Matthew 19

Matthew 19:1-26

CHRIST’S IN FAMILY AFFAIRS Matthew 19:1-26“And it came to pass”. This is particularly a biblical phrase, and, like every sentence found in Scripture, holds its own significance. When men talk, they say, “It happened on a certain day,” or, “It fell out after a certain manner.” Their language indicates that they look upon life as a lottery and esteem the chance element as large. God’s Book, on the contrary, treats every moment of history as a part of a plan. It is a prearranged panorama. It will pass as divinely appointed.Jesus finished these sayings.

He did not leave them incomplete and He did not add unnecessary speech. He departed from Galilee as He left Judea, and “He came into the coasts of Judaea, beyond Jordan”, as in infancy He had gone into Egypt, that the will of God might be done.The life that is divinely ordered makes no mistakes, and it is little wonder that multitudes are interested.

They know that in Him there is healing—healing for the body, healing for the mind, healing for the soul; and in addition to what they know, there is much they will learn.This chapter is a chapter full of instruction for the multitude, but the subject of it is practically one. The theme seems to change, but the change is more seeming than substantial. Its thirty verses suffice to illustrate one theme:Christ’s philosophy in family affairs. In Matthew 19:3-12, the family is established; in Matthew 19:13-15, the children are blessed; in Matthew 19:16-26, the youth is instructed.THE FAMILY IS .The world will forever be under debt to the New Testament time Pharisees for both their pertinent and impertinent questions. Again and again they tapped the Christ, so to speak, by tempting Him with difficult questions, and in every instance, wisdom flowed from Him. Upon one subject, He seemed as adequate as upon another; and never since He discussed the various themes touched upon, has any teacher added the least light or made the least improvement upon what He said.Here He related the family to a Divine origin.

Evolution had long been taught when Christ was in the world. Greek philosophers had anticipated Darwin by more than 2000 years, and had imagined the human relations that we call domestic simply an exaltation of animal affection and of sexual selection.

But Christ treated such ideas with disdain. Appealing to the Genesis record, He reminded them of how God, at the beginning, had made them male and female; that He refers to Genesis 1:27 and also to Genesis 2:21-22, cannot be questioned. The Divine origin of the human family determines its eternal dignity. Man is not only “better than a sheep”, but he is forever better, bigger, more glorious, more Divine, than any lower animal. He is the consummation of Divine thought, the acme of Divine endeavor; and the family relationship will forever provide the foundation of society and state.He rested that relationship in a Divine arrangement.“Have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning, made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh” (Matthew 19:4-5). That’s a liberal quotation and a strict interpretation of Gen 2:23-24.“And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man, Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh”. The people who believe in this Divine arrangement seldom appear in divorce courts. There may be differences of opinion between the husband and wife; their spirits may be as remote as the poles. Contention may often characterize the relationship that was intended to be sweet and undisturbed, but they bear and forbear, believing that God so meant marriage, and if only both parties to a contract entertain this biblical philosophy of domestic life, their spirits will increasingly harmonize; contention will seldom come; mutual love is sure.People are constantly discussing the question of divorce and are repeatedly asking, “What can be done to delay the horrible growth of this undesirable custom? What can be done to relieve the courts of the multiplied applications? What can be done to bring men and women alike to behave toward one another with mutual respect and to cultivate a mutual affection in the domestic realm?” The answer is simple, if regarded. There is but one thing that will be effective, and that is to know God, the Author of marriage, and accept His Word as expressing the laws that should determine mutual lives.

The sense of His love is the only thing adequate against jars and quarrels, incontinences, and a thousand other forms of family affliction.His answer here represents Divine wisdom. The ages are proving it.

The disastrous growth of divorce is the finest possible demonstration of the justice, equity and desirability of Christ’s deliverance on the subject. Society is now being disturbed because men are disregarding what Christ said. To be sure, men do not put it upon that ground, but it rests there just the same.How amazing that this Man—a plain Peasant, as some supposed—an unmarried Man—a Man who had no personal experience and who had not brought His learning from the schools of His day, should speak the last word on the subject of domesticity; should lay the foundations for family, resting them in a Divine arrangement, and voicing them with a Divine wisdom.He never speaks a word or does a work but it attests His Deity. He never makes a movement but God is seen in the same. He permitted a wicked woman to bow at His feet, bathe them with her tears, dry them with her hair. Had He been a mere man, His standing would have been called into question, His reputation injured.

But the Divine Man could do all of this, and instead of suffering Himself in the judgment of society, was exalted by the same. He sanctified what He touched.

It did not stain Him. He solved every problem to which He addressed Himself. Since He spake, we have never needed another word upon the subject, and we affirm it our conviction that the last word upon the domestic relations that will ever be wisely spoken, was spoken, and Jesus of Nazareth was its Author, and this Scripture is its record.How marvellous are the logical connections of Scripture! A superficial student would imagine that we change our subject now and skip, so to speak, to an altogether new proposition; but is it so? If marriage looks to one thing more than another, it is to the creation of the family. That also was the Divine intent from the first, for Genesis 1, which records the Divine origin, expresses also the Divine object, for “when God created them male and female, He blessed them and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). The very injunction looks to children—the next subject of this chapter concernsTHE BLESSED. “Then were there brought unto Him little children, that He should put His hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. “But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me: for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. “And He laid His hands on them, and departed thence”. They were brought for blessing. There is in this act the most natural and yet, at the same time, sublimely spiritual expression of parenthood. It is doubtful if there has ever been an ideal young father or a true-spirited young mother who did not desire the babe to be blessed. It is that sentiment, born with parentalism, that accounts for christening and sprinkling. It is the same sentiment entertained by immersionists that seeks a visit from the pastor, the laying of hands upon the babe, and prayer.

Men long made a custom of christening with wine, and now with water, the new vessels that glide from the dry dock to sea service.It is a well-established conviction that the babe is an immortal craft, starting for the untried seas of life, and even inexperienced parents are not insensible of the storms to be encountered, the adverse winds to be braved, and waves to be breasted; and they yearn for the favor of the Christ upon the child. It is a sentiment in which the human and the Divine unite, in which fear and faith work together, in which perturbation is calmed by prayer. It has long been our conviction that every Baptist pastor in the world ought to appoint a day, to be oft repeated, when young mothers should bring their babes into the sanctuary, and the united sentiment of the congregation should ascend to God, while the believer lays on hands and sends an appeal to Heaven for these immortal little ones.The disciples foolishly rebuked this presentation. It would seem from the text that they addressed their rebukes to the parents. Doubtless they imagined that Jesus was too busy to be bothered with babes. There are many people who suppose themselves to be too busy to be bothered with babes. Such people forget that, of all tasks, the supreme one is the task of teaching children, and of all accomplishments, the major one is to bring up children aright, and that of all conceivable returns, none equals that of finding one’s toil repaid by noble sons and daughters.There are evangelists who boast that they make an appeal to “MEN”, as if masculinity were a virtue in itself and represented the highest intellectuality. There are evangelists who boast that they reach THE RICH, as if it required a superior proclamation of the Gospel to produce that result.

The simple Truth is that the wisest of all evangelists is the child-evangelist. The man who reaches humanity in its beginning, who gives direction to the life in the days when the twig can be twisted to the right or to the left, who takes destiny in hand by determining the character and accomplishments of comparative infancy.

He is the wise man!The wisdom of the words of Jesus was never greater than the wisdom of His work. He knew what class of society was worth-while, hence He said of little children, “Forbid them not to come unto Me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven”.They were blessed beyond parental expectation. “He laid His hands on them”. That much was expected; for that they were brought. But the parents never dreamed they would hear Him say, “Such are of the Kingdom of Heaven”. Christ always goes beyond our expectations. He always accomplishes more than we dream. When did He ever fail to do “exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think”.From childhood to youth is but a step. Christ turns about and it is taken.

The rich young ruler confronts Him with an imperious question, and as a resultYOUTH IS . “And, behold, one came and said unto Him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? “And He said unto him, Why callest thou Me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. “He saith unto Him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, “Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. “The young man saith unto Him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet? “Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come and follow Me. “But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions. “Then said Jesus unto His disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. “And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God. “When His disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved? “But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:16-26). This young man was interested. The enthusiasm of his coming, the questions with which he plied the Master, the ardor with which he entered the discussion, all evince an interest. The very language he employed makes some things perfectly evident.He believed in the authority of Jesus.“Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life”? His choice of terms revealed his estimate of Jesus’ word: “Good Master”! Evidently he saw in Christ the Vicar of God, believing Him to know beyond the wise men of His time, and to speak with greater authority than Moses himself, or any of the Prophets. Had this not been his estimate of Jesus of Nazareth, he could have gone with his question to the Old Testament Scriptures instead. But, even as others, he knew Moses had waited upon Jesus for any definitions of faith and life. So this rich young ruler came inquiring for the same, Lamartine, writing concerning Cromwell, tells how Henry VIII. of Britain, in a fit of anger against the Church of Rome, changed the religion of his kingdom. This was the greatest act of absolute authority by one man over an entire nation.

The caprice of the king became the conscience of the people, and temporal authority subjugated every soul. But, after all, this was done by the violence of authority.

The rich young ruler seems to have realized that he was in the presence of the mightiest Monarch, who, by His every word, could show the failure of the law, and illuminate the Gospel of Grace, wherein was everlasting life. The authority of Jesus had been more eloquently expressed, but seldom more sincerely confessed, than in the speech of this rich young ruler.He seems to have also accepted the deity of Jesus. When Christ replied, “Why callest thou Me good? there is none good but One, that is, God”, he voices no dissent. He knew that Christ raised with him the question, “Do you mean to confess that I am God”? and by his silence he denied not. Ah, what majesty there must have been in the Man from Nazareth, born in a stable, bred in poverty, to so impress a man of both money and high political station! Others who have thought to assume this role have made sorry work of it.

Bancroft, in his “History of the United States” relates how Ferdinand De Soto determined to profess supernatural power, and thus try to win tribute. “You say you are the child of the sun?” replied the chief, “Then dry up the river and I will believe you. You desire to see me?

Visit the place where I dwell. If you come in peace, I will receive you with special good will; if in war, I will not shrink one foot back.”But such was the majesty of Jesus that He need make no false claims. The sincere souls of the earth saw in Him the King of kings, and by their varied cries confessed conviction of His Divine character and power.The wisdom of Jesus was also acknowledged. Why ask Him this question of all questions? Why seek from His lips a solution of the problem of the centuries? There is but one answer. The rich young ruler believed that wisdom was with Him. And truly, as Charles Spurgeon says, “If you want to be a thoroughly learned man, the best place to begin is at Christ.

Before I knew the Gospel, I gathered up a heterogeneous mass of all kinds of knowledge from here, there and everywhere; a bit of chemistry, a bit of botany, a bit of astronomy, and a bit of this, that, and the other. I put them all together in one great confused chaos. When I learned the Gospel, I got a shelf in my head upon which to put everything away, just where it should be. It seemed to me as if, when I had discovered Christ and Him crucified, I had the center of the system, so that I could see every other science revolving around in order. From the earth, you know, the planets appear to move in a very irregular manner. They are progressive, retrograde, stationary; but if you could get upon the sun, you would see them marching round in their constant, uniform, circular motion.

So with knowledge! Begin with any other science you like, and truth will seem to be awry.

Begin with the science of Christ crucified, and you will begin with the sun; you will see every other science moving round it in complete harmony. The old saying is, ‘Go from nature up to nature’s God, but it is hard work going up hill. The best thing is to go from nature’s God down to nature; and if you once get to nature’s God, and believe Him and love Him, it is surprising how easy it is to hear music in the waves, and songs in the wild whisperings of the winds. Get Christ first; put Him in the right place and you will find Him to be the wisdom of God in your own experience.” This is what the young man was attempting; it was an intelligent endeavor. Oh, to be taught of Christ! What an experience! What a privilege!This young man was thoughtful. He was ill-content with his past.

Not that he had been a moral renegade; on the contrary, he was a moralist. Concerning that part of the decalogue which related to his duties to men, he could say,“All these things have I kept from my youth up”. And yet he was not satisfied, else he would not have been at the feet of Jesus, putting to Him the question of the text. He felt that his morals were insufficient. The great truth which the Apostle Paul afterward phrased, “By the deeds of the law there shall be no flesh justified in His sight”, he had found also in the forms and the ceremonies of the Old Testament substitutes. Like John Bunyan, he could say, “I am afflicted with the thoughts of the Day of Judgment; night and day, trembling at the thoughts of the fearful torments of hell-fire!” With the Apostle he was compelled to say, “I have no confidence in the flesh”, and with the inspired penman, “In me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing”‘. Even his riches did not quiet the fear of Divine displeasure. He learned what the Sheik of Samarcand told Timour, the Tartar.

He wanted to make a conquest of the whole world, declaring that even it was too small to satisfy the ambition of a great soul, saying, “The ambition of a great soul is not to be satisfied by the possession of the morsel of earth added to another, but by the possession of God, alone sufficiently great to fill up an infinite thought.” And this young man is only a sample of the thousands and tens of thousands who till the farm, walk the streets, crowd the shops. They are ill-content.

As Christ looked upon them, they seemed to Him as sheep without a shepherd, scattered abroad. If God had intended that men find permanent happiness in decent behavior, exalted station, there would not be such restlessness in the world. No, God never meant it so! “A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth”. It is only the foolish and the doomed men who say, “We are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing”. This young ruler was too thoughtful for that; he appreciated his moral bankruptcy, and yet he knew that somewhere there was an inexhaustible source upon which one could draw, and that is why he is at the feet of Jesus.He realized that there was one thing lacking. “What lack I yet”? He dared to confess his shortcomings; he dared to sound the recesses of his own heart; he dared to think deeply enough to deal with eternity.

People sometimes talk about Christianity as if it were a religion for people with emotions, stirred easily, as the sea’s surface answers to the wind. They have even reached the point where they speak as if profound learning resulted in indifference to the great future, and renders one callous to the whole question of eternity.

Quite the contrary. A man who gives no consideration to life beyond the grave is so superficial in his thinking that one might well question whether he were sane; and the man who puts off dealing with the problem of his eternal life until he is in the awful struggle of death, illustrates the acme of folly. I noticed a while ago a statement in a leading Journal attributed to a certain society woman, who, at a late meeting of her club, had attempted to eat some salad made of gristle and bone, and becoming choked on it, lost consciousness, and it took two or three minutes to revive her. When she came to herself, she said, “No more club life for me. In that awful time, I experienced that to which others have testified. My whole life rose before me.” She saw her neglected children; the places of missing buttons on her husband’s clothes glared at her; she remembered that his ties had never been touched by an iron in her hand; that when he came home at evening tired, she was rarely there to greet him, and it so terrified her to think of herself in a satin-lined coffin, with all the club women casting roses upon her, her household neglected, her husband maltreated, that when she revived, she resigned her membership and presidency and walked out declaring she would have no more to do with club life.

I concede it is just possible that some man evolved this story, but I think it altogether likely that it points a moral and tells a story of personal experience. At any rate, I use it to suggest that we had better think of our shortcomings while we are in life, for when the death rattle is in our throats, it will be a poor time to wrestle with difficult problems, or correct past deficiencies.In Irving’s “Goldsmith”, Samuel Johnson, in speaking of a grand house, fine gardens, and splendid palaces, is made to say, “Alas, sir, these are only struggles for happiness.

When I first entered Ranelagh, it gave me expansion and gay sensation to my mind such as I never experienced anywhere else. But, as Xerxes, when he reviewed his immense army and considered that not one of that great multitude would be alive a hundred years afterward, it so went to my heart, to consider that there was not one in all that brilliant circle that was not afraid to go home and think.” David said, “I thought on my ways and turned my feet unto Thy testimonies, and I made haste and delayed not to keep Thy commandments”. Oh, men and women, won’t you think on this problem of eternity? It will bring you, as it did the rich young ruler, to the feet of Jesus, to say, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life”?This question expressed a longing for spiritual victory. Most men have such a desire. I know full well from hundreds, yea, thousands of conversations with as many different people, how men and women long to be victorious over their sins, and long for a conscious peace with God.

A Hindu man said, alluding to the pilgrimage which he had made, that he might find rest for his soul, “Fifty years of my life have been thus spent. I sought all heathen books in heathen temples, in heathen ceremonies, to satisfy my spirit.” The great Dr.

Carroll of Texas used to tell how he pored over the pages of infidel writings in the same search, but none was found. I sometimes wonder whether a man ever becomes so debased as not to desire to be better; as not to tug any against the chains that bind him. And yet I doubt if I should wonder; I doubt if it be true, even in the lowest, that they have lost the longing to rise. In the zoological gardens, I have many a time seen that proud king of birds, the eagle, disheveled, dirty, and drooping, with spirit broken by long and bitter confinement; and yet, there is hardly a day but he plumes himself, and makes another effort, vain though it may be, an effort which is only beating against iron bars; but it does prove that the spirit yet soars within him. I am not of the company of those who believe that because men have gone wrong, and women have gone down, they have lost their better impulses; that all thought of eternal life, all hope of everlasting happiness, is extinct, so that even desire is dead within them. Campbell Morgan relates an experience which I have duplicated by a number of kindred conversations.

He says, “I remember one early morning as far back as the year 1887. I had been out all through the night sitting by the bedside of a dying man in the town of Hull in the north of England, and as I was taking my way home, having seen him pass away about four o’clock in the morning, turning suddenly around a corner I came face to face with a young fellow, the son of godly people, a child of tender care and constant prayer, and yet who, having fallen, was just going all the pace in wickedness; and meeting him suddenly like that, just turning the corner so that there was no escape, he and I stood face to face.

He was hurrying home, through the gray morning, after a night of carousal. I took his hand in mine, and I looked into his face, and I said, ‘Charley, when are you going to stop this kind of thing?’ I wish I could tell what that man said and how he said it. I shall never forget it, I think, to my dying day. He looked into my face, a young man just about my own age at the time, and yet prematurely aged, with sunken cheek and blood-shot eye, and that grey ashen hue that tells of debauchery; and holding out a hand that he could not hold still, that trembled as he held it, he said, ‘What do you mean by asking me when I am going to stop?” He said, ‘I would lose that hand here and now if I knew how to stop.’” I do not think that was a lonely case. I believe that if you could only get hold of half these men that are going wrong; if you could only get them into some corner in the early morning, catching them unawares, when they are not prepared to debate the thing with you or laugh at your entreaty, they would speak out a great truth, and it would be, “We want to be pure; we hate impurity!” That desire was in the breast of this rich young ruler. It was one of the things that added both to his unregenerate and self-centered character.Yet even that desire did not redeem him.

Why, what was wrong with this man? Wherein did he fail?By passive resistance he perished.

There is not a word of argument against Jesus here. There is not a breath in all this conversation that indicates that he intentionally resisted. Two or three things are fairly clear.The first is, he did not intend to reject Jesus. He was drawn to Christ as he had never been drawn to another man. He humbled himself to His very feet and put to Him the most pent-up question of his soul, and he put it honestly. He put it with hope that the reply would be something that he could do; yea, and something that he would do.

He did not think the condition would be so hard that he would turn from it, or he would never have come to Christ at all, for to have the way of life presented, and then to reject it, is only the more certainly to seal one’s doom. And he is only one of the thousands upon thousands who are perishing by passive resistance.

A man untaught to swim, suddenly flung into the deep, does not need to commit suicide by diving to the bottom, laying hold upon a root or stone and hanging there by sheer force of will until the lungs are clogged and the heart is still. He needs only to utter no cry for help, and the very element in which he is immersed will perfect his destruction. The man who is born in sin does not need to seek death; the conditions for it exist already. He lives in the atmosphere of death, and if he utter no cry for help to the Christ of Life, it will come. He may not have intended to perish; no matter, perish he must, and no Divine hand be put forth to his help.This young ruler did not deliberately sell out his soul. He would not have done that.

If somebody else had owned all the money which was now in his possession and had proffered it to him in exchange for his soul, he would have scorned the offer. But I know people who, if a certain stipulated price for their soul was offered them, would fling it into the face of the barterer, and who, nevertheless, by hanging to ill-gotten gain, increasing their exchequer by conscienceless methods, or seeking pleasures severely forbidden, are selling out their souls.

They are selling out just as truly, just as definitely, just as eternally, as was this rich young ruler when he quit the Master and retained his money. They do not appreciate it and neither did he. They have not thought the whole process through to the end and said, as did Aaron Burr, “I choose against God.” But like the vacillating Israelites, to whom Moses made his appeal, they have simply failed to make any choices at all.Indecision dooms one! Agrippa was destroyed by it; by indecision the ruin of Felix was wrought, and through indecision the rich young ruler wrecked his life. Hood, in his Cromwell, tells us that at the battle of Nasby, King Charles I. cheered his dismayed troopers with the command, “One charge more, gentlemen! One charge more in the Name of God, and the day is ours.” He placed himself at their head and thousands of them prepared to follow him, but a courtier snatched his bridle and turned him from the path of honor to that of despair.

And so at the battle of Nasby, the crown fell from the king’s head and the scepter from his hand, and he was from henceforth never more in any sense a king. And I want to say to you now in this sacred moment, when, through the preaching of the Gospel, we are called to decide the most important question of one’s existence, “What will you do with Jesus, if you permit the whisperings of the Adversary, the influence of mortal man or devils, to turn you from your better intention?

That moment you forfeit the crown of life and the scepter of eternal power falls forever from your hand and you go down in defeat, doomed to everlasting dishonor and death.”Oh, men and women, you do not intend to be active rebels against God. Let me plead with you not to passively resist that Spirit who shall not always strive with men!

Matthew 19:27-30

OF . REWARDS, HONORS AND GRACE Matthew 19:27 to Matthew 20:34THE treatment of the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew is a task fraught with some difficulties. First of all, the chapter itself is mistakenly placed. The defensible breaks in the Book of God by chapter-makers, is a matter of increasing amazement to good Bible students.The preposition “for”, with which the twentieth chapter is introduced, connects it so absolutely with Peter’s question and the answers of Jesus recorded in Matthew 19:27-30, that one wonders why the chapter did not begin with the Apostle’s assertion, “Behold, we have forsaken all and followed Thee”, and his question, “What shall we have therefore”? The Master’s reply to that question was,“Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed Me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. “And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My Name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. “But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first” (Matthew 19:28-30). That laid the very foundation for the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, and, in fact, it equally lays the foundation for the ambitious request of Zebedee’s children, recorded in the same chapter, and possibly throws an additional light on the grace of Christ in the healing of the blind men, with which the chapter concludes.It is impossible, therefore, to correctly interpret Matthew 20 apart from Matthew 19:27-30. By his question, Peter both provoked the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, and incited the ambitions of Zebedee’s wife and sons. We propose, therefore, to discuss this chapter under three themes: The Larger Justice, The Ignoble Ambition, and the Compassionate Response.THE LARGER JUSTICE. This is Joseph Parker’s title for that section of the chapter recorded in verses 1 to 16 inclusive. In many respects, it is a justifiable title. We shall not waste our time upon the difficulties of this parable to which Trench has so fully called attention—the difficulty of reconciling, for instance, the parable with the plain teaching, in another part of God’s Word, that men shall be rewarded according to the deeds done in the body; the difficulty of supposing that God takes no recognition of shorter or longer time in His service; the difficulty of adjusting justice, paying the same for men that had passed through the heat of the day and those that came but for a few hours in the cool of the afternoon; the difficulty of defending the giving of the first place to those who appeared last and did the least.Much time and energy have been spent upon these problems, and we find ourselves no nearer their solution after the last and most learned word is spoken. But there are great truths that run through this parable that cannot be gainsaid. They are truths upon which thoughtful men will forever find themselves in practical agreement. We shall expend our time in attention to these.

This much, at least, is clear: God’s engagements are not mere barters; His justice never fails; His generosity often surprises us; and He commonly reverses the established customs of men.God’s engagements are not mere barters. When He calls men to His service, He says little or nothing to them of rewards. The fact is, that Christ again and again, instead of putting appealing rewards before men who thought of following Him, flung at them every conceivable discouragement. He promised them nothing except thorns for their feet and a cross for their shoulders, and multiplied opponents, separation from father and mother, husband or wife, houses or lands; and the individual who comes into Christ’s service with no pledge of reward and with no expectation of big returns, is the individual who will prove steadfast and who will not behave as Pliable did upon encountering the first difficulty. And yet, if the mind is so disposed, it can make religion a mere barter; it can remind Jesus of His promise made in this very connection,“Everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My Name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life” (Matthew 19:29). and thereby reduce Christian service to the basis of a barter.We have known church men after that manner— men, who, when they made their profession of Christ and joined the church, seemed to expect that they would get much more than they were asked to give up; and more than once we have had them complain that after years of church-membership they did not find their business any better; they did not find that the church had patronized them because of their relationship to it; they did not find that the church had given them any higher social standing, or had elected them to any ecclesiastical or political offices by way of reward for service, and sometimes they even charge the church of gross neglect of them. They have not been recognized as they expected, nor visited as often as they anticipated, nor treated like a brother or sister beloved. That all brings the subject of Christ’s service to a barter basis. It takes every bit of joy out of the Christian profession.In my experience of forty years in the ministry I have never yet met a man, who joined the church and engaged in the service of Christ in the interest of a personal, profitable return, who was either happy in his profession or high in the estimation of his brethren. The solution of the difficulties that seem to beset this parable is known only to the men and women who approach Christ in another spirit altogether; who see and see clearly that religion and rewards have little or no kinship; who feel the great fact, and fact it is, that the fight of the Christian faith has its sufficient reward in the spiritual victories won; that every moment in which one is thus engaged vibrates with a blessing as the lungs rise to breathing, and that the work itself is such a joy and brings such blessed returns to the engaged soul, that idleness is a loss, and the man who is compelled to lose most of his life before he enters upon the King’s service, is rather to be pitied for lost time, instead of having his pay reduced in proportion.But the further consideration of the parable reveals the second great and precious truth, namely, Christ’s justice never fails, but His generosity often surprises. Men here who wrought for a day received exactly that which had been agreed upon— a penny.

That is justice, and our God is a God of justice! No man can charge Him with doing less than He promised, nor even with niggardly bargaining.

There is no indication here that they were Jewed down. They appeared in the morning, asked for work, told what they wanted, and the agreement was made. They appeared at night and were promptly paid.In the Book of Deu 24:15, it was written, “At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it”. That was the law for the hireling servant, and righteous masters regarded it. Our Master is righteous. No servant of His will ever fall short of what was promised. You can call back every saint from Heaven and put to him the one question, “Did God keep His covenants with you? Did He remember and regard His Word?

Did He give you as much as He pledged you?’” and they will answer in a chorus, but with one voice, “Yes. He never failed us in a single particular.” But it is doubtful if a single one of those same witnessing saints would stop with that testimony. They would join with the eleventh hour company and say, “He promised us whatever was right. When He compensated us, He indulged in an unexpected generosity. Our deserts were disregarded; His grace came into play and we ourselves were embarrassed in the presence of our brothers by the fullness of blessing He bestowed upon us.” And I want to say, in passing, that I have not been able to sympathize with those professed followers of Christ who insist upon a quid pro quo in Christian service.I am entering today upon my thirtieth year as pastor of this church, and at the same moment, I am entering upon my forty-fourth year in the active ministry. I can imagine some young man, who, in ardor of spirit, heard the call of God and entered upon his ministry but twelve months since, and whose service was cut short by the gathering for him of the evening shadows, and he is already standing in the presence of the King to give an account of his earthly ministry.

Shall he hear less from his Lord than the “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”? If God should privilege me (as I am now rather hoping) to finish my fortieth anniversary in this pulpit, and my fifty-fifth in the ministry, and my seventy-fifth of life, before the shadows gather for me, shall I expect a higher encomium or a greater reward than was given to my glorious, yet perhaps more deeply devoted minister-boy brother?

God forbid! Such a spirit of jealousy and envy would well-nigh unfit me to come into His presence at all and would have a tendency, at least, to force my whole ministry to a barter basis instead of to the one of voluntary service and the animation of love Divine. This, to me, is the meaning of the parable!I am thinking now of a layman—once a member of this church—whose whole early life and mature manhood was given to the accumulation of money. He was a man well on in years, when, through an utter financial failure, he was thrown to the earth, and in that bruised and bleeding condition, made his appeal to God and came into His service with another spirit than that he had ever known—the spirit of humility, the spirit of personal consecration, the spirit of almost sleepless devotion. There were only a few years left for him, and in those he could do little else than pray; but pray he did. He prayed in the morning; he prayed at noon; he prayed at night, incessantly.

He breathed out his petitions to God. He begged for forgiveness for the past.

It was a grief to him that he had wasted his time in money getting and had so long and largely forgotten his God. It was an additional grief that he was broken in body and could now be so poorly active in the service of his King. The great majority of his time was spent in weeping. His prayers were baptized in his tears, and one day the evening shadows gathered and the working hours were done. Think you that he shall fall short of reward? Aye, verily, I believe that few of those of us who shall have spent a half century and more in the most intensive Christian activities can ever hope to hold a higher place than he holds in Heaven, or receive more generous treatment than was recorded to him when the day was done and the Master came to reward the laborers of the vineyard. For, after all, the most blessed thing in the life of Christianity is the spirit with which one surrenders himself, and the devotion of heart with which one serves, and the humility of soul in which one weeps and prays and works.See another truth! Our Christ commonly reverses the customs of men. The custom of men is to make the best barter possible, to pay the least for which they can get the service rendered. That custom is so universal that it has created the whole conflict between capital and labor. That custom is so universal that it accounts, in a large way, for the political movement known as “socialism”. That custom is so universal that even church men and professed Christians seldom rise above it. That custom has cursed many a city with cheap labor and undesirable citizenship, and it has accounted again and again for race riots, international complications and world wars.When, therefore, Christ heard of one householder who had departed in some respects from the usual world custom, and had given, not to a single company of men only, but to three out of four companies, more than was their right, He seized it as an illustration of His own intention in the kingdom.

In other words, it is the intention and the actual outworking of grace versus law, and of unblessed blessing versus a hard-driven barter.The Kingdom of God contrasts the kingdoms of this world. We have revolutions that do not correct anything, but when His Kingdom comes, what one writer calls, “the pettiness of selfish ambition” will be supplanted by the majesty of self-sacrificing love, and the supposed hardships of labor will give place to the dignity of aim, and the disposition to escape service to an answer of royal sacrifice. It is a very significant fact, is it not, that the world’s word for Knecht, or a knight, was a servant or a slave; but since Christianity came, knight has become a nobleman. So the slave in God’s Kingdom will be the nobleman of the same.“He that is greatest among you shall be your servant. “And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted” (Matthew 23:11-12). “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen” (Matthew 20:16). Many are the elect. Few are the select.But I pass now to the consideration ofTHE IGNOBLE . “And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them, “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn Him to death, “And shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify Him: and the third day He shall rise again. “Then came to Him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping Him, and desiring a certain thing of Him. “And He said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto Him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on Thy right hand, and the other on the left, in Thy Kingdom. “But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto Him, We are able. “And He saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on My right hand, and on My left, is not Mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of My Father. “And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. “But Jesus called them unto Him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great 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 chief among you, let him be your servant: “Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:17-28). We have already remarked that Peter’s question, together with the answer of Jesus, accounts largely for the contents of this 20th chapter.It will be remembered that Jesus said unto them,“Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye which have fob lowed Me in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in His glory, ye also shall sit upon the twelve thrones, and judge the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28). Now when Jesus began to talk of going up to Jerusalem and of being betrayed into the hands of chief priests and scribes, and condemned to death, and then of His resurrection on the third day, the prospect of the throne of glory comes full before the Apostles, and with the mental vision of the same, the mother of Zebedee’s children and her sons, grow ambitious on the same subject of rewards and begin to wonder whether these two, long recognized as His special friends, might also anticipate unusual privileges and honors, even that of sitting on the right hand and on His left in that Kingdom.The answer of Jesus to this question is as interesting and as unexpected as it was to Peter’s query, and in some respects, far more discouraging.There are personal ambitions that should neither be disregarded nor dampened. Parents have a right to be ambitious for their children. History is replete with illustrations of the fact that many a father’s dreams and many a mother’s hopes have been realized in a child. Walter Scott’s mother was a woman of great literary tastes, and doubtless dreamed and hoped that her child would share the same. Napoleon’s mother was noted for her energy and her unbounded ambition. Those facts were reflected in her son.

Lord Bacon’s mother had a piety of the sort that incited her to pray that her boy might be a favorite of Heaven and first among his fellows.Christianity has long since recorded the ambitions of the mother of the Wesleys for her boys and the realization of her hopes and dreams. Benjamin West tells us that it was his mother’s approval upon his infant endeavors at art that made him a painter. When sons share with parents such hopes and dreams, success often attends their endeavors. Longfellow wrote,“The heights by great men reached and kept Were not obtained by sudden flight; But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night. “Standing on what too long we bore, With shoulders bent and downcast eyes, We may discern—unseen before— A path to higher destinies!” But our text calls attention to Christ’s new and amazing method of exaltation. He answered, “Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with”?What does He mean by this cup? Let the Scriptures answer. When Peter attempted to defend Him against arrest in Gethsemane, Jesus said, “The cup which My Father giveth Me, shall I not drink of it”? In an earlier hour of that same day, He had prayed, “Oh My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me”!It was, then, the cup of suffering from which they must drink if they would share a throne with Him— the baptism of sorrow in which they should be immersed if they would sit with Him in the heavens.

That is the law of the Kingdom. The greatest souls the Church has ever known have been the souls who have passed through the most fiery trials, and have endured the direst of sorrows.

We do not forget that in John’s apocalyptic vision, he saw before the throne those who were robed in white robes, and when asked whither they came, the angel answered, “These are they which came out of great tribulation”. They had gone through suffering to success; they had walked by the way of the Cross to secure their crown.This essential is not always appreciated by the aspirants. It is seldom that the youth, destined to honor in the Kingdom of God, sees much of the suffering through which he will pass in coming to his Divine appointment. Youth always looks on the bright side of things. In Joseph’s dream, he did not apprehend the envy of his brethren; the pit did not come in to spoil his joy; slavery in Egypt was not even suspected; Pharaoh’s prison did not appear to convert his season of slumber into a night-mare; but his imagination leaped over all and went straight to the throne. The sheaves were bowing to him; the sun, moon and eleven stars were making obeisance.

And yet, the envy, the pit, the slavery, the Egyptian prison, were not accidents in Joseph’s life—as he himself afterwards saw—but rather the refining incidents essential to the fulfillment of his dream. It was a wise providence that kept these from the imagination of his timid youth; and a gracious Providence that made these, when once they came, contribute to the evolution of his character.“Choose for us, Lord, nor let our weak preferring, Cheat us of good Thou hast for us designed; Choose for us, Lord; Thy wisdom is unerring, And we are fools and blind. “Let us press on, in patient self-denial, Accept the hardship, shrink not from the loss, Our portion lies beyond the hour of trial, Our crown beyond the Cross.” This expression of suffering is seldom escaped by those who succeed, to share with Christ the throne. To pray for appointment to position with Him is one with asking the privilege of suffering with Him. It is significant that when the night came that Jesus entered Gethsemane, He left all of His disciples at the gate save three—Peter, who had asked what his reward should be for following Jesus, and the two sons of Zebedee, who had requested the honor of this text—them He took with Him into the garden of suffering. It is commonly so. So far as my observation goes, or my knowledge of history reaches, I think I may say it is always so, that the man who is to ascend with Him to Paradise must first hang with Him on the Cross.Phillips Brooks, in a sermon on “The Sea of Glass Mingled with Fire” says, “You may go through the crowded streets of Heaven, asking each saint how he came there, and you will look in vain everywhere for a man morally and spiritually strong, whose strength did not come to him in struggle.” And Brooks claims that the thoroughly prosperous man is no exception to this rule, since he must struggle against his very prosperity, lest it make him a slave, drive him, beat him, taunt him and mock him; so that even such is not an exception. “There is no exception anywhere. Every true strength is gained in struggle. Every poor soul that the Lord heals and frees goes up the street like the man at Capernaum, carrying its bed upon its back, the trophy of its conquered palsy.”When Paul would tell us the secret of his success, he says,“We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. * * For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9; 2 Corinthians 4:17). But when this hour of suffering strikes, the true soul will steadfastly endure it. Peter once played the coward, but when the time to suffer really came, he is reputed to have said, “Crucify me with my head down.” The sons of Zebedee slept in the night of their Lord’s agony, when, through their sympathy, they should have shared His sorrow; but when the hour came that they needed to test the truth of their faith by the sacrifice of life, neither of them drew back from drinking the cup which their Lord had drained, nor from being baptized with the baptism of suffering, the waves and billows of which had gone over Him.Cranmer was a natural coward! Believing with the reformers, he preached the truths of the Word of God, when the dangers of so doing were not too great. Before excruciating experiences, he quailed, and even denied the “faith” over his own signature. And yet, when the hour of final test really came, he not only went to the stake, but remembering the false statement he had written, he said, “Forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand, therefore, shall first be punished, for if I may come to the fire, that shall first be burnt.” And you will remember that when at the stake, he thrust that hand into the flame and without one evidence of shrinking, saw it consumed.Some people think that this spirit is no longer in the world, but when some years ago, a little company of Christian soldiers—English—were surrounded by a horde of Metabeles, and saw that escape was impossible, they grounded their guns and stood before the enemy singing, “God save the Queen,” till the last was stabbed to death. In the Boxer movement in China, men, women, and maidens, foreign missionaries and native converts to the faith, went to as dreadful a doom as was ever meted out to the early disciples; and suffered as heroically as did ever any follower of the Son of God, and the flame was God’s chariot of fire to carry them to Christ’s side.The war of 1914-1918 gave us scores of kindred illustrations. “And they overcame by the Blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death”.THE , In concluding this chapter we get another blessed view of our Lord, and His superiority to the sons of men shines gloriously as we study Him. The carping insistence of Peter about sufficient returns must have hurt the heart of Him who hated selfishness in every form. The envious attitude of servants who feared that somebody else would be shown a favor beyond them, that also is a trial to true men, and Christ was the truest of men. The bickering ambitions, even among His few chosen ones, for seats of honor, offices beyond their brethren, how that must have bruised His sensitive soul.And yet through it all He not only maintains His calm, gives answers that are free from even the suggestion of his own disappointment, but keeps His sympathy with sinful men, retains His fraternal contact with the great crowd and even His tender compassion for its most unfavored ones. And so we read,“And as they departed from Jericho, a great multitude followed Him. “And, behold, two blind men sitting by the way side, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, Thou Son of David. * * “And Jesus stood still, and called them, and said, What will ye that I shall do unto you? “They say unto Him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened. “So Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed Him” (Matthew 20:29-34). Learn, therefore, in conclusion, the following facts:The multitude always holds the helpless. “A great multitude followed Him. And, behold, two blind men sitting by the way side”. No great crowd ever assembles but of them there are the sinful, the sick, the lame, the halt, the blind.Some one may take exception to this remark and say, “It is not true; we attend a very aristocratic church. We have none of these with us; our people are healthy, our people are happy, our people are all beautifully dressed. We do not believe in the foolish attempt to make a church out of the cross-sections of society; on the contrary, we think it better to take a lateral section instead, people of one class, and the best class at that, and be freed from these problems of sin, suffering, lameness and blindness and the rest.”Alas for superficial appearances. I can go into the best dressed church on the American continent this morning and with the eyes of Christ I will find blind men in that crowd; I will find women in that crowd that are spiritually paralyzed, if not actually dead in trespasses and sins; I will find men and women there whose hearts are burdened to the breaking point, and who, in spite of fair outward appearance, are in an utter anguish of soul.I spoke night before last to an audience that jammed every inch of space in the biggest auditorium in the city visited.

I was discussing a subject of social, educational and religious concern and as I looked upon that audience they seemed to be a well-dressed, a healthy, capable, contented crowd; but I was not deceived; no such crowd ever assembles. The lame are always there; the blind are always there; the sorrowful are always there.

There are men in every great assembly who, under the pressure of a load that nobody else sees or understands, cry, even though it be suppressed below a whisper, “Have mercy upon me, O Lord, Thou Son of David”, We have sometimes gotten the impression that the helpless are only in the lanes and by-ways, but history, and even personal experience, should correct that conception. They are everywhere.This is with us a happy day, celebrating our twenty-ninth anniversary together—a day that is commonly attended by praise, and has its occasions of thanksgiving, and its notes of joy; but even the congregation here assembled holds its disturbed spirits this morning, has its heart-breakings. Yea, there are those in this audience spiritually blind and consequently helpless; and oh, they have such need of God that the very pressure of their own crushing burden will compel the cry, “Have mercy upon me, O Lord, Thou Son of David”.Now mark the next phrase, “The multitude rebuked them, because they should hold their peace”.The world has little time for the sick and the needy. “The multitude rebuked them”. The multitude have sought to find a philosophy that would relieve them of those members of society who are blind, and halt, and lame and burdened. Evolution has provided it. Darwin, the great father of this wretched philosophy, insisted that society might well rid itself of these cumberers of the earth, and by careful breeding be done with the lame, the halt and the blind.

Nietzsche, a philosopher of this same false faith, advocates an end to all human sympathies and declares that they are the marks of weaklings, the signs of soft natures and the source of social weakness.Thank God for a Christ who was not giving ear to the multitude, but who must have looked that day with disdain, if not with contempt, on these healthy, good-eyed men, who would silence the sick and shut the lips of the blind!Mark the last fact:Christ and Christianity give first attention to such. “And Jesus stood still, and called them, and said, What will ye that I shall do unto you f They say unto Him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened. So Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed Him” (Matthew 20:32-34).That is Christ!

That is Christianity! That is the spirit of the True Church! No church has a right to live, and what is more, no church will live in spirit and mark growth and progress from year to year that disregards the sin that is in the world, and the suffering that is incident to it, and the sorrows of men and women who are compelled to cry to the compassionate Son of God. There are ministers who boast that they have no poor in their church. Such a church should not wear the Name of Christ. There are assemblies in which the halt and the lame and the blind are seldom or never seen.

They have been made to feel that they are unwelcome and have gone on their way to more cordial and congenial churches. Such churches have not the spirit of Christ; in fact, one is almost tempted to say that they are none of His.

And yet, lest we pass judgment—a thing which belongs only to Him—let us refrain our lips from the condemnation of our prospered brethren and leave them, to speak, with Christ, compassion toward them who are halt and lame and blind. After all, when Christ has touched the halt, and the lame, they shall walk and leap; and when He has spoken the word that opens the eyes of the blind, they shall see, and what men count the castaways of society, under His touch may come to constitute not only the church, but the most glorious and most successful church to be found among God’s people.Twenty-nine years we have wrought together as pastor and people. The principles enunciated in the beginning of this pastorate will never be forgotten by those who have been privileged these years together. They are simple, and as we believed then, Scriptural; and so we believe to-day.They are: The Word of God the rule of faith and practice—the Bible an inspired Book—Christ the Divine Son of God—the Blood atonement, the sinner’s only hope. In other words, a proposition to preach from this pulpit the old Gospel and the only Gospel.Along with that, we asserted from the first that as God was “no respecter of persons”, so His Church should keep open doors to the high and the low, the rich and the poor, inviting them to assemble in the temple of God and regard Him as the Maker of them all.From the first also we believed and taught that the great mission of the Church was one with Jesus Himself, namely, that of seeking and saving men. In these years God has blessed us beyond our deserts; He had increased us in number from 595 to 3100.

In this time God has added to this church 5446 souls—by baptism 2862; by letter, 2584. Our Sunday School enrollment in 1897, in the home school was 382, in our mission 486, a total of 718.

To-day our Sunday School in the active department Numbers 2180—cradle roll 60, home department 82, a total of 2322. In 1897 we expended for all purposes $14,762.19; for three years past we have exceeded annually the $200,000 mark. In 1897 we had a property valued at $160,000. To-day with eight buildings for Church and School, we have a property valued at $1,400,000. In the twenty-nine years we have given to all purposes $1,959,270; or, in round numbers, close to two million dollars. The Northwestern Bible Training School began with an enrollment of 7 twenty-two years ago; to-day we have two hundred in annual attendance. It would hardly seem necessary, therefore, for us to change our principles in the least; but it is vitally necessary that we employ them the better to the praise of our Christ and the progress of His Church, and the hastening of His Kingdom.