We will now meditate on chapter 11. We are tracing certain characteristics in the Lord's ministry. Here we find the minds of the disciples in what we may call a very interesting, moment. They were learning the necessity of taking the new creation place. The law never taught them that. Prayer is the expression of dependence—the law taught them independence. The soul was insensibly learning its necessities, though not formally, or dispensationally, till after Christ's death. John went beyond Moses his disciples wanted to be taught to pray. So it is, here, with the disciples of the Lord. Then, as the perfect minister of their souls, He sets Himself to teach them, and you find a form of prayer. He suits His words to their then condition. Prayer is the expression of the heart in its present condition.
Then He speaks of man going to a friend at midnight and asking for three loaves. "And he from within"; these are pregnant words! Are you "within"? It is a dangerous condition in this world. What I mean by that is, losing your sympathies with the joys and sorrows around you. So the Lord shows out God's grace on the dark ground of that man's selfishness. You have not to "ask" and "seek" and "knock"; that is importunity. But "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." See the divine readiness in answer to human necessities. Never say importunity is needed to move God. At your leisure read Dan. 10 For "three full weeks" Daniel was chastening his heart before God, and no answer was given. At the end of that time the answer came; and bow? The angel told him that as soon as ever he began to pray, he was heard; but a certain transaction that was going on in heaven, hindered the answer. He went on in importunity for three weeks, but as soon as ever he had prayed, he was heard. So you may have been praying for a long time, and getting no answer, but be sure the interval has been well employed; if not in heaven, in the chastening of your spirit. This beautifully illustrates what we get here. There is no reluctancy in God—not that selfishness to be overcome that there was in the man at midnight—but there may be reasons to delay the answer, and when it does come, it may be in a way you are little prepared for. Paul prayed three times, and the thorn was not taken away; but the answer came at last, and in a way he had not expected. The thorn was left until the day of his death, but he was given grace by which he could triumph in it.
When the Lord has thus commented on prayer, he enters (v. 14) on a solemn scene. Two antagonist thoughts come up to Christ. The Lord was constantly enduring the contradiction of sinners against Himself. The one set of people came to charge Him with casting out devils by Beelzebub; the other, tempting Him, sought of Him a sign from heaven; the first of these represents perverted religion; the second represents infidelity. We will look at these for a little. We have the same thing to meet to this hour. The Lord takes up the first of these: He begins to address those who say He cast out devils by the prince of the devils. Mark, here is exquisite beauty. "If Satan... be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand?" He begins by the gentler argument. I wish you and I copied Him in the beauty of His style and in the truth of His substance—His style was inimitable as His substance was perfect. In answering this contradiction, He begins by showing them the folly of their thought. Would Satan be so foolish? Why are you so senseless?
Now, His argument is addressed to themselves: Let is go back to your favorite, David, when he tuned his harp and delivered Saul from the evil spirit. The carnal mind is not enmity to David, but to God. How He presses in on their consciences! "By whom do your sons cast them out?" Now; He is approaching the serious part of the matter—No doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you; therefore, take care what you are about. The very style in which He conducts the argument has a beauty and an order. He begins by the gentler argument and then goes on to the stronger, and He says, Take care; you are on dangerous ground. Then He indicts the parable of the strong man to show that it was by the finger of God He cast them out. The strong man only gets his house rifled by a stronger than himself. God alone is stronger than Satan. We have already been conquered and made slaves by the devil, so that when we get him bound in this world, God alone has done it, for no child of man could. If I see anyone stronger than Satan in this world, I have a witness that God is here. He shows that what Satan is doing, he is doing in collision with God—that his bruiser has appeared. That is what He taught Satan in the wilderness. Satan is not afraid of us, but he has more than his match in the Son of God. He is bold as a lion when he comes to you and me, but he trembles in the presence of Christ.
Now, in verse 23, He draws a very solemn conclusion. The battle is proclaimed, and there is no neutrality. God has made the world the scene of the conflict in which the question between Himself and Satan is to be decided, the fruit of which is to occupy eternity. The voice goes forth: "He that is not with Me is against Me." Then when the Lord had thus solemnly sounded the voice of the trumpet across the field—the blast of the silver trumpet, proclaiming war, in verse 24—He sketches a very solemn sight, where we may linger a little. It is a most pregnant, awful picture. It was illustrated in Israel, and I believe will be in Christendom. The besom of Babylon may have swept the house of Israel, and to this day they may abominate idols, but a clean house may be just as fit for Satan as an unclean one; reformation will not do. So it is with Christendom. I trust there is not a single heart here that trusts in reformation. We are all thankful for that which gives us the privilege of sitting here together in peace; mere Protestantism will not do. The Lord teaches us that the swept and garnished house may be worse than before. What has taken the place of idols in reformed Christendom? Is it knowledge of Jesus?
Yes, in His own elect; but human vanities have conducted man in Christendom by the same path as the Jew. It is only hurrying on to a matured form of apostate iniquity.
Then He turns to those who were requiring a sign, and says, "There shall no sign be given." Now, why was it ever said to Christ, Show us a sign from heaven? Worldliness dictated it. They wanted a Christ that would astonish the world. The Lord would not and could not answer that. If you and I could not accept our Jesus in rejection, we shall never have Him in glory. Shall I think to see my Lord glorified in a defiled world, in the midst of such moral elements as fill it? He will give no sign here. If He is accepted, it must be under the sign of the prophet Jonas—not with a crown on His head, but buffeted and spit upon. Instead of giving a sign from heaven, He gives one from the bowels of the earth, in death and humiliation.
Next He gives the beautiful instance of the Queen of Sheba. Her conscience and affections were stirred when she heard that Solomon had the knowledge of God. "When the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD" (1 Kings 10:11And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions. (1 Kings 10:1)), she took the long journey from the South to Jerusalem, just to find out God. What stirred the conscience of the men of Nineveh? Jonah's words. "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Then the king clothed himself with sackcloth. What a ridiculous thing to put horses and sheep in sackcloth! Who can measure the throes and compunctions of an awakened conscience! You may sit and analyze and criticize, but it will give no account to you. It is blessed to see, as in the stricken cases nowadays, that the convicted conscience cannot stand upon measure. Send us a sign, they said. No, says the Lord, You must believe on Me with your conscience.
While the Lord was about to answer the second of these questions, there was a woman in the company whose affection was stirred. Now tell me, do you not often find human affections stirred under the cross? The daughters of Jerusalem took their places apart from the prosecutors. Now I am not to trust this excitement of nature, but I am not to treat it as vile. There may have been a crop for Jesus in it—a blessing in the cluster. You may be prepared for a variety of moral activities nowadays.
The Lord says to this poor woman, There is a mistake in your judgment; rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it. Connection with Christ is to be spiritual and not fleshly, divine and not human. Do you not delight to know that nothing less than your necessity as sinners is to form the link between you and Jesus? Anything else would snap asunder like the withes that bound Samson.
Chapter 12
At the close of chapter 11 we see the Lord at the house of a Pharisee again. He does not sit in the house of Bethany in the same character as He does here. Such is the multiform beauty of the Lord. We see Him at the houses of three different Pharisees, in chapters 7, 11, and 14 of this Gospel. And here is one beauty of the mind of Christ—He was ever set upon distinguishing things that differ. In that way He illustrated one of the divine properties, as we read in Hannah's song: "The LORD is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed." The Lord was a God of knowledge, always weighing actions; but He never weighed an action in its relation to Himself, but in its relation to God and the person acting. He would pass by an affront offered to Himself (as in the Samaritan villagers), but He would stand firmly against an affront offered to God, as when He made a whip of small cords and drove out the moneychangers from the house of God. We are all prone to judge of actions in relationship to ourselves. That is not Christ, but ruined nature. The Lord might be flattered, and He would not be perverted. It is just as easy for human nature to be perverted by flattery, as to be made angry by an affront. There is scarcely a single person who is not tempted to value or mis-appreciate actions by the way in which they affect himself. You and I soon become the captives of a little flattery. If Peter had said to you in kindly humanity, That be far from thee, would you have said, Get thee behind me? I will answer for you, No. But Peter's softness was not enough to provoke easiness in Christ.
If you examine at your leisure these three Pharisees, in their moral condition, you will find that the Lord had the balances in His hand in each case. All Pharisees were not the same. Some were amiable, some besotted; some led, and some leading; but Christ distinguished between them all. The Pharisee of this chapter, of course, was courteous like the others, and the Lord accepted it, for He was the social Son of man, and came eating and drinking; but He was judging all the time. The Pharisee wondered that He had not "first washed before dinner," and the Lord answered him, and went on with earnest-hearted rebuke, verse after verse, to the end. I should have wondered to read such rebukes after such a simple remark, but wait a little. No rough word or providence will ever cross your path that He will not be able to vindicate. The last verses are His vindication here. He discerned what was underneath the flattery—a hypocritical enmity to Christ, and here it comes out: in the end. They were "laying wait for Him, and seeking to catch something out of His mouth, that they might accuse Him." You will not find that He treats Simon, in chapter 7, in the same manner. He knew there was a different pulse in him, and there was not the peremptory stern rebuke, but, "Come now, and let us reason together." "Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee." Do not go clumsily through society. Carry the balances of God with you. So did the Lord.
Chapter 12 is the appendix to the scene in the Pharisee's house. He speaks to the multitude and warns them against hypocrisy. He had just been the victim of it, and the Lord always takes a natural text. He did so in John 4. There the water Was His text, and here His text is naturally the scene in the Pharisee's house. In verses 2 and 3 He shows the folly of it. If you and I walked in the light of eternity, everything that had not reality would be arrant folly to us. What a fine style the Lord can use when He chooses! For the soft whispered slander in the ear, the day shall come when the angel of the Lord shall proclaim it on the housetop. There is the answer to the insinuations that go abroad in well-conducted society.
The next subject is that of fear—the fear of man—and see how beautifully the Lord discusses it. The words of Jesus would give you a well-regulated mind, but your mind must first own its relationship to God as its great paramount circumstance. Now He tells you, if fear finds a place in your mind, not to fear man but God. Then He goes on to show how, if you fear God, you need not fear as a slave, but as a son; not servility, but with confiding reverence. Take Him up in this blessed way; there is not a single hair of your head that He has not numbered. Would you stand in fear before a friend who has numbered your hairs that you might not lose one? That is the way to extract fear. Then He goes on to say, in verses 8 and 9, Now you who confess Me, do not fear the Pharisees. Confess Me, for a day is coming when I will confess you. Could any reasoning be more perfect to extract fear from the heart? If you confess Me before perishing men, I will confess you before the indestructible glory of God. Then He goes on, "Unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven." You and I are the vessels of the Holy Ghost. A personal insult to the Son of man might be forgiven, but refusal of that which the Church carries is without remedy.
Now having disposed of fear, He takes up the subject of worldliness. "One of the company said unto Him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me," and the Lord answers, Do you not understand Me? Is it My business to make a man richer in this world? The Lord has promised deep peace to His people, but never honor or wealth. This man mistook His mission, so He now preached a sermon on covetousness, and He gives a striking parable. Now, is the plentiful bringing forth of the ground evil? No. There is nothing evil in a good harvest. Plentifulness is a mercy, but I will tell you what is in it—not evil, but danger. And so it proved with the man in the parable; for he began to turn it to the account of his earthly mind, instead of to the account of the Lord paramount of the soil; and if people are in a thriving way of life, very right, I say, to employ their hands and skill, and it is a mercy if the crop be plentiful, but there is danger in it.
Then from verse 22, He goes on in that exquisite discourse of which, if one did not speak a word on it, the very reading is edification. I am sure of this, that the life of faith and hope is the only deliverance from worldliness. In the keen, discerning, vivid mind of Christ, that is what He shows us in this discourse. A man may be blameless and harmless, and yet he is a worldly man if he is not nourishing the life of faith and hope. Go and get lessons from the ravens and lilies. "Provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not." Do you welcome such a lesson as that? Do you love to have the subtlety of a worldly mind shown to you? The love of present things rests itself most sweetly in the heart of man. If I am not trusting in God and waiting for glory, I am exposed by the Lord here as having a worldly mind. If in the Book there is a chapter of moral power, it is this. Get the girdle around your loins, the lamp of hope in your hand, and you will be delivered from worldliness—not waiting for bigger barns, but for the Lord. Does not this beautiful style extricate us for a moment? Ah, if it were kept fresh in our affections all the day long, I will answer for it, our wretched hearts would not be worldly.
Now, He shows that if thus waited for, when He comes, He will change places. You wait on Him now; He will wait on you when He comes. No longer wonder at the certain Samaritan. The traveling Samaritan changes places, and here the girded Lord serves. Love could do nothing more than that. This is love to a neighbor indeed. He will practice it in glory as He did in degradation. These words are easily read, but I ask you one thing: Could they be exceeded? Do you think it hard to gird your loins in waiting for such a master? He will not find it a hard matter to gird Himself and to wait on your joy. Thus speaking, Peter interrupts Him. In this Gospel He is constantly interrupted, because the Lord is here drawing out the human mind to give the passions of the heart their answer. He lets man expose himself. So Peter says, "Speakest Thou this parable unto us?" and the Lord answers, "Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household?" Again He changes places. If I only wait for Him in heart, He will gird Himself; but if I go forth and serve Him in hand and foot, He will make me ruler. Do you not call Him "Lord" as well as "Savior"? Then He will make you lord.
Next He distinguishes about the many and few stripes. He was carrying the moral balances here—not judicial. He did not come to judge, but by-and-by the day will come when He will hold the balances of righteousness and be as accurate there as He was here. If He did not confound the Pharisees,
He will not confound His servants. It is a great relief to the heart to know that a day of retributive justice is coming. There is not a single moral action you ought not to judge; but retributive judgment awaits another day.
In verse 54 He turns again to glance at the request, Show us a sign. "Ye hypocrites," you are asking a sign; now do you not discern the west wind laid up as a forerunner of heat? Now, where are you to get your forerunner? In Scripture, of course, where they ought to have got theirs, like the wind and cloud, to tell them what was coming. Look at Me, He says; in poverty and fullness, and witness that God has come among you.
In the last two verses, He glances back at the man who asked Him to be a divider. You have been dragging your brother to a magistrate. Another is dragging you, and I would advise you to make terms with him—Moses, the law of God. Make all diligence, for I tell you, if once you get there, you will not get away till you answer the demands of the throne of God. Could anyone here do it? If you cannot stand before the throne of God, you are not saved:
So, while that beautiful chapter morally addresses itself to saints, it closes by a word addressed to the conscience of man.
Oh, how one longs to feel the girdle a little tighter, and to walk in the light of the lamp of expectation, and "abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost."