A VERY important thing is suggested at the opening of this chapter. We were observing the three distinct ministries of chap. 8., 9., and 10., and that the largeness of the ministry sent forth bespeaks the character of this Gospel. The Lord did not, it is true, step over Jewish limits, but He, is looking at man in the Jew, and not, as in Matthew, at the Jew in the Jew. Now, observe in sending out the twelve, He told them to heal the sick, and to preach the kingdom of God. They were to cure diseases, and to challenge the claims of God in the face of the world. Do you believe that God has come into the world, bringing salvation, to surrender His own rights to your necessities? He could not do it; and you, if in a right mind, could not wish it. The glory of the Gospel is, that He is glorified while you are saved. Could you enjoy a robbery? 'It would be a robbery, if you could get a blessing which took glory from God. You get this in the Cross, if you read it aright. It is the glory of the Gospel that God could be just, and yet the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. We get a sample of that here. He tells them, then, to take with them neither scrip, nor money, nor bread: "You are going forth on my message; lean on me. No man goeth a warfare on his own charges. I will take care of your necessities, and do you let your moderation be known unto all." Then " Whosoever will not receive you, shake off the dust of your feet." While there is a graciousness attaching Christian ministry, there is a solemnity too. The °Lord would have that character affixed to it. We see it in Paul at Antioch when he shook off the dust of his feet, and came to Iconium; and in Nehemiah, when, he shook his cap and said, " So God shake every man from his house that performeth not this promise." There is a constellation of glories, not only in the character, but in the style of the Lord's ministry.
Now let us look at Herod for a moment. Tell me, do you think you have done with sin, when you have committed it? One thing is certain:-It has not done with you. The charm of sin is gone, the moment it is perpetrated. That is your way of disposing of sin, hut conscience which "makes cowards of us all," lets you know that it has not done with you. Herod had beheaded John long before, but now it was said of some that John was risen from the dead, and he is perplexed. Here the worm that never dies was doing its business. I am not of course, determining his eternity, but the Lord in such cases lifts the veil from hell, and shows us the worm at its work and the fire at its work. Herod could not rest. How could he. The murderer of the greatest witness of God in the world at the moment! If the sinner does not fly to the fountain opened for sin, it will never have done with him. Now the Apostles return and tell what they have done, and we have the scene of feeding the multitude. Here we get the largeness of the heart of Christ in contrast with every human heart. Could you get a sample of the human heart more easy to love than Peter's? He was an open-hearted, good-natured man, that you could easily have loved; but look at it in contrast with the heart of Christ 1 They said, " Send the multitude away."
No," said he, "give ye them to eat." And they said, " What I are we to go and buy." It was said in a sulky mood of mind, but the Lord did not refuse to go on with His sulky disciples. He met with vanity, ignorance, heartlessness, bad temper, to try the perfect Spirit that dwelt in Him. It is a very interesting study to see how He always overcame evil with good. If my bad temper puts you into a bad temper, you have been overcome of evil. Good never gives place to evil. It controls and overcomes it. This is a beautiful instance of it. The disciples said, "send them away." " Make them sit down," said Jesus, then being the master of the feast, He must supply the feast. Now, mark something of the moral beauty of Jesus' feast. He sits at the head of the table in the glory of God, and as the perfect man. As God He puts forth creative powers, and was acting without robbery. He not only was God, but there was no form of divine glory that He would not assume; no act of divine power that He would not put forth. But He took His place also as the perfect man. He was an entire contradiction to Adam. What was Adam's offense? He did not give thanks, but assumed to be master of all. It was man refusing to be thankful. The Lord gives thanks. I see Him taking His place at the head of the table in the wilderness, as perfect God and perfect man. The worship that God got in the person of Jesus was richer incense to Him than if Adam had lived forever as a thankful man. He came to erect, out of the ruins, a temple for the glory of God, that creation in integrity would never have yielded.
Now, the blessed God would have us know that at His table there is always more than enough. We know what it is to sit comfortably at a plentiful board. When I see very God making the feast, and very man giving thanks, then leaving cartloads, so to speak, of fragments, what can I do but be thankful! We may, each one and all, be full, and go away thankful that there is plenty for others.
Now we get a very important part in the Gospel story. The Lord was in prayer, and when He arose He asked His disciples: "Whom do people say that I am?" Let me say, there is a great deal to be found out in the style of the moment in Scripture. The very style in which an event comes out gives it a character. That question draws out the proof that the world was rejecting Him. He came to His own, and His own received Him not. You are now in the vestibule of the mountain of transfiguration. He would never have had His glory in heaven if He had not been refused His throne on earth. He has ascended into heaven as the earth-rejected Son of Man. If you ask, were not all things known to God from the creation of the world? Surely they were; but these things come out in great moral glory. Man would not give Him a place here, so God took Him up to heaven. " Whom say the people that I am?" And they answered, " Some say Elias, and others, one of the old Prophets." " What! is that the best thought that Israel has of me? But whom say you that I am?" The world was made by HIM, and the world knew Him not. Let us search out the under current of the spirit of Scripture, not merely track the words. Now, Peter stands forth as representing the elect of God, and the moment the Lord has found out His election, He says to them: " Now do not you be loving your life. You, my election, take part in my rejection." That only, I am bold to say, is the standing of the church, to this day. My whole heart puts its seal to the fact that the church, in this dispensation, is the companion of a rejected Lord. "Now," says He, " we'll go to heaven, I will show you your inheritance in a better place." Before ever Abraham was called forth to rejection, "the God of glory" appeared to him. So before the church is called to rejection, she is taken up to heaven to see her glory there. Are you satisfied with this? As far as the mind of Christ is stirring in you and me, we can say, " be it so, Lord. I will travel along the road here, in hope of what has shone upon me." So the Lord says to the disciples " Do not you be loving your life. Come away up to the hill with me, and there I will show you the glory." And now I will ask you, what suits the man on his way to heavenly glory? Is it money and power, and such-like he should be seeking? Judge in yourselves, is it consistent in a man to load himself with clay, on his way to a place where there is to be no clay The Lord shows you the path and shows you the end of the path. It is only our love of present things that makes such a lesson difficult. My whole soul seals it,-would that my whole heart adopted it. After this the Lord comes down and meets His disciples in their disability to cast out a devil. Now, on no occasion does the Lord express disappointment of heart more vividly than here. " Oh faithless and perverse generation." All human development in Christ was perfectly natural. Now, I ask you, when you have been particularly happy on the Mount with Christ, would not the pollutions of the earth, and the poverty and degradation of the church, pain your spirit more, in contrast with the joy and liberty you have been tasting? The Lord has been tasting the joys of His own land, and He comes down to find faithlessness and defilement. He does not look for glory here, but He does look for the laborings and energy of faith; and when He finds Himself unhelped by the disciples, He says "Oh faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you, how long shall I suffer you?"
Now when they came down they were amazed at His glory, and while they wondered He said, " Let these sayings sink down into your ears." In ver. 51, He had sent His disciples to prepare His way, and the villagers would not receive Him. The disciples would have commanded fire to come down and consume them, but He rebuked them. Now, why do I put these two things together? I see, in the developments and expression of the Lord's human beauty, a man who knew both how to be abased and how to abound. It is a beautiful virtue in human nature. Paul may have learned it by severe moral culture; but Jesus learned it by the perfectness of His own human nature. How willing and ready our wretched and corrupt nature is to take advantage of a flattering moment! Jesus had now become an object of wonder and amazement, and at once He hides Himself behind a veil. of deep degradation. While the rays of glory were shining still about His countenance, He says: "Let this be your. understanding of Me." And after wards, when they would have brought down fire upon the Samaritan villagers, He said "No." He knew how to be abased. In these ways His moral beauties shine out.
At the close one comes and says, " I will follow Thee;" and He says, " Do not you see how the villagers have treated Me? If you will follow Me, you must take part with one who has not where to lay His head." Now, mark another thing. Another comes and says, "Let me first go and bury my father." The sense of the dignity. of His ministry was with Him wonderfully. He answers, " One fellow-creature may do the office of the dying to the dyina, but go you and do the office of a living Savior in the world." He carried with Him a sense of His ministerial glory. Paul had it in the vessel going to Rome, and before Agrippa. There he was a prisoner in chains and degradation, and he stands and says, "I would you were like me." What consciousness of secret dignity in the midst of public degradation! "Let the dead bury their dead; go and do my business,-the business of life, and not of death, in a sin-stricken world." Now tell me, who do you admire in this world? Do you speak well of those who do well to themselves? Do you hate the traffic that speaks of men according to their standinat'' in society? Accustom yourselves to see true glory. It shone in the carpenter's son, in the captive at Rome, and it shines in the poor in this world, rich in faith. May the Lord open our eyes to see God's objects in God's light! Amen.
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