And it'll deal with your obligation and your
sense of what is right and what is
wrong, for here standing in your very midst
is the eternal Son of God to whom
you owe everything.
All your problems will be silenced if you
get right in your attitude and outlook toward
me, Sajid.
I would just underline that principle, beloved listener,
this morning.
Your problems of unbelief, your problems of skepticism,
your problems of obligation will all be shattered
and settled finally when your heart is right
toward the eternal Son of God.
And they were silent to his question and
he leaves them with a final devastating word
of warning which you read in verses 38
to 40 against the hypocrisy of the scribes.
Their love, notice it, their love of popularity,
their love of prominence, their love of priority,
their love of possessions, their pretended piety.
And he gives that warning against them and
then leaves them, Jesus Christ silencing his enemies.
But I come more to grips with this
in terms of life today when I ask
you to notice Jesus Christ seeking for his
friend.
I scarcely like to suggest it, but do
you know I am sure that our Lord
was desperately lonely at that moment.
Dare we try to enter into his mind
what had been the result of his ministry?
He didn't come to judge the world, it
was to save he came.
He wasn't interested in winning an argument, in
silencing the intellectual, in causing these people to
withdraw without an answer, that wasn't why he
came.
And he sat down in the precincts of
that temple and lingered and longed for some
fruit, something that would satisfy his heart.
And you notice that he sat down over
against the treasury where there were 13 chests,
copper chests, called trumpets because of their shape.
Nine of them were for gifts which might
be given instead of offerings, four of them
for the free will offerings of the people.
And Mark tells us that he watched how
the people cast their money in, and many
that were there were casting in not much
in terms of quantity, but many coin.
And he watched not the amount, but the
devotion.
He knew that where your heart is, there
will your treasure go.
I know that's not a correct quotation, but
it's the implication of it.
I repeat you know the correct quotation.
Where your treasure is, there will your heart
be also, but I'm suggesting that the implication
is, where your heart is, there goes your
treasure.
And suddenly his attention is drawn to a
poor lonely widow, and she drops her offering
into the chest and goes her way.
Nobody speaks to her, and she speaks to
nobody else.
If there had been a subscription list published
of the gifts of that day, hers would
have been among a whole host of them
under five dollars, if we might use such
an American currency in such a setting, donations
that are anonymous.
But I want you to listen to what
the Lord Jesus said in verses 43 to
44, she has given more than all.
They have given out of their superfluity.
She has given from her destitution.
She has given her whole livelihood.
And Jesus saw that moment in that day
of loneliness, in that woman, the travail of
his soul.
Have you ever thought to yourself how intimately
connected this choice little story is with all
that has preceded?
Listen.
The Lord has faced the question of unbelief
in the Pharisee, and there comes into the
temple this poor lonely woman and gives a
gift of faith, the token of her loyalty
to God.
She gave all her living.
In amidst all her poverty, amidst all the
loneliness of her life, it might be said
of her, as we read in the 11th
of Hebrews concerning others, she endured as seeing
those who are him who is invisible.
Hers was a gift of faith she gave
like that.
He faced the question of skepticism of the
Sadducee, the question of the rich, the rationalism
of these people who didn't believe in the
afterlife.
But there came into that place a woman
who gave everything.
Why?
What made that poor soul wend her way
into that temple and give all that she
had?
Vision, that's all, vision, vision of eternity.
What a mighty argument against the philosophy of
life which is content to live for material
things.
This poor soul has responded, has responded completely
to the vision of things that are not
seen and she's given everything.
He has faced the question of obligation from
the scribe.
What is my chief, the chief commandment?
What is my obligation?
Thou should love the Lord with all thy
heart, thy neighbor as thyself.
Here's the gift of love and she's the
poorest of the poor, but she's given all
she's got and she's expressed her love to
God and to her neighbor.
Do you see this?
That on the one scale, on that lonely
Tuesday, on the one scale you have all
the hostility of the Pharisee and the Sadducee
and the scribe.
All massed against the Lord in these few
days before his crucifixion.
All this overwhelming him and over against that
on the other scale, the simple devotion of
one poor lonely widow woman in whose life
all the requirements of the law of God
have been fulfilled for she has faith and
she has vision and she has love and
she's given everything.
The Lord Jesus seeks his friends and I
have just a closing word in the last
two minutes to say that the same Lord
Jesus searches today for you.
That same Christ who stood alone in that
temple stands in Moody Church today by his
spirit and confronts your life and mine.
Tell me, how are you facing him today?
Do you face him with the question of
unbelief?
By what authority doest thou these things?
Do you challenge his authority?
Do you face him with the question of
unbelief?
Do you face him with the question of
skepticism?
I'm not sure about the afterlife.
I don't know about the resurrection.
Do you face him like the Sadducee did?
Do you face him like the scribe?
And as Jesus said of him, thou art
not far from the kingdom, almost persuaded.
But last, looking right into the kingdom but
withdrawing, has Jesus something to say to you
and to me as he said to those
people about our love of popularity and our
love of prominence and our love of possessions
and our love of pretended piety, all of
which keep us outside the kingdom for they're
all false love.
God gave his only son.
What have you given him?
Oh, we sing in Francis Ridley Havergill's hymn,
isn't there a verse which talking about giving
our money says, not a mite would I
withhold and how true it is.
Many of us look round our purses for
the mites and fling them all in.
We don't hold them but we keep a
lot more.
We give our little and we keep our
much.
I pray that as you've listened today to
this simple exposition of this portion of scripture,
has the Lord silenced the question of unbelief?
Render unto Caesar the things that are unto
Caesar's, but remember your higher loyalty to God,
the things that are God's and your silence.
Has he silenced your question of skepticism, your
supposed cleverness and his saying to you, thou
dost greatly err for thou knowest not the
scriptures and thou knowest not the power of
God.
And has he silenced the question of obligation
and says to you, thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, all
thy strength, all thy soul, all thy mind
and thy neighbour in thyself.
And I wonder if in Moody Church today,
our dear Lord, looking down upon some heart
this morning, perhaps some lonely life, perhaps somebody
who's crept in here quite inconspicuous today, nobody
knows much about you, you're alone, just come
in to church, people don't know you too
well, just come in and out and you
steal in quietly and want to get out
quietly.
I wonder if Jesus has seen in you
today, my beloved friend, the travail of his
soul and he's satisfied because he has got
from you today faith and vision and love
which has brought you to lay all your
life at his feet.
Shall we bow together in prayer?
Take my love, my Lord, I pour at
thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself and I will be ever, only,
all for thee.
May we spend one moment in quiet prayer
before we sing our closing hymn.
Just a moment's silence.
Jesus stands in our midst, not to silence
our arguments but to win our love.
Has he done it?
Does he get from us today faith, vision,
love?
Oh Lord, today may we not be like
the scribe who was not far from the
kingdom, but may we be like that dear
widow woman who gave her all.
And Lord Jesus, we would think of this
not primarily in terms of our money, but
primarily in terms of a life and a
heart that's laid at thy feet for thy
use.
We ask it for thy name and glory's
sake.
Amen.
Our closing hymn today is number 208.
208.
I want you to think about this hymn.
It's not a hymn we often sing.
It somehow has rather a doleful end to
it, but it need not be so.
Almost persuaded now to believe, almost persuaded Christ
to believe, to receive, seems now some soul
today to say, go spirit, go thy way.
Some more convenient day on thee I'll call.
Oh may that not be your answer to
the Lord.
We're going to sing the hymn.
I trust we will sing it thoughtfully, prayerfully
in the light of what God has been
saying to us.
And I want to give the opportunity for
our visiting friends, or indeed for regular worshipers
of the congregation, to whom God has been
speaking this morning, to confess their faith in
Jesus Christ.
In these tremendous days in which we live,
we cannot be secret disciples.
We must acknowledge him as our Lord and
Savior.
We never, we never seek to embarrass anybody
in Moody Church, but we do seek to
be faithful to the proclamation of the word.
And I may be speaking to some today
who are almost convinced.
Jesus has been silencing your arguments, but he
wants more than that.
He wants to win your heart.
So I'm going to ask as we stand
to sing this hymn, if that's true of
you, arguments silenced, your heart utterly his, your
life at his disposal, if that's the outcome
of this morning worship, I wonder if as
we sing this hymn would you mind just
coming and standing in the front of the
church, and then I will lead in a
prayer of dedication prior to the benediction.
That will be all.
You will not be approached by anybody.
Nobody will speak to you unless you desire
for us so to do.
But I love to think that Jesus, on
that day of Passion Week, saw something of
the travail of his soul and was satisfied.
And I love to think that even today
Christ in our midst can see just the
same here at Moody Church.
God grant that it may be so.
We will sing this hymn together.
We'll stand to sing it.
Mr. Carbaugh will lead us.
And I'll be at the lower platform, and
I would like to welcome with the right
hand of fellowship those of you who are
dedicating your lives to the Lord Jesus Christ
this morning.
All the opposition and antagonism to him has
been crushed.
And today faith, vision, love are yours.
God grant it for Jesus' sake.
Just push your way past any friend who
may be next to you, or bring the
friend with you, and just come and stand
for a public act of witness and dedication
at the conclusion of our service.
Hymn number 208.