The Controversialist No.1 His Teaching

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Father, we thank you for the victory that is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord. Praise you for those who've known your companionship as couples down many years of their pilgrimage.

We ask that you'll continue to accompany each one of us during our time spent this side of eternity. In the name of Jesus, your Son, and ever our beloved Savior. Amen.

Do be seated. Let's have a little selection of scripture readings. And for starters, I think we can go to the Sermon on the Mount and the last part of that sermon, that's embracing chapters 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew's Gospel.

And our Lord, obviously speaking, it's not the longest sermon he preached, that was the Paschal Discourse, but it's the second longest. And so charismatic was he that he had a crowd following him as he brought this sermon. Maybe they moved on a little bit, sometimes the preaching was a little itinerant, that is they took a little walk, maybe we should do that the same ourselves.

I mean, imagine the reaction of folk down on the pier if suddenly four or five hundred people were following somebody speaking to them. Might make some evangelistic impact, but not suggesting we act on it immediately, not claiming prophetic inspiration at this very moment. But our Lord, he did speak in the open air and to crowds of people, and at the end of his remarkable discourse, he wraps everything together, telling them about his words.

Therefore, verse 24, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is a wise man. Let's move on. Let's go to John's Gospel in chapter 10.

I really could take you to so many places this morning in scripture, so I'm just reading out little selections as they occur to me right now, which help to endorse the fact that there is an element of dogmatism about the teaching of Jesus. So here he is, different congregation, although the disciples are still present, and he uses his formula, which is often part of his vocabulary. Comes out perhaps better in the authorized version where it's verily, verily.

The substitute here is a little more anemic, the NIV, I tell you the truth, truly, truly, verily, verily, Jesus speaking. The man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way is a thief and a robber. Look at these dogmatic statements in verses 11 and 14, repeating the same sentiment.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Verse 14, I am the good shepherd.

I know my sheep. If you push on to Corinthians, the Apostle Paul speaks about the teachings of Jesus, and he's passing them on, of course. He's been in the company of Jesus spiritually, taught by the Holy Ghost in Arabia.

I'll be referring to that on Wednesday night if you can make our Bible school. Thank you, those who came last week. Taught by the Holy Spirit, an encounter spiritually with Jesus on the Damascus Road, and what did he receive? Well, what he received, he passed on.

How does he describe it? We preach Christ crucified, and what was the reaction, Paul, of your preaching? Well, Christ crucified a stumbling block, an offense, a controversial figure and message to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. You get the same thing in the second chapter of Peter's first letter, and he dips into the Old Testament, and in the second chapter of his first letter, speaking about our Lord Jesus, with a metaphor of a stone, he says, he is a stone that causes men to stumble, and a rock that makes them fall. Now, you could link all those texts onto a thread, all those little verses of Scripture, because they underline the one central thought that is the springboard for these four addresses, these Sunday mornings in August, and that is that Jesus was not a namby-pamby, wimpish, candy floss type of person with no substance to him, no substance to his teaching.

One of the reasons why I asked David to come to the pulpit and just speak for a little while after his excellent children's talk was because it's so hard for us who are in a Western society and we who live in Worthing, which does not have very much Islamic influence or influence of any other major religion, to understand just how difficult it can be in Africa and in Asia to proclaim what is the central truth that this church has stood for for one hundred years, and that is that there is no other way to the Father but through Jesus Christ the Son, no other name given amongst men whereby we must be saved. Now start to analyze those statements, and you're into dogmatism, and dogmatism is not something that is helpful, not something that is popular in the twentieth century, at least as far as your religion is concerned. You can be dogmatic about your politics, you can be dogmatic about your football club or your cricket club or what have you, dogmatic about your golf, but be dogmatic about Christianity and, you know, you've gone over the borderline between being a reasonable, courteous person and someone who's a little bit strange.

But the fact of the matter is, brothers and sisters, historically, traceable right back to our beloved Lord, Christianity is a controversial religion, and our Lord is, par excellence, the most controversial figure in history. Joanna Lumley was saying to me in London a couple of weeks ago, I think that Jesus was the kindest person that ever there was, and I had to agree. Kindness and compassion, he demonstrates, he illustrates more than anyone else.

He is kind, but he's also cutting. He deals with hypocrisy, he deals with sin, in a very, very straight fashion. I repeat, his teaching is not like candy floss.

It's not all sugar and spice and all things nice. There is substance to it. And if you come and embrace the teaching of Christianity, then you come and embrace the teaching of the most dogmatic man who ever lived.

Dorothy says in one of her books, how is it that the church has tamed such a character as Jesus Christ? How is it that it has very efficiently paired the claws of the Lion of Judah and certified him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies? No disrespect to old ladies, I know some in our church who would not fit under that category in terms of their estimation of our beloved Lord. But the truth of the matter is, as you'll see as we work our way through the overhead, that our Lord Jesus Christ did offend people, those who he offended. Then there were those who were impressed.

And what I want to do, having looked to those two categories, is to take you back to the reason why the first lot were so offended. Let's just have a look at those who found Jesus a little bit too difficult to handle. If you had the opportunities, I once had the cheek to ask the BBC to give me a camera crew and my request to them was to allow me to take them to certain mission fields which would have diametrically gone against some conclusions that a series of notorious broadcasts put out by BBC or ITV, I forget which, did on mission work.

And I was saying that if they would allow me the opportunity of taking them to various places in the world, the conclusions that were casually drawn about the ineffectiveness of mission would have to be radically changed. Well, let's imagine for a moment that the BBC have given us a camera crew and here we are following our Lord in his life as outlined in Matthew's Gospel and what do you discover? Immediately, he's in problem. Well, the first chapter, the second chapter, the third chapter, the fourth chapter, the fifth chapter, he's in difficulty.

He's in difficulty with his family, he's in difficulty with the northern Galileans and he came from that area, he's also in difficulty with the clergy. Family think he's a little bit deranged, possibly they still feel very affectionate towards him but if you read the narrative very carefully you will find that Jesus is an embarrassment. Why is he an embarrassment? Well, because of what he's saying, what he's claiming.

Somebody from your family, if you turn the clock back two thousand years, had said the same thing. You might have entertained the suspicions that the household of Jesus entertained. And as for the Galileans, well, when he started to preach and he went back to his home synagogue in Capernaum, assuming he'd shifted from Nazareth as a younger lad, they're embarrassed.

They don't receive him very kindly. Why not? Well, his teaching. Read again those opening chapters of Mark's gospel, it's his teaching, how can this man teach as he does? And as for the clergy, well, they came down from Jerusalem and they literally buzzed Jesus.

Read Mark's gospel again, it is the most fantastic account, it's a very fast-moving account. And you see these men from Jerusalem just hanging to the coattails of Jesus, wherever he is they are, and they are checking his theology and they find it completely unacceptable. And even more sticking like a bone in their throat is the fact that when Jesus moves around people listen to him, whereas they were celebrating absent friends in some of the synagogues and maybe in some of the temple services, because by this time religious inertia had befallen the Jewish community in Israel.

They were offended by Jesus, as people today can be offended by him. But that's not the only emphasis that you find in Mark's gospel and indeed in the parallel gospels, there were those who were impressed by Jesus. I mean, I give you, for instance, his cousin.

I mean, I've yet to come across the minister in Worthing who says to his congregation, the chap in the church 200 yards away is much better than me, you go and listen to him next Sunday morning. Now I try and do that, not too successfully, but when John has Jesus in his congregation, when our Lord is baptized by John, John identifies him as being a much more worthy person. And later on, again, if you read Luke's gospel, another fast-moving gospel written from a slightly different perspective than Mark's gospel, you will find that John tells his congregants to go and listen to Jesus.

And then in John's gospel, just to take you to the last one, you find in the seventh chapter that some guards, some soldiers, probably Jews who were part of the militia, the Jewish security force, looking after the affairs of the temple, they come to Jesus to arrest him. Now they listen to what he has to say, and his word so paralyzes them in terms of their original intent, putting it differently, more positively, his words so impact them that they go back and they tell their chiefs in Jerusalem, in the temple, we couldn't arrest him, why not? Well, he was so impressive. Nobody spoke like he's spoken.

So, you get this contrasting response to the Lord Jesus. And of course, the person, the being who stands out supremely, commending the ministry of Jesus is none other than his father. Now, Jesus is in direct, intimate contact with his father throughout his life, but particularly at the baptism, when immersed in the water, the Holy Spirit comes down in the form of a dove, and the bath coal, that's the Hebrew term for the voice of God, is heard then, and it hasn't been heard for centuries.

What does God say on that occasion? This is my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased. And that same voice again disturbs the atmosphere some year and a half, two years later when Jesus, on the Mount of Transfiguration, his whole being irradiating with a glory that was part of him, but contained, so to speak, within his humanity, almost suppressed by it. God's voice is heard speaking to the disciples, the representatives of the church-to-be, the representatives of the human race.

And what does he say? This is my beloved son, hear him, because the father is impressed by what his son is coming to do. And father and son, you find in the Gospels, are constantly in relationship with each other. Now, this is very difficult in Islamic theology for Islamicists to appreciate, very difficult indeed.

This intimacy between Jesus and the father outstrips anything that the Koran claims in terms of Muhammad. And this, with great respect to one member of the House of Windsor, is why you can never hold true to the religious tradition of this country and be a defender of faith. You can only be a defender of the faith.

You can only contend for the faith. Because actually, at the level at which I'm preaching this morning, there is no common denominator. Our Lord Jesus stands out supremely as a man, as a prophet, as a leader, as a preacher, because in him is the fullness of the Godhead.

So, there are those who are offended, there are those who are impressed. Let's unpack for a moment, going back to the first group, the reason for the offense. The reason why they got so offended when Jesus spoke.

Now, the Pharisees were amongst that bunch, and the disciples doing a little bit of unnecessary PR work in the fifteenth chapter of Mark's Gospel. Sorry, it's got to be Matthew, there aren't that many chapters that deal with the teaching of our Lord around that number in Mark. It's got to be Matthew 12.

They come to Jesus and they say, you know, if you continue to minister as you are ministering, then you are going to offend Matthew 15, 12. You are going to offend the Pharisees. Verse 12, you know, Jesus, you really do need a little bit of help.

I mean, can't you cushion it? Can't you bike pedal? I mean, alright, you've got a bit of a cutting edge, but how about a bit of ecumenicity, a little bit of a pacific, a peaceful spirit? Because Jesus has been teaching them that actually purity has very little to do with external things, like the washing of dishes and so forth. It has everything to do with an inner temperament, an inner lifestyle. So radical is Jesus's teachings, but it upsets the Pharisees and the disciples come along and ask Jesus to just soften it a little bit, please.

There's at least three things that you can lift from the teaching and the manner of the preaching of Jesus that really was offensive. There were what I've called those annoying amens. Now, you often say amen, not perhaps always appreciating that what you're saying is a Hebrew word, which means truth, comes from the Hebrew aman, which is translated to show oneself firmer, and Jesus will use that word amen translated, as I say, most helpfully, I think in the authorized version, as verily.

When he wants to disclose a revelation from the Father, which casts more light or is new revelation, it either casts more light on the Old Testament, or it is something completely new that he has come to share, and he will say amen, or I'm telling you. If you like, in the words of a commentator, A.W. Pink, when Jesus says verily, verily, the double verily denoted that what he was about to say was of solemn and weighty significance, and the listener is to pay very special attention to what follows. Now, when you go back in the Old Testament, you find that God actually is referred to as the amen.

Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 7, for instance, and verse 9, where there Moses instructs us, know therefore that the Lord your God, he is God. And they've translated the amen here into the English word faithful. He is the faithful God.

But actually, the translation literally is he is the amen. Now, let's go to Isaiah, where you get another, perhaps even more clear instance of this. In the 16th verse of Isaiah's prophecy, speaking of the Lord, this is what the prophet says, whoever invokes a blessing on the land, that is the land of Israel, will do so by the God of truth.

He who takes an oath in the land will swear by the God of truth. Both instances, the Hebrew is aman, by the God who is the amen. So, if you follow this, you can see how this religious connotation of the word amen gave it such power and such substance that when our Lord Jesus comes on earth and he says amen or verily, he's not just speaking in a superficial fashion, he is actually speaking if you please on oath.

Listen to what I have to say. Verily, verily. Now, you go to the rabbinical schools, go to the teachers in the Jewish synagogue or those who were teaching the Sadducees or the Pharisees, the rabbis, and you will find that they do not have this method.

It is unusual, virtually unique to Jesus. Now, hold it for a moment. I'll give you some more information, then I'll underline and make it that much more clear.

When you move into the book of Revelation, what do you find is one of the titles of Jesus in the third chapter? Well, he says, I am the amen. I am the amen. And what do you find in the fifth chapter? Well, all the people who've been listening to the revelation around the throne, they get up and they say amen.

Now, if you happen to sit next to a more demonstrative or a more vocal person in the tab on a Sunday, you might find them saying amen. If you come to one of our smaller prayer meetings, particularly on a Wednesday morning and you've got Barbara Ledger sitting alongside you, you will find someone who will say amen. Now, there's a difference.

When we say amen to what is being prayed, we are in effect saying, so let it be. When God is referred to in the scripture as uttering the amen, he is declaring something. It is and shall be so.

That's God speaking. Amen. We respond, so let it be.

So here's Jesus, verily, verily, I say unto you, amen, amen. This is going to be. And the disciples, at least when they become mature and have full grasp of what our Lord Jesus has been teaching, they will affirm amen.

So in the teaching of Jesus, 121 times in the gospel of John, he uses the double amen. And in the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it's in the singular, but nonetheless, it packs the punch. You see, have you noticed that in the Old Testament, the prophets, when they speak, they always speak, thus saith the Lord.

Jesus never says that. Again, different from the way the rabbis would have taught. The rabbis would quote the Old Testament.

The rabbis will quote Hillel and some of the great commentators in Judaism. Jesus never does that. What does Jesus do? Verily, verily, I say unto you.

You see, he has his own authority. He quotes the Old Testament, and he shows that he trusts the Old Testament. It's a book that is truth.

But there is built into the teaching vocabulary of Jesus expressions which, taken at face value, indicate that he is not your ordinary rabbi, and indeed he isn't. So the amens become annoying, but move on then quickly. Not just his amens are annoying.

His adjustments, his adjustments to Old Testament Scripture. Now, he's told us about his view of Scripture in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew's Gospel in chapter 5. There he says, and the whole of that sermon is actually peppered with allusions to the Old Testament. Verse 18, I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished.

You're going to put it more plain than that. The Old Testament is good. It's true.

But when Jesus starts to talk about anger, he quotes Moses, and then he increases, if you like, the gravity of the teaching. And he goes on to say, but I tell you, let's take verse 21 of Matthew 5 as an illustration. You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, who said it? Moses said it, do not murder.

Jesus is not arguing with that. Anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.

So, you see my point? This is Jesus adjusting. This is Jesus focusing. This is Jesus making more clear.

This is Jesus developing the Old Testament. Now, no rabbi would dare to do that. And I could give you, but time is against me, I could give you scripture after scripture.

And indeed, I've put some illustrations up, some verses up on the overheads, those of you who jot down any references for your help. You can track that through this afternoon. And you will see that our Lord Jesus is not only one who annoys his critics with the amens, with the additional information, he is also one who adjusts Old Testament revelation.

So, you put all this together, and what do you find of Jesus? Well, he who has said that the Old Testament is inspired, if you go through to the 24th chapter of the book of Matthew, he says exactly the same thing about his teaching. He says, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. In other words, here is this man from Nazareth, and he claims that what he has to say has exactly the same authority as what was said in the Old Testament.

That's stupendous. Have you got a point? See, this is why they were such controversy. I mean, nobody else says this, do they? I mean, if you got up and said that you got a revelation from God, and it was equal to the New Testament, and you could improve upon the New Testament as well, we would perhaps take you on one side and say, go and spend a month with the elders, or something equally attractive.

You would appreciate that when people come along and make that sort of sweeping claim, as occasionally it does. We had some pop star who did this a few years ago, and he needed wheeling off to some mental hospital. You question their emotional, their intellectual stability.

But Jesus, Jesus seems to almost enjoy doing this. He really is the controversialist. Yes, Johanna's right, he's kind, but he's not just kind, he's clear.

He not just affirms, he qualifies the Old Testament and brings in the sharpening of revelation so that we have a greater understanding of God by the time Jesus is through with his ministry and in his life. Well, let's hasten on. What about those incredible assertions that Jesus made? GK Chesterton, on one occasion, talks about the dislocation of humility.

What he means is that the modern idea of humility is actually dismembered. You know, it's the URI heap sort of thing. Jesus was very humble, very humble man, but there was never the dislocation of humility.

He was equally assertive. He is an anchor man. I remember my mum once, years ago when I was a kid, it's amazing how things just stick in your mind.

It was the early days of television. There was some psychiatrist on the television, and he was giving some very interesting talks. And I remember my mother saying, I think you'd feel safe in the company of that man.

I believe I know what she meant. But let's heighten this. With Jesus, you feel safe in his company.

There is an unblushing dogmatism. C.S. Lewis, on one occasion, was writing to a Hindu friend, and he said, you Hindus sound delightful, but what do you deny? And he goes on, truth must involve exclusions. He's quite right.

And Jesus's truth involved exclusions. It involved qualifications. And this is the reason why, to some degree, his teaching was unacceptable.

Because he claimed to be the master with dominical, with magisterial, with divine authority. Assertions, he is the great I am. I am the bread of life.

I am the living water. I am the light of the world. I am the door.

I am the good shepherd. And that remarkable statement, which forever haunts the watchtower in Brooklyn, New York. Before Abraham was, I am.

Put that into the Hebrew. Before Abraham was, I Jehovah. I Jehovah.

There is that about Jesus which is more than mortal. He is man, but he is God, and basic to his teaching. It is so logical.

I cannot understand for the life of me how anyone can come to the Gospels and not understand at least what Jesus is claiming. How can you water it down? You can only do that by dismembering the whole account. He is perfectly logical.

Once you establish in your mind the belief that Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of man, you come to Scripture. What is found here makes sense. And if you don't agree that Jesus is the Son of God, you've got some psychological problems.

How on earth do you cope with this man who gives this distilled, ethical teaching in the Sermon of the Mount, who's got poise and purpose, who doesn't give any impression at all of being deranged? How do you define such a man? How can you say that at one point he's so sensible and at the other point he's so absurd, he's making such extravagant claims? The only answer to who Jesus is, is he is the Lord. He is the Son of God. God manifests in the flesh.

There's a Jewish rabbi who's written over 500 books. I said there is, there was, there is a Jewish rabbi. His name is Neusner, and he's written a book entitled The Rabbi Talks with Jesus, and he loves Jesus.

A lot of rabbis have great respect for Jesus Christ. Don't think that Judaism is hostile, essentially, to Christianity. It is not.

Certain aspects may be, but on the whole it is not. The Sermon on the Mount has moved Rabbi Neusner, and he imagines being in the crowd. He said, I would have joined the crowd who followed Jesus place to place, but I part company here.

Jesus takes an important step in the wrong direction by moving the emphasis from us as a Jewish community to I. He shifts from the Torah, and he goes to himself. The rabbi is right. Jesus does that.

He moves from the Torah to himself, and he quotes himself as being the authority, and that is the watershed. So let's come to conclusions, and quickly. Jesus is essentially a controversialist.

Our Lord knows what he's about. He teaches as one who has authority, Matthew 7, 28. He dares to say at the end of his Sermon on the Mount in that very verse, these words of mine you are to store them up.

He doesn't blush to say that. Our Lord never apologizes for his teaching, as incidentally he never apologizes for claiming to be sinless. He who spoke so much against sin recognizes not one blight in his own personality because he never did err on the side of breaking the law.

So this, I put to you, is the Lord Jesus, the controversialist. You have to listen to what he has to say. Listen particularly to what he has to say about himself and the objective for him coming into the world.

Why does he die on the cross? After giving us such marvelous teaching. Well, he dies because of your sin and my sin. Verily, verily, I say unto you, unless a man be born again, how can I be born? Lord Jesus is one of the rabbi.

How can I be born again? Can I be shrunk and put back as an embryo in my mother's womb? Of course not. You've got to be born of the Spirit. If you came back in the same gynecological way, then you would have the same problems.

You have to come to me. You have to appreciate, Nicodemus, that my life and my death and my resurrection will pay the price of your sin. And there are no two ways about that.

Compromise on that. Forget the Christian church. Compromise on that and you've bankrupted us of all hope and you've taken hope from the world and not just from the church.

But admit to the fact that Jesus is a controversialist and embrace the teachings of the controversy which he emphasized. And you're well on your way to eternal life and spending the years that are to come with God forever. The apostle Paul said there were people who were offended by Jesus in his day.

He's a stumbling block to the Jews, a laughingstock to the Greeks. And that is true. They dismissed him.

They dismissed the claims. And to some degree, they do today. But he still remains the same.

The scripture testifies to him whose teaching is sublime, whose teaching is unqualified, whose teaching is infallible. Say, what do you think of Jesus? What do you think about the controversy? Do you wash your hands of him? You're a fool. You really are a fool.

There is no one who can speak to your needs like he can. Everyone else can leave you. You may be on your own.

But I tell you this, you need the companionship of Jesus more than you need the companionship of anyone else. You may be very happily married, but your wife cannot go through the death process for you. You go through on your own.

And similarly, as far as wives are concerned, there is a one-to-one relationship with Jesus Christ which is the most important thing for you to cultivate above everything else. And you embrace him for who he is, for what he has to teach. The sublime, kind, compassionate, clear, determined Jesus.

We're going to sing a song. It's one of the golden oldies. One, two, nine.

I've lost my page. Is that right? Yes, 129. It's in the supplement.

It speaks about the wonder of knowing Jesus Christ. And it dovetails, it underlines that Hebrew expression, amen, amen. Remember, when God says amen, you are to receive it.

And you receive it by saying, yes, Lord, so be I receive what you're giving me. So I say my amen. Let's enjoy singing.

If you've got children and you need to go out and get them, that's fine. Thanks for being with us this morning. And have a great afternoon and evening.

And if you can come back here tonight, when my beloved younger brother, Eric Homer, in his inimitable fashion will be our preacher, will also be coming around the Lord's table. One, two, nine. Let's enjoy singing this.

Well, isn't that wonderful? Worth more than your Sunday lunch or whatever else is coming today. You're such a privileged people. We are, you know.

You could not find singing like that in the mosque. I speak with respect and with love. I spend a lot of time working or trying to encourage missions in the Islamic world.

You couldn't sing like this in a Hindu temple. We cannot betray the faith that we have in our Lord for some sort of artificial piety of wanting to be nice. We are nice people or should be nice people.

But our niceness is never to allow us to adulterate the message of the gospel. We're saying to our Islamic friends, we're saying to our Hindu friends, we're saying to the materialists here in Worthing, we're saying to those who believe in God but have not really found faith in Jesus in a living way, you come and enjoy what we have. Not because we're better, but because God in his grace has opened our eyes.

Let's sing that first verse and chorus just once again. He will promise something soon, and then the world will sing along. Blessed Christ of God, we thank you that you used the most somber expression and plundered the use of it time and time again as you affirmed what you had come to do.

Amen, amen. He who believes on me shall not be condemned. Amen, amen.

You must be born again. Father, we thank you for the certainties of the Christian gospel. We bless you for our Lord Jesus.

Send us out to serve him and to see him more clearly and to love him more dearly and to follow him more nearly until our days on earth are through. Amen. Good morning.

God bless. Hope we'll see you tonight. Amen.