Law & Grace - Matthew 12:22-50 "Belief & unbelief"

As we start here, and before we step into the passage, just some things to bring out about what we're looking forward to in the next couple of weeks here. Next Sunday will, of course, be Christmas Day. And I want to let you know that there will be a surprise mystery guest next Sunday. It's such a surprise. Mike and Roger have not met this mystery guest. So you'll have to come next Sunday and find out who that is. Also, the Sunday after that, New Year's Day, will be the return of the moose. But that's not all.

Also on that Sunday, we talked about how Matthew is a chiasm, that is, it is a mirror image in written form. And so as we begin on New Year's Day, we will step into these parables of the kingdom, chapter 13, which is the middle of this chiasm for the entire book of Matthew. But in addition to that, it will be a chiasm inside of a chiasm, the middle of Matthew 13, the whole chapter, is also this similar chiasm pattern. Anyway, if that's all baffling to you, just rest assured a chiasm is not a medical condition, and we will explain it further on New Year's Day.

Okay, now we have a profound passage with five parts. And so to summarize how this passage goes, it goes like this. Today's passage in Matthew 12 is full of depth and critical issues. As a matter of fact, Nancy was looking this over. She was preparing for this open house, and she was lamenting that she couldn't be here for this. But I assured her that I'd go over it with her personally later. Verses 22-29, Jesus validates his claim as Messiah, as he has been doing, by performing a healing miracle. Some question that claim, although they're rather amazed.

The Pharisees, to put it briefly, slander Jesus, and Jesus responds to, guess what you've just done, right? Verses 30-32 are about what is called the unpardonable or unforgivable sin, and we'll talk about what that is. And no, you've probably not committed it, so don't worry. You can wait a few minutes before we explain this.

Verses 33-37 is the good and the bad and the ugly judgment. And verses 38 through 45 center around the sign of the prophet Jonah. It has some more content, but that's the quick summary. And finally, verses 46 through 50, what does and doesn't make for a forever family. And so we'll talk about those five topics here as we go through the passage, step through it here this morning.

First part, 22 through 24, Jesus validates his claim to be the Messiah as he has been doing as we've studied through the last several chapters, by healing a man who is mute and blind because he is demon possessed. One of the things that we have noted as we've been going through here is demon possession does not always express itself in the same way.

And by the way, that's something that's real interesting. People in various aspects of life will go through something and it doesn't always show itself up in the same way. I think that's a critical thing for us to note. Our experience, for example, when someone becomes a believer. One person, it's just very emotional. Another person, it's not emotional. It's something deeper and quieter. Not always will people experience the same thing the same way. We can best summarize the response of the people in general as amazed unbelief. They say, WOW! But they still don't believe. They are very impressed, but not impressed enough. They still don't believe.

The Pharisees attribute the healing to Beelzebul. This Beelzebul means Lord of the House. You may have alternately heard Beelzebub. That means Lord of the Flies. Difference between the two. One's gross and the other isn't, but anyway. Beelzebul is a nickname for Satan. It's basically the Prince of Demons. That's what the term means. It comes out of the old Canaanite names, and Baal was the chief Canaanite god.

Now, in verses 22 through 24, one of the things we'll point out at this juncture is Three times as we've been going through Matthew, we've read that the kingdom is at hand. We're not going to read that anymore at this point. Once the Pharisees attribute Christ's healing of the man who was mute and deaf to Satan, end of the kingdom is at hand. From this point on, we won't read that the kingdom is at hand.

From this point on, Jesus will speak in parables. The parables are intended to conceal the message from those who won't believe it anyway. The parables are intended to give insight from those people who don't want any. And so we'll see Jesus speaking in parables. That will begin on New Year's Day as we return to the moose, right?

And talk about the chiasm inside of chiasm. He will also talk about his death, his burial, and his resurrection, and that will begin in today's passage. He will continue to talk about his death, burial, and resurrection. It's interesting that we get in Matthew, and aside from the angel talking to Joseph in a dream about Jesus being the Savior, this is the first reference to Jesus dying and being buried and rising again in the book of Matthew. Here at the end of the 12th chapter, almost to the middle of the book.

Jesus then tells the Pharisees, Because he's beginning to refute them now, right? He says, if he were casting out Satan's own followers by the power of Satan, then Satan's own power would be against itself and would fall. He says, something about your claim, something about your accusation doesn't make good sense. Have you thought this through? That's his logic with them. If Satan is casting out demons, then Satan's forces are fighting with themselves, opposed to themselves. That won't stand.

The Pharisees' own disciples would actually sometimes cast out demons, and in fact we have some record of that. That there were disciples of the Pharisees who did, in fact, cast out demons. They tended to do so more in the nature of, instead of commanding the demons to leave, praying that God would do so. And He sometimes did. But nonetheless, the Pharisees' own disciples would cast out demons. So Jesus asked the Pharisees, when your disciples cast out demons, do they do it by the power of Beelzebul? Are you making an accusation against your own disciples? And if so, your own disciples will have to judge you.

Jesus, after making these two arguments in opposition to them, however, he makes a statement, I cast out demons by the Spirit of God. Now, it says in your English translation, if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, which sounds like it may be a possibility rather than a definite statement. However, The if, in this case, in the original language, Greek, is in a form that assumes that he in fact does cast out demons by the Spirit of God. So the if is not intended to cast doubt on whether he does, but the if is telling them, look guys, follow the logic. If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, and I do. That's the way it's written in the original language.

So that being the case, the Kingdom of God has indeed come upon you. He's saying, because I cast out demons by the very Spirit of God, then I'm telling you guys, the Kingdom has come right here in front of you. And I'm it. The offer of the Kingdom, the one who is the Messiah, is standing right in front of you. It is by the Spirit of God that the demons are cast out, not by Beelzebul.

You are very wrong. Christ is indeed the Messiah whose God's Holy Spirit enables Him to carry out these things and that casting out proves by the Holy Spirit that He is indeed the Messiah and I have come to you and brought the Kingdom right in front of you. What are you going to do with it? Well, it's apparent what you're going to do with it. And you've got a problem.

In verse 29, Jesus tells of the kingdom here in Matthew 12, 29. He says, how can anyone enter the strong man's house and carry off his property unless he first binds the strong man? Then he will plunder his house. And people say, well, what does that mean? All right.

What he's talking about is this. Satan is the god of this world, lowercase g. He has charge over the demons who are here. It's rather an atmospheric domain. The prince of the power of the air. He has charge of those demons here. But a time will come when Satan's power here on this planet will be set aside. for a thousand years. And that time may be as soon as seven years from now. Because in the next thing that we quote from Revelation 20, verses 1, 2, and part of 3, John writes this, Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand.

And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, just in case you can get the identity. repetitive there, isn't he? On purpose, right? The dragon, the serpent of old, you know that one in Genesis 3? That one, okay? Who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. That binding of Satan, and by the way, the people who try to bind Satan, uh-uh. That doesn't work. You know, people go, I bind you, and I don't know who lets him loose, right?

But He will be bound, and it will be because an angel from heaven comes and binds him and throws him in the abyss, which is a holding place. By the way, that's not hell. That's simply a holding place. He will eventually go to the lake of fire at the end of this time. But that's not yet. He will be bound. So think of this. At the time when Christ comes to reign, Satan will be bound. Right now we have three enemies. We have the world, the flesh, and Satan. Those are our three enemies now. When Christ comes again, two of those enemies will be set aside.

There will not be the world, the world system, because Christ will be in charge of all world government. No world system. There will not be Satan in the mix because he will be bound. The only one of those three enemies, the only one of those three enemies still operating on the planet is the flesh. So this binding that he's talking about is the binding of Satan. Now, with Christ there is no grayscale, there is no neutral, No sitting on the fence or halfway in between. God's not playing games. Not even rock, paper, and scissors.

Right? There are some things in life where, yeah, there is grayscale. Right? I mean, last night it was darker, and then it slowly got lighter, and now it's fairly light. And matter of fact, if you look at the snow, it's really bright. And later on in the day, it'll get darker, and there is grayscale. But there are some things about which there is no grayscale.

And Jesus makes clear in verse 30, this is one of them. If one was a Jew in Israel in Christ's day, either you're going to see him as, yes, that is the Messiah, or you're going to be one standing firmly against him. And just being amazed and unbelieving is still unbelieving. The one who says, wow, that was impressive! Let me see that again. But doesn't believe is on the same side as the one who says, nah, I don't believe it. Being amazed doesn't count. Believing is not the same as being amazed. I once knew a person. That person, by the way, is no longer here on the planet.

I once knew a person who said, yeah, Christianity makes a lot of sense. I think I'll stand right by, but just outside the door. I'll hang around Christians. I'll even go to church sometimes. Matter of fact, if they'll let me, I'll be an elder at a church. But I'm not actually going to go in and believe. Yeah. Can you imagine that?

Do you know how much good that does as opposed to being completely unbelieving and rejecting? Nothing. Being amazed, being impressed doesn't count. The same division is clear here in verse 30. You're either with or against. You gather or you scatter. Heaven and hell have no halfway houses. There isn't any little tunnel in between. There is no, yeah, I think I'll stand here, you know, in the middle. No. You're either one way or the other.

Now, just like you don't have a man that's really built up on one side and major skinny on the other, right? You don't have that. You don't have a lady that's just a little bit pregnant. Okay? Nobody is semi-saved. Okay? Just being amazed doesn't get you there. Hey, I kind of appreciate Jesus. You know, I'm a quasi-Jesus freak. No, that doesn't work. You know?

You're either saved or you're not. You either believe or you don't. And that's why Jesus says, I come with a sword. A sword's one of those things you don't split down the middle, right? Yeah, I think I'll go one side a little bit and one side the other and kind of, no. That's not the way swords work, and that's not the way belief in Christ works. You don't do a little bit of believing. You don't get a little bit saved.

Here's a good one. When Nancy saw this, she says, Oh, I'm going to miss this. Oh, this is about the unforgivable sin. There's only a couple of verses. And actually the context that we've just read and just looked at and talked about, That also helps us.

But Jesus tells the Pharisees that sins in general and sins even against Christ will be forgiven. That is, how are they forgiven? By Christ's death on the cross, right? But all those kinds of things will be forgiven. But blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. Imagine. Why not? A sin that I can't be forgiven of? Yeah.

The Pharisees had just done it. One way to put it, Pharisees, you're going to hell. You just sealed your eternal fate. And you think you're pretty good. Ever talk to somebody who thought they were good enough to go to heaven? That's the Pharisees. And he's just telling them, what you guys just did, it cannot be forgiven. You're going to hell. You're going to lake of fire because of what you just did.

The Pharisees had attributed a work of the Holy Spirit to Satan. It was an extreme, irreversible denial of the Spirit's work through Christ. That sin can also be committed when Christ comes again. The sin that is unforgivable, the sin that is unpardonable, is a sin that is a matter of identifying the Holy Spirit's work through Christ, either in His first coming, as the Pharisees just did, or in His second coming when He comes again.

Because He will do miracles then too. The Bible says so. The Old Testament talks about him doing miracles too. And if people then attribute what he does by the Holy Spirit to Satan, they will have committed the unpardonable, unforgivable sin. But part of what that tells us is this is not a sin that you could commit now. It must be done directly with Jesus Christ.

Now, in verses 33 through 35, we have trees and fruit, man and treasure. In verse 33, Jesus is talking to the Pharisees and he tells them that the goodness or badness, the good or bad character of the tree, determines the goodness or badness of the fruit. The fruits simply are an expression of the character of the tree. Now, there's something else that's very important, and it's assumed and not spoken here. In the Old Testament law, you could cut down trees, unless it was a good-producing fruit tree. You're not allowed, according to Old Testament law, to cut down a good-producing fruit tree. So, if the Pharisees are a bad tree, can they be cut down? Yes. And they will be.

In verse 35, Jesus says that what men treasure and value, whether good or bad, comes from the character of the man. A good man treasures things that are good and values them. The bad man, the man of bad character, treasures things that are bad and values them. The Pharisees had done exactly that. They had also borne bad fruit. Oh, and the trees that bear bad fruit can be cut down, which is why John the Baptist would tell them the axe is already at the root. Ah, yeah, here's the good part. If you're bothered by snakes, look away. Avert the eyes. Pharisees are called a brood of vipers three times in the book of Matthew.

We've studied one of them in Matthew 3.7. this present one, 1234, imagine Jesus is trying to win friends and influence people, right? Here are some of the most powerful guys in the country, the culture heroes, and so in order to impress them and win them over, he says, you brood of vipers! Which of course they were just delighted to hear, I'm sure.

Each time that you see it, chapter 3, chapter 12, and we'll see it again in chapter 23, a statement of judgment immediately follows. The first time, in chapter 3, it's John the Baptist and he's speaking directly to the Pharisees. Who warned you about the wrath to come? And by the way, you're a part of it, right? Jesus tells them right here, in chapter 12, directly, just like John the Baptist did, you brood of vipers!

And then he talks to them about the ugly judgment that's to come. When we see it in chapter 23, Jesus is with his disciples. They're there in Jerusalem. And he spends the entire chapter, almost, telling about the evils of the Pharisees. Woe to you. Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe. He calls them there again, but to the disciples, a brood of vipers. That will be the last time.

In verses 36 and 37, Jesus makes it clear that words do matter. Just before, of course, he's made it clear that heart character and heart condition are what matter. He said that. It's the character of the tree. It's the deep character. It's the character of the man that values or treasures certain things, whether good or bad. Heart condition does matter, but words matter too. Why? Because words reveal the heart condition. That's why.

Verses 36 and 37 say words also matter and will be used to judge the Pharisees. Now, it's not a question of how good is it going to be, it's how bad it's going to be. You guys have already said something so evil it cannot be forgiven. You have turned away the Holy Spirit who is the one who could possibly work on your heart. You've cauterized your hearts. There is no going forward from here. Now, further judgment will be used according to your words. The Pharisees have a character problem. They've got a heart problem. They've got a speech problem. But they are beyond therapy. You can't go to a speech therapist and fix their speech problem. You can't go to a cardiologist and fix their heart problem. And no counselor is going to take care of their character problem, especially when they won't listen to Jesus. So, they come to Jesus, show us a sign. The scribes and their allies, the Pharisees, come to Jesus asking for a sign. Well, what kind of sign would you like? Would you like this kind of sign? Does that work? Let's see, how about How about this kind of sign? Right? How about that kind of sign? Right? Maybe this one? Nice Jewish stop sign there. Right? What kind of sign would you like, guys? Well, they actually had something in mind.

The scribes and Pharisees come asking for a sign. What do they mean by that? Jesus had been doing miracles The ones that they had seen had been largely healing miracles, casting out demons, cleansing lepers. They've seen those miracles, so how could they possibly ask for more? No, what they want to do is have a sign that's an assurance of a prophecy to follow.

Now, we don't know exactly what they're aiming at. Perhaps they're thinking that no matter how Jesus responds, they've already got some kind of a tricky answer to come back with. Maybe if he does something, they can accuse him again. And we don't know. Maybe this is on the Sabbath. And so, in some way or another, though they don't reveal it, they're trying to trick him. They're trying to get something that they think, anyway, that they can nail him with. That's their intent. These men were not seeking a sign, however, out of a righteous heart.

In fact, what you find is in various places in the Old Testament, people would get signs from the Lord, but it was frequently a matter of them being of little faith and wanting to have their faith grown, and therefore asking for a sign or receiving a sign even without asking. But these people had already rejected the Messiah. So what would the sign do? It wasn't going to build any faith. They had already cut themselves off. They'd already committed the unforgivable, unpardonable sin. They were rejecting Christ as a Messiah and attributing the things that he did to Satan already.

So if you're going to do a sign, is that going to improve your perspective? No. In fact, they would have said, the devil made you do it, right? That would have been their perspective. They essentially said that if you're doing these things by the power of Beelzebul.

Jesus said an evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign because there is a basic lack of faith in God. This word adulterous is not literally referring to sexual immorality, but rather it refers to spiritual adultery. That's the way it's used in Jeremiah 3, 9, Ezekiel 20, 37, among other passages. There's several in Isaiah. So it's an evil and spiritually adulterous. That is, you're going after different gods than the God of Scripture.

He's telling them, which of course I'm sure they love to hear. Jesus said that no sign would be given except for the one of the prophet Jonah, which happened centuries before. who has three days and three nights in the belly of this huge fish. So the Son of Man, Jesus says, will be in the heart of the earth. A sign has already been given. It happened centuries ago. God did it.

That's your sign. But actually, it's not for you because you won't believe anyway. I'm not giving you a sign because the sign is not going to help your faith. You don't have any. But this sign was given And this sign will point to, and this first time he says that we have record here in Matthew, this sign will point to my death, my burial, and my resurrection.

Jonah 2.17 says that Jonah was on the belly of this huge fish for three days and three nights. That's the end of chapter two, right about the midpoint in the book of Jonah.

So does Christ being buried on a Friday. which is the traditional date, and raised by a Sunday morning qualify as fulfillment. Is that three days and three nights? Have we got an oops? There are those who have proposed that Christ was actually crucified on a Thursday or even a Wednesday in order to make sure you got all the bases covered. I think, however, that's unnecessary.

By Jewish reckoning, and we give a couple of instances here in Genesis 42 and 1 Samuel 30, there are others, at all means, and more, and others, not eat Al or something. But Jewish reckoning considered any part of a day to be a full day. So a part of Friday and the entire Sabbath, which would be sundown, to sundown including then Saturday and then from sundown Saturday up until Sunday morning that would be a part of two days and a full day that according to Jewish reckoning accounts for three days. This was the first instance in Matthew that Jesus clearly presents that he would die and then be buried and rise again. Did the Pharisees and scribes understand? No. Did the disciples understand? No. Even though they were there. This sign, however, was directed to them and to you. Jesus' words are not for the benefit of the scribes and Pharisees. They're not going to believe anything anyway.

But for his disciples, and his words are not only for his disciples, but for all who believe, in His death for their sins and burial and resurrection. That's why I can say this sign's for you. Jesus brought this up so that His disciples, who would eventually come to understand, would get it. And it's also for you. Because if you're here today and you're a believer, if you believe that Christ died for your sins and was buried and rose again, this sign's for you. Jesus here states something he actually started with in last week's passage.

The Gentile people of Nineveh listened to Jonah and the Gentile, that is non-Jewish, Queen of the South, Queen of Sheba, that's the other name, listened to King Solomon. Here you are Jews and you are not listening to me. You're not understanding. I'm giving you two examples of Gentiles who understood when you don't. But now one who is greater than Jonah and greater than King Solomon is right here present among you, talking to you. The Israelites won't listen.

The sign-seeking, Messiah-denying generation will pay a dear price in judgment for their spiritual blindness, and it will come in at least two ways. Four decades later, the Romans would come in and wipe out Jerusalem. Hundreds of thousands of Jews would die at this event. It would be the next generation following these Pharisees and scribes. The temple would be completely destroyed. Matter of fact, the temple was shoved off the temple mount and the rubble from that has been found and excavated by archaeologists.

Further, These ones who didn't believe would face judgment before the Lord. Guess who will be their judge when they are judged at the end of time? Christ, the one whose work by the Holy Spirit was attributed to Satan. He will be their judge. Every knee will bow. Every tongue confess. that Jesus Christ is Lord, including the Pharisees.

In verses 43 through 45, Jesus describes an account of a person having a demon, then being rid of the demon, but then being re-inhabited by that demon, plus seven more and even worse, that that could actually take place in a person. But, for Israel to have some impact from the ministry of John the Baptist, And for Jesus to come and speak to them was actually a danger. Why?

It's because instead of fully responding, they only had a limited impact. And then would come retribution. Then would come worse things. than where they were before. The Romans would not only be over them, the Romans would kill them by the hundreds of thousands and drive them out and scrape their temple off the face of the earth. They had become at greater risk as a people for having rejected the message of John the Baptist, by and large, and rejected Christ. The last few verses, 46 through 50, Jesus' mother and sisters and brothers are outside of the house.

You see, the custom in those days was like Nancy and I are having a whole bunch of people over, right? But it's not like an invitation for one couple to sit down. In New Testament times, If you had somebody over for dinner, this may seem strange, it would be customary for other people to look in and even come in the door. and look in the windows and comment about the food and comment about different things. And I know that would really offend you if that happened at your house. You'd be very upset. You imagine people walking in while you've invited some friends over for dinner. And they say, boy, that looks really good. Did you use this spice on that? Let me know. Can I try some? And there would be people looking in the window and say, I don't like the color napkins you got there. That kind of thing.

And that's what they would do in New Testament times so that it would be difficult for somebody who came after the initial crowd to get in and actually talk to somebody. And so here, Jesus' mother and sister and brothers would be outside and not able to get in. So somebody else would convey a message, hey, your mother and sister and brothers are outside. So Jesus, he's not denigrating his family. But he builds on top of that.

He uses this as an instance to say that spiritual family relationships are real as well, and they are shown by doing God's will. The physical family relationships are significant. Scripture talks about your family relationships. From the very start, Genesis begins with, here's chapters one and two, here's establishing male and female, and husband and wife. So yes, they count. They matter a lot.

God is the one who established the family relationships, the physical family relationships, husband and wife, brother, sister, son, father, daughter, etc. They're intended by God, but the spiritual family is what will last forever. What we live out in a physical family is simply a physical analogy that expresses the eternal relationship. It's the spiritual family relationships that are going to count forever and ever. The song Amazing Grace, when we've been there 10,000 years with people that we're spiritually related to, right? It's spiritual relationships will continue forever.

All of the relationships that will matter for eternity are only possible because He came. This is a time of year when we like to get together with family and friends. Why? It's because these are relationships that matter. These are relationships that count. But relationships that are going to matter for eternity are only possible because He came. And this is what we're commemorating this time of year, isn't it?

Christ stepped into history so that we who believe will share his history. So that we who believe will share his history and share that relationship to one another. What am I talking about? We now share in his history. The New Testament says that we have been crucified with Christ. We've been buried with Him and raised with Him, ascended and seated with Him. That gives us a new history. And that new history is more important than my personal history. That new history replaces the history that I had in Adam. A new history because he stepped into history.

But that's going to last for eternity. You see, the old history last for as long as you're here on this planet, up until the time you believe. But this new history is going to last for eternity, forever, because He came. So when we're remembering our Lord's coming, the forever family relationships that we have, the relationship that we have with the Lord, the identity that we have with Him, are all made possible because He came, because He loved us. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross for you and for me.

Let's pray. Lord, in the midst of all this, it's not about points of debate. In the midst of all this, it's not just about remembering a baby was born a couple thousand years ago and isn't that cute. But in the midst of this, it's all about the forever relationship. that we have with you and with others who share our new history in you. And we thank you for that marvelous revelation. We thank you for what you've done and accomplished. And as we specially remember this Christmas season, we thank you for the profound and deep insight that we have into why this matters so very much. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.