Matthew 16:1-20
It is not a little significant that the merely religious often unite with the openly infidel in their attack upon Christianity.
In the depth of every human heart there is enmity against God. Whether the veneer that covers it be that of religion or of mere indifference it little matters; at the bottom there is downright hatred of God. “The carnal mind is enmity against God.”
It was religion that led the attack upon Christ in the days of His flesh. It was religion which afterwards persecuted His followers, and not only refused the gospel, but sought to hinder its outflow to others. The apostle Paul, speaking of the Jews, says, they “are contrary to all men; forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved.”
It was thus the Pharisees—the merely religions of their day—and the Sadducees, infidel though religious, the ancestors of the present day “Higher Critics”—united in tempting the Lord, asking for a sign.
They could read the face of the sky, but religious and infidel eyes alike could not read the signs of the times. No sign would be given them but that of the prophet Jonas.
Just as Jonah was cast into the boiling sea because of his own sin, and was miraculously preserved in a fish’s belly three days and nights, so Jesus would enter into the flood-tide of God’s judgment upon sin—not His own, but that of others—and, dying, would lie in the heart of the earth three days and three nights, and be raised by God Himself, the Saviour of His people. None but faith could read the sign, or interpret the riddle. To reason it looked like nonsense.
Christ turned then to His disciples, and bade them beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. This exhortation to them was an enigma.
They had witnessed a magnificent crowd of four thousand men, besides women and children, fed by the hand of power. Seven loaves and a few small fishes, multiplied in His hands, furnished a hearty meal for those who had hungered for three days, rather than miss the matchless ministry that flowed from His gracious lips.
Yet the power of His touch, the impossibility of the drying up of their resources when in His company, did not lead to carelessness and waste. Seven baskets of broken meat were collected together, and, it may be, they served to satisfy the hunger of Him who refused once, at the bidding of Satan, to work a miracle to supply His own need—not in this case the fasting of three, but of forty days.
Yet, again, they had surely forgotten a still greater crowd, who had experienced the bounty of His hand. Five loaves and two fishes sufficed to supply the need of five thousand and more, and twelve baskets of fragments were collected.
So these disciples, who had witnessed such scenes so recently, reasoned amongst themselves, saying, “It is because we have taken no bread.”
Yet they were in the very presence of the One who had had compassion thus on the hungry multitudes—nay, of Him who satisfies the desire of every living thing.
Very God and very Man He was, supplying the lack of thousands by the touch of omnipotence, yet knowing hunger and thirst as His own portion. Blessed, precious Saviour, Son of God, well may we bow before the inscrutability of Thy blessed holy Person!
He graciously turned to His disciples, and explained to them the enigma that puzzled their brains.
He spake of the snare of legalism and that of infidelity—the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
And how easily such leaven works amongst those who are real, let each of us honestly answer.
The religion of the Pharisees was for show, to gain the applause of men. We should act otherwise! Our outward and public life should be the outcome of our inward and private life.
If our Christianity appears differently to the eyes of our fellow-men to what God actually sees it to be, there is the Pharisaic element in it. If there is the holding of doctrines in our heads, without knowing their power in our hearts, if there is the praying without answers, the preaching without converts, the talk without power, the outwardly orthodox walk without the real fruit in our lives to God, there is the Pharisaic element in it all.
Oh, let us see to it that we are real and genuine with God, and then we shall be so with men! Let us come to God in the full knowledge that He is, and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
On the other hand, how prone we are to the leaven of the Sadducees. Infidelity is in all our hearts by nature. Even after conversion many young men have told me how infidel doubts troubled them. I was not surprised, for I knew my own heart.
The Sadducean leaven is at work today in Christendom. From many a pulpit it goes forth to work its awful way into the very vitals of profession. Alas! more or less, real Christians are affected by it.
Eternity of punishment, the inspiration of the Scriptures, atonement by blood, and everything that goes to make up Christianity, is taken from us. The shell is left without the kernel. Leafless boughs and a sapless trunk take the place of the living tree.
An imperious intellectualism, calling loftily for a sign, is exchanged for the earnest preaching of Christ crucified, dead, and risen, as the sinner’s only hope.
In this vaunted nineteenth century the leaven of both Pharisees and Sadducees is everywhere making itself seen; gorgeous ritual and empty ceremonial appealing to sight and sound on the one hand, and a carping, sneering infidelity, on the other. All this is too painfully evident to be ignored. The slumber of death is over the land. Death reigns in many a pulpit and pew. Faith languishes, and Hope hangs her head.
And the spirit of all this overtakes, far too often, the real Christian; indeed, we carry the seeds of it all in our own hearts. What is the cure for both—the safeguard in a day of peril?
TO KNOW HIM.
The Lord asked His disciples, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” Speculations were rife as to who He was. Some said one thing, some another—John the Baptist, Elias, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
Then the Lord further asked, “Whom say ye that I am?”
Then came Peter’s memorable confession, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That confession—not poor Peter, who so soon denied his Lord and Master—was the rock upon which Christ would build His Church. Peter was a stone—a living stone—built into the rock, but the foundation is the confession of Christ Himself. Against that Church the gates of hell shall not prevail—the hellish machinations of Satan shall come to naught.
To apply all this to ourselves personally, the knowledge of the Person of Christ is enough to keep us from formalism and infidelity.
As the young Christian loses his first love, and grows cold, the world draws him to herself. Nature abhors a vacuum, and if the heart is not filled with Christ, it must be filled by something.
World-bordering breeds the Pharisaic leaven; the Holy Ghost is grieved; prayer becomes a burden; the reading of Scripture a dry task; and the maintenance of outward orthodoxy becomes wearisome and dull and empty and powerless. Oh! may the Lord draw such back to His wounded side, and recover their backsliding.
Or, again, as faith languishes, reason asserts itself. The proud intellect “traffics in unfelt truth,” and the result is infidel and Sadducean. And all this may go on beneath a calm, Christian exterior. We don’t expect answers to our prayers, converts from our preachings; and certainly we should be surprised if the Lord were to come, and we should be with Him in the twinkling of an eye!
Let not money (it has ruined thousands spiritually), pleasure, intellectuality be first; but let Christ have the chief place. Seek to be here for His interests. Esteem the building up of a broken heart, the encouraging of a lukewarm saint, the winning of a precious soul for Christ, more than the amassing of a fortune, or the cheap triumph of your wit over another Christian.
Above all, think much of Christ. Let the greatness of His Person be your holy meditation. Let the Christ, the sent One of God, the Son of God, in His wonderful incarnation, His gracious life, His matchless death, His glorious ascension to the place of power, engage the affections of your heart, and you will possess a secret that will preserve you amidst the abounding ritualism and rationalism of the day. You will be like the tree whose roots are by the flowing stream—ever green, and affording a cool, refreshing shade for the tired wayfarer, whilst all around is parched and dry.
The secret of being kept is communion with Jesus. Keep close to Him, and yet closer. He loves intimacy, and invites confidence. This is the secret of fruit-bearing. May He lead us into a deeper and fuller knowledge of Himself.