Matthew 5:33-37

³³ “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ ³⁴ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, ³⁵ or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. ³⁶ And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. ³⁷ Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

In his book, Culture Shift, Al Mohler points to a report showing “that some half million Americans hold jobs they attained with spurious qualifications” and “that an investigation conducted by the General Accounting Office once revealed twenty-eight senior federal officials who did not actually hold the college degrees they claimed.”[1]  In other words, an alarming number of Americans have the jobs they have because they lied to get them.

Apparently, there are temporal benefits to a strategic lie that are too much for many folks to pass up.  In his novel, Catch-22, Joseph Heller writes about Major Major’s first experience with telling a lie.

Major Major had lied, and it was good.  He was not really surprised that it was good, for he had observed that people who did lie were, on the whole, more resourceful and ambitious and successful than people who did not lie.[2]

Maybe there’s something to that.  Maybe you can “get ahead” by lying.  If so, it’s only temporary, for our sins eventually catch up with us, even if it’s at the throne of God.  But oftentimes they catch up with us well before the throne of God.  In fact, lying usually unleashes an inexhaustible need for continuous lying.  In William Faulkner’s novel, The Reivers, Lucius Priest makes the following commitment not to lie anymore:

I said, and I believed it…I will never lie again.  It’s too much trouble.  It’s too much like trying to prop a feather upright in a saucer of sand.  There’s never any end to it.  You never get any rest.  You’re never finished.  You never even use up the sand so that you can quit trying.[3]

Yes, it is a serious thing to lie.  Lying empties our words of authentic meaning and reduces them to mere verbal impostures.  More generally, we can also say that it is a serious thing when our words lose weight, or when we distort the words we use for selfish means.  Jesus’ words at this point in the Sermon on the Mount are about our words and the ways we distort them or make them weightless for selfish gain.

I. What is in your heart will eventually come out in your speech.

Behind this teaching is a fundamental biblical truth:  what is in your heart will eventually come out in your speech.  In Matthew 15, Jesus said something that offended the Pharisees.

¹⁰ And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: ¹¹ it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” ¹² Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” ¹³ He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. ¹⁴ Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” ¹⁵ But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.” ¹⁶ And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? ¹⁷ Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? ¹⁸ But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. ²⁰ These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

Yes, we are defiled by our mouths.  More accurately, we are defiled as our mouths reveal what is in our hearts:  “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.”  There is a connection between the mouth and the heart.  Your words reveal who you are.  Your mouth is the window to your soul.  This is a daunting thought, for, as James said in James 3, what our tongues reveal about us is not flattering in the least!

¹ Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. ² For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. ³ If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. ⁴ Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. ⁵ So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! ⁶ And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. ⁷ For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, ⁸ but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹ With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. ¹⁰ From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. ¹¹ Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? ¹² Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

When James says that the tongue “is a restless evil, full of deadly poison,” what he is really saying is that our tongues reveal the restless evil and deadly poison that has taken root in our hearts.  Put another way, empty speech, filthy speech, dishonest speech, and showy speech demonstrate that our hearts have yet to be fully taken over by Jesus, that we have not yet let Him possess all that we are.

This is the problem with our winking and giggling at profanity, for example.  It is interesting to note the sins we harp on and the sins we excuse.  We rail against abortion and homosexuality.  Are these sins?  Yes, to be sure.  Should we speak against them?  Yes, to be sure.  But what of the “acceptable” sins we view as lesser?  What about profanity?

Do you realize that when a man claims to be a child of God and swears, what he is really saying is that the Lord Jesus does not fully occupy his heart.  It reveals a divided heart!  “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so” (James 3:10).  We should grieve over that.  We should mourn over that, in others and in ourselves.  Our speech reveals our hearts.

II. A heart governed by Jesus will result in pure language that does not need the aid of supporting oaths and reassurances.

If the reality of our hearts manifests itself in our speech, that means that a heart governed by Jesus must result in pure language that does not need the aid of supporting oaths and reassurances.  This fact helps us understand what Jesus is doing in this section.

³³ “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ ³⁴ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, ³⁵ or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. ³⁶ And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. ³⁷ Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

Tragically, many Christians have sought to reduce these words to a simple rule or law.  For instance, Quakers take this to mean that a believer should never swear an oath in court or take a military oath.  To do this, however, is to fall into the trap of the scribes, who were always seeking to reduce divine truth to the technical bottom line.  But I would like to suggest that that to do this is to miss the point of this passage.

William Barclay has noted that, in the time of Jesus, the Jews had developed two unhealthy patterns when it came to taking oaths:  frivolous swearing and evasive swearing.  Frivolous swearing refers to the casual voicing of oaths.  Barclay mentions the Jewish oaths, “By thy life,” “By my head,” or, “May I never see the comfort of Israel if…”  These had become casual and petty prefaces to declarations made, and they had no weight whatsoever.

By evasive swearing, Barclay meant that the Jews had two classes of oaths, “those which were absolutely binding and those which were not.”  A binding oath had the name of God in it.  A non-binding oath did not.  The result, he says, was that “if a man swore by the name of God in any form, he would rigidly keep that oath; but if he swore by heaven, or by earth, or by Jerusalem, or by his head, he felt quite free to break that oath.”[4]

In other words, truth had been reduced to a word game.  Even more so, as we have seen time and again in the Sermon on the Mount, righteousness had been finely tuned to refer only to technical adherence to man-made rules.  That is the particular, specific situation that Jesus is addressing.  His point in this passage has less to do with what specific oaths can and cannot be said than with the fact that we should be the type of people whose hearts are so pure and whose speech is so honest that oaths are not necessary at all.

You’ll notice, for instance, that Jesus mentions the specific oaths of the Jews in our passage:

³⁴ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, ³⁵ or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. ³⁶ And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.

In saying this, Jesus was obliterating the little word games the Jews were playing with oaths by revealing that there is no reality upon which you can base an oath that does not belong to God.    The mere fact that God is not mentioned in your oath does not mean He is absent from it, or that you need not be accountable for the words you say.  Heaven is God’s throne.  The Earth is His footstool.  Jerusalem is His city.  And your head belongs to Him, not you.

In other words, we are responsible for every single word we say because we say every single word we say in the presence of a holy God before whom we will one day give account.  Our words should therefore reflect the divine presence of our King.  And, as citizens of the Kingdom, our words should reveal the values of the Kingdom of our citizenship.

“Do not take an oath at all,” means, in essence, “Do not be the type of person whose words are so weightless that they need contrived oaths and swearing to make them appear valid.  Do not be the type of person who has to play games with words.  Let your words be simple and pure just as your heart is.”

Do you see?  Citizens of the Kingdom of God should have speech seasoned with Kingdom simplicity, Kingdom truth, and Kingdom purity.  You should not need oaths.  You should not need verbal dressings.  You should not need word games.  You should not need verbal posturing.

As we approach the Lord’s Table, I am particularly struck by the relevance of this passage to our gathering today.  Just think about it:  when you take the bread and the juice today, these symbols of the body and blood of Jesus, you will place them on your tongues.  We will eat and drink in remembrance of Him.  Specifically, we will eat and drink in remembrance of the redemption He has won for us on the cross.  We will eat and drink in remembrance of the fact that our hearts and minds and tongues are now made whole and new through the blood of Jesus.

What a wonderful occasion this is to think deeply and well on the issue of the purity of our tongues.  As you place the symbols on your tongue, ask yourself this:  does my tongue reveal a redeemed heart?  Has my tongue been made new?

Exodus 5

¹ Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” ² But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.” ³ Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.” ⁴ But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.” ⁵ And Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens!” ⁶ The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, ⁷ “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves. ⁸ But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’ ⁹ Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.” ¹⁰ So the taskmasters and the foremen of the people went out and said to the people, “Thus says Pharaoh, ‘I will not give you straw. ¹¹ Go and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least.’” ¹² So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. ¹³ The taskmasters were urgent, saying, “Complete your work, your daily task each day, as when there was straw.” ¹⁴ And the foremen of the people of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten and were asked, “Why have you not done all your task of making bricks today and yesterday, as in the past?” ¹⁵ Then the foremen of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, “Why do you treat your servants like this? ¹⁶ No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, ‘Make bricks!’ And behold, your servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people.” ¹⁷ But he said, “You are idle, you are idle; that is why you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.’ ¹⁸ Go now and work. No straw will be given you, but you must still deliver the same number of bricks.” ¹⁹ The foremen of the people of Israel saw that they were in trouble when they said, “You shall by no means reduce your number of bricks, your daily task each day.” ²⁰ They met Moses and Aaron, who were waiting for them, as they came out from Pharaoh; ²¹ and they said to them, “The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.” ²² Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? ²³ For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.”

Tony Evans once asked his congregation to imagine with him that a man calls his son in and asks his son to take the trash out.[1]  “Oh, yes!” his son exclaims. “I will take the trash out.  You are so wise and so wonderful.  I love your commandments.  I will take the trash out!”

The son finishes speaking and the father and son stare at each other.  “Well,” the father says, “take the trash out!”

“Ah, yes!” the son responds.  “Your words are so beautiful and so true.  Who could doubt them?  In fact that they are so beautiful that I believe they are worthy to be sung in praise!”  Then the son begins to sing:  “Take the trash out!  Let us take the trash out!  I must take the traaaaaash out!  Amen!”

Again, the two stare at each other.  “Son,” the father begins, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I would like for you to take the trash out now.”

“Yes!  Yes!” the boy proclaims.  “Take the trash out!  Only you could have asked such a thing!  I love you so much and I love your word so much!  I believe I will write that down and study it!”  And here the boy writes down his father’s words in a little pad he produces from his back pocket:  “Take…the…trash…out!”  “Oh, father!  I will read this every day!  I will commit it to memory!  I will hide this in my heart!  Take the trash out!”

What an absurd scene, no?  The father has issue a simple command, and the son, while claiming to love the father, does everything but obey.  That may sound familiar to us.  In fact, tragically, that little scene might be a pretty apt description of what we do in churches all the time.

Obedience can be a painful thing.  Perhaps that’s why we are so hesitant to do it.  Dallas Willard has written that, “the missing note in evangelical life today is not in the first instance spirituality but rather obedience.”[2]  That’s a pretty good take on the current situation:  spirituality without obedience.  We do so love to talk spiritual talk.  We even talk of having victory and a great walk with the Lord.  But, as Jerry Bridges wisely said, “We pray for victory when we know we should be acting in obedience.”[3]

Moses has been charged with an amazing task:  the task of walking into Egypt and demanding the freedom of the Hebrews.  And, in fact, he obeys.  This evening, however, we are going to consider the price of obedience and, with it, one of the reasons why we are so hesitant to do the Lord’s will.

I. The world does not understand God, the people of God, or the need for obeying God. (v.1-5)

I would like for us to begin with a very simple fact:  the world does not understand God, the people of God, or the need for obeying God.  That fact becomes abundantly evident in Moses’ initial clash with Pharaoh.

¹ Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’”

It should be pointed out here that, at that time, religious minorities were granted some degree of freedom to worship in Egyptian society.  So Moses and Aaron are simply asking Pharaoh to grant the same liberties to the Hebrews that he has granted to others.  Of course, the Hebrews are no mere minority.  They are, in fact, as we have already seen, a large group of people that Pharaoh believes He must subjugate lest they rise up against him.

What is more interesting is the fact that Moses, once again, is, at best, telling a half-truth and, at worst, lying.  On the face of them, his words would seem to imply that they simply want some time for religious observance and that they will return.  It is a half-truth because, of course, they will worship God and the exodus itself is an act of trust in God.  But, as we know and as Moses knows, the Lord wants much more than this.  He wants His people free.

Pharaoh, of course, will have none of it.

² But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.” ³ Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.” ⁴ But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.” ⁵ And Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens!”

Pharaoh’s question is crucial because it helps us understand not only his reaction but the reaction of the world to Christian obedience today as well.  Simply put, Pharaoh doesn’t know God and, for that reason, is utterly disinterested in Moses’ desire to obey God.  There is disdain in his voice.  “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?  I do not know the Lord.”  Moses tries again, this time, once again, veiling the whole truth.  He suggests that the Lord is an angry God who will strike Israel if they don’t do their religious duties.  It would have been much more honest to say that God will strike Pharaoh if he doesn’t let Israel go.

Pharaoh is unmoved and clearly irritated:  “Get back to your burdens.”  This is the equivalent of, “Oh good grief!  Enough of this religious nonsense!  Get back to the real world and do your task.”

May I suggest to you that this has always been the posture of the world towards the people of God?  Even at times in our country’s history when there was more of a cultural respect for Christianity, the lost heart has never understood the redeemed heart.  And now we see this clearly as the last vestiges of the old Bible belt are slipping away.  I do not meant to sound alarmist when I say that American culture is closer to Egypt today than it has ever been:  it is a culture that does not understand or value the things of God.

We must understand this fact or we will continue the lamentable and silly tradition of Christian outrage at the incredulity of the lost.  Brothers and sister in Christ, the world simply does not care that you are here.  They do not understand your being here.  All of our talk of “God’s Word” and “the cross” and “walking with Jesus” are just religious mumblings to the world, even though they are life to us.  They are irritated by it because they have never experienced it.  It is a foreign intrusion into the worldview of modernity.  “Oh just stop that mumbo jumbo and get back to work.”  That’s what Pharaoh said.  That’s what the world says today.

I press this issue because it somehow seems to me that many believers still think that American culture should grant some legitimacy to Christian belief and practice.  Yes, it was nice when that did happen, culturally speaking.  But it likely only spoiled the church and deceived the lost into thinking they were actually saved.  I think that unnerving feeling that many people are experiencing today is simply the result of seeing the world’s true feelings towards the gospel naked and unmasked.  Many of you have grown up in situations when this was not the case.

In my own lifetime I remember when there was greater cultural respect for Christianity, but not now.  We are in Egypt.  We are in first century Rome.  The lords of the world will grant no respect to the things or the people of God.  As Pharaoh said, so says the world:  “I do not know the Lord.”  This absence of cultural concessions can either be seen as a great tragedy, or it can be seen as a great opportunity.  At the very least, everybody is being more honest these days about what they think of God and His people.  What will we do in the face of that fact?

II. Obedience in a hostile culture oftentimes brings greater suffering to God’s people. (v.6-19)

Moses and Aaron learn a hard lesson.  It’s one we must learn too.  Observe the result of their obedience.

⁶ The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, ⁷ “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves. ⁸ But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’ ⁹ Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.” ¹⁰ So the taskmasters and the foremen of the people went out and said to the people, “Thus says Pharaoh, ‘I will not give you straw. ¹¹ Go and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least.’” ¹² So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. ¹³ The taskmasters were urgent, saying, “Complete your work, your daily task each day, as when there was straw.” ¹⁴ And the foremen of the people of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten and were asked, “Why have you not done all your task of making bricks today and yesterday, as in the past?” ¹⁵ Then the foremen of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, “Why do you treat your servants like this? ¹⁶ No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, ‘Make bricks!’ And behold, your servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people.”

That is a legitimate question:  “Why do you treat your servants like this?”  To use an exhausted cliché, we feel the Hebrews pain!  We would have said the same.  What did they do to warrant such harsh and unreasonable treatment?  Their minds must have reeled with confusion and guesses.  Did somebody insult Pharaoh?  Have we not worked hard enough?

In truth, the answer to their question is found at the end of Exodus 4 where we see their reaction to Moses’ and Aaron’s arrival and proclamation of deliverance.  Do you remember?

²⁹ Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. ³⁰ Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people. ³¹ And the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.

There is the answer as to why they were being treated such.  They were being treated this way because they set their feet on the path of deliverance and, as we have seen, that is a path the world despises.  They are suffering for their faith.  They are suffering for obedience.  They realize this when Pharaoh answers them thus:

¹⁷ But he said, “You are idle, you are idle; that is why you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.’ ¹⁸ Go now and work. No straw will be given you, but you must still deliver the same number of bricks.” ¹⁹ The foremen of the people of Israel saw that they were in trouble when they said, “You shall by no means reduce your number of bricks, your daily task each day.”

Ah!  There it is!  They are being treated in this way because they want to worship their God.  And how does Pharaoh know this?  Because Moses and Aaron went and proclaimed it to Pharaoh.  And why did they proclaim this?  Because God sent them and the people trusted them.

So here, initially, their obedience leads to suffering.  It is a difficult truth to grasp.  Teresa of Avila once famously said, “If this is how God treats his friends, no wonder he has so few of them!”  If we’re honest, we have perhaps sometimes felt that way.

In truth, obedience in a hostile culture oftentimes brings greater suffering to God’s people.  This is difficult for us to grasp because, in our country, there are whole Christian movements that seem dedicated to the exact opposite idea:  that obedience and faith bring material blessings.  You can see that in our Christian bookstores, where the titles often reflect self-help philosophies and “name-it-claim-it” heresies.  You can see that in Christian movies where everything just seems to work out for those who trust in God.

But guess what?  Sometimes, when you walk with God, things don’t get easier but harder.  Sometimes the cancer isn’t miraculously healed.  Sometimes the couple isn’t finally able to have a baby.  Sometimes the kicker misses the game winning field goal.  Sometimes the promotion doesn’t happen.

Sometimes you get fired for following Jesus.  Sometimes you lose your spouse.  Sometimes you get killed.  Sometimes not, but sometimes so.  Sometimes Pharaoh stops giving you straw for bricks and increases your workload.

Have we forgotten that the reward of obedience is in the act itself, in the privilege of simply following our King?  Have we forgotten that present suffering does not negate the goodness of God or the promise of God or the offer of future glory?  Have we reached the point where we will determine the goodness of God’s decrees on the basis of what they win for us here and now?

Our brother Paul, in 2 Corinthians 4, wrote this:

¹⁶ So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, ¹⁸ as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

The Hebrews wanted deliverance, but what they wanted primarily was deliverance from suffering.  But sometimes the path of deliverance goes through the gate of greater suffering.

III. To be obedient is to decide that the worldly price of obedience is worth the divine blessing of it. (v.20-23)

This whole chapter has been leading up to a very awkward encounter.  Moses and Aaron must now stand before the Israelites to face their hurt and anger and confusion.  It does not go well.

²⁰ They met Moses and Aaron, who were waiting for them, as they came out from Pharaoh; ²¹ and they said to them, “The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”

As far as I can tell, this is the earliest example of “This stinks!” in human history.  “You have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants!”  And notice the irony of their rebuke:  “The Lord look on you and judge!”  What they did not realize, though, was that the Lord was looking upon Moses and Aaron and had judged their actions and had found them obedient.  The Hebrews assumed that they had sinned and that God was judging their sin by bringing further pain on His people.  But the exact opposite was the case:  they had not sinned, they had obeyed, and the greater suffering they were enduring was the path they had to walk to be free.

It is, as we have said, a hard truth to see in the midst of the fire, and even Moses cannot see it.

²² Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? ²³ For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.”

In truth, this is a terrifying statement.  Moses accuses the Lord of evil.  He does so on two bases:  (1) that God allowed greater suffering to fall on His people and (2) that God had not yet delivered His people as He said He would.  He is, in other words, condemning God because He was not doing things in the manner that he, Moses, and the Hebrews thought and assumed He would.

It is a natural reaction and one we should not be too quick to condemn.  Of course it is wrong, and accusing God of evil is a sin, but Moses is speaking out of the deepest depths of his own agony.  The Lord can handle Moses’ honesty.  The Lord knows that Moses does not see the full picture, but that he soon will.  And the Lord knows that Moses too must be delivered from his own darkened understanding.

Obedience to God demands a hard decision on the front end.  To be obedient is to decide that the worldly price of obedience is worth the divine blessing of it.  Moses will have to reach the point where he decides whether or not the blessing of God is worth the pain we must sometimes go through to receive it.  The Hebrews will have to reach the same point.

And so will we.

The question confronting the church in every age is precisely this question:  will we obey God even in light of the costs of doing so?  Were it to cost us our lives to follow, would we follow?  Were it to cost us our families to obey, would we obey?  Were it to mean a life of hardship and depravation, would we still bow before our King?

I pray the answer is yes.  It should be.  It must be.  And for this reason:  because despite all of our fears and doubts and anger, in point of fact God is good.

God is gracious.

God is kind.

God is faithful.

God has not forgotten us.

God is not playing games with us.

God is not sadistic.

God is not experimenting on us.

God is worthy of our praise.

God is worthy of our trust.

God is worthy of our obedience.

Let us follow our King.

Matthew 5:31-32

³¹ “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ ³² But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

To be perfectly honest, I am approaching our subject today with a measure of caution, though I want to make it clear that I am not approaching it with any apology.  We must never apologize for preaching God’s Word.  Even so, this passage is, perhaps more than any other, the one part of the Sermon on the Mount I have not been “looking forward to” preaching.  Not because I don’t believe it is true.  It is true. But rather because the issue of divorce touches so many lives and is disagreed upon by so many Christians and is so fraught with controversy that my fear is we won’t give God’s Word a clear and accurate hearing this morning.  Frankly, I fear that our emotional reactions to the idea of divorce and to the idea of a sermon on divorce will hinder us from giving Scripture an accurate hearing.  Of course, giving it an accurate hearing assumes that I am giving it an accurate preaching, and that raises yet another question:  what exactly does Jesus say here and what does He mean by what He says?

I am also feeling a sense of caution because in any gathering of this size there will be numerous instances of divorce, each containing numerous backstories that may or may not grant legitimacy to the divorce.  I do not begrudge your emails.  Feel free to send them.  But this will, indeed, be a sermon that gets emails because of how sensitive this issue is.

I’m ok with all of that so long as we all agree on certain fundamental truths.  First, that God’s Word reveals God’s heart and we should bow to God’s heart.  Second, that God’s Word should shape our opinions and not vice verse.  And third, that the preacher’s job is to proclaim God’s Word regardless of how popular or unpopular it might be.

I suspect there is something else we can all agree on:  something is wrong with our approach to marriage in this country and this is reflected in the divorce culture in which we live.  By “divorce culture” I am referring to the whole, national malaise concerning marriage and divorce.  I am referring to the phenomenon of cheap, disposable marriages.  I am not saying that every divorce indicates that those in the marriage viewed it as cheap and disposable.  That would be absurd.  Many of you in this room have been through divorce and would see it as anything but inconsequential.  One member of our church told me this week that the aftermath of a divorce feels like standing in the rubble of your home that has just been obliterated by a tornado, wondering how to start picking up the pieces.  No, not all who have gone through a divorce are apathetic about it, but it is undeniable that our culture in general approaches the issue in many ways that reveal a spirit of profound misunderstanding about what marriage even is and what exactly is happening when divorce happens.  Even when we agonize over divorce, we oftentimes don’t have the theological and biblical understanding to understand even the origins of our own pain.

How has our culture reached this point?  How have we reached this point of confusion concerning marriage and divorce? I am inclined to lay the blame primarily at the feet of the sin of selfishness, and I think there are good reasons for doing so.  But I am also impressed by the opinion of Midge Decter who wrote this while reviewing Barbara Dafoe Whitehead’s book, The Divorce Culture:

The truth is, the divorce culture has come upon us not as the result of our selfishness—people have always been selfish—and not as the result of the tension between the sexes—that tension has been a permanent fixture of human existence—and not out of any unconcern for our children—children have seldom in history been so much attended to and so kindly treated as ours. The disarray…is brought about by the fact that the lives we lead are in respect of ease and comfort and confidence and good health simply unprecedented. Never have so many, even the poor among us, had so much. We are disoriented. We do not know whether to laugh or to cry; we do not know whom or what to thank; and we cannot think of what there might be to want next. And so we giggle and preen and complain and forget our debts and keep on seeking for things (and sometimes finding them). In short, there is no merely social cure for what ails us.[1]

I suspect there’s something to that.  We are a spoiled and comfortable people.  Our relationships reflect this fact, and so do our divorce statistics.  We are, indeed, disoriented.  And what should one do when he is disoriented?  Well, he should seek to be oriented.  And how does one get oriented?  He finds a true and fixed point of orientation.  He finds “true North,” we might say.  Or, to put it another way, he finds Jesus.

That’s what we’re going to do today.  We’re going to reorient ourselves on the issues of marriage and divorce by listening to Jesus.  What, then, does Jesus say on the issue?  How should we as Christians think?

I. Marriage is not disposable.  It is sacred before God.

Jesus has just spoken on lust.  He has said that we can commit adultery in our hearts by looking at somebody with lustful intent.  He continues to speak of adultery, this times in terms of divorce.

³¹ “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ ³² But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

As you hear these words, it is important to remember that these two verses are a continuation of the preceding verses concerning lust and the human heart.  The sections should not be separated and isolated from one another.  Here, too, Jesus is saying something about lust and the human heart.  He is expounding further on the verses immediately preceding this.

To understand what is going on here, we must understand the specific, first century Jewish controversy concerning marriage and divorce to which Jesus is referring in these words.  The controversy involved two passages on marriage and divorce from the Old Testament and what they meant for the issue at hand.  The verses are found in Deuteronomy 22 and 24.

First, consider what Moses says in Deuteronomy 22.

¹³ “If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her ¹⁴ and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her, saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,’ ¹⁵ then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate. ¹⁶ And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her; ¹⁷ and behold, he has accused her of misconduct, saying, “I did not find in your daughter evidence of virginity.” And yet this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the cloak before the elders of the city. ¹⁸ Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whip him, ¹⁹ and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name upon a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He may not divorce her all his days. ²⁰ But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, ²¹ then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. ²² “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.

This seems relatively clear enough.  In the Old Testament, if a man married a woman and then found that she was not a virgin, that she had been sexually active before their marriage, he could have her put to death.  Then, in Deuteronomy 24, Moses wrote this:

¹ When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, ² and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, ³ and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, ⁴ then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

Here, Moses says that the discovery of “indecency” in the wife by the husband validates the giving of a decree of divorce.  This decree, it would seem, was actually for the woman’s protection as it would allow her to remarry without impunity.

Taken together, in the minds of the Jews, these two texts created a problem.  If Deuteronomy 22 reveals that sexual indecency was punishable by death and Deuteronomy 24 reveals that indecency could lead to legal divorce and the granting of a certificate of divorce, does that not mean that the indecency spoken of in Deuteronomy 24 must be of a different sort than the indecency spoken of in Deuteronomy 22, for the one leads to death and the other to a decree of divorce?

Two schools of thought quickly arose among the Jews over this question.  The followers of Rabbi Shammai took a strict view, interpreting the indecency in both chapters as infidelity, but arguing that Deuteronomy 22 referred to sexual sin before marriage by the woman which she had attempted to cover up and that Deuteronomy 24 referred to adultery after marriage.  The followers of Rabbi Hillel interpreted it much more liberally to refer to any kind of unfaithfulness.  In other words, the indecency spoken of in Deuteronomy 24 might be almost anything.

As Hillel’s more liberal interpretation caught on, it opened the door for great abuses in the area of divorce and remarriage.  Carl Vaught has pointed out that it was permissible for a man to make his wife go into a house where a person had died, which rendered her ceremonially unclean, and then give her a writ of divorce when she came out.[2]  In other words, this broad definition of indecency led to husbandly manipulation of the wife to make her indecent and unclean.  Furthermore, others argued that you could divorce your wife if she spoiled your food or if the husband “found another fairer than she.”  Daniel Doriani points to the 2^nd century (B.C.) Apocryphal book, Ecclesiasticus, which says, “If she will not do as you tell her, get rid of her.”[3]

The upshot of all of this is that Jesus was being drawn into and was addressing a debate over precisely this question:  should marriages be disposable?  In general terms he was addressing this issue:  just how important is marriage?  To many of the Jews, marriage had become tragically disposable.  By following what they understood to be the letter of the law, they were able to dissolve unions that God had made between men and women.  Here, too, Jesus is saying that righteousness is not just a matter of the strict adherence of technical law.  Rather, righteousness is a matter of the inner condition of the human heart before God.  Any heart that could reduce the miracle of marriage to the parsing of particular words is a heart going in the wrong direction.

Oddly enough, we as believers often approach our text this morning with the same mentality:  what is the exact meaning of the words that will allow me to end my marriage?  However, let us note that even that is not the point.  The point is the condition of our hearts and whether or not we value marriage as the Lord God does.

When all is said and done, we modern Americans have our own equivalents to the Jewish heresy of, “If she burns your toast you can divorce her.”  Our equivalents are more subtle and are usually bathed in emotional and sentimental language:  “We fell out of love.”  “We just grew apart.” “Sometimes life takes you in different directions.”  “I’m not happy anymore.”

Brothers and sisters in Christ, marriage is not disposable and these kinds of vague sentimental assertions are simply that:  vague and sentimental.  They do not speak of the rock-solid commitment of covenant vows expressed between a man and woman before God and in sight of the assembled saints.  They do not honor the profound mystery of God making two fleshes into one flesh.  They are our own weird parallels to, “She burnt my toast.  It’s over.”  What is more, apparently divorcing for these shallow reasons does not work anyway.  I was struck by the following words in an article highlighting some research on the issue of divorce and happiness.

The popularly held notion that divorce is the answer to marital unhappiness was recently debunked by a team of leading family scholars at the University of Chicago.  Their study discovered that people who divorce their spouses when marriages get rocky are less likely to find happiness than those who stay married.  They found no evidence that unhappily married adults who divorced were any happier than unhappily married people who stay married.  Researchers, led by University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite, also determined that 80 percent of unhappily married spouses who stayed married reported that their marriages were happy five years later.  Divorce didn’t reduce symptoms of depression or raise self-esteem compared to those who stayed married, the study found.

“In popular discussion, in scholarly literature, the assumption has always been that if a marriage is unhappy, if you get a divorce, it is likely you will be happier than if you stayed married,” said David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values.  “This is the first time this has been tested empirically, and there is no evidence to support this assumption.”[4]

No, divorce as a step towards happiness-maintenance does not seem to be a good idea, even by secular standards.  This was the mentality Jesus was dealing with when He said the words in our text.  In many cases, this is the mentality we are dealing with today as well.

D.A. Carson said it well when he said, “Love has become a mixture of physical desire and vague sentimentality; marriage has become a provisional sexual union to be terminated when this pathetic, pygmy love dissolves.”[5]  At the very least let us acknowledge this fact:  marriage is not disposable.  It is sacred before God.  This is a fact that our culture and, most tragically, our churches seem to have forgotten.

II. Divorce is an extreme act that must be considered only with fear and trembling and only within divinely-allowed parameters.

Even so, as Jesus acknowledges, sacred things in a fallen world do not always abide.  There are times when marriages fall apart.  Sometimes divorce must happen, at least from our perspective.  However, even if it must happen, we should see divorce as an extreme act that must be considered only with fear and trembling and only within divinely-allowed parameters.

Divorce is a big deal.  Approached wrongly or selfishly or flippantly, it invites the judgment of God.  Consider the words of the prophet Malachi in Malachi 2:

¹³ And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. ¹⁴ But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. ¹⁵ Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. ¹⁶ “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

Yes, a sinful divorce is an impediment to our relationship with God.  It affects our worship and our walk.  It is, as Malachi says, a “violent” thing.  How so?  Because, as C.S. Lewis rightly pointed out, divorce is like an amputation.

…Christianity teaches that marriage is for life. There is, of course, a difference here between different Churches: some do not admit divorce at all; some allow it reluctantly in very special cases. It is a great pity that Christians should disagree about such a question; but for an ordinary layman the thing to notice is that the Churches all agree with one another about marriage a great deal more than any of them agrees with the outside world. I mean, they all regard divorce as something like cutting up a living body, as a kind of surgical operation. Some of them think the operation so violent that it cannot be done at all; others admit it as a desperate remedy in extreme cases. They are all agreed that it is more like having both your legs cut off than it is like dissolving a business partnership or even deserting a regiment. What they all disagree with is the modern view that it is a simple readjustment of partners, to be made whenever people feel they are no longer in love with one another, or when either of them falls in love with someone else.[6]

Yes, it is “a kind of surgical operation.”  It is separating one flesh back into two.  This is why, in Matthew 19, Jesus evokes the language of Genesis in responding to the Pharisees questions about divorce.

³ And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” ⁴ He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” ⁷ They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” ⁸ He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. ⁹ And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

That is a fuller statement than our text this morning, and the primary addition is a harkening back to the first marriage of our first parents in the Garden of Eden.  Just as God brought Adam and Eve together and made one of two, so He does today.  For this reason, divorce, even if necessary, should be approached with fear and trembling.  It is no small thing.

So, too, in Mark 10, we Mark’s account of that scene:

² And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” ³ He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” ⁴ They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” ⁵ And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. ⁶ But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ⁷ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, ⁸ and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. ⁹ What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” ¹⁰ And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. ¹¹ And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, ¹² and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

The last two verses highlight the seriousness of divorce.  In verses 11 and 12 Jesus says that wrongful divorced and divorce unsanctioned by God leaves the people in a state of adultery. Carl Vaught has offered a helpful viewpoint on verses 11 and 12 in particular:

In interpreting this passage, everything hinges upon how we translate the Greek word kai in the second and third clauses.  Though it is usually translated “and,” it may also be rendered “in order to”; and if that is done in this case, the significance of the passage is transformed immediately.  Let us then translate the verses in Mark with this possibility in mind:

And He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife in order to marry another woman, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband in order to marry another man, she is committing adultery.”[7]

I am not sure that Vaught’s suggestion holds water, but it is worth noting as a possibility.  That being said, it is undeniable that the motivation behind divorce is a key element that Jesus is addressing.  To divorce your spouse simply out of a desire to be with another person is a great wrong.  To divorce your spouse for selfish reasons, or because you do not want to work at the relationship, is also a great wrong.  In truth, the legitimate bases of divorce seem to be limited indeed.

It is clear, from our text, that sexual immorality is grounds for a divorce.  It should be noted that Jesus never says you must or even should divorce your spouse if they fall sexually.  Rather, He says divorce is permitted in such cases.  I have known many Christian couples who survived affairs, who worked through the pain and tragedy of sexual sin and came through restored on the other side.  Even here, we should strive to see God work a miracle and not be quick to abandon our spouses.

Are there other acceptable reasons for divorce?  It is generally agreed that Paul offers one in 1 Corinthians 7.

¹² To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. ¹³ If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. ¹⁴ For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. ¹⁵ But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. ¹⁶ For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

This is what is known as “the Pauline exception.”  Here, God’s Word would appear to allow divorce in the case of abandonment.  If your unbelieving spouse abandons you, you are free to divorce.

Are there other cases?  Here we enter into a very old and very heated debate among Christians, and we should do so humbly.  A strict reading of Scripture (as I read it, anyway) would appear to allow divorce in only two cases:  sexual immorality and abandonment.  Some hold only to those two.  Other Christians, who equally love and value the authority of God’s Word, argue that, in context, Jesus is addressing a specific issue in a specific cultural context and in light of a specific debate among the Jews.  They argue that Jesus is striking against the Jews’ penchant for easy divorce, and that His intent was not to give an exhaustive statement and catalogue of every acceptable reason for divorce.

It is true that context should inform our reading.  Even so, the words of Jesus do not appear to me to leave a great deal of leeway, and we should not seek to distort His words for our own purposes.

What is more challenging to me, personally, is Paul’s granting of an additional reason for divorce.  Let me explain.  In 1 Corinthians 7, as we just saw, Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, grants freedom to a spouse who has been abandoned.  Presumably this is the freedom to remarry and not be in sin.  It is likely, also, freedom to divorce.  What is interesting there is that this fact alone would mitigate against a woodenly strict reading of Jesus’ words in the gospels.  Meaning, apparently there is at least one other area in which divorce is justifiable, an area no readily apparent when we read the words of Jesus in the gospels.  Is Paul conflicting with Jesus?  By no means.  We believe that all Scripture is inspired by God.

But if that is the case (and it seems indisputable to me that it is), that may mean a couple of things.  It may simply mean that the justifiable bases for divorce have gone from one (sexual immorality) to two (sexual immorality and/or abandonment).  Or some interpret it to mean that Paul is presenting us with a paradigm in which we evaluate current situations not specifically addressed in Scripture but always in light of the teachings of Scripture.

Let me use one example:  abuse.  Jesus does not address the issue of physical abuse explicitly, and certainly not in relation to the question of marriage and divorce.  However, Scripture seems to offer teachings that might inform our consideration of such an issue.  For instance, mothers are enjoined to love their children (Titus 2:4).  Jesus assumes that even fallen men would never neglect the needs of their children (Matthew 7:9-11).  Jesus gives dire warnings against those who would harm children (Mark 9:42).  Furthermore, Jesus himself stops a group of men from violently assaulting a woman (John 8:1-11).

What are we to make of these things?  Are we free carefully to build other legitimate cases for divorce on the basis of other clear biblical principles?  As a rule, I think this is an idea fraught with danger.  Such an idea would open the door to a chaotic imposition of our own opinions on the text.  However, it is perhaps legitimate to say that sometimes life presents us with competing values.  For instance, a Christian wife will seek to value the miracle of marriage and the significance of the two-become-one work of God.  On the other hand, if this wife is being violently abused, or if her husband is abusing the children, then certainly the passages mentioned above would mean that the act of divorce in this case is not selfish or self-centered.  Rather, it is being done in light of the whole counsel of God’s Word and in an effort to protect herself and her children from violent crimes.

Another way of saying this might be to say that sometimes divorce is the lesser of wrongs, even if not explicitly mandated in Scripture.  I will be so bold as to suggest that sexual immorality, abandonment, and (in my opinion) abuse are legitimate grounds for divorce, given the understanding and approach articulated above.  Again, this is my opinion, and I hope I have shown that I have sought to ground this opinion in Scripture as well.

Regardless, even when permitted, divorce must be seen as a radical and painful step to be taken in the fear of God and in light of the whole counsel of God.

III. The grace of God meets us here and now to forgive and equip us, not to license us for shallow approaches to marriage.  

To leave the matter there would be to leave some of you with relief and others of you with great shame.  After all, in a gathering of this size, it is very likely that we have legitimate and illegitimate divorces present.  But is that the end of the matter?  If you divorced wrongly, are you simply stuck in your sin and guilt?  Even if you divorced for legitimate reasons, must you always carry around the stigma of divorce?

Let me say, on the basis of the blood of Jesus Christ, and in the shadow of the cross on which He paid our sin-debt, and in the face of the empty tomb where Jesus rose victorious:  no and no!  Does divorce fall well short of God’s ideal?  Yes.  Is it oftentimes, maybe even most times, a sin?  Yes.  But is it unforgiveable and the sin above all other sins?  Absolutely not.

I would be lying if I did not tell you that I oftentimes marvel at the way we have separated this one sin from all others.  In many churches divorced people are made to feel like second-class citizens and subpar Christians.  But may I remind you that the central point of what Jesus is doing at this juncture in the Sermon on the Mount is reminding us that righteousness is not defined by technical adherence to the letter of the Law but rather to the inner condition of the human heart?  Can I remind you that the very heart of the gospel is that Christ has come to free us from the bondage and shackles of sin, death, and hell?

Yet, it is important that the forgiveness of God not be turned into a license for selfishness.  To say, “Eh, I’ll just divorce her and God will forgive me,” is to reveal a lack of the very repentance that opens the heart to forgiveness in the first place.  That mentality makes a mockery of the cross, and God is not mocked.

But for you who have struggled under the taint of the divorced, who have been the object of Satan’s particular attacks and arrows of guilt, may I say to you that Jesus Christ, Lord of Heaven and Earth, is here, now, with open arms.  He loves all of us poor sinners, divorced or not.  His blood is more than sufficient.

Whatever you’ve done or not done, wherever you’ve been or not been, whatever road you walked to get here…the love of Jesus is sufficient!  The grace of Jesus is sufficient!  The blood of Jesus is sufficient!

Come to Jesus, brothers and sisters.  Come to Jesus and live.

Exodus 4:18-31

¹⁸ Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive.” And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.” ¹⁹ And the Lord said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” ²⁰ So Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand. ²¹ And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. ²² Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, ²³ and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’” ²⁴ At a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. ²⁵ Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” ²⁶ So he let him alone. It was then that she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision. ²⁷ The Lord said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. ²⁸ And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him to speak, and all the signs that he had commanded him to do. ²⁹ Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. ³⁰ Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people. ³¹ And the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.

One of the endearing aspects of the books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is the sense of journey and adventure the Hobbits and their party undertake.  Along with it, J.R.R. Tolkien had the Hobbits sing a number of traveling songs as they went.  For instance, The Lord of the Rings, when Bilbo Baggins leaves the ring to Frodo and sets out for Rivendell, he sings this song:

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

It may sound odd to quote that here, but the story of the Exodus is also replete with a sense of journey and adventure, though, unlike Tolkien’s stories, it was a journey and an adventure that really happened!  Even so, had Moses known Bilbo’s travel song, I can’t help but envision him singing it as he takes his staff in his hand, calls his family to his side, and sets his feet on the path back to Egypt.  Actually, it may be more accurate to suggest that Moses might have uttered under his breath the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (had he known them) as he set out.

Half a league half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred:

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns’ he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’

Was there a man dismay’d ?

Not tho’ the soldier knew

Some one had blunder’d:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do & die,

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volley’d & thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Rode the six hundred.

Yes, maybe that poem would capture the mood of what Moses felt better than Bilbo’s song.  After all, walking back into Egypt was no pleasant prospect at all!  Even so, that is what Moses did, as the latter half of Exodus 4 recounts.

I. Moses Embraces His Calling of Deliverance and Judgment (v.18-23)

Moses could not simply up and go.  After all, he had been received kindly into the house of Jethro and he was keeping his flock in Midian.  He owed his father-in-law at least some sense of explanation.

¹⁸ Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive.” And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”

It has been widely pointed out that Moses’ explanation to his father-in-law was not entirely true.  At the least, it was not the whole truth.  It certainly did not explain all that was going on in this trek back to Egypt.

Why so?  Many theories concerning Moses’ wording to Jethro have been proposed, but I am inclined to accept the most natural hypothesis:  it is awkward telling your father-in-law that you are taking his daughter into the teeth of an oppressive regime on the basis of a divine revelation you received from a burning bush on a mountain.  Furthermore, it is awkward telling your father-in-law that you have reason to believe that you will be the chosen instrument through which God will break the yoke of four-hundred years of enslavement for the Hebrews in Egypt.

I remember before I married Roni that my in-laws asked me what my plans were after we were married.  I responded that we were going to get married and move to Texas where I would attend seminary.  “How will you live?” they asked.  “We will get jobs,” I responded.  Etc.  Etc.

It was a legitimate thing for my in-laws to do.  They had the right to ask those questions.  One day, I will do the same.  But take a moment and think how that conversation with Moses would have gone had Jethro pressed him.  Perhaps Moses can be forgiven for not sharing the whole story, though, in truth, he probably underestimated Jethro’s faith.

Next, the Lord speaks to Moses again about what He intends to do in and through him in Egypt.

¹⁹ And the Lord said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” ²⁰ So Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand. ²¹ And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.

The Lord calls upon Moses to execute faithfully all that He was calling Him to do.  It is then that the Lord makes a statement that has troubled many people for many years.  He says, “I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.”  Many are troubled at the notion of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart, then judging him for his hard heart.  However, Augustine rightly pointed out that just because God said He would harden Pharaoh’s heart “it does not…follow that it was not Pharaoh himself that hardened his own heart.”  What he meant was that this divine saying does not mean that Pharaoh’s actions and Pharaoh’s sins did not factor into this hardening.  Augustine interpreted the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart to mean that “both God and Pharaoh caused this hardening of the heart: God, by his just judgments, Pharaoh, by his free will.”  I believe Augustine’s interpretation to be right.

Another helpful insight on this comes from the 5^th/6^th century Christian Caesarius of Arles.

Now let no one along with pagans or Manichaeans dare to censure or blame the justice of God.  It is to be believed as most certain that not the violence of God but his own repeated wickedness and indomitable pride in opposition to God’s commands caused Pharaoh to become hardened.  What does that mean which God said, “I will make him obstinate,” except that when my grace is withdrawn from him his own iniquity will harden him?  In order that this may be known more clearly, we propose to your charity a comparison with visible things.  As often as water is contracted by excessive cold, if the heat of the sun comes upon it, it becomes melted; when the same sun departs the water again becomes hard.  Similarly the charity of many men freezes because of the excessive coldness of their sins, and they become as hard as ice; however, when the warmth of divine mercy comes upon them again, they are melted.[1]

That is a helpful illustration:  sin is the cold that freezes the water and God’s mercy is the heat that melts it.  When God’s mercy is removed, sin has its effect.  This is a mysterious occurrence and one our minds struggle to understand.  I agree with Philip Ryken who sees in this “the paradox of divine sovereignty and human responsibility” and who notes, rightly, that this “is not a puzzle to be solved but a mystery to be adored.”[2]

Following this perplexing statement about Pharaoh, the Lord makes a beautiful assertion concerning Israel:

²² Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, ²³ and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’”

This picture of Israel as God’s firstborn son is, again, beautiful and inspiring.  God is saying that Israel is the special object of His affections.  Furthermore, Israel will see that the will of their Father is done.

The love of God for His people permeates the story of the Exodus.  It is out of love that God remembers.  It is out of love that God acts.  It is out of love that God saves.  He sees in Israel the suffering of His firstborn.  Let us note, however, that Israel is the Lord’s firstborn in terms of His creation but the Lord Jesus is His firstborn in a sense that nobody or no people ever could be.  Israel was created by God.  Jesus is eternal God who was begotten of the Father.

II. Moses’ Family Embraces the Covenant of God (v.24-26)

Moses has embraced his calling, but Moses has not fully obeyed God.  We discover this in verses 24-26, verses that are startling and perplexing.

²⁴ At a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. ²⁵ Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” ²⁶ So he let him alone. It was then that she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision.

Terence Fretheim rather humorously says about verse 24, “The reader has not been prepared very well for this statement…The reader can be forgiven for wondering what is happening.”[3]  I hope we, the readers, can, for we do indeed wonder what is happening in these verses!

All of a sudden, out of the blue (from our perspective), the Lord tries to kill Moses.  Now, I do want to acknowledge that this passage is very difficult to interpret, and it is not even crystal clear exactly who God is trying to kill, Moses or one of his sons.  That being said, the most natural reading suggests he was trying to kill Moses.  Apparently the reason for this is because Moses had not circumcised his son.

However, before God kills Moses, Zipporah, Moses’ wife, grabs a flint, leaps to her son, circumcises him, touches Moses’ feet with the circumcised foreskin of their son, and pronounces Moses “a bridegroom of blood.”  Because of this, God relents and does not kill Moses.

Whew!  Didn’t see that coming!  What is going on here?

Let us remember that the Lord had instituted male circumcision as the physical mark of covenant belonging and faithfulness among the Jews with Abraham in Genesis 17.

¹ When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, ² that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” ³ Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, ⁴ “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. ⁵ No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. ⁶ I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. ⁷ And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. ⁸ And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.” ⁹ And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. ¹⁰ This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. ¹¹ You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. ¹² He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, ¹³ both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. ¹⁴ Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

Circumcision, then, was the dramatic symbol of Israel’s belonging, Israel’s faithfulness, and God’s promise to bless Israel.  It was a very important evidence of identity and obedience, and Moses had not had his son circumcised.  Why?  We do not know.  Ephrem the Syrian actually blames Zipporah for the dilemma, claiming that Moses wanted to circumcise their son but that Zipporah had forbidden it.[4]  This seems absurd.  First of all, the Bible simply never says or hints at that idea.  Second, Zipporah is the one who acts swiftly to circumcise their son.  Third, Moses, not Zipporah, is the object of God’s wrath in this scene.  To be honest, it is difficult to read this passage and see Zipporah as anything but the hero of this little scene.

Whatever the reasons, Moses had not circumcised his son, and God took great issue with this.  Why?  Because Moses’ disobedience in this crucial area revealed a lack of complete surrender and obedience on his part and because a leader of Israel who had not brought his own family into covenant faithfulness to God would be a stumbling block to Israel instead of an aid.  How could the people be expected to follow Moses when Moses himself had been disobedient?  How could the people trust that Moses was God’s man when Moses was not following God?  How could the people even really believe that Moses was hearing from God if he had apparently not even heeded God’s call in this basic matter of identity and obedience?  Furthermore, it is an established fact that disobedience in the small things usually leads to disobedience in the big things.  Moses was about to be tested in ways he could not imagine.  How could he be expected to demonstrate radical obedience to God in the fiery trials he would soon face if he had not demonstrated such in the simple matter of circumcising his son.

More is happening here, though, than mere circumcision.  If you step back and look at this strange little section, you’ll notice certain big ideas behind it that will become crucial to Israel’s understanding of the gospel when Jesus came preaching it.  Namely, implicit in this story are the grand themes of the holiness of God, the wrath of God against sin, intercession, the shedding of blood, and forgiveness of sin on the basis of that shed blood.  It has been pointed out that this little scene is a foreshadowing of the Passover.  Just as the blood of Moses’ son caused God to pass over him without killing him, so the blood of the lamb on the doorpost would cause the angel of death to pass over the houses of Israel in Egypt.  That is true.  It does foreshadow the Passover.  But the Passover is itself a foreshadowing of the cross of Jesus Christ.  In this sense, all of these types, even if they point to each other in a secondary sense, point to Jesus in a primary sense.

Moses had sinned.  God was coming to execute judgment against Moses.  An intercessor, Zipporah, acted.  Moses was “covered” in the blood of the son.  God did not execute judgment on Moses because he was under the blood of the son.  In startling types and images, that is a picture of the gospel right here in Moses’ journey to Egypt.

We have sinned against God.  Because of our sins, we are under His judgment.  As He comes to destroy us, however, we have an intercessor, Jesus, who acts.  He lays down His life for His sheep.  He is sacrificed.  When we trust in Him we are covered by His blood.  On that basis, and on that basis only, we are cleansed and forgiven.  The judgment falls on Jesus who took our sins upon Himself.  He gets the punishment and we get the righteousness.  He is slain and we are forgiven.  And, of course, we need never mention the gospel without mentioning its consummation in the victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The son does not remain slain.  He rises in victory over sin, death, and hell.

III. The People Dare to Embrace Unlooked-For Hope (v.27-31)

The Lord forgives Moses and then He calls Aaron, Moses’ helper, to Moses’ side.

²⁷ The Lord said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. ²⁸ And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him to speak, and all the signs that he had commanded him to do.

Let us notice again the kindness and mercy of God.  God had called Moses to this daunting task.  Moses, in his weakness, calls out for a helper.  The Lord graciously gives him Aaron, though, once again, Aaron’s presence does not mean that Moses is free from his calling.  Aaron will be Moses’ mouth, but Moses remains God’s man.  He has made them a team, but Moses remains the captain of the team.

²⁹ Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. ³⁰ Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people. ³¹ And the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.

Here is a beautiful and moving scene indeed!  Moses and Aaron assemble the people in Egypt, and Aaron tells the startling story of God’s revelation to Moses of coming deliverance.  How will they respond?  Will they dare to believe that this can be true?  They do!  “And the people believed; and when they heard the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.”

We are privileged to witness here the dawning of hope!  The people dare to believe and dare to hope.  In the darkest chapter of their story, a ray of light breaks in.  It comes in the most unlikely of ways:  through the person of their fragile and flawed leader, Moses, and his assistant, Aaron.

At the heart of the gospel of Christ is hope.  The good news about Jesus calls us to dare to believe that God can deliver us from the worst enslavements we face.  Stanley Hauerwas once prayed this prayer before his students at Duke Divinity School:

Invade our bodies with your hope, dear Lord, that we might manifest the enthusiasm of your kingdom.  Give us the energy of children, whose lives seem fired by the wonder of it all.  Thank God, you have given us good work, hopeful work.  Our lives are not just one pointless thing after another.  We have purpose.  But give us also your patience.  School our hope with humility, recognizing that finally it is a matter of your will being done. Too often our hope turns to optimism, optimism to despair, despair to cynicism.  Save our hope by Israel-like patience so that we can learn to wait hopefully in joy.  Surely that is why you give us children – signs of hope requiring infinite patience.  Give us hope so we can learn to wait.  Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.  Amen.[5]

Do you remember when you first encountered the audacious claims of the gospel?  Do you remember when you first dared to hope that you, a sinner, could be forgiven all your sins and set free?  Do you remember that?  I suspect your first reaction to receiving this good news was the same as Israel’s first reaction:  “they bowed their heads and worshiped.”

I do so love that the passage ends in that way.  What else could they do but bow their heads and worship?  Into their nightmare experience in Egypt, God spoke light and hope and truth.  Into the seemingly never-ending darkness of their enslavement, an unlooked-for note of deliverance rings out.

Is it possible?  Could this be true?

And there stands Moses, mute in his own insecurities, and Aaron, speaking words that he himself was still trying to grasp.  And they are standing before Israel announcing, “The night is coming to an end.  The sun is beginning to rise.  The long nightmare is concluding.  God has remembered His people.  God is coming to set us free.”

That, friends, was the hope of Israel.  That, friends, is the hope of the world through the One to whom the whole story of Israel points:  Jesus.  And we, now, are heralds of the same amazing and startling good news:  night is ending.  The sun is rising.  It is time to go home.

But before we are heralds we must be recipients.  We must marvel in this good news ourselves before we can announce it to others.  Have you received the good news?  There, in your very own Egypt, have you dared to believe that God has sent One, Jesus, to bring you home?
I pray you have.

Matthew 5:27-30

²⁷ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ²⁸ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. ²⁹ If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. ³⁰ And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

A few years ago I picked up a copy of Leo Tolstoy’s little novel, The Kreutzer Sonata.  It is a troubling story about a man named Pozdnyshev and his fall into moral degeneracy.  It culminates, ultimately, in him murdering his wife after he discovers her in a relationship with another man.  But the book is primarily concerned with sexual temptation and the morally crippling sin of lust.  In the story, Pozdnyshev tells how he fell into a life of lust and, finally, into a life of libertinism and sexual anarchy.

Two years before I had been corrupted by coarse boys.  Already woman, not any particular woman, but woman as a sweet something, woman, any woman…already begun to torment me.  My solitudes were unchaste.  I was tormented as ninety-nine per cent of our boys are tormented.  I was afraid, I struggled, I prayed, and – I fell!  My imagination was already corrupt.  I myself was corrupt but the final step had not yet been taken.  I was ruined by myself even before I had put my hands on another human being.

Following this, Pozdnyshev recounts the aftermath of his first actual foray into sexual sin.

I did not even realize that this was a fall.  I simply began to give myself up to those pleasures, to those necessities, which, as it was suggested to me, were natural – gave myself up to this dissipation in the same way that I had begun to drink and smoke.  And yet there was something unusual and pathetic in this first fall.  I remember well how immediately – even before I left that room – a feeling of sadness, deep sadness, came over me, so that I felt like weeping, weeping for the loss of my innocence, for a forever sullied relationship to womanhood.  Yes, the natural, simple relationship I had enjoyed with women was now forever impossible.  Purity of relationship with any woman was at an end; it could never be again.  I had become what is called a libertine.  And to be a libertine is to be in a physical condition like that of a drug addict, a drunkard, or a smoker.  As any one of these is no longer a normal man, so a man who uses women for his own pleasure is no longer normal; he is a man forever spoiled – a libertine.  As the drunkard or the addict can be instantly recognized by his face, by his actions, so it is with the rake.  He may restrain himself, may struggle with his inclinations, but his simple, pure, sincere, and fraternal relations with woman are no longer possible.  By the very way in which he looks at a young woman, or stares at her, the libertine is recognized.  So I became a libertine, and I remained one, and that was my ruin.[1]

Two things strike me about Pozdyneshev’s story.  The first is his comment, “I was ruined by myself even before I had put my hands on another human being.” And the second is his comment, “By the very way in which he looks at a young woman, or stares at her, the libertine is recognized.”

This is fascinating because it stands in perfect harmony with what Jesus says in our text this morning.  It is indeed possible to ruin ourselves inwardly without ever having touched another human being.  And there is a way we can look at people that reveals the true state of our own hearts and souls.  This is indeed fascinating and this is also troubling, because very few cultures in the history of the world have provided such sensually depraved and easily accessible images to look at as our own.  One need only leave the house, or cut on the computer, or watch television, or watch television commercials, or even listen to the radio to be confronted with these images.

We are in a strange and dangerous time as a nation.  Our nation seems to have forgotten the great danger of sexual license to the human soul, and seems, instead, to have plunged into a sea of moral debauchery to a startling extent.  I was intrigued to read, some years back, that Tom Wolfe, the author of Bonfire of the Vanities, was complaining about the sexual chaos of modern, American culture.  What intrigued me was that Wolfe is himself, using his terminology, “not religious.”  But still, he sees the problem.  He said:

Yes, there is this Puritanism, and I suppose we are talking here about what you might call the religious right.  But I don’t think these people are left or right, they are just religious, and if you are religious, you observe certain strictures on sexual activity – you are against the mainstream, morally speaking.  And I do have sympathy with them, yes, though I am not religious.  I am simply in awe of it all; the openness of sex.  In the 60s they talked about a sexual revolution, but it has become a sexual carnival.[2]

That’s a good way to put it:  the sexual revolution has become a sexual carnival.  We might even say that it has become sexual chaos.  In an essay from a few years ago, the Italian novelist Umberto Eco, himself not a Christian either, also complained about the general coarsening of society.  Like Wolfe, Eco referred to the modern “Carnivalization of life.”  He suggested that things had become so deranged in the world that soon, in order to be provocative and degraded, a man will likely be sidling up next to a woman and saying in a low, suggestive voice, “Hey, honey, doing anything after the orgy?”[3]

I. The Greatest Tragedy of Sexual Sin is its Distortion of a Great Gift

Our treatment of sexual sin does not begin with ugliness but with beauty.  It begins with the beauty of the gift of human sexuality, a gift given to us all by God, a gift with enormous power for good, a good that draws us into the very process of creation itself.  It is a powerful gift involving powerful realities:  the making of two people into one flesh, the creation of a physical and emotional and spiritual bond that goes beyond even the deep bond of friendship, human pleasure and joy, and the human dynamics of trust, devotion, communication, and care.

Sexual desire is such a powerful and profound reality, that neurophysiologists tell us it is “best understood as an emergent property of at least four interlocking physiological systems, at least eleven different regions of the brain, more than thirty distinct biochemical mechanisms, and literally hundreds of specific genes supporting these various processes.”[4]  That is to say, sexuality involves the whole person, though it ought not define the whole person.  It is a whole-body act, which means that it is a whole-body gift from God.  It also means that to use it sinfully makes it a whole-body sin.  Thus, Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 6:

¹⁸ Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. ¹⁹ Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, ²⁰ for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Sexual sin is a sin against the whole body, but the other side of that is the glorious truth that sexual obedience is a blessing for the whole body.  Again, sex itself is a great good.

It is therefore a tragedy that many Christians throughout Christian history have not stressed the beauty and goodness of sex and its rightful and appropriate place in the marriage relationship.  Let us be clear:  the Lord God calls creation good and all the good gifts He has given us in creation.  To say that sex is inherently ignoble or inherently bad is to blaspheme against God, for it is God who gives us this gift.  To suggest that sex itself is somehow regrettable is itself regrettable.

It is a good gift from a good God given to His people for their joy.  This is what makes sexual sin so dastardly and so tragic:  it distorts and misuses this good gift, and, instead of joy, brings enslavement and pain.

Imagine if you gave your son the gift of a treasured and beloved portrait of his great-great-Grandfather and your son decided to beat the dog to death with it.  Imagine if you gave your daughter a generations-old letter opener that had been passed down in your family since the time of the Revolutionary War and she used it to stab her brother.  Imagine if you took your children on their dream vacation and it’s on that trip that they tell you they hate you and are running away from home.

All of those are bad actions, but they’re made triply bad by the fact that they are distorting a good gift given.  To seek to seize hold of human sexuality in order to wield it for our own personal and selfish ends is to take a gift that has been given for our good and our joy and turn it against our Maker.

What is even more astounding is how we are tempted to use human sexuality as a replacement for God Himself.  In this sense, sex becomes our search for transcendence, our search for something more, and we end up worshiping it instead of God.  To view it in this way is to exalt the gift above the Giver.  In fact, it is to use a gift to blot out the sight of the One who has given it.  In Romans 1, Paul speaks of the connection between sexual sin and idolatry:

²¹ For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. ²⁴ Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵ because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

To worship and idolize creation, be it a sunrise, the ocean, or sex itself, is to distort and pervert that which we are idolizing.  Sex is not bigger than God, and, when sex becomes a god, it really only becomes a demon…and demons never satisfy.  Our culture bears all the marks of a society that is idolizing sex and destroying it and ourselves in the process.  Your heart was made for God, and nothing, including the good gifts He has given, can take His place.  Calvin Miller wrote this in The Divine Symphony:

The illicit

Does not exhilarate.

It but indicts:

The sweetness of all adultery

Leaves just before the splendor,

Destroying the ecstasy

We thought might linger

To eliminate the shame.[5]

Sex outside of the worship of God is an idol that will not satisfy.  That is why a culture will either bring sex under the dominion of the God who gave it, or it will continuously idolize sex in an effort to make it more godlike.  But this leads to more and more perversion.  The philosopher Simon Blackburn put it like this:  “Living with lust is like living shackled to a lunatic.”[6]  He is right.  Lust is tempting us to attempt something insane:  to satisfy the human heart outside of God.  Failing to do so, lust turns us inward on the insanity of ourselves.

Let us also approach this as Christians.  As Christians we realize that the temptation to idolize sex is part of the Fall of man.  There is something within us, a sin nature, that seeks to distort God’s good gifts for our own means and ends.  We do not naturally think rightly about these issues.  Naturally, we are selfish about them and clouded in our thinking.  I repeat:  something is wrong with what we would call “the sex drive.”  It has been warped, misshapen by the sin nature we inherit and the sin nature we willingly perpetrate.

One can hear the frustration over this truth in Frederick Beuchner’s powerful words:

Lust is the ape that gibbers in our loins. Tame him as we will by day, he rages all the wilder in our dreams by night. Just when we think we’re safe from him, he raises up his ugly head and smirks, and there’s no river in the world flows cold and strong enough to strike him down. Almighty God, why dost thou deck men out with such a loathsome toy?

We are all sinners.  We are all sexually fallen.  And we all must seek to bring our crooked hearts back under the Lordship of Jesus Christ so that He might lead us into thinking rightly about the goodness and proper uses of this great gift.

Restored to its proper place, sex becomes again an occasion for seeing and understanding the goodness of God.  It becomes an occasion for worship and for joy and for peace.  It was not given to us to lead us into repeated cycles of addiction and darkness and guilt and shame.  It was given to us to bind us together under the blessed hand of God and, in so doing, to bring us together into a greater understanding of His love for us.

This is the greatest tragedy of sexual sin:  its misuse of something good.

II. Sexual Sin is Committed In the Heart Before It is Committed by the Body (v.27-28)

Jesus speaks of this tragedy in ways that reveal the true depths of the problem.

²⁷ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ²⁸ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Just as he did with anger, Jesus shows that the real problem with sexual sin is a heart problem before it is a body problem.  I repeat:  sexual sin begins in the heart and not in the actions of the body.

Many of the Jews had come to take a kind of pride in the fact that they had not literally violated the commandment, that they had not literally, physically committed adultery with their bodies.  But Jesus sees the deeper issue.  Jesus knows that though sin may reveal itself in our bodies it is born in our hearts.  Adultery really does begin in the heart, as do all sins.  R. Kent Hughes wisely said, “No sensual sin was ever committed that was not first imagined.”[7]

Jesus says it is adultery to “look at a woman with lustful intent.”  Charles Quarles points out that the word “look” is a Greek present participle and could be translated, “everyone who keeps on looking.”  He defines it as “a sensual stare, a lustful gawking.”[8]  This is not a glance.  This is not even a recognition of beauty.  This is the second glance leading to a long look, a look fueled by thoughts of more than beauty.  This is adultery of the eyes, and it is a common problem indeed.

I have a friend who once discovered that a friend of his was having an affair.  I asked him when he realized this was the case.  He said it was when he saw his friend talking to another woman to whom he seemed unusually close.  He said that although their words were measured and careful, there was something in the way he looked at her.  It was in his eyes.  And, it turns out, his hunch was right.

Our eyes are steered by our hearts.  We first consume with our eyes that which our hearts most desire.  In Proverbs 6:25, Solomon writes, “Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes.”  The fixation of the eyes has the ability to capture the heart, just as the fixation of the heart has the ability to steer the eyes.

In William Golding’s novel, The Spire, Dean Jocelyn is fixated on a woman who is not his wife.  He is obsessed with her and cannot help but stare at her.  It is the sight of her hair that most grips his heart and leads him to lust after her.  He is captivated by this woman.

This is lust:  the over-long look that moves from recognition to imagination, from acknowledgment to desire, or, as somebody once put it, “from ‘Wow!’ to “How?’”  This lustful look must be guarded against and it is difficult to disguise.

I was trying this week to think of an example of a lustful look, and my mind went to little Ralphie in “A Christmas Story.”  Do you remember when his father wins the grand prize?  The prize is a lamp in the shape of a woman’s leg.  Ralphie’s mother is mortified as her husband puts it on the table in front of the picture window for all to see.  But Ralphie is not mortified.  He is transfixed, and I daresay that if you have seen that movie you will remember the look on Ralphie’s face as he reaches up to touch the lamp.

It need not even be a long look to be lustful.  I am thinking here of the end of the novel, Elmer Gantry, when the disgraced and recently-restored womanizing preacher, Elmer Gantry, ironically calls on the congregation to join him in praying for moral renewal in America.  As Gantry kneels to pray in front of the congregation, he turns his head and notices the ankles of a beautiful young woman.  In writing that little scene, Sinclair Lewis was giving us a glimpse into Elmer Gantry’s heart through Elmer Gantry’s eyes…and his heart was still corrupt.

I am thinking of Leopold Bloom and Gertie McDowell in James Joyce’s Ulysses, who commit sexual sin with each other from a distance with their eyes.  I’m thinking of the very essence of pornography, which bids us to sexual sin through grabbing the attention of our eyes.  And I’m thinking of all the ways, both subtle and explicit, that human beings look at each other suggestively and inappropriately.

Our eyes can lead us into captivity.  “The righteousness of the upright delivers them,” Proverbs 11:6 tells us,
”but the treacherous are taken captive by their lust.”  Our culture is one in which the prisons of lust and devastation of this imprisonment are evident all around us.

III. Sexual Sin is so Dangerous that Radical Steps to Handle It Are Appropriate (v.29-30)

What, then, are we to do?  How are we to combat this prison of lust?  To be sure, Christians have often gone to odd extremes in trying to combat it.

For instance, in Jesus’ day there was a group known as “the bleeding Pharisees.”  These men were so concerned about adultery that they covered their eyes when they went out in public so that they would not be tempted to lust by the sight of a woman. The 2^nd/3^rd century church father, Origen of Alexandria, Egypt, sought to combat lust by rolling naked over sharp briars.  Following that, he castrated himself.  That may sound extreme (and, of course, it is!), but the practice of self-castration became so widely adopted among Christian men that the Canons of the 4^th century Council of Nicea had to address the issue and demand that men stop doing this. Saint Aloysius used to scourge himself until the blood flowed from his body.  Then he would put pieces of wood beneath his blanket to cause him pain during the night.  He also put riding spurs beneath his clothes so they would cut into and harrass him as he moved about during the day. Bonaventure tells us that Francis of Assisi, when he battled with lust, would throw himself into a ditch of icy water so as to “preserve the white robe of purity from the flames of sensual pleasure.” It is said that St. Jerome would resort to translating Hebrew whenever he battled with lust. [9]

Well, those are more or less extreme examples, but does God’s Word give us any help in this area of combating lust and sexual sin?  Thankfully, it does.  Let me offer some suggests here.

(1) Let your eyes be fixed on a greater beauty:  that of Jesus Christ.

The key to overcome lesser desires is to let them be dominated by a greater desire.  Lust, pornography, sexual sins, and all that go with them are fools’ gold desires.  They are distortions of the greatest good and they enslave us to petty taskmasters who, in turn, torture us unrelentingly.  Lust does not satisfy, but it tempts through desire.

If you are a Christian, however, there is one desire that eclipses them all because it is concentrated on one beauty that is greater than all.  I am talking here about the beauty of Jesus Christ.  Our hearts should be so filled with awe and admiration of the glory of God in Jesus that they do not have room for distorted images of lesser desires.

Consider the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7.  Consider the image that grabbed his attention as the Jews were literally stoning him to death.

⁵⁴ Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. ⁵⁵ But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ⁵⁶ And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” ⁵⁷ But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. ⁵⁸ Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. ⁵⁹ And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” ⁶⁰ And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

It is a stunning martyrdom account!  Stephen is so filled with awe at the resplendent beauty and glory of Jesus Christ, that he does not notice what is happening to his body.  In the same way, when our body is getting attacked and assaulted with lustful images and desires, let us turn our whole attention, immediately and completely, to the greater beauty of Jesus Christ.

St. Jerome struggled mightily with lust.  Even when he had isolated himself from other human beings, his mind and heart lusted after women.  This is what he said:

There was I, therefore, who from fear of hell had condemned myself to such a prison, with only scorpions and wild beasts as companions.  Yet I was often surrounded by dancing girls.  My face was pale from fasting, and my mind was hot with desire in a body as cold as ice.  Though my flesh, before its tenant, was already as good as dead, the fires of the passions kept boiling within me.

And so, destitute of all help, I used to lie at Jesus’ feet.  I bathed with my tears, I wiped them with my hair.  When my flesh rebelled, I subdued it by weeks of fasting.[10]

Yes.  Come to the feet of Jesus and lie there when you are tempted to flee to the false god of lust.  My our hearts be so filled with His face that there is no room for any idol.

(2) Make the decision not to lust.

This may sound simple, but it is an honest question:  do you want not to lust?  Do you want to be free?  Many people say they do but they really don’t.  For people caught up in deep patterns of lust, the thought of life without pornography or without adultery or without the momentary thrill of sexual sin is actually a scary thought.

I am thinking here of St. Augustine, who famously described in his Confessions that, as a young man, he half-heartedly prayed for chastity in this way:  “Give me chastity…but not yet.”[11]  Against Augustine’s youthful foolishness, consider the resolve and determination of Job in Job 31:1.  “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman.” (NIV)

Have you made the decision to honor God with your heart, mind, and eyes?

(3) Run!

Our third suggestion may sound absurd, but I mean it as literally as I possibly can:  run!  RUN!!  Consider that in 1 Corinthians 6:18, Paul tells us to “flee from sexual immorality.”  In 1 Corinthians 10:14, he says, “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.”  He tells young Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:22, “So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”

Genesis 39 tells of a time when the wife of an Egyptian official named Potiphar came onto Joseph:

¹¹ One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. ¹² She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.

He ran out of the house!  Do not be where you should not be.  If you find yourself where you should not be, run quickly away.

(4) Get rid of whatever you need to get rid of in whatever way you need to get rid of it.

For our fourth piece of advice, consider the last two verses in our text this morning.

²⁹ If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. ³⁰ And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

As we’ve already mentioned, some people have followed this literally, though it seems clear that Jesus is speaking hyperbolically to make an important point:  get rid of whatever you need to get rid of in whatever way you need to get rid of it.  I would suggest that Jesus’ words are not literal because (a) a literal reading would actually work against his main point of sexual sin being born in the human heart and (b) the literal enactment of this teaching would render the whole world blind and hands-less.  No, Jesus is using a fairly common rhetorical device in speaking so shockingly, but that fact does not speak against the jarring point that we should take whatever steps we need to take to rid ourselves of whatever is ensnaring us in this area.

Let me offer my own shocking thought:  you do not have to have a TV.  You do not have to have internet access.  You do not have to go to movies with obscene content.  You do not have to watch shows that you know will tempt you.  You do not have to carpool with that person who tempts you.  You do not have to live in that neighborhood (though you do have to live around people!).  You do not have to work at that job.  If you do, you may not have to be in that cubicle next to that person.  You do not have to go to that gym.  You do not have to run on that treadmill next to that person.  You do not have to jog down that street.  You do not have to have text messaging.  You do not have to go to that dog park.  You do not have to go to that beach.  You do not have to shop at that store.  You do not have to receive that magazine or that catalogue.  You do not have to date her.  You do not have to date him.  You do not have to be friends with him.  You do not have to shop at that store where you know she works.  You do not have to go to that restaurant where you know she is a waitress.

Do you see?  Do you see that if we were really serious about guarding our souls from lust, we would do whatever we need to do to guard our souls?  Most of the time, we simply are not willing to “cut off that hand” or “gouge out that eye.”  You cannot withdraw from society.  Even if you did you would still have to contend with your own heart.  But you can make whatever changes you need to make within society to guard your own soul.

(5) If you are married, delight yourself in your own spouse.

This is basic.  This is critical.  Delight yourself in your own wife or husband.  Though the wording may make us blush, the wisdom that the father gives the son in Proverbs 5 is very important:

¹⁵ Drink water from your own cistern,
running water from your own well.

¹⁶ Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?

¹⁷ Let them be yours alone,
never to be shared with strangers.

¹⁸ May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.

¹⁹ A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you ever be intoxicated with her love.

²⁰ Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife?
Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?

Indeed!  Fall deeper and deeper into love with your own spouse.  Nurture your own marriage.  Be satisfied with your spouse.

(6) Confess and seek help.

It is God’s will for us that we have victory in this area.  In 1 Thessalonians 4, we read this:

² For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. ³ For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; ⁴ that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, ⁵ not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; ⁶ that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. ⁷ For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. ⁸ Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

How, then, are we to be holy in this area?  Confession is certainly one of the ways that this can happen.  May I remind you that God’s Word encourages us to confess our sins to one another and to talk about these things?  In James 5:16, James writes, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

To whom should you confess your struggles?  I would suggest that in the area of sexual sin, private confession to a trusted, mature Christian brother or sister is best.  If he or she is indeed trusted and mature, he or she will not slam a door in your face, laugh at you, judge you, or reject you.  Rather, he or she will pray with you, walk with you, cry with you, and help you.

May I suggest that it is precisely at this point that we as Christians often fail each other?  We do not talk about these things.  Somehow the subject of sexual sin is still taboo.  As a result, many Christian men and women who want victory are struggling in silence and in pain.  They are drowning in a sea of shame.  They do not know to whom they should speak.

We must become the kind of church that helps one another in all of our broken areas, without judgment or self-righteousness.  We must become the type of people who loves one another in the awkwardness of sexual sin, lifting one another up, encouraging one another, helping each other to heal and start again.

In conclusion, let me say this to you who have failed in this area, to you who are drowning in shame and fear:  the Lord God loves you.  He created you.  He wants you to be at peace.  He wants to give you that peace.  Jesus forgives sexual sin.  That is not an excuse to continue in sexual sin, for to do so would mean you are seeking to use Jesus for your own selfish ends.  Forgiveness is not an excuse for further sin, but forgiveness is a beautiful promise for those who have sinned.

Brothers and sisters:  Jesus is in the business of putting the broken pieces of our lives back together again.  Jesus wants to restore you and make you whole.

Will you come to Him today?  Will you give Him this area of your life?  Will you give Him your whole life?  He is our only hope.

Matthew 5:21-26

²¹ “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ ²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. ²³ So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. ²⁵ Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. ²⁶ Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

The Southern Baptist Convention, of which Central Baptist Church is a part, has seven seminaries.  That is, there are seven seminaries that receive Cooperative Program funding and are officially considered to be “our seminaries.”  Each seminary has a president, as well as other officers.  While our seminaries are not perfect, they are, I believe, by and large, a credit to Southern Baptists.  Even so, they are staffed by human beings and, over the years, problems and conflicts inevitably arise.

One such conflict caught my attention some years ago.  It involved the firing of one of our seminary presidents.  I will not name the president or the seminary, for nobody should be dogged by their sins from years ago, especially when, as a friend of mine who knows him informed me, he genuinely repented and the Lord has done a real work of grace in his heart.

The title of the article I read reporting on his initial confession of wrongdoing to the Board of Trustees (that shortly thereafter led to his firing) was, “_________ Seminary president told to deal with his anger.”  The article reported that this seminary president had a serious problem with anger and that he “repeatedly bec[a]me enraged [and] used profanity with subordinates.”  The president confessed to all of this.  His particular wording struck me as interesting.  He said he had been guilty of “misappropriation of anger.”[1]

That wording (“misappropriation of anger”) is interesting because it means the “misuse” or “wrongful use” of anger.  If the brother in question used anger wrongly, that means it is possible to use anger rightly.  And, of course, we would all agree that there is a rightful appropriation of anger.  We should be angry, for instance, against injustice, the abuse of the weak by the strong, the perversion of the gospel, etc.  There are times when we should be angry.  There are even times when it is wrong not to be angry, as in the examples I just mentioned above.  For instance, in a poem by Jane M. Nirella, she writes:

God,

Grant me the grace

of anger,

Turn me into

a howling wind

to hasten change

where injustice stagnates;

make of me

a tempest

to conquer grinding sorrow.

Hammer at my

hard heart’s door;

smash the lock

of my indifference.

May the grace of anger

transform

my cowardly spirit.

Amen.[2]

In this case, Mrs. Nirella asks the Lord to help her be angry about injustice in the world.  It is almost a cry of repentance for her lack of anger.  We should have righteous anger over evil in the world.  Even so, it must be said that the majority of times we deal with anger it has more to do with pride than righteousness.  More times than not, our anger is a revelation of our own sinfulness and our own distance from God.

A few years ago I reached a point where I felt like I just needed to clear my own head, so I took an afternoon and took a long, slow walk through a place called Calloway Gardens in Columbus, GA.  Calloway Gardens is a lot like Garvan Gardens in Hot Springs.  On the way I picked up, on a whim, a little paperback copy of the sayings of that strange group of men we call “the Desert Fathers.”  The Desert Fathers is a phrase referring to a number of Christian men and women who withdrew from society moved to the desert to live in solitude in the 3^rd and 4^th centuries.  While they did not seek attention, they got plenty of it, and people soon flocked to see them and hear what they had to say.

As I sat in the little chapel at Calloway Gardens reading this collection of sayings, I was struck by how many times the Desert Fathers mentioned the dangers of anger.  For instance, one of the Desert Fathers named Agatho was prone to say, “Even if an angry man were to revive the dead, he would not be pleasing to God because of his anger.”  Another, a man named Isidore, who was the elder of Scete, was asked by another brother, “Why is it that the demons are so grievously afraid of you?”  He replied, “From the moment I became a monk I have striven to prevent anger rising to my lips.”  Another Desert Father, Ammonas, spent fourteen years praying that he would be free of anger.[3]

Yes, we are more apt to misappropriate anger than to use it appropriately.  And oftentimes, as in the case of the seminary president mentioned above, anger gets the better of us and we end up paying quite a price for it.  It is therefore all the more significant to notice that Jesus, after calling on His followers to exercise righteousness, began his list of illustrations of this exercise of righteous with a warning about anger.

²¹ “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ ²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. ²³ So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. ²⁵ Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. ²⁶ Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

I. The “You have heard…But I Say” Formula Establishes the Deity of Jesus (v.21-22)

Before we consider anger in particular, I would like for us to acknowledge a shocking little formula that Jesus uses here and that He will use in the five illustrations following this (that we will consider over the next five weeks).  You can find this formula in the beginning phrases of verses 21 and 22.

²¹ “You have heard that it was said to those of old… ²² But I say to you…

Why is this shocking?  It is shocking because, in using it, Jesus is claiming deity for Himself.  He is, in fact, claiming to be God.  How so?  Because when Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said,” He is referring to Almighty God.  We know this because God is the one who gave the commandment that Jesus goes on to quote (“You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.”).  Furthermore, in the five illustrations that follow this one, Jesus begins with that phrase or some variation of it:  “You have heard that it was said to those of old…”  In every case He then mentions one of the commandments.

Of course, it was appropriate and right for a Rabbi to say that:  “You have heard that it was said to those of old…”  What He says next, though, is a very big problem:  “But I say to you…”  While Jesus does not go on to rebut the commandments or reject them (as we saw last week, such a notion was completely absent from His mind), He does interpret them in ways that were unique and surprising.

I do not wish to belabor this point.  I simply want to point out that unless Jesus is Himself God, the phrase, “But I say to you,” after the phrase, “You know what God said before,” is monstrously blasphemous.  If I ever stand before you and say, “God’s Word says this…but I say…” you should run me out on a rail before I finish the sentence.  Why?  Because no human being has the right to say, “But I say to you,” after quoting the words of God.  Only God can rightly say what God means and intends.  Thus, for Jesus to say, “But I say to you,” is for Jesus to say a great deal about Himself.

At this point we also need to recognize an important Old Testament prophecy that was fulfilled by Jesus Christ.  We need to do grasp this now or else we will not understand what Jesus is doing with these, “But I say to you,” phrases.  The passage is in Jeremiah 31:

³¹ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, ³² not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. ³³ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

The Lord said that He would establish a new covenant, a new agreement with His people.  One of the central marks of this covenant is that it will reposition the Law of God from outside of man to inside of man’s heart.  Meaning, the fulfillment of the Law will have less to do with adherence to external rules than it has to do with the internal condition of the human heart.  (Though, again, let us remember that Jesus adamantly said He did not come to abolish the Law.)

I would suggest that this was the intent and upshot of the Law all the time, but what the Lord said was that the day would come when that reality (i.e., the reality that the Law is only truly abided by and fulfilled when righteousness takes root in the human heart) would move to the forefront.  Why this is significant for us to understand at this point is because it is here, in the Sermon on the Mount, and in this section of the Sermon in particular, that Jesus begins to define righteousness in terms of heart-health not rule-keeping.  As we will see today and in the weeks to come, Jesus moves us to a deeper understanding of the nature of righteousness and holiness.  And, in so doing, He shows that the new covenant that God said would come had indeed come in Jesus Himself.  This is why, in Luke 22:20, at the last supper, Jesus takes the cup and says, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

II. Unchecked Anger is a Great Evil That Will Be Judged (v.21-22)

To illustrate how the new covenant under which we live works, Jesus begins with the issue of anger.

²¹ “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’

So here we have the Law, the sixth commandment to be exact.  “Do not murder.”  And for ages upon ages, the people of God sought to abide by that commandment.  Of course, it is a measurable commandment.  You have either killed somebody or you haven’t.  At least, that’s how the commandment came to be viewed.  So the scribes and Pharisees, and, likely, everybody, came to view this commandment with a kind of indifference.  After all, most people have probably not killed somebody.  So this became one of the “filler” commandments in the popular consciousness.  “You shall not murder.”  “No problem,” we are inclined to think, “I haven’t murdered anybody!”

That seems clear cut.  But then Jesus adds His, “But I say to you,” and are attention is grabbed.

²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

Do you see what Jesus is doing?  God said, “A new covenant is coming.  The Law will be written on your heart.  The heart is where true righteousness is found.”  And Jesus says, essentially, “Ok, you haven’t murdered anybody.  But what is the heart issue that leads to murder?  It is anger.  To have anger in your heart toward another person is to murder him.  What good is it if you have not murdered with your hands if you are consistently murdering with your heart?”

The wording Jesus uses here is significant. Charles Quarles notes that “the term used for ‘anger’ (orgizo) here is a very intense term.  Elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel, the term is used only of anger that is a prelude to destructive behavior…The verse is never used to describe the anger of Jesus.”  Further, Quarles points to the fact that the word is a present participle, which denotes an ongoing, progressive state, to suggest that the word is used by Jesus to refer to “enduring anger as well as destructive rage.”[4]

So the anger Jesus is speaking of is the kind of anger that would lead to murder.  This is a deep spirit of anger, a kind of growing rage that slowly grips the angry person.  I do not say this to excuse our small bursts of anger.  In fact, the small bursts of anger we indulge lead inevitably to this deep spirit of anger.  Anger also leads to murder, but, before it gets there, it usually manifests itself verbally in insults.

^22b …whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

A.T. Robertson says that (raca) is an Aramaic word meaning “empty” and that the word for “You fool!” (more) is a Greek word meaning dull or stupid.  What is more, the word raca contains a phonetic insult in that the Aramaic pronunciation of it sounds like a man clearing his through to spit in another man’s face.[5]  Roberson quotes Bruce to the effect that raca communicates contempt for a man’s head while more, “fool,” communicates contempt for a man’s heart.[6]  So we are speaking here of anger that emanates from an enraged heart and that manifests itself initially in verbal assaults but would, if it could, manifest itself in physical assault.

If you think that you can traffic in verbal assaults without going all the way to physical assaults, please note that Jesus is putting insults as the first step in an inherently progressive process that leads to murder itself.  The heart that would insult is in fact the heart that would kill.  It does no good to say that you have merely insulted a human being, but you haven’t killed him.  In fact, an insult is nothing less than character assassination and an effort to kill a man’s name.  It is a form of murder, and it may, in fact, lead to murder.

Anger is progressive in the way that lust is progressive.  It is never satisfied.  This is likely why, if you read verse 22 carefully, the punishments for anger that Jesus mentions are increasingly more and more intense.

²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

If you’re angry, you’re liable to judgment in court.  If you call your brother raca you will have to stand before the Sanhedrin, the high Jewish court.  And if you call a man a fool you are “liable to the hell of fire.”

We should see anger for the ugly thing it is.  Martin Luther, a man who struggled with anger himself, said this:

We indulge in anger, rage, and villainy as though we were doing a fine and noble thing.  Really, it is high time that we started to deplore and bewail how much we have acted like rogues and like unseeing, unruly, and unfeeling persons who kick, scratch, tear, and devour one another like furious beasts and pay no heed to this serious and divine command, etc.[7]

It is true that not all anger is sinful anger.[8]   It is technically true.  Experientially, though, we rarely show ourselves to be responsible stewards of anger.

III. The Solution to Anger is a Transformed Heart Confirmed by Humble Action (v.23-26)

How, then, do we guard ourselves against this pernicious evil of anger?  Jesus shows us the way in what He says next.

²³ So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. ²⁵ Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. ²⁶ Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

Let’s unpack these amazing words by listing the steps to combating anger that we find in them.

(1) Realize That Sinful Anger Disrupts Your Relationship With God (v.23)

It is significant that, in Jesus’ example, the person realizes his anger during worship.  He is offering a sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem when he remembers that another person has reason to be offended with him.

²³ So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there before the altar and go.

So this happens at church!  Have you ever had that experience?  Have you ever been singing a hymn about love and forgiveness and God’s grace and then realized that you have wronged another person?  In the immediate context, you have wronged them by harboring sinful anger against them.  But it could be any wrong.

The point to note here is that Jesus cautions us not to offer our offering if we remember that we have wronged another person.  This is because the undealt-with anger renders our offering null and void.  Sinful anger and conflict disrupts our relationship with God.  This explains to us what Peter meant when he wrote this in 1 Peter 3:

⁷ Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord Jesus is much more interested in the condition of your heart than in the volume of your hymn singing or the amount of your giving.  If you have wronged another person, your offerings to God, whatever they may be, will be stymied.

(2) Go to the Person You Have Wronged (v.24)

So you realize that somebody has something legitimate against you.  What then?

²⁴ leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Go to the person you have wronged.  The longer you wait, the harder it will become and the more your relationship will be damaged.  If you are in the wrong, go the person and make it right.  Apologize.  Ask their forgiveness.  Be reconciled.  If you are not sure that you are in the wrong but think you might be, go anyway and talk it out.  If you are convinced you are not in the wrong, ask the Lord to search your heart and make sure one way or another.

Let me just say at this point that it is amazing how much conflict ensues in churches because people will not talk.  Christian people, for some reason, have a great deal of trouble simply talking to one another.  Your personal relationships, as well as the unity of the body of Christ, are worth the initial awkwardness of the conversation you need to have.

(3) Go Quickly and Try to Make Amends (v.25a)

Next, go quickly.

²⁵ Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court

Jesus recommends hopping up in the middle of church and going out to make things right.  There is no delay in His instructions.  It is gloriously awkward!  Paul says the same in Ephesians 4:

²⁶ Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, ²⁷ and give no opportunity to the devil.

Why should we immediately get to work when the Lord brings us conviction in this matter?  Because the devil has immediately gotten to work in the moments you are not speaking.

(4) Realize That Undealt With Anger and Wrong Will Have Its Punishment (v.25b-26)

Jesus spoke of the certainty of punishment in v.25b-26:

²⁵ Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. ²⁶ Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

Next, it is important that we reject the notion that undealt-with anger is no big deal, that it will just fade away, and that it will carry no consequences.  As a matter of fact, it will have its punishment, both internally and externally.  Internally, doctors say that unresolved anger can have physical results on your heart.  It will also feed a further spirit of anger that will slowly consume your whole being.  Externally, it will erode your relationships and distort your very face.  In terms of earthly punishment, it may very well lead to devastating consequences here.  Regardless, it will ultimately be dealt with at the divine bar of justice if not repented of and confessed.

(5) Learn to Combat Anger by Allowing the Charitable Patience and Hope of Jesus to Take Root in Your Heart

Finally, it is important to understand that just as anger leads to a disposition of anger, so love leads to a disposition of love.  That is why it is so very important that we cultivate individual hearts of love as well as a corporate spirit of love.  In Ephesians 4, Paul put it like this;

¹ I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³ eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ⁴ There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. ⁷ But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

Notice the positive virtues that combat a spirit of anger:  humility, gentleness, patience, love, eagerness for unity, peace.  Why?  Because we are one body in Jesus Christ!

Would you say that your personal disposition lends itself to congregational peace or congregational discord?  It’s in the little things that the battle is won or lost.

For instance, consider how developing the habit of charitable compliment can combat a spirit of anger.  What if you simply determined (a) to speak no ill of any person and (b) to speak good instead.  People used to say of the Scottish preacher Alexander Whyte, “Watch out for Whyte! All his geese become swans.”[9]  That is, he could find something good to say about everybody.  In doing so, he kept his own heart from anger and he did his part to fight a spirit of anger as well.

Finally, let us, as a church, help one another to combat anger.  Let us calm one another when we become tempestuous.  Let us reason with one another when we fall into blind rage.  Let us stir one another up to love and patience and kindness, realizing that we’re all on the same journey to Christlikeness, a journey in which we need the loving support of one another.  As Stanley Hauerwas put it:

Anger and lust are bodily passions.  We simply are not capable of willing ourselves free of anger or lust.  Jesus does not imply that we are to be free of either anger or lust; that is, he assumes that we are bodily beings.  Rather, he offers us membership in a community in which our bodies are formed in service to God and for one another so that our anger and our lust are transformed…Jesus, however, is not recommending that we will our way free of lust or anger, but rather he is offering us membership in a people that is so compelling we are not invited to dwell on ourselves or our sinfulness.[10]

Let us become that kind of community.

Exodus 4:1-17

¹ Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’” ² The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.” ³ And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it. ⁴ But the Lord said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand— ⁵ “that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” ⁶ Again, the Lord said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” And he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. ⁷ Then God said, “Put your hand back inside your cloak.” So he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. ⁸ “If they will not believe you,” God said, “or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. ⁹ If they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.” ¹⁰ But Moses said to the Lord, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” ¹¹ Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? ¹² Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.” ¹³ But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” ¹⁴ Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, “Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. ¹⁵ You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do. ¹⁶ He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him. ¹⁷ And take in your hand this staff, with which you shall do the signs.”

Excuses are terribly easy to make, especially when they are employed to avoid something very unpleasant.  It is difficult to imagine many things more unpleasant than the prospect Moses faced of having to walk back into Egypt, face the Pharaoh whose house he had abandoned and whose laws he had broken in killing an Egyptian, and face his own people who neither saw him as a leader nor felt compelled to.  Even so, that is precisely what the Lord God called Moses to do.  Moses responds to God’s call on his life by offering excuses and objections.  Let us consider these this evening.

Objection #1:  The Israelites May Not Believe Moses (v.1-9)

The first objection was true enough as far as it went.

¹ Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’”

If you listen to this objection closely, it really has more than one component.  Starting with the last component first, Moses fears the incredulity and skepticism of the Israelites:  “…they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’”  It is a reasonable fear.  God speaking to Moses through a burning bush is indeed one of the stranger occurrences of the Bible, and I suspect that any of us might be a little hesitant at having to recount the story to people not predisposed to trust us anyway.

Throughout my years as a pastor I have had numerous church members pull me aside in private and tell me of God speaking to them in odd and unusual ways.  Almost without fail they begin their testimonies with something like this:  “Now, I know this sounds crazy, and you may think I’m crazy after I tell you this, but the other day…”  I once had a lady tell me how the Lord spoke to her in a dream.  After telling me the dream, she said, “Pastor, I’m not crazy.  I promise.”

For myself, I am always quick to assure those who have had these experiences that I have literally no reason not to believe them as long as the content of the dream or vision does not violate the clear teachings of Scripture.  To be sure, we should be careful with these kinds of things, but let us be clear on this fact:  God has appeared to His people throughout time in ways diverse and fascinating.  He spoke to Moses through a burning bush.  I have no reason to think He does not occasionally speak to His people today in strange ways as well.

Moses feared the skepticism of the Israelites.  However, I rather suspect that the first part of his objection is the real crux of the matter:  “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice.”  He is speaking here from experience.  Perhaps you remember Moses’ first foray into leadership over the Hebrews.  It is recorded in Exodus 2:

¹³ When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” ¹⁴ He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”

That’s not exactly the most ringing endorsement.  Moses feared the rejection of those he was supposed to lead.  In his mind, he had every reason to think that this was going to go poorly.  However, God introduces another reason into the mix, and this was a reason to believe it would go just as God said it would.  Let us observe the Lord’s response to Moses.

² The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.” ³ And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it. ⁴ But the Lord said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand— ⁵ “that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” ⁶ Again, the Lord said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” And he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. ⁷ Then God said, “Put your hand back inside your cloak.” So he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. ⁸ “If they will not believe you,” God said, “or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. ⁹ If they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.”

What is happening here?  The Lord is doing a couple of things in this response, and both are important.  The most obvious thing the Lord is doing is demonstrating His power to Moses so that Moses would believe and know that the God who called Him was the God who is able to accomplish the task to which He called him.  This is no weak God.  As we saw last week, God was not risking.  God did not have His fingers crossed, hoping this would all work out.  God knew what He was doing.  What is more, God was able to do what He called Moses to do.  Thus, God turned Moses’ staff into a snake and back into a staff again and God turned Moses’ hand leprous and back to normal again to demonstrate to Moses that He is a powerful God.

But there’s something else here, something that perhaps we might miss if we don’t think carefully.  Notice that the two demonstrations of power (the staff and the hand) and the one promised demonstration of power (turning the Nile water into blood) all would have frightened Moses as well.  It is not just that God wants Moses to see His power.  It is also that God needs Moses himself to fear His power.

Why is this so?  It is so because the first decision a minister of God has to make is a decision concerning who he is going to fear more:  God or the congregation.  Israel was Moses’ congregation.  It is a daunting and humbling thing to try to lead God’s people.  It is a daunting and humbling thing to dare to say, “Thus saith the Lord,” and no true minister will dare to say that unless he is actually speaking God’s revealed Word.  Even then, there is a subtle but powerful temptation to edit the message so as not to offend or anger the audience.

Many minsters have the same relationship with their congregations as tiger trainers do with their tigers:  they know they’re called to lead them, but they fear pushing too far lest the tiger have the trainer for lunch.  It is a tragic mentality to fall into, especially as the Bible does not present the minister/congregation relationship in terms of trainer and tiger but rather in terms of shepherd and sheep.  But the question remains:  who will God’s ministers fear more?  What will be the driving motivation of a leader’s ministry?

In truth, God needs leaders who fear Him above anybody else.  God needs leaders who know the awesome power of a Holy God.  Moses needed to reach the point where his fear of God was greater than his fear of either Pharaoh or the Israelites.  It is the same point that Jesus needs us to reach, as He says in Matthew 10:

²⁶ “So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. ²⁷ What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. ²⁸ And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. ³⁰ But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹ Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. ³² So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, ³³ but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

Let me ask you:  who do you fear more, God or man?

Objection #2:  Moses’ Lack of Eloquence (v.10-12)

Moses’ objections seem to deteriorate in value and quality as he voices them.  Thus, his next objection was that he simply wasn’t a good speaker.

¹⁰ But Moses said to the Lord, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.”

One senses that Moses was grasping at straws at this point.  The Lord’s reaction was telling and needed:

¹¹ Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? ¹² Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

In many ways, this exchange is reminiscent of the first.  Moses objects that he is unsure of what might happen and the Lord reminds him that He, the Lord, has the power to accomplish the task.  “Who has made man’s mouth?” is therefore a crucial question.  “You did!” is the only honest answer.  In asking this question of Moses, God is reminding Moses that it isn’t simply a matter of Moses’ mouth and Moses’ power and Moses’ strength.  The Lord would speak through Moses.

It is interesting to see how often great men of God were aware of the limitations of their own mouths.  In Jeremiah 1, we find an almost identical exchange:

⁴ Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁵ “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

⁶ Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.”

⁷ But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’;
for to all to whom I send you, you shall go,
and whatever I command you, you shall speak.

⁸ Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
declares the Lord.”

⁹ Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me,

“Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.

¹⁰ See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to break down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.”

¹¹ And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see an almond branch.” ¹² Then the Lord said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.”

The Lord tells Moses that He will be with his mouth.  The Lord tells Jeremiah that He will put His words in his mouth.  Most dramatically, as Isaiah 6 records, the Lord touched Isaiah lips to empower him to speak:

⁵ And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” ⁶ Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. ⁷ And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” ⁸ And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”

God is in the business of touching the mouths of those He would have speak!  Furthermore, it would seem that a recognition of our inability to speak the Word of God in our own strength is actually a prerequisite for usefulness!  Paul reached the same point of recognition concerning his own inadequacy to speak.  In the second chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul said this:

¹ And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. ² For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³ And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, ⁴ and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵ so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

This is the great choice:  either we will speak out of our own power or we will speak out of the power God grants us.  If we will trust in our own power, we will freeze in fear and never speak.  If we trust in God’s power, He will give us the words.  It is important to realize that this truth is not only for prophets or preachers or teachers.  In Matthew 10, Jesus says we all need to understand this:

¹⁶ “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. ¹⁷ Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, ¹⁸ and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. ¹⁹ When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. ²⁰ For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

Moses needed to learn this crucial lesson.  So do you and I!

Objection #3:  Moses’ Fear and Uncertainty (v.13-17)

Moses’ last objection is perhaps the most pitiful.

¹³ But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.”

This is roughly equivalent to, “I just don’t want to do it, Lord!”  I suspect, had there been a Tarshish to run to, Moses would have done just as Jonah did.  It was not something he wanted to do.  He felt utterly inadequate.  He felt ill-equipped.  He felt weak.  He felt uncertain.  He was afraid.  And even though God had given Moses every theological and demonstrable evidence that He would be with him, Moses still hesitated at the threshold of his calling.

I do not say this in judgment of Moses.  Who among us would not have had the same struggle?  The spirit might have been willing, but Moses’ flesh was week.  At this objection, God speaks in anger to Moses.

¹⁴ Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, “Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. ¹⁵ You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do. ¹⁶ He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him. ¹⁷ And take in your hand this staff, with which you shall do the signs.”

There are two realities at work here.  First, God, in His graciousness, decides to give Moses a helper.  He decides to send along Aaron, Moses’ brother.  The Lord has compassion on Moses.

Even so, note that God’s giving of a helper does not remove the calling that God placed on Moses’ life in particular.  This is not a victory for Moses.  He does not argue God out of His decision.  Note the wording.  Even though Moses will now have Aaron, Moses still must speak the words of God.  In verse 15, we see that Moses must speak to Aaron “and put the words in his mouth.”  While God will be with both of them, He says in verse 16 that Aaron “shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him.”

This is critical.  It means that although God condescends to give Moses a helper, that helper does not remove the mantle that God has placed specifically on Moses’ shoulders.  Moses still must go.  Moses still must speak.

There is something here about the inviolable nature of a call.  I believe that when God has called you to do something, that calling is yours.  You will not know peace until you do it.  It is simply a matter of accepting God’s will for you life.  He may well turn to another to accomplish the task, but He does not say, “Just forget it, then!” in doing so.  Either you will come to terms with what God is calling you to do, or you will not know His peace.

It would perhaps be helpful here to conclude with yet another example of One who had a calling on His life but struggled with the pain of it.  His struggle was in a garden called Gethsemane.  It is found in Matthew 26:

³⁶ Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” ³⁷ And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. ³⁸ Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” ³⁹ And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” ⁴⁰ And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? ⁴¹ Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” ⁴² Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”

Two times Jesus acknowledges the pain of His task.  Two times He subjugates what concerns He had to the will of God.  “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”

It is a powerful picture.  Jesus, the God-Man, knew the pain of a hard calling.  His calling was harder than any we can imagine or any that we will be called upon to undertake.  Yet Jesus desired only to do the will of the One who sent Him.  “Your will be done.”

Moses had to reach that point where he could say those words:  “Your will be done.”

Isaiah had to reach the point where he could say those words:  “Your will be done.”

Jeremiah had to reach the point where he could say those words:  “Your will be done.”

Jonah had to reach the point where he could say those words:  “Your will be done.”

Paul had to reach the point where he could say those words:  “Your will be done.”

The Lord Jesus Himself said those words:  “Your will be done.”

All that remains is for you and me to say those words:  “Your will be done.”

Will you say them?

Will you go?

Matthew 5:17-20

¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹ Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰ For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

I used to have a bumper sticker (before I gave it away) with a saying on it by G.K. Chesterton:  “Break the Conventions, Keep the Commandments.”  I love that, because it draws a needed distinction between, on the one hand, the essence of actual right and wrong, and, on the other, the additional and often petty rules we add to this essence in our attempts to safeguard right and wrong.  The former are commandments.  The latter are conventions.  One can break the latter without breaking the former.  Jesus oftentimes did precisely that.  Jesus broke the conventions but never the commandments.

Some years ago I took a youth group to a summer camp.  On that trip was a young man who was known to be an atheist.  He was known to be that by the other kids, but also by me, for I taught him in a high school Bible class.  I had been wanting to talk to the young man for some time about his lack of belief and finally, one night at camp, it happened.  After the other kids left the room where we had had a group Bible study, the young man stayed and he and I talked.  We stayed and talked for about two hours.

He launched his many objections to the existence of God and to Christianity in general, and I, in turn, sought to respond to his objections and bear witness to the gospel.  I was particularly struck by one of his arguments in particular.  He argued that Jesus had at most violated and had at least changed the Old Testament Law that was given by God and thus could not be the Son of God.

I responded that Jesus had not broken the Law itself, but rather had violated the man-made additions to the Law that had attached themselves to the Law like barnacles to a ship.  He countered that, at the very least, I had to admit that Jesus had acted in a very non-traditional way concerning the application of the Law.  I admitted such immediately, as I do now, believing that that actually proves the point:  Jesus did not violate the Law, He violated the traditions that grew up around it.

What is more, I pressed the young man to consider the fact that Jesus, as the divine Son of God, actually wrote the Law.  As such, if His interpretations seemed odd or unorthodox, it was probably wiser for us to trust His interpretation to the extent of correcting our own rather than to force our own interpretation of the Law on Jesus in an accusatory manner.  In general, I pointed out, it is courteous to allow authors to interpret and explain their own work, no matter whether or not the author’s explanation fits our own.

I was intrigued by this young man’s appeal to Jesus’ unconventional approach to the Law.  For one thing, while wrong, it is at least a thoughtful argument that goes a little deeper than some arguments.  For another thing, it is a very old argument pointing to a very old question:  what exactly was Jesus’ relationship to the Law?

In our text this morning, Jesus addresses specifically this question.  The beginning of the text seems to suggest that some people, perhaps after hearing the Beatitudes, began to think that this Jesus had come to offer a new Law and had come to overthrow the old Law.  Jesus would have none of that idea, as we will see.

I. Jesus and the Law:  Reorientation, Fulfillment, Interpretation (v.17-18)

Jesus has just finished His amazing Beatitudes, these eight marks of Kingdom life.  The Beatitudes are spellbinding and provocative.  Perhaps they filled the people up with thoughts of something totally new, a new movement, a new religion, and maybe even, as we have said, a new Law.  What Jesus said next put an end to these thoughts and showed that Jesus was not inventing, He was reorienting, fulfilling, and interpreting.

¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

This, as they say, is plain as day.  Jesus has not come to do away with the Law or the Prophets.  The word for “do away” or “abolish” or “destroy” “means to ‘loosen down’ as of a house or tent.”[1]  No, He has not come to take the Law down and pack it up, He has come to fulfill the Law.

The Law Defended and Defined

There is a great deal of discussion about the meaning of the phrase “the Law or the Prophets.”  What, exactly, is the Law?  It seems that the term had come to be pretty fluid even within Judaism and was used in a number of different ways.  It could mean the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament.  It could mean the Ten Commandments.  It could, as some scholars suggest, refer to the four major collections of laws:  the Covenant Code (Exod 20:22-23:33), the Deuteronomic Code (Deut 12-26), the Holiness Code (Lev 17-26), and the Priestly Code (Exod 25-31, 34:29; parts of Numbers).[2]  Or it could mean, more generally, the whole apparatus of rules and conventions and traditions that had grown up around the Law.  Undoubtedly, some Jews used it in this last sense, though Jesus certainly did not include the customs of man in His use of the term.

Regardless of the precise definition, Jesus’ addition of the words “or the Prophets” to “the Law” would suggest that He was speaking of the entirety of God’s revelation in the Old Testament.  His use of the term “the Law” in particular would undoubtedly refer to all of God’s righteous commandments for His people.

The Eternal Nature of the Law

These commandments, Jesus said, are rooted in the character of God and cannot be dispensed with.  None of them can be discarded without the person discarding them disobeying Almighty God.  Jesus is quite specific about the truthfulness of all of the Law:

¹⁸ For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

An iota refers to the Hebrew yod, of which there are approximately 66,420 in the Old Testament.  The “dot” refers to the Hebrew serif which is basically a little mark on some Hebrew letters.[3]  So Jesus is saying that all 66,420 yods and all of the tiny little serifs will last forever as they come from the very heart of God.

Whatever else this might mean, it slams the door forever on the suggestion that Jesus came to start a new religion with a new Law.  On the contrary, whatever Jesus was doing, He saw His actions as ultimately faithful to the revealed Law of God.  Some Jews have seen this statement as a radical declaration of Jesus’ faithfulness to God’s Law.  For instance, Dale Allison quotes the Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide as saying:

…in all rabbinic literature I know of no more unequivocal, fiery acknowledgment of Israel’s holy scripture than this opening to the Instruction on the Mount.  Jesus is here more radical even than Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba and Rabbi Johanan, both of whom were prepared to renounce a letter – that is, a written character of the Torah if doing so would publicly sanctify the name of God.[4]

Jesus would not renounce a single letter of the Law.  This fact troubled me a bit when I received a phone call from a man whose mother I was going to bury in Georgia.  I had never met the deceased woman.  She was not a church member.  I had never met her son, who, if I recall, did not live in the state.  Regardless, when he called me to plan the funeral, he emphatically asserted, “The only thing I must ask of you is that you NOT read from the Old Testament.  My mother was a New Testament Christian.  I do NOT want the Old Testament read.”

What a strange and tragic idea.  It is a statement that Jesus never would have made.

The Perversion of the Law

Well, then, if Jesus declared the Law as good and holy, and if all His actions should be viewed as obedient actions, and if He did not come to create a new Law or abandon the old Law, then what, we might ask, was the problem?  Why did Jesus conflict with the scribes and Pharisees so often about the Law?  Furthermore, why did Jesus’ interpretation and application of the Law seem, frankly, so odd and unorthodox, as it certainly often did?

To understand this, we must understand the perversion of the Law that had taken place over the many years since the Lord God first gave the Law to His people.  Here I am using the term to refer to the commandments that God gave His people.  If you don’t get what the Jews had done with the Law, I think you won’t understand why Jesus had so much conflict with the religious elites of His day on precisely this question.  Furthermore, if you don’t get this, you won’t understand a lot of legalistic behavior in the Christian church today.

To get at this, I think we need to make a distinction between (1) God’s Law, (2) the rules that man created to help people (theoretically, anyway) keep the Law, and (3) the further explanation of those rules that ended up being another set of rules altogether.  God gave His people the Law, His commandments and prescripts.  Then, over time, a class or group of people grew up among the Jews who saw it as their job to create the rules that were intended to help the people not break the Laws.  These people were called scribes.  Those rules, however, needed further explanation themselves, so layer after layer of further rules were added, with each layer becoming more miniscule and more micromanagerial, to use our term.  The Pharisees were another group of people who grew up within Judaism.  These were the super-religious, the men who devoted their lives to the radical living out of the Law.  Thus, they immersed themselves in the rules and tried to live them out very deliberately.

The scribes had calculated that the Law contained 248 commandments and 365 prohibitions.[5]  They had counted them.  However, the rules they made ostensibly to keep people from breaking the Law were almost innumerable.  It was hard to know them all, though thankfully there was usually a professional rule-keeper around to help you out.  So when Jesus was incarnated upon the Earth, He was born into a system that had piled layer upon layer of rules, customs, traditions, and conventions on top of the core Law that God had pronouced.

To help you understand the extent of the problem, let us look at what the scribes had done with one particular commandment.  Now keep it mind that they did this kind of thing with all of the commandments, but this one illustration will be helpful.  Let us take, for instance, the fourth commandment, found in Exodus 20:

⁸ “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.

That is the Law:  “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”  The scribes and Pharisees accepted that and loved that.  However, in order to help people keep the Sabbath day holy, they felt they needed to create a number of rules, because, after all, there were numerous ways one might violate the Sabbath.  So, to pick three examples, the scribes said that carrying a burden violated the Sabbath, writing violated the Sabbath, and healing violated the Sabbath.  It is important to note that the Lord Himself did not say this.  Rather, it was the deduction of the scribes:  no carrying burdens, no writing, and no healing.

But of course that’s not sufficient, because it raises the questions, “What is writing?  What is a burden?  What is healing?”  Furthermore, life isn’t always simple.  There are lots of complicated situations in the world that defy simple definitions.  So the scribes and their interpreters got to work again, defining what a burden is, what writing is, and what healing is.  William Barclay has passed on these specific examples from the scribes.

The scribes defined a “burden” as:

…food equal in weight to a dried fig, enough wine for mixing in a goblet, milk enough for one swallow, honey enough to put upon a wound, oil enough to anoint a small member, water enough to moisten an eye-salve, paper enough to write a customs house notice upon, ink enough to write two letters of the alphabet, reed enough to make a pen…

They defined “writing” in this way:

He who writes two letters of the alphabet with his right or with his left hand, whether of one kind or of two kinds, if they are written with different inks or in different languages, is guilty.  Even if he should write two letters from forgetfulness, he is guilty, whether he has written them with ink or with pain, red chalk, vitriol, or anything which makes a permanent mark.  Also he that writes on two walls that form an angle, or on two tablets of his account book so that they can be read together is guilty…But, if anyone writes with dark fluid, with fruit juice, or in the dust of the road, or in sand, or in anything which does not make a permanent mark, he is not guilty…If he writes one letter on the ground, and one on the wall of the house, or on two pages of a book, so that they cannot be read together, he is not guilty.

Healing was not allowed on the Sabbath because that was considered work.  Concerning healing, Barclay says:

Healing was allowed when there was danger to life, and especially in troubles of the ear, nose and throat; but even then, steps could be taken only to keep the patient from becoming worse; no steps might be taken to make him get any better.  So a plain bandage might be put on a wound, but no ointment; plain wadding might be put into a sore ear, but no medicated wadding.[6]

Again, I repeat, God’s Word does not say this.  The Law that God delivered does not say this.  These were the man-made rules that grew up around the Law.  It is important to understand that the scribes and Pharisees were not pernicious, evil men.  They sincerely thought that the rules they were keeping were protecting the honor of God.  They loved the Law.

Theologian Randy Harris wrote about a friend of his who visited his child’s school one day.  He told Harris that in his child’s classroom there was a bulletin board dedicated to the many things the children of the class loved.  So on one piece of paper a child had written, “I love my dog.”  And, under those words was a picture of something that Randy Harris’ friend assumed was meant to be a dog.  He said he was looking at all the various things the children wrote when he noticed one that said something odd.  It said, in a child’s handwriting, “I love Torah!”[7]  The Torah refers to the first five books of the Old Testament.

That is very interesting.  It is a traditional, pious, Jewish thing to say:  “I love Torah!”  The scribes and Pharisees would have said the same.  Jesus would, I think, have said the same, as an observant Jew, though He would have meant something different by it.  The scribes and Pharisees would have meant by, “I love Torah!” that they loved the Law and the rules and the traditions.  Jesus would have said, “I love Torah!” in the sense that He loved the Lord God who had given His Word.

Here is where the main problem comes in.  Not only did the scribes add layer upon layer of petty rules over the Law, they set up a system whereby obedience was quantifiable and measurable.  Following God, then, became a matter of simply checking off the boxes:  I kept that rule, and that rule, and that rule!  It is just a short step from there to loving the Law for the Law’s sake.  Brothers and sisters, it is a tragic thing to love God’s Law more than you love God.  It is like being in love with the Bible.  The Bible was not given so that you can love the Bible.  It was given so that you can love God!

By making the Law almost bigger than God in their hearts, the scribes made an idol of it.  Most tragically, by fixating on keeping the rules instead of on reaching the ultimate destination of the Law – love of God Himself – the scribes and Pharisees were missing the whole point and were not actually moving toward God.  I love how Clarence Jordan put it when he said that the scribes and Pharisees “were treading water in an ethical sea.  The hope of reaching harbor had been replaced by an involuntary impulse just to keep their souls afloat.”[8]  In other words, they weren’t obeying the Law to journey to God.  They were simply dog-paddling in the rules.

There are Christians who do the exact same thing!  In all their rule keeping, they miss God.  In all their checked-off boxes, they never walk with Jesus.  In all their “do’s” and “don’ts,” they miss Jesus all together.

It is interesting to me that whereas the scribes made the Law bigger and bigger and bigger, Jesus simplified it dramatically. He did not violate it or cut it down.  Rather, in Matthew 22, He reminded the people of the simple core of what the Law was about.  Do you remember?

³⁴ But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. ³⁵ And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ³⁶ “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” ³⁷ And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the great and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Do you see?  Jesus came to reorient the Law back to the heart, where it belongs.  He came to remind us that God’s desire was not countless, unfathomable regulations, it was simple love of God and neighbor.  “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

This reorientation was not an effort to make the Law easier.  On the contrary, by reorienting the Law away from checked-boxes and back to the condition of the human heart, Jesus actually made it much more challenging.  After all, it is easy to keep little external rules.  It is much harder to become a true child of God internally.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets,” Jesus said, “I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”  So Jesus reorients the Law back to the human heart.  We will also see over the next number of weeks that He is the ultimate interpreter of the Law, as we consider His teaching on specific aspects of the Law.  But what is striking here is that Jesus said He came to fulfill the Law.

This likely means many things.  It means that Jesus fulfilled the demands of the Law by never violating it.  It means that when Jesus gave His life on the cross, He was fulfilling the Law in the sense of satisfying the demands of justice against all who had violated it.  It also means, more generally, that He came to fulfill the Law in the sense of fulfilling prophecy.  Meaning, the Law and prophets prophesied and spoke of and pointed to Jesus in everything they said.  In Matthew 11:13, Jesus says, “For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John.”  All of the Old Testament pointed to Jesus’ coming.  He is the fulfillment of it.

II. The Christian and the Law: Surpassing Righteousness From the Heart (v.19-20)

If verses 17 and 18 speak of Jesus and the Law, verses 19 and 20 speak of our relationship to the Law.  Having spoken of His fulfillment of the Law, Jesus next says this:

¹⁹ Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰ For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

This is a challenging teaching, to be sure.  Verse 19 is clear enough and seems to follow naturally from verses 17 and 18.  If Jesus valued the Law and did not abandon it, neither should we.  But in verse 20 He goes even further, saying, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Righteousness, here, would refer to true godliness, true obedience to the Law.  But how is the righteousness of the Christian to surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees?  These were experts in the Law.  These were professional Law-keepers.

It is important to understand and remember that through perverting the Law into a mere list of external rules, the scribes and Pharisees were not actually practicing the true Law.  They were, once again, dog-paddling, not swimming.  So let us first recognize that when Jesus says this He is not asking us to out-legalize and out-minutia the scribes and Pharisees.  No, He was speaking of actual righteousness, the original intent of the Law.

But even this does not help us.  Why?  Because when we try to be righteous, try to follow the Law, try to do and be all that God has called us to do and be, we find we fall short.  Paul put it like this in Galatians 3:

¹⁰ For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”

The Law, then, curses us.  It curses us not because it is evil, but because it reveals the evil that is within us.  If you want to see how far you are from God, simply try following His Law perfectly.  The Law does not give us salvation.  The Law gives us condemnation by highlighting our lawlessness.

What, then, are we to do?  How is our righteousness to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees if the Law ultimately shows us our distance from God?  Here is where the gospel is good news.  Let us get at this by first considering something Paul says in Romans 1:

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

This is fascinating!  Paul preached something called “the gospel,” which we may summarize here as “the good news about Jesus.”  He says in this text (1) that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to believers and (2) that the gospel, the good news about Jesus, is the vehicle through which God’s righteousness is revealed from faith.  So Paul says that the righteousness we must have, the righteousness that Jesus called upon us to have in excess of that of the scribes and Pharisees, is communicated and revealed to us in the good news about Jesus when we trust in Him.  But more than that, He says, “The righteous shall live by faith.”  So there is a connection between what Jesus did for us on the cross, the faith we place in Him, the righteousness of God, and our lives.

In Romans 3 things become even clearer.

²¹ But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— ²² the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus

Ah, so the Law itself was given not as the means of creating righteousness (again, all it reveals in us is condemnation and judgment), but rather as a signpost from God pointing to the means of righteousness.  The Law and prophets (Paul is using Jesus’ phrase here) “bear witness to” the righteousness of God.  Ok, but where am I to find this righteousness?  In Jesus Christ!  And how am I to receive this righteousness I must have?  By faith!  Thus, when I trust in Jesus, repenting of my sins and giving Him my life, He somehow forgives me and covers me in His righteousness, justifying me by the gift of grace!

Could it be?  Could it be that my righteousness, the righteousness that Jesus said I must have in excess of the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, is given to me as a gift?

In Romans 10:4, Paul writes, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”  “The end of the Law” does not mean “the abandonment of the Law” but rather “the fulfillment of the Law.”  What the Law was seeking to do, it accomplished in Jesus.  The whole road of the Law ends at the feet of the cross.

Does this mean that I am free from the righteousness that the Law demands?  Can I simply use Jesus, then, to abandon the Law’s demands on my life?  May it never be!  Of course not!  The Law ending in Jesus does not drive us to sin, it drives us to holiness!  Christ’s righteousness now takes up residence in our hearts!  We are not free from the need for righteous living.  We are rather free from the terrifying prospect of having to achieve this righteousness by our own efforts!  It is given to us as a gift by the Christ who lives within us and then empowers us to live it out in the world!

Paul says precisely this in Romans 5:17:

For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Adam gives us death, Jesus gives us life.  But notice that those who receive “the free gift of righteousness” are to “reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”  You were dead and ungodly, now you live and are free to follow the Lord God.  You were condemned and fearful, now you are liberated and empowered to do what God commands.

But let us not forget the most scandalous and shocking aspect of this great exchange:  that the righteousness Christ gives us was purchased by His taking on our unrighteousness on Calvary.  In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul writes, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Christ becomes my unrighteousness (“He made Him to be sin”), taking with it the punishment due it, and gives me, in its place, His righteousness.

Paul used even more graphic imagery in Galatians 3:

¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— ¹⁴ so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Amazing!  Astounding!  Can this really be?  I am cursed by the Law, not because the Law is evil but because the Law reveals the evil that is within me.  So I am cursed by it, rightfully.  The Law tells me I am unrighteous.  The Law tells me I am unworthy.  The Law tells me I am condemned.  The Law tells me I am cursed.

It is devastating news, crushing news.  It tells me I am lost.  It tells me I will spend forever in Hell, separated from God.

But then I have a voice behind me, a voice I was not expecting to hear.  It is the voice of Jesus, the Jesus against whom I have rebelled.  And Jesus says, “Yes, what the Law says is true, for the Law itself is true.  Before the Law you are condemned.  Before the Law you are unrighteous.  Before the Law you are cursed.  It is all true!  But hear me brother:  I have taken your condemnation upon myself.  I have taken your unrighteousness upon myself.  I have taken your curse upon myself.  I took it upon myself on the cross.  I have met the just demands of the Law of my Father.  I have fulfilled them.  I have satisfied them.  I have abolished the curse.  So come to me!  Come to me and I will give you life!”

Exodus 3:13-22

¹³ Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” ¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” ¹⁵ God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. ¹⁶ Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, ¹⁷ and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.”’ ¹⁸ And they will listen to your voice, and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.’ ¹⁹ But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. ²⁰ So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go. ²¹ And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and when you go, you shall not go empty, ²² but each woman shall ask of her neighbor, and any woman who lives in her house, for silver and gold jewelry, and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians.”

Everything is theological.  Life is theological.  By that I mean that everything stands in a certain relation to God and to certain convictions about God.  Life is inevitably lived in reaction to who you think God is, that is, in reaction to your theology.  It is tempting to forget this fact when reading the amazing and dramatic story of the exodus.  It is tempting because the exodus is so filled with amazing human activities that, if we are not careful, we can focus more on Moses than on God.  However, among the great theologically-driven acts of human history, the exodus stands very near the top.

Only this can explain the great pains God took to make sure that Moses had a right conception of who God is in Exodus 3.  This is because God knew that there was not enough human wisdom, human strength, can-do attitude, adrenalin, and street smarts to be mustered for Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.  What is more, the exodus would require acts that would simply go well beyond human agency or possibilities.  Thus, what Moses needed first was a sound lesson in theology, a solid grounding in the person and nature and character and attributes of God.

This is what He gives Moses in our text this evening.  So let us sit in and listen to God’s theology lesson to Moses, considering all the while how these same eternal truths should shape and drive our lives today.

I. God’s Essence (v.13-14)

There is first of all the matter of God’s name.  Last week we saw that God commissioned Moses to go to Egypt and proclaim freedom to the captive Israelites.  Moses asked, then, a very simple question.

¹³ Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”

It is simple and it is natural.  After all, one is naturally curious about the identity of one who would give such an audacious charge.  “Who are you,” Moses asks?  It does strike me as humorous that Moses pulls here a variation of the old, “I have a friend who would like to know…” trick.  Do you know what I mean?  When you want to know something that you are uncomfortable asking yourself for whatever reason, you will sometimes say, “Hey, I have a friend who asked me…”  This is what Moses does here. “If I come to the people of Israel…and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”

The Lord’s answer to Moses is as profound as it is enigmatic.

¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

“I am who I am,” God says.  It is a strange answer, and one that is, frankly, hard to grasp.

Terence Fretheim says that this verse “is one of the most puzzled over verses in the entire Hebrew Bible.”  He offers a number of proposed translations of these words:  “I am who I am”; “I will be what (who) I will be”; “I will cause to be what I will cause to be”; “I will be who I am / I am who I will be.”  He suggests that this last translation (“I will be who I am / I am who I will be”) may be the most accurate, and interprets it to mean that “wherever God is being God, God will be the king of God God is…Go can be counted on to be who God is; God will be faithful.”[1]

Perhaps that sounds nonsensical or redundant:  “I will be who I am / I am who I will be.”  However, it is really quite significant.  What strikes me as the most significant thing about the name, “I am,” is that it is a statement concerning pure essence.  If you will allow the word, it is an ontological statement.  It describes something about the “is-ness” of God.

The fact that the essence of God is incommunicable is reflected, I believe, in the paradoxical nature of the name, “I am.”  There is, in the essence of God, something that defies human understanding and human comprehension.  Who God is is unfathomable outside of His revelation of Himself to mankind.  We may thank God that He has revealed to us who He is in many ways but definitively through Jesus Christ.  However, certain revelation is not the same is exhaustive revelation, and we may be sure that though we do know what we do know about God we are simply not in a position to know everything about God.  Our minds would explode if the Lord God poured the totality of His name into us.  Our minds could not conceive of it or grasp it.

So here, God reveals in phrases that we strain to understand a very simple but infinitely deep fact:  God is God.  “I am.”

Behind all human activity and effort, there must be a certainty concerning this fact:  God is God.  It is essentially the same answer He gave to poor Job beginning in chapter 38 of that great book, though there He was saying “I am” primarily by saying the corollary truth, “And you’re not.”

¹ Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

² “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

³ Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me.

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.

⁵ Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?

⁶ On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,

⁷ when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

⁸ “Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb,

⁹ when I made clouds its garment
and thick darkness its swaddling band,

¹⁰ and prescribed limits for it
and set bars and doors,

¹¹ and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?

The Lord continues speaking in that way for some chapters, reminding Job over and over again not only that Job is not God but that neither Job nor any human being on the planet can even begin to fathom the essence of God.  However, the God who wants a relationship with His fallen creation gives the answer that we are able to receive even if we are not able completely to understand:  “I am.”

Job needed God’s “I am!”  Moses needed God’s “I am!”  So do you and I.

II. God’s Remembrance (v.15-16)

The second theology lesson that the Lord teaches Moses concerns God’s memory.  In short, the Lord tells Moses that He, Almighty God, is the God who keeps His promises.

¹⁵ God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. ¹⁶ Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt

Moses and the children of Israel not only needed to know that God is, they needed to know that the God who is remembers.  Twice God speaks of Himself as “The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”  This is significant for two reasons.  First, it is an acknowledgment of the promises that God made the patriarchs.  It is a divine recognition that God will do what He said He would do.  Second, by calling Himself “the God of” the patriarchs, the Lord is connects Himself with Israel’s story in particular.  He is not thereby reducing Himself to a mere tribal deity.  He is the one true God of all.  However, He is the God who has His eye and His heart fixed on Israel.  God therefore presents Himself relationally as the God who knows and loves His people.

The remembrance of God was critical for Moses insofar as it assured Moses that God was using him to fulfill His promises.  The remembrance of God was critical for Israel insofar as it gave them a foundation to dare to trust and set their feet on the daunting path of the exodus.  And the remembrance of God is critical for us because it keeps us from despair and crippling fear, reminding us all along that our great God is the God who knows us, remembers us, and fulfills the promises He has given us through Jesus.

III. God’s Knowledge (v.17-19)

God’s remembrance is closely tied to His knowledge.  We speak of God’s omnipotence too casually.  It is, in fact, a staggering truth that God knows, exhaustively, all that has been, all that is, and all that will be.  Consider, for instance, the display of His amazing knowledge in the next portion of our text in which He tells Moses precisely what is going to happen.

¹⁷ and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.”’ ¹⁸ And they will listen to your voice, and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.’ ¹⁹ But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand.

The definitiveness of God’s pronouncements are noteworthy:  “I promise that I will bring you up…And they will listen…and you and the elders of Israel shall go…But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go…”

While the particulars of that may not have been encouraging to Moses, the certainty with which God pronounced it certainly was.  God knows everything.  God knows precisely what will happen.

I chuckle a bit when I think of the theological movement from some years back called “open theism.”  Open theism was a movement of theologians who essentially asserted that God did not technically “know” everything about the future because the future was not there yet for Him to know it.  One of the books that came out of that movement was by a guy named John Sanders.  It was entitled, The God Who Risks.  That title is a good summary statement of open theism, because if God does not exhaustively know the future, God is therefore, in a sense, risking a bit when He acts in the presence.  Tragically, that is what these theologians were asserting about God.

A few years ago the New York Times put some ads on city buses in New York City.  The ads said, “The New York Times: Omniscience, Updated Hourly.”[2]  How absurd!  A truly omniscient being does not need updates.  God is not risking and God needs no updates.

It is impossible to read the Bible, particularly passages like ours, and not be struck by God’s exhaustive, definitive, immeasurable knowledge of the future.  There is nothing in our text to suggest that God took a risk in sending Moses.  God knew precisely what God was doing and precisely how it would play out.  God was utterly in control.

Is this not a comfort to you today, the absolute, perfect knowledge of God?  God knows you.  God knows your circumstances.  God knows all the variables.  God knows precisely what will happen.  And God knows how He would like to use you in these circumstances to the furtherance of His glory.

Unlike Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” God is not “making it up as He goes.”  You can trust that when God calls you to a task He is doing so because He knows precisely what He is doing.

IV. God’s Power (v.20-22)

Perhaps most comforting of all is God’s power.  He not only knows all things, He is able to do all that He desires to do.

²⁰ So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go. ²¹ And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and when you go, you shall not go empty, ²² but each woman shall ask of her neighbor, and any woman who lives in her house, for silver and gold jewelry, and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians.”

Along with God’s strong name is God’s strong hand.  His hand is His power.  God is able to do what God has willed to do.  So He speaks with certainty once again:  “I will stretch out my hand…I will give this people favor…you shall not go empty…You shall put them on…So you shall plunder the Egyptians.”

God’s omnipotence, God’s “all-powerfulness,” is the bedrock theological tenet of the exodus.  God is God.  God knows what will happen.  God is able to do it.  God will do it.

It is a beautiful truth, the power of God.  It tells us that there is no hand as strong as God’s hand.  There is no might like God’s might.  God alone can do what only God can do.  He will break Egypt with His hand of judgment.  He will free Israel with His hand of might.  He will heal Israel with His hand of mercy.  And He will bring Israel to a new home with His hand of promise and love.

Jonathan Edwards famously preached about “sinners in the hands of an angry God.”  He was right to do so.  We are also right to preach about “the redeemed in the hands of a faithful God.”  For God is faithful and His hand is sure.

In the Reformation, Martin Luther was once threatened by a papal envoy.  They told him that if he did not desist his life would turn very hard and he would be abandoned by everybody and left utterly alone.  “Where will you be then?” they asked Luther?  He answered, “Then as now, in the hands of God.”[3]

So, too, were the Israelites.

So, too, through the blood of Christ, are we.

Matthew 5:13-16 

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. ¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Sometime in the late 100’s AD, an unknown person wrote a letter describing the nature of the new religion, Christianity, and its adherents.  Today we call this the Letter to Diognetus.  It is fascinating since it is such an early description of the church.  The writer of the letter was impressed by the early Christians and what he called their “wonderful and striking way of life.”  Let me share a portion of that letter now.

[Christians] marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not commit infanticide. They have a common table, but not a common bed. . . . They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. . . . To sum it up: as the soul is in the body, so Christians are in the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. . . . The invisible soul is guarded by the visible body, and Christians are known indeed to be in the world, but their godliness remains invisible.[1]

Of particular interest to us this morning is that summation sentence:  “To sum it up:  as the soul is in the body, so Christians are in the world.”

That is an utterly fascinating thing to say.  Indeed, I do not think a higher compliment could have been paid the early Christians.  What the writer of this letter seems to be saying is that the world itself is somehow different because Christians are in it.  In fact, the world is somehow better because the church is in it.  To use his imagery, Christians inhabit the world in the same way that the soul inhabits the body.  What that means is that the Christian church brings a kind of vitality and vibrancy to this world.

In truth, this anonymous person was saying something very similar to what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, though he used different imagery in doing so.  Here is what Jesus said in our text:

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. ¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

The unknown author of the letter to Diognetus likened the followers of Jesus in the world to the soul in the body.  Jesus used the imagery of salt and light.  The implications of Jesus’ metaphors are striking and revolutionary.

I. Followers of Jesus are, by definition, agents of preservation in a lost world.

Let us begin by first defining the significance of the metaphors.

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. ¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

The two images were well known in that day just as they are in our own:  salt and light.  Salt has many functions:  preservation, purification, and flavoring, for instance.  While the Bible elsewhere mentions salt as a seasoning (Job 6:6, “Can that which is tasteless be eaten without salt,
or is there any taste in the juice of the mallow?”), it is likely that the primary function Jesus was thinking of here with his allusion to salt was preservation.  In a day before refrigeration, salt was the primary means of preserving meat.

That is also the case even in our day.  My dad is a hardware salesman.  He has spent his life in hardware stores, small and large, through the eastern half of South Carolina.  He told me once of going into a little hardware store in which he noticed an old burlap sack hanging from a rafter behind the cash register.  He asked the store owner what was in the bag.  “Country ham,” the store own replied.  My dad said that the ham must be very old indeed.  The store own replied that it was but that it was still perfectly edible as it had been salted so well.  Whether the store owner’s confidences were misplaced or not, he was certainly correct that salt is a powerful preservative.

If salt is primarily an agent of preservation, light is primarily a light of illumination.  Light illumines darkness revealing the truth that darkness conceals.  Light, too, is an agent of health and vitality.  We would not think of a life lived in darkness as an enviable life.

Let us also notice the definitive nature of Jesus’ language: “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world.”  He does not say, “You will be salt,” or, “You can become salt,” or, “If you walk with me long enough I will make you into salt.”  No, He says, “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world.”

Salt and light are therefore inherently connected to being born again.  If you are born again, you are salt and you are light.  To put it another way, being salt and being light is connected fundamentally to our justification in Christ, though, through sanctification, we grow into that fact more and more.

This is crucial.  This is key.  It means that coming to Christ means putting our feet immediately on the path of world transformation, preservation, and illumination as the presence of Christ in and through us touches the world.  Salt and light, then, are not the higher state of super Christians, they are the basic elements of the simple Christian.

It is not a question of, “Will I be salt?”  It is a question of, “What kind of salt am I being?”  Because, in point of fact, according to Jesus, you are salt and you are light.

It is also significant for us to realize something about the nature of salt.  “Sodium chloride,” D.A. Carson tells us, “does not lose its taste.”  This is true.  Salt, as salt, remains salt.  From a particular vantage point, the idea of salt itself becoming saltless is an impossibility.  But, as Carson continues, “the salt in use in first-century Palestine was very impure and it was quite possible for the sodium chloride to be leached out, so that what remained lacked ‘saltness,’ and specifically the salty taste.”[2]

Ah!  So salt, as salt, will always be salt, but salt infested by foreign unsalty elements can lose its saltiness.  This means that Jesus’ idea of salt losing its taste carries with it the idea of diluting pollution, for it is only through the introduction of polluting elements into pure salt that salt can lose its saltiness.  What this means for you and for me is that we were made to be salt and, when we walk with Jesus, we simply will be.  In order for us not to be salt we must allow unsalty elements to enter our lives and dilute the salt that Christ Jesus has made us to be.

Another important implication of Jesus pronouncement that “you are the salt…you are the light” can be found in the pronoun, “you.”  “You are the salt…You are the light.”  You, who?  You believers, you disciples, you who will trust me…you are salt and light.  This is critical not only because, in it, Jesus defines who is salt and light, but because, in it, Jesus defines who alone can be salt and light.

Only the people of God can be salt and light for the Kingdom of God, for only they are citizens of the Kingdom.  What this means is this:  at home, at school, at work, at church, if you are not salt, nobody will be.  If you are not light, nobody will be.  You are the salt!  You are the light!  It’s on you.  You!

Knowing this, we might ask, how can we be silent?  How can we be still?  How can we not speak?  How dare we not be salt and light?

Furthermore, the metaphors of salt and light say something about our basic disposition in and towards the world.  John Piper put it nicely when he said this:

The salt of the earth does not mock rotting meat. Where it can, it saves and seasons. And where it can’t, it weeps. And the light of the world does not withdraw, saying ‘good riddance’ to godless darkness. It labors to illuminate. But not dominate. . . . We don’t own culture, and we don’t rule it. We serve it with brokenhearted joy.[3]

Indeed, salt does not hate the meat it is trying to preserve.  Were it conscious, it might hate the decay and rot seeking to destroy the meat, but it would not hate the meat upon which the decay and rot were seeking to work their mischief.  Similarly, the primary disposition of the Christian in and towards the world ought not be and dare not be hatred and anger.  The Christian resides in the world as salt resides on meat:  with a recognition that the world needs the presence of the salt or else it will decay and rot and ultimately be thrown out.

How, then, do the images of salt and light tie into the idea of the Kingdom of God that we have seen rests at the very heart of our understanding of the Sermon on the Mount?  As it turns out, they rest naturally and easily in the Kingdom that Jesus preached.  Remember that we have said that the Sermon on the Mount is a depiction of what the Kingdom of God life looks like lived out in the kingdom of the world.  We have been using this image to depict the breaking in of the Kingdom of God into the world:

The Kingdom of God breaks into the world definitively in Jesus.  Jesus reigns in the hearts and minds of the crucified/resurrected community called the church.  This means that, today, the primary means by which the Kingdom of God is demonstrated before and enters into the world is through the born again lives of followers of Jesus.  And that means that the mores, values, ethics, truths, tenor, and tone of the Kingdom of God is lived out in the world in the lives of Jesus’ disciples.

With that crucial truth in mind, hear again the words of Jesus:

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. ¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

If Christians are to be agents of preservation and illumination in the dying, decaying world, that means that the nature of this salt and light are the Kingdom of God values that have been imparted to us in and through the indwelling Christ.  Salt and light must therefore be Kingdom of God salt and light.  To be salt and light must therefore mean that we are bringing the preserving and illuminating realities of the Kingdom of God into the decaying kingdom of the world as we follow King Jesus in the world.

Being salt and being light does not mean forceful overthrow or violent coercion.  It does not mean a siege mentality or power posturing.  It simply means that we live out the values of the Kingdom of God within the Kingdom of the world.  New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg put it like this:

We are not called to control secular power structures; neither are we promised that we Christianize the legislation and values of the world.  But we must remain active preservative agents, indeed irritants, in calling the world to heed God’s standards.[4]

Blomberg’s reference to salt and light as “irritants” is telling and, it seems to me, very important.  It is important because it reminds us that this application of salt to the decaying, dying world structure is not a welcome application.  The world sees it instead as a gross imposition and uncouth intrusion.

It is a sad thing when meat has decayed for so long that it views the decay as normal and desirable.  It is a sad thing when the agent of preservation is resented by the very object it is seeking to preserve.  However, we should remember that the world’s hostility to the intrusion of the Kingdom of God life is itself a result of the decay that we are seeking to combat.

II. The temptation to abandon what we are is really a temptation to abandon Christ.

This inevitable opposition to the intrusion of the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world (which we discussed at length last week in looking at the eighth Beatitude on persecution) presents the church today with a very real temptation:  the abandonment of our function as salt.  This can happen in many ways:  rank abandonment, subtle concealment, or redefinition.

The Christian who embraces rank abandonment simply refuses to be salt and light.  In this case, Christ is usually imprisoned in something we call “the spiritual realm” (which usually means church services and functions) and we live like the kingdom of the world in something we call “the secular realm.”  The spiritual/secular idea is perniciously brilliant because it allows us enough Jesus to comfort our hearts but not enough to bring us in conflict with the world.  I am thinking here of the person who says that Christianity is their personal faith but they don’t carry Jesus with them into the workplace or the voting booth.  It is as if life has been reconstructed as a house with many rooms.  Jesus lives in the religious room, our favorite candidate lives in the political room, our favorite team lives in the sports room, etc.

A few years ago one of the major news magazines interviewed the novelist Reynolds Price on the subject of Jesus.  I will never forget that Price said he was personally very impressed with Jesus.  In fact, he said he tried to follow Jesus and live the kind of life Jesus prescribed. He embraced all of Jesus’ teachings, he said, except one:  the Great Commission, Jesus’ call for His followers to go into the world making disciples.  He wanted Jesus.  He just didn’t want a Jesus who actually called him to conflict with the world.

The Christian who embraces the tactic of subtle concealment is the Christian who keeps Jesus around, even in the world, but allows the kingdom of the world to whittle down the sharper edges and more scandalous elements of the teachings of Christ.  It is all very subtle and all very nuanced.  It is also very effective.

I suspect this happens frequently with “cool Christians,” by which I mean Christians who never quite seem ever to have to disagree with the world.  These Christians are very good with words.  Using words, they can deflect the uncomfortable aspects of Jesus while maintaining a form of godliness and a kind of Christianity.  They can even put up a front of prophetic courage on certain issues about which the world already has some basic agreement of outrage:  say sex trafficking, racism, or political posturing.  We must oppose these things and I applaud all who oppose them.  But it does indeed goad a bit when one meets Christians whose only challenges are to those structures that it has become acceptable to challenge.

And, of course, some Christians simply redefine Jesus, the gospel, and the Kingdom of God so that there is no conflict at all.  This is the “Christianity” of the niche Jesus:  gay Jesus, environmentalist Jesus, feminist Jesus, New Age Jesus, white supremacist Jesus, black power Jesus, liberation theology Jesus, cult Jesus, vegetarian Jesus, cage fighting Jesus, etc. and etc.  The redefinition of the Kingdom of God so as to make it fit into our desired shape is a popular and devastating tragedy.  It requires the outright gutting of the Kingdom of God as presented in the Scriptures and the insertion in its place of a kingdom that, strangely, looks just like us.  When we complete this terrible revisionism, we do not end up with the Kingdom of God but rather the kingdom of __________ (insert your own name here).

All of these are ways that we abandon our calling to be salt and light, to be the living, breathing presence of the Kingdom of God in the fallen kingdom of the world.  What is really important to understand is that the temptation to abandon what we really are is actually a temptation to abandon Christ Himself.

We are to be Kingdom of God salt.  We are to be Kingdom of God light.  Jesus is the King of the Kingdom.  It is His.  To abandon our high calling and privilege of being salt and light is therefore to abandon the commission of our King, Jesus.  To abandon the commission of our King, Jesus, is to abandon our King.

Brothers and sisters, if you refuse to embrace your identity as salt and light, you are refusing to embrace the One who makes you salt and light.  It is not just a matter of not living up to your calling.  It is a matter of committing treason against our King.

If you have come to Christ, you have come to the King.

The King has commissioned His followers to illuminate the dark world with His light.

The King has commissioned His followers to preserve the dying world with His salt.

It is only through the salt and light of the Kingdom that the world can come to know the King that it does not know.

It is only through your life that they will come to know of Him at all.

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. ¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.