Bible Commentaries

Chapter77

Prayer

Almighty God, who can follow the way which thou dost take, or understand the writing of thy books, or hear all the music of thy voice? We are always left behind: we cannot keep pace with thy going; we are tired, and if thou didst not gather the lambs in thy bosom and carry them in thine arms, behold thy whole flock would be left in stony places. But thou art mindful of us with tender care: when we are weak then are we strong, because thou dost draw us still nearer to thine own almightiness. We have heard of thee from Jesus Christ, and he calls thee our Father: he hath revealed the Father, he told us that he himself came from the bosom of the Father—his speech about thee has made us glad with true joy.

Thou hast numbered the very hairs of our head, thou hast given unto us all thy heart's love, yea thou didst so love us as to give thine only-begotten Son to live, to die, to rise again, to pray all his breath in Heaven. He is our Priest and Intercessor and great King, as he was our Saviour when he died upon the cross and poured out his precious blood for the ransom and redemption of the world. Why do we not believe thee? Behold some of us now in thine house are dumb and deaf and blind, and our hearts are as the nether millstone. Some of us have never wept at the cross, some of us have never felt the cleansing blood. Why are some altars left unlighted, why are some lives left among the beasts that perish? We cannot understand this: it is too high for us and too deep and altogether out of our scope and reach. We mourn it.

Thou art kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Thou dost not pour thy rain upon the gardens of righteous men alone, nor dost thou confine the shining of the sun to the windows of those that are open towards the heavens in loving expectation and desire, but thou pourest thy rain upon good and bad, just and unjust, and the shining of the sun is an impartial glory. So surely is thy love in Christ: did he not die for the whole world, is he not sent into every country, has he not a gospel for every heart, did he not cry over the cities that rejected him, is not his heart filled with compassion towards all the children of men? Why this hardness, why this unanswering rebellion of spirit? May we pray that now the mighty change may be accomplished—may we desire in loving prayer that now may be the day of salvation to all who have not yet uttered the oath of love or received the seal of pardon? Come suddenly to thy people: now that we are all in one place may we be of one accord—when we are of one accord thou wilt not withhold the pentecostal benediction and revelation.

Spirit of the living God, come now—Spirit of fire, answer us from the high Heavens—Spirit of life, let thine answer be unto us great and tender and full of satisfaction. Dry the tears of our sorrow, staunch our bleeding wounds, lift up those that are cast down, speak comfortably unto Jerusalem, let tender solaces recover our strength and messages from Heaven rekindle the lamp of our hope. O save us, Mighty One—draw us to thyself, and set not the foot of thy power upon any one of us, or we shall be crushed and destroyed, but open thine heart and bid us welcome to thy love, and show us the meaning of the cross of Christ, and at the close of this, our waiting upon thee together, with one consent, may we have seen the King in his beauty and heard voices from Heaven. Amen.

Matthew 21:1-16

1. And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Beth-phage (on the road from Jericho, and to the east of Bethany) unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples,

2. Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her; loose them, and bring them unto me.

3. And if any man say aught unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them.

4. All this was done (has come to pass) that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying,

5. Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.

6. And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them,

7. And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.

8. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way.

9. And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.

10. And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved (filled with pilgrims at the beginning of Passover week), saying, Who is this?

11. And the multitude said. This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.

12. And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers (Syrian, Egyptian, Greek, the money might be), and the seats of them that sold doves.

13. And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves (Palestine was then swarming with brigands).

14. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them.

15. And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of David, they were sore displeased,

16. And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?

The Entry Into the City

How did he know where the ass was, and the colt, and in what condition they would be found? This seems to be a little thing in the reading, but if you will think yourselves back into the exact details of the situation, even in this little bush you may find a fire that burns, but does not consume. How did Jesus know all the little things of which he spake in the course of his ministry upon earth? How did he see Nathanael under the fig-tree, how did he read and picture his character and state it in words that startled the man himself? How did he know who it was in the tree looking down upon him in a spirit of curiosity? How knew he the man's name and the man's circumstances, and how did he dare say that he would be the man's guest that day? And by what power of vision does he see the place where the ass Matthew 21:17-22

The Condemnation of Uselessness

From the city to the village—it seems to be but a short journey; in point of mileage indeed it was nothing but an easy walk. From the city into Bethany—how far was that? Do not tell me the distance in miles, statute or geographical—such journeys have not to be measured by arithmetical instruments. From the city to Bethany was from a battlefield to a home—how far is that? From the city to Bethany was a journey from strangeness to friendship—who can lay a line upon that immeasurable distance? From the city to Bethany, a journey from tumult and riot and murder to love and rest and tender ministry—who can lay a line upon that diameter and announce its length in miles? None.

It was worth while making that little change for one night—one quiet look upward, one brief solemn pause in the rush of life, that the head might turn towards the stars and the firmament and the serenities of the upper places. The house at Bethany was not grand, but the home was lined with the gold of love. We want such a home when the stress is heavy upon us—tears could be shed there without being misunderstood, and the heart could tell its whole tale or remain in total silence, just as the mood determined, and there would be no misconstruction. It was a church in the rocks, it was a sweet sanctuary, just out of the great high road of life's business and sacrifice. Can you retire to such a nest? Happy is your lot! He who can find a Bethany, a home, a rest-place, a Sabbath in the midst of the week, can bear his burdens with equanimity, and grace and hope.

But we must return. In the seventeenth verse we read, "And he left them and went out of the city," and in the eighteenth verse we read, "As he returned into the city." The village must not detain us long—the village for rest, the city for toil. Once the disciples said unto him by the mouth of their spokesman, "Lord, it is good to be here: let us build." He himself could have said that morning in Bethany, "It is good to be here: warm is this home, the walls are like arms round about me. Why not tarry here and rest till the storm blow away, and all God's great sky shine again in translucent blue above my head?" But he returned.

And as he returned, he hungered. See the wonderful naturalness of this story: it lives in the very words which tell it. Truly this Jesus was human: he never was at pains to conceal his humanity, he drew no screen around his weakness, saying, "My followers must not see me in this low condition." At Sychar he told a woman that he thirsted; on the road from Bethany he hungered; on the sea he fell asleep. About the humanity of Christ there can be no doubt: his deity is the greater to me because of his humanity. The foot of this ladder is upon the earth: I can begin at certain points in this history and find my way upward to other and remoter points.

The circumstance of the fig-tree must be treated in this particular connection as illustrative of the inner life of Christ. His treatment of that tree was a revelation of himself as he was at that moment. Jesus Christ never did other than reproduce his real self at the time: whatever he did is the counterpart and outer sign of his own mental and spiritual condition at the time of revelation. In the action find the spirit. Read the life of Christ in the light of this suggestion, and it will be its own commentary and broadest and clearest exposition. Every act was a translation of the Man. See how true this is in the case before us. Christ always looked for the fulfilment of the Divine idea in everything. The divine idea of the fig-tree was not leaves, but fruit. There was no fruit, and therefore the word of destruction was spoken. Consider how near he was to the fulfilment of the divine idea which he himself represented, and a man so burningly in earnest could brook no disappointment then. His own life was too hot to stand the mockery of any disappointment. He came to the fig-tree searching for fruit; he found nothing but leaves, and he spoke the word that withered it away.

What have we here but a great law, namely, that the earnestness of the living man determines his view of everything round about him? Jesus Christ was always earnest, but even his earnestness acquired a new accent and intensity as the baptism of blood came nearer. "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished." That was the mood of the Man: he could not brook any irony of a practical kind then. We know what this is in our own life, when high pressure is put upon us, when all life is centred in one effort, when all the energies of our nature are wakened up and are bearing upon one object which we consider worthy of them—how impatient we then are with mockery and disappointment and trifling of every kind! We who under other circumstances could pause and wait and wonder and excuse and suggest mitigations of the case, can brook no delay or mockery when the blood is at its supreme heat.

Jesus Christ showed this in his cleansing of the temple for the second time. We wondered how the men consented to have themselves driven out of the place. You should have seen the driver, thai would have explained all: you should have seen the royalty of his look and heard the sovereignty of his tone, and felt the fervour of his prayer. There are times when vice owns the supremacy of virtue: Jesus Christ now realised one of those times when he heard in the temple the voices of the brigands who haunted the limestone caverns of Judea: the calling of their merchandise and the clamour of their selfishness roused his indignation, and he scourged the ruffians out of the house they had polluted.

This was the temper of his mind just then, when he wanted the ass, and the colt, the foal of the ass—"Say the Lord hath need of him, and he will be given up." In that temper he came into the temple and cleansed it, in that temper he looked upon the disappointing fig-tree and withered it. All this is but a transcript of himself. Everything, in the judgment of Christ must be real, useful, and satisfying according to its nature. His very hunger was a judgment at that time. He did not wither away the poor Samaritan woman who parleyed with him about a draught of water: he had more time on his hands—the cross was farther off, it was a time of revelation rather than of judgment, and he spoke kindly true words to her and held a mirror up to her in which she saw herself in all the length and mystery of her lifetime. He who so communed with the woman at the well withered up the tree that did not supply him with food at the moment of his necessity. It was the same Christ, but the same Christ under different circumstances. At Sychar he was Revealer, Interpreter of the universe, Messiah, the Revealed One of God—on the road from Bethany, wanting almost his last breakfast upon earth before the great tragedy, he was burning, heated sevenfold, the stress was terrible—every look was then a judgment!

Jesus Christ here shows what he will do with all useless things. This is not a surprise in the revelation of Christ Do not let us lift up our eyes from the page and say how wonderful that he should have done this. In very deed, if we have rightly read the story, this is the very thing he has been doing as he has been coming along the whole line of his life, only we see some things now and then more sharply than at other times. There are occasions upon which whole revelations are condensed in an incident, and we give way to a pitiful wonder which does but betray our ignorance of what has already passed before us. This circumstance was foretold in the great sermon on the mount, when Jesus said, "If the salt have lost its savour it is henceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men." In that sentence you have the withered fig-tree as to all its law, and inner meaning, and certain judgment, and, when Christ antedated the day of final criticism, and brought before him the man who had buried his talent in a napkin and brought it out and shook it down, saying, "There thou hast that is thine," he said, "Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness." That was but the divine and highest view of this very fig-tree scene—the condemnation of uselessness, the outcasting and final burning of unprofitableness. Do not let us therefore consider that we have come upon an exceptional instance, as though nothing of this kind had been so much as hinted at before. Here we find the accentuation, in a most visible and palpable instance of a law which has guided the Saviour in all his previous ministry.

Will this be the law of his procedure always? Most certainly it will. If Matthew 21:23-46

23. And when he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority (always conferred by the scribes) dost thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?

24. And Jesus answered and said unto them, I also will ask you one thing, which if ye tell me, I in like wise will tell you by what authority I do these things.

25. The baptism of Psalm 118:22), The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?

43. Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

44. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken ( Isaiah 8:14-15): but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

45. And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.

46. But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet.

The Application of Parables

Observe that the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Jesus as he was teaching. They interfered with his work, and punctuated that work with a question with which they intended to destroy the effect of the doctrine. It is so that our best work is often interrupted and vilely punctuated by those who wish to hinder its deepest and most holy success. An ancient writer has told us that the wolf does not fly at a painted sheep. The wolf understands his purpose, though it be cruel, much better. So the Scribes and Pharisees and the elders of the people did not fly at a Christ who was doing nothing—they laid wait for him, and according to their own estimate of their opportunity did they summon their savage energy to work out its malign purpose. But when otherwise or otherwhere could they have come upon him at all? He was always working, he was always teaching, he did but lift up his head for one moment, and then his face glowed as if he had been looking into a furnace when he said, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" so that if evil-minded men had to come upon him at all, with any purpose of interrupting or destroying his work, they must of necessity come upon him in the intensity of a toil that seemed never to avail itself of relaxation.

How will he answer those men? First he will hear what they have to say to him. What is their question? The same question they have always been asking. They have but one question to ask who come thus to Christ. They may indeed devise for it a thousandfold variety of words, but centrally and substantially there is but one question which the enemy can ask for Christ—"Who art thou, or by what authority dost thou work, or who gave thee this authority, or who is thy Father, or whence dost thou come?" He was the mystery of his time: he is the mystery of all time. He is there, and yet he seems to have no right to be there: his credentials are not written in official ink, or signed by the official hand, and yet there he stands, speaking Matthew 21:27—"And they answered, that they could not tell whence it was." "They answered." Wicked regard not a lie, serving their purpose. "Could not tell." Gr. they did not know.

He compelled them to pronounce their own sentence, as incompetent to fill Moses" seat.

If they cannot answer one here, can they a thousand? Job 9:3. Caught in a hard alternative; extricated by an act of desperation.

They were thus convicted by all of gross hypocrisy.

Elements of their future vengeance were slowly gathering.

Before the Lord, all the world must keep silence. Habakkuk 2:20.

These "great knowers" who have always their "we know" at hand, for once, after their arrogant question, say with shame, in the presence of the people, "We know not."

Many a so-called "honest doubter," against his own conviction, resembles them, i.e, they know it well, but "will not say it."

Thousands will say anything, rather than "we are wrong."

Gehazi, Ananias, and Sapphira have more imitators than Peter or Paul.

The unrenewed often feel more than they confess.

Knowing the Gospel true, they want courage to confess it.

They know Christianity is right, but are too proud to say it.

They pretend to judge Christ's mission, and cannot tell even that of John.

Those who imprison the truth stifle conviction.

This declaration made them cease to be a Sanhedrim.

After this they were to Jesus only as usurpers.

The people could have answered without hesitation.

Rulers" refusal showed a want of courage and honesty.

Jesus and John were not their kind of prophets.