Matthew 7:15-20 Recognize Their Fruit!

Matthew 7:15-20  Watch out for false prophets.  They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.   By their fruit you will recognize them.  Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?  Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

False prophets, cult leaders are almost impervious to criticism by their followers.  They can bear all kinds of bad fruit in their lives, yet people will follow them zealously.  They are thornbushes, prickly, ferocious wolves; they hurt and devour anyone who is not in their camp.  Jesus said judgment will be their end: Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  The early church was invaded by people skewing the words of the Good News for their own benefit.  Paul fought these people in his letters to the Corinthians.   But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.  For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.  (2 Corinthians 3-4)  People with intentions to dissemble the body of Christ will come as angels of light, but they seek their own cultural and financial benefit.  They speak words that sound like light but actually are full darkness.  Jesus said if your eye is full of darkness, how dark is that soul.  (See Matthew 6:23)  False prophets and cult leaders are full of darkness: their lives manifest darkness in their speech, lifestyles, and actions.  Paul was afraid for his Corinthian sheep, for they readily heard the words of people who desired to lead them astray from the Spirit of Jesus Christ: a different spirit from the Spirit you received.  What is the Spirit of Jesus Christ?  He tells his sheep to follow the Spirit of love, mercy, and grace.  He even says that there should be no difference in our love for our fellow brethren than for our enemies.  If we are true followers of Christ, we will manifest love toward our enemies, not withholding our love.  Often Christians say they love their enemies, but their words and actions toward people who oppose their ideas of life and truth reveal hatred, anger and bitterness.  Christian love is characterized by walking the extra mile with those who despise them, hate them, desire their elimination from the face of the earth.  If an enemy forces you to carry their baggage one mile, volunteer to carry the load an extra mile out of love for your adversary.  This kind of love confounds the enemy; but bitterness, hatred, anger, and violence, he understands well; for that volcano lies within him.  Jesus said if you desire to be my followers, Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.  “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”  (Matthew 5:22-25)  The question is, do we really want to be children of heaven or children of the earth?  If we want to be of the earth, playing on the earth’s field of violence and destruction, we will covet the world’s spirit of power and authority, but if we want to be children of God, we will allow the spirit of servanthood to master our thoughts and actions.  The choice is always ours—we are not automatons, manipulated by God above.  No, we have a choice of what spirit we will follow, either God’s Spirit of loving kindness or the world’s way of control and selfishness.

The Lord directs us to Watch out for false prophets.  By the authority of the Holy Spirit, we are able to detect false prophets.  We are not left without direction or help from God’s Spirit in this life concerning the enemy’s opposition to our souls.  In Paul’s third letter to the Corinthians, he says this: For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be.  I fear that there may be discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.  (2 Corinthians 12:20)  How easily we can discern false prophets or people who follow wrong doctrines.  Rather than espousing peace and mercy to others, especially their enemies, they erupt with the spirit of disunity and harm toward others.  As you look at each one of these descriptions of falsity, are they part of your life?  Is your internet clean of comments reflecting these dark spirits of discord or is your internet full of animosity, slander, and the lies of the Angel of Death?  How quickly are you passing on information that elevates the characteristics of a false prophet?  When you dwell in this spirit of dissemblance, monitor your feelings, the state of your heart towards others.  Is there a volcano of anger and bitterness churning inside of you, rather than an overflowing fountain of love and concern for others?  Do others see Christ’s divine Spirit or the carnal human spirit in your words and actions?  The devil will make sure they detect even the hint of an adverse spirit in you if you claim to be a believer.  If you exhibit hypersensitivity when people disagree with you by attacking their ideas, Satan will make sure you live in his domain of anger and discord.  A clever deceiver, he will cloud your thinking processes for his own desires to ravage the flock of Christ.  When Christians forget their purpose to spread the Good News, we can fall into a pit of sin and totally lose touch with the Holy Spirit: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  (Galatians 5:22-23)  When you discern that your last comment on Facebook was not healthy but destructive, are you willing to go back and say, I am sorry, my emotions got away from me?  Or do you let your attack and disruption stand?  If so, you are not listening to the kindness of the Spirit; you are following a spirit of division and hurt, even violence.  The natural man since the fall has been on the playing field of self-absorption: his way or the highway.  Eve wanted her way, not God’s way.  Cults work this way; false prophets work this way.  Your allegiance to them must be wholehearted, complete, without a chink in your armor of allegiance to selfish ambition.  But, we who are IN CHRIST follow him, not the agenda of man, regardless of how good it looks.  The devil comes in as an angel of light; then he exudes his darkness.  His agenda seems to be ours, but his deception is great and leads to judgment by the only righteous one: Jesus Christ.

As Peter states to the church of the living God, we do not have to fall under the corrupt practices and ideas of false prophets, for Jesus has made us free from the entanglements of this world.  He has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.  For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.  For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord.  (1 Peter 4-8)  We must mature in our walk with Christ who has given us eternal life.  He has promoted us to be like him.  Therefore, we should add to our daily walk the goodness of the Lord, his tenderness towards others on their way to destruction.  Our lives should not be focused on the cares of this world, but on the cares of the Lord for the lost.  We have escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.  Let us not go back into that domain.  Yes, we may gain power and influence in the church or in the world by fighting with their instruments of destruction: foul words, ridicule, lust for power, control, persecution, and the like.  But even if we gain our vision of what the church or the world should look like, we must remember that God is not pleased with man’s conventions and aggressive nature.  Someday all that we know of will be destroyed.  The best of this world is not worthy of God’s domain of peace and love.  By following false prophets and cult leaders, people might gain a certain amount of control over the world’s waywardness, but the winning of eternal life is not in the hands of individuals: it is under the purview of God.  Jesus said we are to wash each other’s feet.  We are to be humble and meek, not corroding the church or the world with our personal purposes.  There is only one agenda: to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Imposing our worldly ideas of control over the world and its actions will not achieve the victory God has for us when we seek the will of the Father: to love, not dictate; to serve, not control; to save, not destroy.  The false prophets, the cult leaders of this world are easily identified, but they will come as angels of light, promising to fulfill your agenda for life, but God has reserved a place in hell for them.  These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm.  Blackest darkness is reserved for them.  For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.  They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.”  (2 Peter 2:17-19)  As our Master said, by their fruit you will recognize them.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  If the leader of falseness in the church or the world displays boastful words, appealing to the desires of the flesh, beware.  You are not followers of this world or any man, spiritual or not, you are the redeemed, looking for the glorification of your souls in heaven as children of the only true God.  The answer to life is not to win this world or anything in it for the flesh.  No man, leader, or prophet has the answers for our walk through this life on this tiny planet.  Only the Savior of mankind has the answers to eternity.  Follow the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega.  Only He has the answer to your life, dear friends around this breakfast table.  Amen! 

  

Matthew 7:13-14 Enter the Narrow Gate

Matthew 7:13-14  Enter through the narrow gate.  For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Jesus is the atonement for man’s sins: his waywardness from God’s likeness, his tendency to take advantage of others, his unwillingness to live peacefully with his neighbor, and sadly his propensity towards violence.  Man is created in God’s image, creative and powerful, but sometimes his nature can be polar opposite to the God of mercy and love.  During those times, rather than displaying goodness and grace, his actions and attitudes become negative and hurtful.  Especially when he is unrestrained by any authorities or laws, he acts out unimaginable atrocities against others.  No neighbor, friend, or relative can trust a person who is out to harm or to deceive.  We find the story of mankind’s uncontrollable nature in every history book, war, and violent story.  He will kill, rape, and hurt, sometimes for no other reason than he has the opportunity to do so.  In the last century we saw German soldiers go through a number of European countries with killing and destruction on their minds.  During this time, millions of Germans took advantage of noncombatants, torturing, killing, and raping them.  When the Germans were forced to retreat to their own country by the Soviet army, the same thing happened, but not by the Germans, by the Russian army.  This was a caldron of hate plus a time of great rejoicing for the victorious armies as they subjugated communities for their purposes.  Not only Hitler and Stalin exuded evil, but their followers’ actions expressed the evil within them.  God is love and God is full of mercy and grace, but the nature of man cannot be controlled by mercy and grace alone without salvation.  In the Old Testament, we see God disciplining his people within the confines of their old nature, using the law as a guideline and imposing harsh judgments on them and their enemies.  The sin nature must be eradicated for grace to operate in the human heart, and Jesus came to fulfill that mission.  Some people discount Jesus’ mission by saying that humans are innately good with no need for such a sacrifice as the death of the only begotten Son.  They besmirch the death of Jesus on the cross.  So we must be reminded of the nature of mankind, in all continents, in all times.  He is violent and will cause great harm if not controlled by authority and laws.  During World War II up to 70 million people were killed.  Women and children were not safe in that maelstrom if it came to their community.  All people, no matter how old or how young, regardless of gender, were exposed to violence, sometimes perpetrated by their own neighbors.  In Africa, in Rwandan and within surrounding countries, we saw the Tutsis slaughtered by the Hutus—millions of them hacked to death, burned, or hammered to death.  Sectarian, ethnic evil motivates people to harm or to kill others.  The Moslem Ottoman government set out to eliminate the Christian Armenians in the early part of the last century.  Over a million Armenians were killed, raped, tortured, sometimes neighbor against neighbor.  In Iraq, we have seen Shias killing Sunnis, Sunnis killing Shias, once again sometimes neighbors doing the evil deeds, even up to this day.  Some people have estimated that multiple millions were killed in China by the Communists with betrayal in every community, on every block.  Evil is alive and well in the world, even today in our civilized countries.  People will get away with what they can.  Laws and restraints have to be backed up by the police and authorities or wicked people will take advantage of even their own neighbors.  Man is not basically good or trustworthy, even in the best of communities.  No wonder Paul wrote, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  (Romans 3:23)  This negative evaluation of mankind makes people turn away, as a cat will jump off your lap if you stroke it the wrong way.  Men and women do not want to be made to feel uncomfortable about their basic nature.  But God sees us as we are, and He would not need a plan of redemption if we could talk ourselves and others out of our sinful nature.  Jesus shed his precious blood in vain if man could reform himself and become worthy of God’s presence.  No, only a new creation would bring goodness into the basic nature of man.  God’s plan is permanent and perfect00.  His Son cleansed souls, filling his newborn sons and daughters with his mercy, grace and love.  Jesus Christ is the narrow gate that allows whosoever will to escape servitude to the evil one and to enter eternity with God.

Yes, Jesus alone is the gate!  Any philosophy, ideology, religion, authority, and political persuasion that does not accept that truth of Jesus only as the gate to eternal life is a robber, a thief, a deceiver of all who listen to their lies.  These attitudes, these positions of belief are contrary to God’s good news of redemption and freedom.  Laws and regulations will not open the gate to God’s domain; only Jesus, who is the gate or The Way, can do that.  Sheep know their master’s voice; they will not follow any other voice or device.  No staff from a false shepherd can make them move, for their allegiance is to Jesus alone.  Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.  All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them.  I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.  They will come in and go out, and find pasture.  The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  (John 10:7-10)  All others will not find real answers for their souls.  They will not find life nor the fulness of life.  The pastures they find themselves in will not satisfy their famished souls; no eternal answers for life will be there.  Since the beginning of time, people have tried to feed their souls in different pastures.  Some have existed on land with religious gurus or on property with a plethora of laws and regulations to satisfy their hunger for eternal life.  Some have fed on epicurean ideas: eat, drink and be merry.  Others exist on sparse landscapes, feeding themselves with the ideas of the stoics, forbidding themselves of thoughts of happiness, joy or the experiences of the luxuries of life.  They love their barren pastures, the deprivation of their existence, for they hope eternal life will crop out of that lifestyle.  However, any ideas or actions other than dependency on Christ are hopelessly lost.  For those roads are broad and many follow them, but God’s plan that leads to life is narrow, and only a few find it.  God is in the business of making children for his eternal household.  No sin, no waywardness, no chink in the armor will be in the household of God, for He is eternal: the beginning and the end.  “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”  (Revelation 1:8)  This perpetual existence cannot have any imperfections in it; that is cancerous to God’s forever existence.  There must be a perfect way to the eternal God, and that is the Son of God, Jesus Christ.  He paid completely for any flaws in us.  He not only paid the price, He eradicated our debt through his blood, shed for all.  As far as the East is from the West is our cleansing of sin; we have been cleansed completely.  But this freedom only comes through Jesus and the cross.  Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you really know me, you will know my Father as well.  From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”  (John 14:6-7)  Jesus goes on in this passage and says He is in the Father and the Father is IN HIM.  We who are alive IN CHRIST are alive IN THE FATHER, FOR WE ARE IN CHRIST, SO WE ARE ALL ONE.  Who can imagine such a plan?  The angels could not, for they were made for obedience, but we humans have experienced waywardness, but through faith IN CHRIST and his powers, we have become free to be as God is, holy and righteous in our souls.  

What a wonderful plan of redemption!  All of this plan was in God’s heart before the world was made.  We who have experienced something other than God, sheep locked up in slavery as the children of Israel in Egypt, have been freed by the blood of Jesus, and have been baptized by the waters of the Red Sea.  We have been freed to enter by the narrow gate.  The Egyptians thought they would have the Jews as their possessions forever.  The devil thinks he has people locked up forever, but the plan of God was for the Israelites to experience slavery for a while and then to escape bondage.  We too have experienced slavery for a while, but God planned to deliver us to his household, to be one with him.  The Israelites experienced the wilderness, with the Spirit’s guidance day and night.  We too experience the wilderness, but this time because of the cleansing blood of the Son of God the Holy Spirit has come to dwell in a holy place.  The Israelites did not have this opportunity of complete deliverance.  The Spirit was with them but not in them, for the blood of bulls and goats could never make the soul holy; only God can do that.  They had to follow laws and regulations to please God, but we who are IN CHRIST are always pleasing to God because He cannot be displeased with himself.  We have been made holy through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  As we read in the word, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.  (Hebrews 10:10)  The Way has come to us in bodily form: Jesus Christ.   Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.  Dear friends around this breakfast table, hear the Good News; rejoice that Christ has come to you, making you completely whole and satisfying to a righteous God.  Your eternity is assured by the works of Jesus Christ in his death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave.  Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?  (1 Corinthians 15:55)  Trust in him fully, be free in the Lord in your life.  Many pastures of goodness are open to you through and in the grace and mercy of God.  

  

 

Matthew 7:7-12 Ask, Seek, and Knock!

Matthew 7:7-12  “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.  “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!  So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Often the above verses are used as a “get out of jail” or a “help me, Lord” card.  Sadly, these verses are used as a reason to disbelieve the word of the Lord.  For one reason or another people feel God did not come through when they desired him to do so.  They asked but did not receive, or they might have known a needy person or a lovely young child who asked for something good and found no answer.  When we use these verses inappropriately to meet the problems and desires of life, we become mystical, looking to receive the right card from the hand of the sorcerer.  Christians have a relationship with God and a voice within them that says, I am the God who fights for you as you endure this wilderness journey.  He is in us, not apart from us.  We should ask believing, but trusting God as the final authority and director of our lives as we are faithful to him.  Paul wrote, I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  (Philippians 4:11) Not easily said when you have been beaten with rods or stoned or thrown in prison—no peace or earthly solutions in those situations.  Sometimes life becomes difficult, shrouded with troubles and struggles, but many days bring successes and smiles.  Jesus performed many miracles during his ministry, separating him from all other humans who ever walked this earth.  But Jesus did not spare his disciples or the church from hardships and trials, or unimaginable cruelties: devoured by animals, roasted over fires, impelled to walls, buried in pits, and the like.  The church of the living God has always experienced great persecution and always will struggle mightily because those who live in darkness despise the Good News.  They hated Jesus and they hate us too when we talk about the cross and the resurrection, the need for repentance and faith in the works of Jesus.  In today’s verses from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presents the Jewish people as well as us with a positive assumption: Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!   Jesus knows they are evil because they are not like God.  He told the rich young man not to call him good because only God is good.  Human nature is not basically good: a contamination exists deep within human souls as Paul reveals his human nature when he says, I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  (Romans 7:15)  But Jesus tells the Jewish people that their natural reaction to their children is to do good to them.  How much more does the Good Father of all creation want to please his children.  Then why not use God’s goodness for our own benefit; to satisfy our needs and wants?  But Jesus’ sermon is focused on the eternal.  God will give everything to his children for their good if they will only ask.  He will remove the plank in their eyes.  He will allow them to live purposeful lives if they ask for his direction, his leading in their lives.  The end of these verses sums up what people will be like if they ask and seek appropriately:  So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.  Believers will express God, to be as he is, if their desires are to please him.  Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.  This verse fits well between the verses of removing the plank in your own eyes and the way to God is narrow, revealing the need of God’s involvement in every part of our lives.  It is not a verse for escapism or easy solutions, but a verse for direction and dependency on our Father in heaven who knows what we need.   

Jesus amazes his listeners because He speaks as a man with authority, not as the priests who advise them from their learned perspective of the law.  Jesus seems to have the power to support all that He says.  Of course, they were listening to a man full of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus proves this power, this authority to fulfill what He is saying, as soon as He leaves the mountain.  When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him.  A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”  Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.  “I am willing,” he said.  “Be clean!”  Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy.  (Matthew 8:1-3)  This act, after his teaching on the mountainside, confirms his divine nature, for He could not have cured this man if God was not in his life through the indwelling Holy Spirit.  He was willing to cleanse this man of leprosy.  God is willing to cleanse the hearts of men.  If we ask, we will receive.  If we seek, we will find, for He is a Good Father.  We are being prepared in this wilderness to live eternally with the Father.  Not by our works but by the works of God through the works of the Lord Jesus on Earth.  We are in every sense of the word, God’s own, and God fights for us.  He fights for our spiritual survival, for we have an eternal destiny to be in the Father’s house forever.  God does not stand aloof from us as a great clock master, winding us up and then observing how the clock runs.  No, God is in the creative business all of the time.  He is actively involved with us, for He has sent his Holy Spirit to be resident in us.  Consequently, every day He is communing with us, fulfilling our requests to live for him.  What then about miracles?  What about solutions in our lives?  He is the great miracle worker, the mountain mover!  First of all, He does miracles in our lives, for He watches over us; He is the great designer of righteousness through our faith in him and his words.  Within us He has placed a new creation.  Our eternal souls are perfect, for we have died to ourselves, and we are HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD.  (Colossians 3:3)  Our perfection rests in the Great Designer’s work.  But this does not mean the outer part, the peripheral part of our lives, does not do wrong or disappoint the goodness of God.  But that holy vibrating entity of Goodness, our eternal souls, is within us, protected by the miracle working God in our wilderness lives.  Our souls are new creations but our flesh until its demise will alway be with us to hinder the walk of righteousness.  Struggling for existence, desiring significance in the world, hoping for riches and security will always cause the flesh problems, sometimes cutting corners of righteousness to achieve the wants and desires of the flesh.  Man can become very violent and deceiving to achieve what he desires out of life.  Sin can crop out so easily in fleshly endeavors.  But our spirits are in God’s domain: the Lord Jesus.  Consequently, we ask and seek the answers to our spiritual lives rather than our fleshly lives.  God is a good father, He will come to our aid in developing us into maturity.  We should ask for God’s protection, seek his love, carry out his mission in our lives.  This teaching of asking, seeking, and knocking culminates with Jesus saying, in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.

There is nothing wrong in asking and seeking God for help, solutions, directions, healing, miracles.  He is involved with all of those things as we walk through the wilderness.  But sometimes we do not ask for the perfect will of God: we do not say, Your will be done, not mine.  The Bible says, When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.  (James 4:3)  The Children of Israel felt God’s miraculous presence with them as they walked through the wilderness.  God performed many miracles for them, yet they also faced the judgment and discipline of God at times.  God is also with us Christians, but his presence is internal, in the place of holiness, purchased by the blood of Jesus.  We walk with the voice of God in us.  As with Jacob our names have been changed to God Fights; He fights for us, for our survival in this life.  We are destined to be with him for eternity.  Our walk of faith often needs strengthening, even daily.  We commune with God through prayer, just as the apostles prayed often and intensely.  Before Paul and Barnabas were separated from the believers in Athens, the brethren prayed and fasted for several days.  God directed them to send Paul and Barnabas off to their first missionary journey.  We must be just as sincere with God in everything we do.  We ask, seek, and knock in faith.  Faith demands action.  Inert belief is not faith.  Faith is stepping out.  Ask, seek, knock and move is God’s plan for his children in this wilderness.  He will move mountains when we do what He has asked us to do.  He will make the barren fig tree fruitful in all seasons if we follow his directions.  He will make us fruitful, for God is a good Father.  The Holy Spirit leads us as surely as He led the Children of Israel with a cloud by day and a fire by night.  We are God’s children, born out of Egypt, the land of slavery.  Our journey is often difficult and sometimes hard to endure, but the Bible says, endure to the end, for our salvation will be completely realized when this flesh is put away for good.  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.  This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  (1 Peter 1:1-5)  Brethren, seek and ask for everything that is good and healthy for the soul.  Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 

Matthew 7:6 Come into the Light!

Matthew 7:6  Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs.  If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

We have a brief focus for today that is a continuation of last week’s theme of seeing the world clearly by taking the planks from our eyes.  Jesus is saying that not all people desire to see life as it should be lived, pure, holy and responsible.   Some desire to live in sin, in an unclean state, wanting to do their own thing without any interference from others or responsibility to others, definitely not wanting to love others as they love themselves.  They remain unclean, seeing the world through their own skewed, self-interested vision.  Jesus connotes them as pigs, unchangeable in their nature and unworthy of the jewels of God’s wisdom.  To the Jews, pigs were unclean, unfit even for eating.  Of course, pigs feed on the least desirable leftovers, and root in the soil, digging up anything that is edible.  The dogs He refers to are scavengers: searching, hunting for anything that can be eaten, willing to kill any animal that is weaker than they are or helpless to resist their fangs.  The dogs and pigs symbolize people who cannot see clearly and do not seek any higher purpose in life except to live for the next meal.  They will not change for their feet are planted deeply in this earthly existence of survival.  They reject the idea of a different way of living, refusing to see this life as a temporary existence, having no eyesight for anything spiritual or pure.  The planks in their eyes will never be removed because they do not seek release from darkness.  This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.  (John 3:19-20)  Some people do not want anything that is spiritual in their lives; they will combat people who try to reveal a better, more godly view of life; the Good News is disgusting to them or a false doctrine.  They are happy, contented to live from day-to-day, with their daily vision cast on the refuse and dirt of this world, willing to take advantage of every person and every situation for their own benefit.  They are unable to see truth, for their desire is to live in darkness.  Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.  (John 3:20)  The light blinds them rather than illuminating their lives, so they crouch in the dark corners of life.

When Jesus tells his disciples to go throughout Judea propagating the Good News, He tells them to go without silver or gold or a bag with extra clothing, depending on the goodwill of the people they meet in the communities to meet their needs.  But He knew some people, some communities would not accept them so He gave them these instructions:  If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.  Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.  (Matthew 10:14-15)  They were to shake the dust off their feet from that house or that city if they refused to receive the good news that the kingdom of heaven is near.  Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs.  Walk away from that house or that city for they are unwilling to change, to hear something better than what is happening in their everyday lives.  Most people are relatively happy in their existence of self.  John the Baptist expressed this when he addressed the Jewish crowd that came down to the river to be baptized by him.  John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized, “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?  Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.  And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’  For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.”  (Luke 3:7-8)  John knew their vision was distorted by the misguided belief that they were okay with God because they were children of Abraham.  They felt Abraham’s covenant was a covering for their worldly, self-possessed lives.  But John calls them a brood of vipers, deadly to themselves and to others.  What a harsh evaluation of people, but Jesus was also harsh with their spiritual leaders when He said, You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good?  For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.  A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.  (Matthew 12:34-35)  John tells the people that their hearts are far from God; Jesus tells the leaders that their hearts are set on their on well-being and status.  Both groups are unable to see clearly what God desires for their lives.  Both have planks in their eyes that are large and detrimental to serving God in a pure and holy way.  Loving others is not central in their existence; serving themselves captivates them from the inside out.  So they have nothing else but selfish pursuits stored up in their thoughts and experiences.  They do not change because they are content with their lives and set in their ways, just as a pig or a dog is unable to change into another kind of animal with different pursuits in life.  They are not looking for a light in the darkness.

In Paul’s experiences of ministering to the Greek world, we see many instances where the people of a community would turn on Paul, desiring to tear him apart.  When Paul’s powerful teachings and the demonstrations of the Holy Spirit within his ministry got too close to changing the way things were in the community, the powerful and the elite of that society would marshal the people against Paul.  They did not want their society to change, for they benefitted much from the godlessness of the people.  Paul had to be silenced.  Jesus said this about those who determined to quiet Paul who presented them with the pearls of life—the sacredness of turning to Jesus Christ.  Jesus said, if you do present the kingdom of God to them, they may trample them (the sacred things) under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.  People who live in darkness because they love their sins might turn on you if you present the gospel to them.  You may be the object of ridicule and persecution if you openly share the gospel.  Jesus gave Paul the commission to preach the gospel to those who were living in great darkness: the Gentile world.  Jesus said, he would suffer in carrying out his mission for God.  But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.  For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”  (Acts 9:15-16)  Jesus knew that many people in the Greek community would become believers, but He also understood that many would turn on Paul, attempting to devour him.  He knew the dogs would search for him so that they could destroy him.  The Jewish elite followed him from city to city, besmirching his name, causing Paul to be beaten with rods and stoned with rocks.  Paul would suffer much for the cause of Christ.  As with the demon who attacked the seven sons of Sceva, who were in the business of casting out demons, the underworld is violent.  He (the demon) gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.  (Acts 19:17)  Violence was written on the DNA of people after Adam and Eve fell.  Their oldest, possessing this DNA, killed Abel.  From that time on, men and women have used violence to cure what they disliked.  Paul felt this violence, for the world dislikes the message of Christ.  Christ’s message turns the world upside down: rather than violence: love;  rather than hate: acceptance; rather than judgment, grace; rather than punishment, mercy.  Such changes are nonsense to the present world, not feasible where sin exists mightily.  But Jesus came to change the nature of people; He gave us the Holy Spirit to activate our souls to a new way of thinking and living.  The world is a harsh place, a place where God once wiped out everything but a few people and animals.  Violence is embedded deeply in people.  But Jesus has come to save the lost; He is the miracle worker.  Planks can be removed and under God’s transformational power even pigs can be changed.  As Peter learned, all things can be consumed if God blesses them.  He is in the creative business, even on the Sabbath.  God never quits working with those He has created as his sons and daughters, children of the Most High.  Amen!