament Scriptures all the time?   

The scribes and Pharisees are wailing, and they are wailing against Him. There are thousands who have shown up to watch the spectacle. And what does Jesus do after He has taken on the scribes and Pharisees? He turns to His disciples to tell them about sparrows and the amount of hairs on their heads. What?

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Luke 12:6-7.

How can Jesus go from talking about hypocrisy, and God throwing these kinds of people into Hell, to talking about sparrows and hair? I put it to you that it was because the Word incarnated was crammed full of the Word inscripturated.

Let’s talk about sparrows. The Triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, i.e., Father, Word, Spirit, created the birds on the fifth day, Genesis 1:20-23. In Psalm 84:3 we read,

Even the sparrow has found a home,

and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young—
a place near your altar.

A five for tuppence little sparrow is welcome in God’s Holy Temple! Think about that. Yeah, build yourself a wee nest and raise your young next to the altar in the Temple. God didn’t command that the priests should shoo these birds out of His Temple.

Sparrows, unlike vultures and carrion crows and their likes, were clean birds. Five sparrows for two pennies, tuppence. They are two a penny in Matthew 10:29. Why would you need two sparrows for a penny anyway? What would you do with them?

Some people eat them. “Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie” sort of thing! Blackbirds have a little more meat I suppose, than sparrows. But sparrows are so small that you would need a whole bunch of them to make up a dozen! If you know what I mean? There would hardly be a pick on a sparrow. But I suppose if you were desperate, you’d try one! They’re just a bunch of feathers with wings, a beak and legs, Nothing to them.

But what if you were a leper? A leper like one of those spoken of in, let me see, Genesis, Exodus and then, yes, Leviticus. Yeah, there’s a bit in there about ceremonial cleansing for those who have had a skin disease, such as leprosy. Leviticus 14:3-7:

The priest is to go outside the camp and examine them. If they have been healed of their defiling skin disease, the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the person to be cleansed. Then the priest shall order that one of the birds be killed over fresh water in a clay pot. He is then to take the live bird and dip it, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, into the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. Seven times he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the defiling disease, and then pronounce them clean. After that, he is to release the live bird in the open fields. Leviticus 14:3-7.

Where is a leper going to get money to pay for two sacrificially clean birds? Well, did you know that the birds don’t need to be award-winning racing pigeons! They don’t need to be two turtle doves! Two sparrows will cover it! They were two a penny in Jesus’s day, five for tuppence. Catch your own sparrows if you can’t afford a meagre penny!

Now, if you’re thinking that it was supposed to be two turtle doves or pigeons that poor people were supposed to use for the leper cleansing, if that’s you, then well done! However, don’t confuse the sin offering and the burnt offering of Leviticus 14:30-32 for what’s going on here.

I can assure you that the same word for bird as used for killing one and dipping the other in its blood and setting it free, is the same Hebrew word for sparrow in Psalm 84, “Even the sparrow has found a home.” The Hebrew word means, “a little bird (as hopping): bird, fowl, sparrow.” (Strong’s). I kept pigeons for years, and I don’t recall ever seeing a pigeon hop, apart from ones that are missing a leg!

Both the Hebrew צִפּוֹר (tsippor) and the Greek στρουθίον (strouthion) are generic terms for little birds, probably songbirds. However, the Hebrew word has to do with the chirping sound made by birds such as sparrows. So, a “cheap as chirps” sparrow it is!

Jesus had been out there healing the blind and the lame and the deaf and dumb. He had been casting out demons and healing all kinds of diseases and even raising the dead. When John the Baptist sent his men to ask Jesus if He was the Coming One, how did Jesus respond?

“So he replied to the messengers, ‘Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.’” Luke 7:22.

You all know the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers? Yeah, ten! How many came back to thank Him for healing them? One! And He was a Samaritan! What did Jesus say to the ten of them? “When he saw them, he said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were cleansed” Luke 17:14.

Yes, the priests at the Temple! Two sparrows for a penny, five for tuppence. Isn’t God wonderful? He sent His only begotten Son into this world to save us from our sins! He can heal our diseases, including leprosy! And if we die in Him, we go straight to where He is, to be at His side in Glory awaiting the resurrection of our bodies.

Jesus proved that He was God in the flesh by doing miracles. Yet, the scribes and Pharisees did not believe Him. Incredible! They followed a religion, but it wasn’t the Bible’s religion. Otherwise, they would have recognized Jesus. How? From reading what the Scriptures said about Him! What Scriptures? The Old Testament Scriptures, you know, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers all the way down to Malachi.

Right, speaking of numbers, again,

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Luke 12:6-7.

Hairs

Did Jesus get a bit side-tracked after talking about not fearing men but God? And then He starts talking about sparrows and hair numbers? Of course, He didn’t! So what is going on then? He’s in the midst of the great unwashed as it were. They are all unclean. Every last one of them! That’s one of the reasons why He washed His disciples’ feet. They were unclean sinners.

Do you remember the time when someone washed Jesus’s feet? What did she wash His feet with? With tears! She washed His feet with tears of love and gratitude! Why? Because Jesus forgives sins. And what did she wipe His feet with? Luke 7:44 “Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon [a Pharisee], ‘Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.’”

“Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” What did Simon the Pharisee think about Jesus? “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of a woman she is – that she is a sinner” Luke 7:39. If this Pharisee had known the Scriptures, he would have understood that Jesus came into the world to call sinners to repentance. But no. He followed a false religion.

Right, five sparrows for two pennies and two for a penny. Two sparrows to show your gratitude to God for healing you. What about the hairs on your head being numbered? Well, what about the cleansed leper at the Temple? Leviticus 14:8,

“The person to be cleansed must wash their clothes, shave off all their hair and bathe with water; then they will be ceremonially clean.”

“Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Do you think that Jesus is thinking Scripture here as He instructs His disciples? Surely, He has to be! He is the living Word. The Bible is all about Him from cover to cover.

He has come to His own, but His own are rejecting Him. And here He is rejecting the scribes and Pharisees to their faces. It’s all Jeremiah 7,

“Therefore say to them, ‘This is the nation that has not obeyed the Lord its God or responded to correction. Truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips. “‘Cut off your hair and throw it away; take up a lament on the barren heights, for the Lord has rejected and abandoned this generation that is under his wrath.” “‘The people of Judah have done evil in my eyes, declares the Lord. They have set up their detestable idols in the house that bears my Name and have defiled it. They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind…” Jeremiah 7:28-31.

Gehenna is the Greek word used by Jesus here for Hell. It derives from Hinnom as just described. That’s why Jesus is telling us to, “Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” 

On that happy note, as we begin to tie it all together, think about it, Jesus said in Luke 12:3, as the NKJV renders it, “Whatever you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops” Luke 12:3.

Notice that Jesus mentions “housetops”, and shortly thereafter starts talking about sparrows. Psalm 102:7, “I am like a sparrow alone on the housetop.” From “proclaimed on the housetops” to “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?” Of course, we can’t know for sure, but you’d have to admit that Jesus has His head full of Scripture. But more than that, He knows how to apply Scripture to every situation. And so should we. It is by the Scriptures that Jesus makes Himself known. “These are they which testify of Me” John 5:39b.

Conclusion

Sparrows are plentiful. Hence them being of little worth. “Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.” Think about it, not one little sparrow on the whole of the planet earth escapes God’s attention! As the old hymn by the Nova Scotian Civilla Durfee Martin put it,

Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,

Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,

When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:

His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;

His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

Be comforted because God is watching over you and He knows every last hair on your head. God loves numbers, numbers that you and I cannot even count to!

God comforted and strengthened our father Abraham by asking him to count the number of stars if he was able. No one but God can number the stars or Abraham’s spiritual descendants that the stars represented, among whom we are included.

A people innumerable, yes, you and I are included, and we’re all bound for Heaven, Revelation 7:9. Praise God!

NO SWEAT

 Men sweat but apparently women only perspire! Was this the case for Adam and Eve in the Garden? It was after their rebellion that the LORD God said to Adam “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground....” Genesis 3:19. Sweat reminds us of God’s curse.

Their work in paradise abruptly ended, Adam and Eve made fig-leaf garments to cover their nakedness. But before their expulsion, “the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them” Genesis 3:21. The fig leaves were to be left behind. They now were clad in garments that would cause any man or woman to sweat or perspire respectively!

The word sweat is mentioned only three times in the Bible. The first is as we have already seen. The second is in relation to Old Testament priests when offering up to God the fat and blood of animals. “They shall have linen turbans on their heads and linen trousers on their bodies; they shall not clothe themselves with anything that causes sweat” Ezekiel 44:18. Upon finishing their work they were to take off and “leave their garments in which they have ministered…in the holy chambers, and put on other garments” Ezekiel 44:19. The “priestly” garments were linen; garments that caused no sweat.

The third has to do with Jesus. Having just finished His Last Supper the “Last Adam” entered a garden to prepare Himself for entering the holy chambers. Jesus was not about to offer up to God the fat and blood of animals. The “Great High Priest” was about to offer up His own blood. “And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground” Luke 22:44. He needed something to wipe the sweat from His face. He needed those linen garments that cause no sweat so that He could take His own blood behind the veil. So, as naked as Adam, He was nailed to a tree. “And they divided His garments” Luke 23:34. 

Jesus’ work on earth being finished Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate and asked for His body. “Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb hewn out of rock…” Luke 23:53. Hearing that Jesus had risen from the dead “…Simon Peter… went into the tomb; and he saw the linen clothes lying there, and the handkerchief (literally ‘sweat cloth’) that had been round His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself” John 20:6&7. Like a priest having finished ministering in the holies Jesus left His “priestly” no-sweat garments behind.

He lived and died by the sweat of His face to wipe away God’s curse from the faces of all who trust in Him and His righteous work. Therefore trust in Him and not in your own sweat! For no sweat or perspiration is allowed to enter heaven. For there all His saints are “arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright” Revelation 19:8.

(From my paperback The Song of Creation & Other Contemplations - eBook 

I TO THE HILLS

 I TO THE HILLS…

I will lift up my eyes to the hills—

From whence comes my help?

My help comes from the Lord,

Who made heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1-2.

I’m sure it was Billy Conolly who once said that Scotland is the only place where people sing about how much they miss the hills and the mountains – even though they can see them if they were to look out their windows!

“Because these green hills

Are not Highland hills

Or the island hills

They’re not my land’s hills…”

Or,

"For these are my mountains

And this is my glen

The braes of my childhood

Will know me again…"

Speaking of hills and mountains, we just read in Psalm 121 these words, “I will lift up my eyes to the hills – From whence comes my help?” Or, as most people know it in its versified form, “I to the hills will lift mine eyes, from whence doth come mine aid?”

Hills! In his younger years, Alan was what they call a “Munro Bagger”. A Munro is any hill in Scotland 3,000 feet or more. 3,000 feet is less than 1,000 metres, 914.4 to be exact. This doesn’t seem that high – until you try to scale it when it is all covered in deep snow!

Alan had a hill to climb, a huge uphill battle with leukemia and everything that goes with it. But, boy! Didn’t Alan put up a great fight? Alan Gordon wasn’t one to lie down and roll over! He bagged one more Munro!

The Psalmist, the bloke who wrote Psalm 121, is not talking about bagging a Munro. He is merely talking about lifting his eyes to the hills. “I to the hills will lift mine eyes.” The idea is not that you look at the hills and start singing about how much you miss them! Rather, it’s about reminding yourself who it was that made them.

I to the hills will lift mine eyes;

From whence doth come mine aid.

My safety cometh from the Lord,

Who heav’n and earth hath made.

We lived in Tasmania for five years. A lot of the mountains and hills reminded me very much of where I grew up in Scotland, the Vale of Leven, “The Vale”. Alan moved to same area, “The Vale”, as a sixteen-year-old. Our local mountain was a Munro. It was Ben Lomond, overlooking the beautiful Loch Lomond.

Ben Lomond, like a sentinel, with its head and shoulders, watched over the Vale of Leven, winter, spring, summer, or fall. Often snow-capped in winter, if you were a kid, it looked like a Christmas pudding with icing on the top of it! Or, the more adult and noble, if you will, bald-headed eagle about to take off to soar over Loch Lomond! Magnificent!

“I to the hills will lift mine eyes, From whence doth come mine aid?” Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Where do you look for aid? Where do you seek help? At the bottom of an empty whisky bottle? It may help. But only till the hangover sets in. How about family and friends? That’s a bit more like it. But sometimes family members fall out, don’t they? – just as friends can fall out with each other.

The Psalmist is reminding us of a Friend who sticks closer than a brother, yea, even a brother. “My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.” The Lord says to those who look to Him for safety, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” Hebrew 13:5b.

Therefore, let us take comfort in the knowledge that the Maker of heaven and earth, the One who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the One who is rich in grace, mercy, and forgiveness, the One who sent His only begotten Son into this world as a Saviour, the Redeemer, is a present help in times of trouble. Yes, in times of trouble!

On a more personal note. Every Christmas Handel’s “Messiah” gets given another good and worthy run. Do you know what Alan’s favourite song from Handel’s Messiah was? “For unto us a Child is born”? No! “He was despised and rejected of men”? No! “Comfort Ye My People”? No! “The Hellelujah Chorus!”? No! It was, “I know that my Redeemer liveth”. Some of the words of which are,

"I know that my redeemer liveth

And that he shall stand

At the latter day, upon the earth

I know that my redeemer liveth

And though worms destroy this body

Yet in my flesh shall I see God

Shall I see God

I know that my redeemer liveth

For now is Christ risen from the dead

The first fruits of them that sleep."

I loved that Alan loved that song from Handel’s Messiah. Yes, Jesus, the Messiah and Redeemer, also had a hill to climb, Calvary’s Hill. In the poetic words of George Bennard in a well-known hymn,

"On a hill far away, stood an old rugged Cross

The emblem of suff’ring and shame

And I love that old Cross where the dearest and best

For a world of lost sinners was slain

So I’ll cherish the old rugged Cross

Till my trophies at last I lay down

I will cling to the old rugged Cross

And exchange it some day for a crown."

Lift up your eyes, lift up your eyes above the hills and there you will see Him! And, to remind you, here’re those verses from Psalm 121 again:

I will lift up my eyes to the hills—

From whence comes my help?

My help comes from the Lord,

Who made heaven and earth.

And one last word, a quote from the well-known Scottish song, that was mentioned earlier,

"For these are my mountains

And this is my glen

The braes of my childhood

Will know me again

No land’s ever claimed me

Tho’ far I did roam

For these are my mountains

And I’m going home."

Alan Gordon is going home…

LIKE CLOCKWORK

                                                                        Like Clockwork

The Glasgow Subway is affectionately known as ‘Clockwork Orange’, presumably because the colour scheme of its bone-rattling wagons on their dizzying circular circuit through its fifteen stations, and reference to the 1972 futuristic movie, ‘A Clockwork Orange”. It’s anachronistic to say that the Glasgow Underground was based on a design of a clockwork train set my older brother got as a kid one Christmas. The track was about the size of the outer edge of a large dinner plate. After being wound up with a key, the engine would pull a coach around and around until it needed rewinding. It was the opposite of exciting to watch!

Some believe that the whole universe works like clockwork. Around and around. However, God did not wind up the universe and hand over the controls to entropy. The eternal God is the One who keeps the stars on their courses by His command. And, if God ceased to be, everything, including you and me, would vanish. In the beginning the Triune God spoke and things that were not became things that are, including invisible things. “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word.” Hebrews 1:3a.

You cannot get blood from a stone or something from nothing. That’s why the Bible says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” And God had a plan and a purpose. He is the I AM, the God of the past, present, and future. If time were a train, then God is pushing from the back, He is on the outside, He is in the inside, and He is pulling from the front. And it is all going like clockwork. ‘But when the fulness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law’ Galatians 4:4. And how to get blood from a stone? How about the shed blood of Jesus, the stone the builders rejected?

God’s plan and purpose is all about Jesus. The very first act of creation is all about Jesus. God created space, time, and matter for Jesus. ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist’ Colossians 1:15-17.

The world is not going to end. It’s all going like clockwork, thanks to Jesus. God gives us many reminders of this. ‘I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth’ Genesis 9:13. Yet, some, instead of praising God at the sign of His promise, would think only of water droplets refracting light! However, God says, ‘While the earth remains, seedtimes and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease’ Genesis 8:22. And, ‘’Thus says the LORD: “If My covenant is not with day and night, and I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth…’ Jeremiah 33:25. Yes, it’s all going like clockwork because of God’s covenant promises.

All of us are on a journey, a circular journey. We boarded the ‘Clockwork Orange’ with nothing. And we get off with nothing. But, ‘Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place’ 2 Corinthians 2:14. Diffuse that fragrance at every station on the circle.