Bible Commentaries

Notes of Christ's Sermons

Luke 13:10-14).

The Jews had their own way of doing things. It it was a case of life and death the doctor might prescribe on the Sabbath day, but the doctor was not to pay the slightest attention to chronic cases of any kind; they were there on Saturday and they would be there on Monday, and they would be there the next week, and they would be there the next month, and therefore no particular heed was to be paid to them. Here again we find the narrowing spirit. All ailment is the same to Jesus Christ. Transient as men call transient, or chronic as men call chronic, the great fact is that the man wanted healing, and he was there to heal; if he had done anything else he would have thwarted his own election, and stultified his own sovereignty. This was the necessity of his very make, build, constitution,—he came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Having spoken as he only could speak, "all his adversaries were ashamed." He made them hold down their heads that the redness of their blush might not be seen. Whoever encountered him and stood upright after an interview, when the purpose was a purpose of hostility? We have seen how many men came up to him in fine attitude, in studied posture, thinking they had a case that would constrain his attention and secure his approbation. How often we have seen them coming up young men, going away about a hundred years old, so blanched and withered and humiliated, and so ashamed that they dare not speak to one another, or if they did speak they wanted to say, "It was you that would go—I did not want to go, but you made me—I will never go again." "And all the people"—Bless God tor the people. What would the kings do without the people? They would die of loneliness. "And all the people "—Yes, it is true oftentimes that the voice of the people is the voice of God. There may be mysterious variations of this, and yet there is a central truth in it. "And all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him." Yes, let judgment be upon the "things," and we have no fear. We must not be word-mongers, logic-choppers; we must take our stand upon the facts, the conversions, the changes of heart and disposition and character and tone and temper, and Christ asks no other standard of judgment See what Christianity has done for the world, and by the glorious things it has done let the whole Christian argument stand or fall. We are not all called upon to argue. Many are called upon to suffer, and suffering may be borne with such gracious heroism as to constitute itself into an argument. The great talker proceeded. He gave philosophic symbols of the invisible and infinite kingdom; he said, The kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed: like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened; and thus he started imagination on a wondrous course of inquiry, and to this day the poets are finding new symbols. When a man arises who can construct a new parable, true to the purpose of the kingdom of heaven, the people acknowledge him to be a true servant of Christ.

But did the matter end there? No. There was an application to this sermon as there ought to be to every sermon. He said unto them, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate." What is the meaning of this "strive"? Literally, wrestle; throw your arms around the adversary, and throw him; struggle; say you will begin. He is a giant with whom you have to grapple, but it is God who tells you to enter into the encounter. "Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able." They shall only seek: but that is not the whole meaning. We must dislodge the narrow-minded theologian from this passage. Have not some good men said, Many will seek to enter in and shall not be able because of the decree of God? Who says so tell lies. When will they seek to enter in and not be able? The Lord gives the time:—"When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are" ( Luke 13:25). The time is when the Lord himself has risen, has closed the dispensation, has terminated the economy of grace, has gone to some other department, so to say, of his universal empire. But, blessed be his name, he has not risen yet; he has not shut to the door yet Now men may come. In this holy moment those who are outside may strive to enter in; may wrestle, struggle, determine in God's strength to enter in. If you fail to do this you fail altogether, no matter what admiration you may have of Christianity as a theological system; no matter what knowledge you may have of Christianity as a theological argument; no matter how liberal you may be in the support of Christian institutions. If you do not strive to enter in, determine to enter in, if you do not struggle and agonise; if you do not make it the supreme object of your life to get in, all else is failure. " Luke 13:31-34

Here, then, is a picture of a threatened man. Jesus Christ was continually being threatened. There seemed every day to be but a hair"s-breadth between him and death. He was despised and rejected of men; there was no beauty in him that man should desire his presence. Yet there was something about him which excited the passion, the most terrible vengeance of mankind. He held his life in his hand, in a special and peculiar way. Who was there that did not lift up a hand against him? Who was there not too mean to pucker up his face into a sneer when he saw the Son of God? And who was there not too feeble to suppose that even he could do some damage to the name of the Messiah? What was there, then, to induce Jesus Christ to live upon the earth? The foxes had holes and the birds of the air had nests, but the Son of man had not where to lay his head. Why, then, should he not have made short work of it; have turned right round and said, "I leave the dust of my feet behind me as a testimony against you; I have made you an offer of truth and of life and of love, and you have rejected that offer. I leave you now to all the consequences of your obstinacy"? Yet he came to be upon the earth in this very position in which we find him. He knew the kind of hospitality that awaited him; he knew how homeless he would be; how hard would be the pillow on which his weary head was to rest; how unkind the looks that would be waiting for him here and there, on the right hand and on the left. Yet, for our sakes, he became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich. There was nothing strange in the revelation of this lot which met the Saviour—that is to say, there was nothing strange to his mind; he was not startled by the mode of reception that was accorded to him. From the height of heaven he foresaw it; before coming to the earth at all he knew all the courses through which he must of necessity pass. Still, in the face of it all, he came to seek and to save that which was lost. Behold, then, in this text, a picture of a threatened man. There is a sword against thy life; there is a king against thee! Thirty years before Herod the Great had sought the young Child to destroy him; and now, after the lapse of a generation, Herod the Tetrarch sends messages by the Pharisees, that his hand was against him. What a threatened life! What a position of discomfort, of misinterpretation, of utter friendlessness, of sore distress! I want you to look at Jesus Christ in this aspect, and to keep your eyes steadily upon him whilst such messages are being delivered; because it is under such circumstances that we may get some hint of the real quality of his character.

Why did Herod threaten Jesus? Why was the life of Christ a threatened life from the beginning to the end? Because good is always unpalatable to evil. That which is good always torments that which is bad. But had not Herod far greater influence in the world than Jesus Christ? No. But Herod could strike! True, but in doing so his arm would rot Wherein, then, is the superiority of the influence of this threatened man? It is in its goodness. Good men have everything to hope from time; bad men have everything to fear from the lapse of days. Beauty can stand the wear and the tear of life—the inward and imperishable beauty of consummate goodness and divine truth. Goodness is a perpetual quantity, all penetrating, all searching, impartial, noble, a comfort in distress, a refuge to the weak, a tower and a defence to all men who wish to be right and to do right. Had it been a case of man against Luke 13:32).

Here you have a picture of impotent rage on the part of Herod the Tetrarch. He thought that Jesus Christ would tremble under the message. He instantly treats it with disdain, with noble haughtiness of conscious superiority to the shaft that is levelled against him; and he describes Herod according to the moral traits of his character. He does not hesitate to call Herod a fox; a mere cunning, designing Luke 13:33).

Here is a picture of perfect reliance in the divine protection. On the one hand, Herod threatens; on the other, Jesus says, "I must walk to-day, and tomorrow, and the day following." Every man is immortal until his work is done. You cannot injure a hair of a man's head until the work that he is entrusted with be so far fulfilled as to ensure its entire completion. Men should not be soured by the opposition of their enemies. Some of us are prone to be so. When our lives are threatened, when our peace is jeopardised, we are disposed to say, "Then we shall have no more to do with this thing; we shall utterly abandon it; we shall settle down into peace and tranquillity, for we have had enough of vexation and disappointment." It is feeble to say so; it shows the poverty of our nature, if we talk in that way. I know not whose example we may be copying, but I know we are not transcribing the example of the Son of God. He did not resign his functions, he did not decline to go on with his work. He said, "I work in the name of God and for the good of mankind, and I must not be stopped." If we had more of that spirit, we should do more work in the world; we should have fewer resignations of Christian positions, less slinking away from the road of difficulty, and the path of bewilderment, and the course of pain. We should have more steadiness and consistency, not arising from pride and a sense of self-sufficiency, but coming out of the consciousness of a divine call, and an assurance that divine grace is more than sufficient for every occasion. What is the cure for all this willingness to run away from difficulty? The cure is in looking to the Master and not to the servant. We are the servants of God, and therefore the servants of one another. Tell me that I have received my ministry from Luke 13:34.)

Here is a picture of rejected and wounded love. We have had a picture of a threatened man; we have had a picture of impotent rage; we have had a picture of perfect reliance on the protection of Almighty God. And behold, we have now the most pathetic of the pictures—a picture of rejected and wounded love. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, and ye would not!" Jesus Christ's ministry, then, in this sense, was a failure. There are men amongst us who would not hesitate to say, that Jesus Christ's endeavours to save men had ended in a disastrous disappointment. This indeed is a wail, a cry of failure, an utterance of disappointment—it is love in agony! Viewed within a certain limit of time, no ministry has been less successful than was the ministry of the Son of God. No man amongst us ever uttered a cry so heartbreaking as this over the apparent failure of his ministry. Jesus Christ went, with all his power, into some districts, and could not do many mighty works there because of the unbelief of the people. Was his ministry then a failure? Jesus wept over Jerusalem and said, he would have gathered the children of the city together, but the children would not be gathered by his love. Was the ministry of Jesus Christ then an ignominious failure? We must not look at things within these limitations. "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die." You have striven for the better life of your child, and no good result seems to have blessed your ministry. Do not suppose that you have failed altogether in your efforts. You have been sowing seed; you have been laying up memories; and the time may come when the child will get a right view of all you have done for his welfare. Despair not; hope on. No man can speak a loving word or deliver a wise message, even to a child, without in some sort having his reward either in the approbation of a good conscience, or in seeing the work of the Lord so far prospering in his hand, that his child shall be twice born to him. We speak ignorantly oftentimes when we speak of failures. We only see parts of the case. We want to see everything within the compass of one day. We cannot wait until the day following, and the third day. Oftentimes our impatience betrays us, and we mourn a failure where we ought to see but an ebb in the tide. A man's heart-waves will come again, by-and-by, with still greater force and fuller volume!

The offer of salvation had been made, and the offer of salvation had been rejected. This appears to me to be one of the most astonishing facts" in human life. Given this state of affairs: An assembly of men, and a declaration from heaven that God is willing to save every man in the assembly, and that most of them should refuse to believe the message. Is there any anomaly so great? Is there a state of affairs less likely to secure our belief than that? And yet this is the condition of things. No man is so little believed as is the Word of God. Sometimes we feel wounded because our messages do not produce proper effect. But the heart of Almighty God is continually grieved, because of the rejection of the gospel. Jesus Christ here puts himself into an attitude most pathetic and touching. He says, "I would have gathered you. Why are you not gathered? Not because of any want of opportunity; not because of any deficiency of love on my part, but because of the stubbornness of your own will." After all, whatever metaphysical mysteries there may be about this view of the case, it satisfies the heart and the deepest love of mankind more than any other view. Christ entreating—men rejecting; the gospel offered—the gospel despised; and the blame coming down in judgment and condemnation upon those who have rejected the truth. I know not of any view of the case which goes so far to satisfy one's present intelligence and sense of right, and consciousness of religious concern for the children of men.

It is so with ourselves. The gospel is offered to us. Jesus Christ comes to every Luke 13:35).

Are we to understand, then, from these words, that there is to be a limit to the period of trial which is allotted to mankind in this matter of salvation? Is there but a day of grace? Verily. A day! Then it has an end? Yes. "The sun of grace once set, will rise no more." When is that period of trial? Now. How long will the period of trial last? No man can tell. Shall I be spared another year? No man can promise thee that. Shall I hear another offer of salvation? I dare not say thou wilt. May this be the last time the call of heaven resounds in my ears? Yes. What then? "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." But I am old?

Yet even here is mercy. Even perdition itself is an aspect of the divine mercy. Indiscrimination, as to character, would be unjust. God is merciful in the "depart," as he is merciful in the "come." We shall see it one day. May we never see it from the lower aspect, but from the higher. What then have I to offer to men? This: A present Saviour, a sufficient Redeemer, Jesus Christ, God the Son, willing to gather men. It is a tender word, "The Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." No,—and we can never tell how much it costs the heart of God to say to any man, "Your house is left unto you desolate."