HEARTLIGHT is a registered service mark of Heartlight, Inc. | Privacy Policy. Prophets Accordingly, notice that, in the manner in which the Holy Ghost introduces it, there is no statement of time whatever. If God was there, what else could He, would He do? They boast, as the prodigal's elder brother did, of their good services; We have borne the burthen and heat of the day; that was the most they could make of it. (iii) These two blind men had an imperfect faith but they were determined to act on the faith they had. A ransom is something paid or given to liberate a man from a situation from which it is impossible for him to free himself. Here we see the worldly ambition of the disciples in action. A Gentile (indeed, any mind not under any kind of legal prejudice or difficulty) would be far more moved by a detailed account of what was more, conspicuous. Take what is yours and go your way. The Campus Martius was the grand field in which they were disciplined: there, they accustomed themselves to leaping, running, wrestling, bearing burdens, fencing, throwing the javelin, c., and when, through these violent exercises, they were all besmeared with dust and sweat, in order to refresh themselves, they swam twice or thrice across the Tyber! Yet man, in face of all, is so deceived of the enemy, that he prefers to be left with the demons rather than enjoy the presence of the Deliverer. "And Jesus heard their cry and stood still. He had been preparing them for the new things, and the impossibility of making them coalesce with the old. "What do you want me to do for you?" Surely not by inaccuracy; surely not by indifference to order, but contrariwise by divine wisdom that arranged the facts with a view to a purpose worthy of itself: God's arrangement of all things more particularly in this part of Matthew to give us an adequate manifestation of the Messiah; and, as we have seen, first, what He was to the appeal of the Jew; next, what He was and would be to Gentile faith, in still richer form and fulness. They said to His disciples, "Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?" There was a strange inclusiveness in the suffering to which Jesus looked forward; it was a suffering in which no pain of heart or mind or body was to be lacking. The Son of Man will be betrayed: Jesus again told the disciples what awaited Him in Jerusalem, but no reaction from the disciples is noted. What can be conceived so perfectly to illustrate the great design of the gospel of Matthew? Thus the point that meets us in the conclusion of the chapter is, that while every character, every measure of giving up for His name's sake, will meet with the most worthy recompence and result, man can as little judge of this as he can accomplish salvation. The woman of Canaan, out of the borders of Tyre and Sidon, appeals to Him; a Gentile of most ominous name and belongings a Gentile whose case was desperate; for she appeals on behalf of her daughter, grievously vexed with a devil. Accordingly, here we have a witness of it, and a witness so much the sweeter, because the present total rejection that was filling the heart of the leaders surely testified to the Lord's heart of that which was at hand. 14 Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Next, we find Him confessed by the centurion, no longer as the Messiah, when actually with them, confessed according to a faith which saw the deeper glory of His person as supreme, competent to heal, no matter where, or whom, or what, by a word; and this the Lord Himself hails as the foreshadowing of a rich incoming of many multitudes to the praise of His name, when the Jews should be cast out. What instrument so suitable? "And forthwith when they were come out of the synagogue they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John; but Simon's wife's mother was sick of a fever, and anon they tell Him of her. There are people who think that, because they have been members of a Church for a long time, the Church practically belongs to them and they can dictate its policy. Used by permission. It was not more truly Christ's kingdom as man than He was God's own Son, His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased, who was now to be heard, rather than Moses or Elias, who disappear, leaving Jesus alone with the chosen witnesses. If you have any questions, please review our Privacy Policy or email us at privacy@biblegateway.com. In the Christian Church seniority does not necessarily mean honour. Peter, the good confessor of chapter 16, cuts but a sorry figure in chapter 17; for when the demand was made upon him as to his Master's paying the tax, surely the Lord, he gave them to know, was much too good a Jew to omit it. Neither did He need to wait for His exaltation as man; for He was ever God, and God's Son, who therefore, if one may so say, waits for nothing, for no day of glory. Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money. In Mark 2:1-28 it says, "And again he entered into Capernaum." Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary. Help us purchase electrical generators for churches. The second is, "So the last shall be first, and the first last; for many are called, but few are chosen." In the evening multitudes are brought, taking advantage of the power that had so shown itself, publicly in the synagogue, and privately in the house of Peter; and the Lord accomplished the words ofIsaiah 53:4; Isaiah 53:4: "Himself," it is said, "took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses," an oracle we might do well to consider in the limit of its application here. Rome might at any time have recruited her armies by volunteers from such a mass of well-educated, hardy soldiers but she thought proper, to use the words of the Abbe Mably, that the honour of being chosen to serve in the wars should be the reward of the accomplishments shown by the citizens in the Campus Martius, that the soldier should have a reputation to save; and that the regard paid him, in choosing him to serve, should be the pledge of his fidelity and zeal to discharge his duty. All rights reserved worldwide. And they said unto him, Lord, we want our eyes opened. To you, be all praise and honor and power and glory, both now and forever. Certainly, He did not arrange His own betrayal. 1. Will be betrayed: Conceivably, Jesus could have been delivered to the religious authorities without this. But this is enough to silence all murmurs and objectors, that God is sovereign Lord of all, and may do what he will with his own. Just the idea of Him being crucified was so shocking, that their minds in trying to absorb that, lost everything else He said after that. Reviewing, then, these closing incidents of the chapter (ver. What the account was; and in that observe. The fact of two without the personal details would not powerfully tell upon mere Gentiles perhaps, though to a Jew it might be for some ends necessary. He "went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people." This made it to be plainly and only a difficulty for God to solve. The woman at last meets the heart and mind of Jesus in the sense of all her utter nothingness before God; and then grace, which had wrought all up to this, though pent-up, can flow like a river; and the Lord can admire her faith, albeit from Himself, God's free gift. The tribunes of the second and third likewise made their choice one after another; and he that remained entered into the fourth legion. Nevertheless, when there was the display of the glory of the kingdom, the Father's voice proclaimed Him as His own Son, and not merely as the man thus exalted. They were still thinking in terms of personal reward and personal distinction; and they were thinking of personal success without personal sacrifice. He welcomed his bed-fellow. 10 But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. Nevertheless, the Lord did not withhold the infinite boon, though He knew too well their thoughts; He spoke the word of forgiveness, though He read their evil heart that counted it blasphemy. Now He brings out not the kingdom merely, but His Church; and this not merely in view of hopeless unbelief in the mass, but of the confession of His own intrinsic glory as the Son of God by the chosen witness. In the picture of the holy city in the Revelation there are twelve gates. b. Hence, he waits to present their rejection of the Messiah, as morally complete as possible in his statement of it, though necessarily not complete in outward accomplishment. When they get to Jerusalem, those culminating events of the life of Jesus are going to take place. The Gentiles came in at the eleventh hour, but it was because the gospel had not been before preached to them. But it is expressly the pattern after which He was to deal, and will deal, with Israel. The call to serve God is the gift of His grace. The parable teaches one truth, and but one; and where Jesus has explained it, we have no right to add to it, and say that it teaches anything else. For many are called, but few chosen." a. Thus, in the scene of the leper, we have Jesus presented as "Jehovah that healeth Israel," as man here below, and in Jewish relationships, still maintaining the law. Jesus knew what was going on in their minds; and he spoke to them words which are the very basis of the Christian life. The grape harvest ripened towards the end of September, and then close on its heels the rains came. The system of law is easy to figure out: you get what you deserve. Matthew 20:16 in all English translations. When He reigns as David's Son, there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of Hosts. Major Prophets (Matthew 20:11-15) The complaint of the early workers. Well, he did not come to get your service; he came to give you his services; not that you might first do him honor, but that he might show you mercy. (Spurgeon). They plucked his hair, they smote his cheeks, they spat in his face. 13 But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? After Paul had preached on Mars Hill, there were those who said, "We will hear you again about this" ( Acts 17:32). He did them no wrong, and had broken no promise. It is probable that James and John were closely related to Jesus. But first appears the new and great fact, that Christ was going to build a new building, His assembly, on the truth and confession of Himself, the Son of God. Thus, and after the tenderest sort, there is that which evidences the Messiah on earth present to heal His people who appeal to Him; and the Jew, above all counting upon His bodily presence demanding it, I may say, according to the warrant of prophecy, finds in Jesus not merely the man, but the God of Israel. But the future is in view also. Reader, whosoever thou art, act in behalf of thy soul as these blind men did in behalf of their sight, and thy salvation is sure. What Does It Mean That There Is No One Holy Like God? [2.] This parable taught the disciples not to think of heavenly rewards in terms of justice, getting in proportion to what they deserved. So little old Jewish mama coming to Jesus with her two sons. And then he said interesting things for this cause; "There are many who are weak and sick among you, because they do not understand the Lord's body"( 1 Corinthians 11:30 ). John is swifter of foot, and comes first to the sepulchre: but Peter has more courage, and goes first into it. Secondly, In all the dispensations of his grace, God gives or withholds the means of grace, and the Spirit of grace, as he pleases. First, The general pay (Matthew 20:9; Matthew 20:10); They received every man a penny. To teach this it was spoken. Many that, in the order of time, are brought last into the kingdom, shall be first in the rewards. The parable of the workers in the vineyard 20:1-16. There are gates on the East which is the direction of the dawn, and whereby a man may enter in the glad morning of his days; there are gates on the West which is the direction of the setting sun, and whereby a man may enter in his age. He promised to pay all the later workers fairly. Then a beggar asked for his shirt and got it. And after the supper He took the cup, likewise and said, this cup is a new covenant in my blood, which is shed for the remission of sins, and as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death, until He comes"( 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 ). They measured Jesus by their own impotence. He was ignorant of himself, because ignorant of God, and imagined that it was only a question of man's doing good for God. The giving of a whole day's wages to those that had not done the tenth part of a day's work, is designed to show that God distributes his rewards by grace and sovereignty, and not of debt. Conversely in some cases those whom God called early in their lives may not receive as much reward as those called later in life. About five o'clock in the evening he went out and found others standing there, and said to them, 'Why are you standing here the whole day idle?' In it there is the comfort of God. 16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen. For they needed someone to help Him bear the cross. But Jesus answered and said, You don't know what you are asking. Matthew 20:16 - John Darby's Synopsis We may remark that, when the Lord answers Peter, it was the consequence of having left all for Christ upon His call. No doubt it is a tie of nature for this life only. [2.] The devil was tricked by God. The Pharisees were enraged at a power they could not deny, which rebuked themselves so much the more on account of its persistent grace; but Jesus passes by all blasphemy as yet, and goes on His way nothing hinders His course of love. They in turn will give me to the Gentiles, the Romans. "That ye may know," He says, "that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins," etc. We have here not only our Lord's ministry in the first parable, but in the second parable that which He does by His servants. Plainly, the church isnt to operate the way the world does. THE MIND OF JESUS ( Matthew 20:20-28 continued). But nothing turned aside the purpose of God, or the activity of His grace. This he said in the hearing of the disciple who would act the traitor: did no compunction visit his base heart? (Spurgeon), ii. Prophets The true disciple is motivated by love not lust. [5.] He's being despised and rejected. It brings me to the real crisis; that is, the final presentation of our lord to Jerusalem. Throughout it is the religious kind that are tested and found wanting. Drinking of that cup. There may be desires, there may be the working of the Spirit of God, but there can be no power to walk before men and to glorify God thus till there is forgiveness possessed and enjoyed in the heart. He came to occupy not a throne, but a cross. iv. In Matthew 14:1-36 facts are narrated which manifest the great change of dispensation that the Lord, in setting forth the parables we have just noticed, had been preparing them for. To mock and to scourge: Jesus predicted these specific aspects of His coming agony which on a human level He could not arrange. When the legions were thus completed, the citizens who had been called, but not chosen, returned to their respective employments, and served their country in other capacities. But Jesus answered and said, You do not know what you ask. So the last shall be first, and the first last The GENTILES, who have been long without the true God, shall now enjoy all the privileges of the new covenant; and the Jews, who have enjoyed these from the beginning, shall now be dispossessed of them; for, because they here rejected the Lord, he also hath rejected them. Now according to the historians, this scourging was such an awful taxing thing upon the person that many people never made it to the cross. The plucking of the corn, and the healing of the withered hand, had taken place long before. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation." Email / username or password was incorrect! In calling the labourers, they must begin from the last, and so to the first. The point of this closing aphorism is not to suggest that God's ways are simply or only about an inversion of the status quo. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, 18We are going up to Jerusalem,(C) and the Son of Man(D) will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. Secondly, We are all called upon to be labourers in this vineyard. The Blue Letter Bible ministry and the BLB Institute hold to the historical, The market-place was the equivalent of the labour exchange. a. Jesus was passing by. Though God is a debtor to none, yet he is graciously pleased to make himself a debtor by his own promise, for the benefit of which, through Christ, believers agree with him, and he will stand to his part of the agreement. Origen said it was the devil; Gregory of Nyssa objected that this put the devil on the same level as God, and allowed the devil to dictate terms to God. They were beggars; but it was not money they asked for, it was nothing less than sight. It does not seem exactly as a pictorial view of what the Lord was doing, or going to do, but rather the repeated pledge, that they were not to suppose that the evil He had judged in the elders of Jerusalem, or the grace freely going out to the Gentiles, in any way led Him. And He said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? It was the Father's revelation of the Son; flesh and blood had not revealed it to Peter, but, "my Father, which is in heaven." And yet in spite of that the disciples are thinking of a Kingdom. It is of immense significance to see that, even in a world in which the dark was coming down, the disciples would not abandon the conviction that the victory belonged to Jesus. Jesus deliberately and open-eyed sets out for Jerusalem and the Cross. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. To lose all for heavenly treasure, to come and follow the despised Nazarene here below what was it to compare with that which had brought Jesus to earth? He is not here sought as by the leper, the centurion, the friends of the palsied man; He Himself calls Matthew, a publican just the one to write the gospel of the despised Jesus of Nazareth. GenesisExodusLeviticusNumbersDeuteronomyJoshuaJudgesRuth1 Samuel2 Samuel1 Kings2 Kings1 Chronicles2 ChroniclesEzraNehemiahEstherJobPsalmsProverbsEcclesiastesSong of SongsIsaiahJeremiahLamentationsEzekielDanielHoseaJoelAmosObadiahJonahMicahNahumHabakkukZephaniahHaggaiZechariahMalachiMatthewMarkLukeJohnActsRomans1 Corinthians2 CorinthiansGalatiansEphesiansPhilippiansColossians1 Thessalonians2 Thessalonians1 Timothy2 TimothyTitusPhilemonHebrewsJames1 Peter2 Peter1 John2 John3 JohnJudeRevelation. It is but a day's work that is here done. He gives sight to the blind. 10 million Ukrainians without power because of Russia. None the less does the Lord uphold it, purged of what accretions had come in to obscure its original and proper character. The Father and the Son have their appropriate part, even as we know from elsewhere the Spirit sent down from heaven in due time was to have His. Oh, what a heart is ours! The better MSS., indeed, omit it here. ( Matthew 20:16) The parable applied: the principle of God's reward. He who had just confessed the glory of the Lord would not hear His Master speaking thus of His going to the cross (by which alone the Church, or even the kingdom, could be established), and sought to swerve Him from it. The first came to an agreement with the master; they had a contract; they said, "We work, if you give us so much pay." Jesus was no doubt very weakened by it. to forget His ancient people. Sometimes a young person dies almost before the door of life and achievement have opened at all. The crowd commanded them to stop their shouting; they were making a nuisance of themselves. (2.) If the gospel dies in England, write on its tomb, Betrayed. If our churches lose their holy influence among men, write on them, Betrayed. What care we for infidels? Out of the market-place, where, till they are hired into God's service, they stand idle (Matthew 20:3; Matthew 20:3), all the day idle (Matthew 20:6; Matthew 20:6). In the kingdom so much the less sparing is the retribution of those who despise or abuse grace. They must still continue to endure the scourge of crime they could never expiate. God's generosity will not succumb to human jealousy. Our job as disciples is to keep searching and including the lost, the last, and the least in the Kingdom and not just those who can bring us some benefit. And to these men who were blind, they saw this as their one opportunity for a whole new life. That many who begin last, and promise little in religion, sometimes, by the blessing of God, arrive at greater attainments in knowledge, grace, and usefulness, than others whose entrance was more early, and who promised fairer. His word should silence all our murmurings, that, whatever God does to us, or withholds from us, he does us no wrong. Minor Prophets He had no reason to quarrel with the master; for what he gave was absolutely his own, Matthew 20:15; Matthew 20:15. On the other hand, by far the greater weight of tradition goes to show that John lived to a great old age in Ephesus and died a natural death when he must have been close on a hundred years old.
South Texas Youth Football Association,
Lois Clarke Garner Still Alive,
Mgm Northfield Park Win Loss Statement,
What Are The Flavors At Kopp's Today,
Old St James Hospital Butte, Mt,
Articles M