Let us prayerfully turn to the Gospel according
to St. Matthew in chapter 5 and we'll
read verses 38 to 42 which comprises the
passage before us for our meditation this morning.
Matthew chapter 5 verses 38 to 42.
You have heard that it was said, eye
for eye and tooth for tooth.
But I tell you, do not resist an
evil person.
If someone strikes you on the right cheek,
turn to him the other also.
And if someone wants to sue you and
take your tunic, let him have your cloak
as well.
If someone forces you to go one mile,
go with him two miles.
Give to the one who asks you and
do not turn away from the one who
wants to borrow from you.
Now we have already considered the early part
of this passage.
We have already considered the principle that is
laid down here, the basic principle.
The law, lex talionis as it was called,
the law of a just equivalent comes from
the Old Testament.
It was meant to safeguard people from undue
vengeance and retaliation.
And Moses laid down that if in a
brawl or a battle you lost one tooth,
you could not claim more than one from
the person concerned.
It was meant to curb vindictiveness.
But our Lord proceeds here to say that
the standard for the subjects of his kingdom
goes beyond that.
We should live according to that principle as
far as it appertains.
But we should go beyond that.
Our standard is higher, our privileges are greater.
To the heirs of the salvation wrought in
the fullness of the times, to those who
have received in Christ and by the Spirit
a full salvation, the standard goes beyond that
implicit in the lex talionis.
We should not resist an evil person.
But there is another mode of behavior which
should always characterize our lives.
Now I think I see this morning a
number of visitors among us.
And if I'm right, quite a number of
you have not been among us before.
Let me therefore take the liberty of just
briefly giving what is necessarily an introduction to
this kind of teaching.
The kind of teaching that we have in
this text this morning is not capable of
being applied by a non-christian.
If you're not committed to the Lord Jesus
this morning, I can understand you saying that's
another pie in the sky.
That is a bit of idealism that simply
does not work out in my kind of
life.
It's not practicable.
I can understand that.
But you see this teaching is for men
and women who, if I may go back
and just take a few leaps as it
were, I may go back to chapter 4.
This applies to men and women who have
repented of their sins, turned to the Lord
Jesus Christ as the Messiah, and trusted him
so that their sins are washed away.
And then leaping into chapter 5, missing many
things out, these words of our text relate
to men and women who've begun to live
life according to the principles of the Beatitudes.
They're poor in spirit, not proud and arrogant.
They've begun to become poor, to mourn for
their sins.
They've become meek.
They hungered and thirst after righteousness over and
above everything else.
Not their own will, or their own pleasure,
or their own material profit.
They're out for righteousness and purity of heart.
And then they see that they have for
them in the purpose of God a service
to perform in this world.
They are salt in society, they are light
in the world.
Now I can't go further this morning, or
we'll be going back over old territory, and
I can see some of my congregation walking
out and saying, well we've heard that so
many times.
But you see the point I want to
make is this, when we come to this
text there's a background to it.
And if you feel that really this is,
this is something too vague and impossible for
me, may I suggest to you that you
go back to chapter 4, and you read
the message of John the Baptist and of
Jesus.
Repent, for the kingdom, the rule of heaven
has come, and the power of heaven has
come down to earth in the person of
the Lord Jesus, and later by the power
of the Holy Spirit.
And God has made available for the subjects
of his kingdom a power that is capable
of elevating life to the levels enunciated here.
Now that's the background.
And therefore if you want to join the
saints of God, repent, believe, receive the Savior
and the Holy Spirit, and the Word of
God, and in the fellowship which emerges out
of that, there is power, there is grace.
You can do things that the man who
is not a Christian, the woman who is
not a believer, simply couldn't even dream about.
Now that's the context.
Now last time as I indicated, we were
dealing with the principle.
And some of you may rightly have thought
that I'd left you dangling in mid-air,
because we dealt with the principles, whereas we
didn't get on to the four illustrations of
the principle that Jesus himself gave.
And that's what I want to get back
to this morning.
There are four principles which enunciate the principle,
or illustrate it.
Let me read again.
Here's the principle.
Do not resist an evil person.
May I pause also to say to those
who are with among us for the first
time, or only infrequently, that this especially applies
in personal relationships.
This is not addressed to governments, this is
not addressed to rulers in the land.
The rod of righteousness, the rod of rule
is put into the hands of the state
to deal with men and women on the
basis of righteousness.
This on the contrary is something that relates
between person and person, and personal relationships.
And this is the rule.
Do not resist an evil person.
And here are the illustrations.
If someone strikes you on the right cheek,
turn to him the other also.
And if someone wants to sue you and
take your tunic, let him have your cloak
as well.
If someone forces you to go one mile,
go with him too.
Give to the one who asks of you,
and do not turn away from the one
who wants to borrow from you.
How does this principle relate?
How are we to turn the other cheek?
Well literally and metaphorically.
Both, not either or, both and.
Now let's look at this.
I want to take these four illustrations, and
though we may not spend as much time
on one as the other, we must look
very seriously at this first at any rate.
Jesus says that we must learn to refrain
from physical retaliation, when we are physically molested.
If someone strikes you on the right cheek,
turn to him the other also.
Now you see what Jesus is doing don't
you?
He's applying the principle as we've said.
He's applying the principle enunciated in the first
place, to a matter of retaliation when we
are physically molested.
The world of ancient Palestine two thousand years
ago was not all that different from the
world of Toronto and North America today.
People slap each other, people hit each other,
people are unkind to one another, people kill.
And when Jesus referred to this, he was
referring to something that was happening.
And it's happening today, I don't need to
tell you.
There's a peculiar danger here, a peculiar danger
against which Jesus warns in the text that
we are considering.
And it arises very especially if we have
the physical power, the physical power and the
occasion to retaliate.
Now not all of us have that.
We may be slapped in the face and
we can do nothing whatsoever about it.
And you might say well poor me, I'm
not so sure that the Lord Jesus would
say that.
He says that he is in danger who
has the capacity, who has the power to
hit back.
And the word of our text of this
first application applies particularly to the man or
the woman who's got the capacity to strike
back in kind.
Yours is the danger.
Your danger is your strength, not your weakness.
And you see the only safety that some
people know in society is their ability to
strike back physically.
Now I've no vested interest in this, but
this is about the only safety that some
people know.
If they're strong, if they've got big muscles
and biceps and they've engaged in this technique
and that, that they can chop somebody on
the neck, you know, I don't need to
go through it do I?
And this is the only safety.
It's not safe in this world.
And so karate is the only answer.
Says Jesus for the child of God that
subjects, oh well learn your karate if you
like, but that's not your defense.
It is no defense in the long run.
And even if you are capable, he says
don't do it.
Here then is no unimaginable and impossible dream.
Jesus is dealing with a real situation and
it obtains today as it did 2,000
years ago.
You can be slapped on the cheek and
you will be tempted to strike back.
But now there's more than that to it
here.
Implicit in the illustration our Lord gives, there
is not only the notion of the physical
assault, but of a personal insult.
It may be unrecognized by those who are
unfamiliar with a contemporary situation, but believe me,
along with the physical assault envisaged here, there
is also this considerable insult implied.
Means, let me ask you to look at
it this way.
A right-handed person, I must be careful
now, I'm not meaning to say anything about
our left-handed brothers and sisters, or to
distinguish and say one is first class and
the other is second class.
Now please, okay.
But I think the majority of people are
right-handed.
Now, for a right-handed person facing someone
to hit that person on the right cheek,
how can he do it?
See, I'm looking at you and you're looking
at me.
You want to smack my right cheek, it's
this one.
Well you see, your right hand is over
there.
How can you hit me on my cheek,
my right cheek, with your right hand?
There's only one way of doing it, with
the back of the hand.
And in rabbinic and Jewish thought, this was
the chiefest insult in public.
Now hit a man with the other side
of the hand, well that was an insult,
of course.
And that was a physical injury.
But the real insulting thing to do is
to bring the back of your hand across
the face, and you are, as it were,
getting rid of the off-scourings of society.
That's the notion.
Paul refers to it in one of his
epistles.
You're being slapped away with the back of
the hand as useless and worthless.
Thus the provocation to retaliate, you see, is
even greater than if it were a simple
matter of having been hit on the face.
The episode was a calculated injury to one's
pride as well as one's physical sensitivity.
And if I know anything, hurt pride hurts
more than a hurt cheek.
You know what happens when pride is hurt.
You know what pride is, don't you?
Anybody here doesn't know what pride is?
You know, you shouldn't do that to me.
Me, if you'd done it to somebody else,
it wouldn't be so important.
But I'm the center of God's universe.
I'm far more important than you.
Why should you do that to me, of
all things, of all people?
That's pride.
And if you are in the center of
your own little world, thinking of yourself, coddling
yourself, wanting to keep yourself safe and intact
from all the scratches of life, and then
to be hit on the face, and then
to be insulted in this way, well, it's
not only your body's hurt, but there's something
boiling inside of you and saying, I'll get
him back.
If you can't do it physically, you'll think
of another way.
Says Jesus, those who have repented of their
sin, those who have received the Messiah and
the chrism of his Spirit, and those who
have begun to move on the level of
the Beatitudes, and perhaps got a little deeper
than they did the first time they considered
them, who are becoming poorer and poorer in
spirit, who weep more and more on account
of their sins, who become more and more
meek, who thirst more and more after righteousness,
whose hearts are becoming purer and purer, they
mustn't fall to this temptation.
Now, my friends, you don't need to tell
me.
I know that this is a very elevated
standard.
You and I have never lived up to
this standard in its glory and in its
totality, not one of us.
But alongside of that, let me tell you
that the thrust of this teaching began when
Jesus said in verse 20, except your righteousness
exceed that of the Pharisees and the scribes,
you shall not enter into the kingdom of
God.
And part of the righteousness of the kingdom
of God is that we learn to be
more careful of God's glory and God's will
than of our own comfort and self-esteem.
This needs divine grace, especially if we have
the power to retaliate.
I read from 1 Peter 2 this morning
because I wanted you to see that it's
not that Jesus said something here that the
Apostles didn't take up and was not important
enough to repeat.
I've read from 1 Peter chapter 2 because
I wanted you to hear these words.
If you suffer for doing good and you
endure it, this is commendable before God.
To this you were called.
Who was called?
All the saints addressed by Peter.
It's as universal as the saints are universal.
To this you were called because Christ suffered
for you, leaving you an example that you
should follow in his steps.
And what is the example that he has
left us to follow?
Here it is.
He committed no sin and no deceit was
found in his mouth.
When they hurled their insults at him, he
did not retaliate.
When he suffered, he made no threats.
Instead, and this is the alternative, we shall
come to that in a moment, instead he
entrusted himself to him who judges righteously or
justly.
The alternative to hitting back lies here.
I'm going ahead of myself, but here it
is.
Let's notice it now.
The alternative is this.
Do you know God?
And do you know that God is just?
And do you know that God will rectify
things and straighten them out sooner or later?
He will vindicate his people and he will
set the crooked straight.
This is the answer my friend.
It's not hitting back, it's trusting God.
Now this same attitude has manifested itself in
the life of our Lord Jesus supremely, was
also one of the main features in the
commending of the gospel to the ancient world,
the early world of Christian times.
And right down to this day and age.
I've been reading a number of the commentators
to see what they would have to say
about this passage.
And it's amazing how many of them refer
to their favorite illustration of this principle.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones in his commentary refers to
the famous Cornishman Billy Bray.
Methodists will know him.
He built more churches in the west of
England than the great John Wesley.
Founded more churches I should say.
Billy Bray was a great man of God,
but you know when Billy Bray was saved
he was a pugilist.
Not only was he a pugilist, but he
was a very rough diamond.
And no man was safe when Billy Bray
had more than a pint of beer over
his lips.
And Billy Bray could make mincemeat of three
or four men.
But though probably one of the most tried
and tested men after his conversion, it is
said that he never raised his hand to
any man or woman.
Now to say that here, it doesn't bring
out the significance of it, unless you really
know the man and know the history.
Lloyd-Jones says that this is one of
the greatest illustrations he knew.
I guess my wife and I had the
privilege of knowing one man who to my
mind was even more significant.
And more of an illustration of the principle
then, and perhaps Billy Bray.
When I first met this man, Evan Davis,
he was somewhere around sixty years young.
Is that the way you put it?
Sixty years of age.
And he had spent most of his time
in prison.
Twice he had been charged with manslaughter and
a number of times for disturbing the peace
and what not.
He stood somewhere above six foot three inches
high, and he was well over 350 pounds
in weight.
And it took five police officers in the
Rumba Valley to get him under control when
he was on the go.
And believe it or not, one night he
was in a in a tavern, and the
Salvation Army came outside.
It was a summer's evening, and the window
was open.
And as they do sometimes in Britain, if
the other facilities are appropriate, they will hold
a little service even outside a tavern.
You don't know who's inside, but there was
this young little Salvation Army lass, a little
stripling of a girl about 17 or 18.
And here she was standing on a box,
an orange box, and she was telling the
telling people inside and outside that the blood
of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses all sin
away.
And Evan Davis put down his pint of
beer, went out through the door, and he
got hold of the girl as if she
was a little bit of a rabbit.
And he lifted her up from the floor,
and looking her eyeball to eyeball, she said,
What are you talking about, girl, lassie?
And with her feet dangling from the earth,
she said to him, Sir, she says it's
true.
And she was nearly throttled, but he let
her drop.
But those words, Sir, it's true, shot him
spiritually.
And he couldn't move.
And two of the officers took him around
the corner, and there on the on the
street, Evan Davis came to Christ.
Now, I knew him about 18 months after
that.
You know, he had the voice of the
roar of a lion before he was converted.
I never heard him lift his voice.
The first time I met him, he was
taking kids home, boys and girls who had
been in a scripture union camp, a day
camp by the seaside.
He was taking them home in his car.
And there was a home for elderly people,
and he was taking the aged ladies home
in his car.
And here he was, this gentle, calm, quiet,
gracious, Christ-honoring man.
His whole energies had been harnessed, and something
altogether different had come into his life.
This side of the Atlantic, you have such
men as Tom Skinner, and most of you
know about him.
Tom Skinner, at the time of his conversion,
was the leader of the largest and toughest
teenage gang in New York City, called Harlem
Lords, isn't it?
Harlem Lords, that's right.
But the day after his conversion, when it
had dawned on him what Christ had done
for him, Tom Skinner said, I'm quitting.
And he had difficulty to get out.
It was nearly a fight to get away.
But he quit, and he began to preach.
And the only thing he could do was
to tell men and women, black and white,
especially his fellow blacks, of what Christ had
done for him, in a moment, in a
day, in an hour.
It was just three days afterwards, I believe
it's James Boyce, Dr. James Boyce who says
this, I think.
It was about three or four days afterwards,
he was playing a game of football, and
a lad whom he had successfully blocked, a
white boy, later came back to him and
so hit him in the stomach that Tom
Skinner bent over in anguish.
And when he was bending over, he had
a chop on the back of the neck
that nearly sent him to the stars.
He still had regained consciousness, and the boy
was pouring out jibes upon him there.
And the last thing that Tom Skinner heard
as he was coming to was this man
speaking to him in these words, you dirty
black nigger, I'll teach you.
And he kicked him again in the stomach
and run away.
And Tom Skinner, who would normally have pulverized
him, then or later, had enough energy to
call to him, hey, he said, hi, he
said, I love you anyway because of Jesus.
He's only four days old.
I love you anyway, he says, because of
Jesus.
And this is the end of the story.
After the game was over, this guy comes
back to Tom and he says, Tom, you've
done more to knock prejudice out of my
soul today by telling me that you love
me than you would have if you'd sucked
my jaw right in.
What am I getting at?
What I'm getting at, my friends, is this,
that there is something of the grace of
God exhibited and the reign of God exhibited
when you and I can control this desire
for revenge, whether it's to hit a man
physically or in some other way to get
our own back.
And Jesus says this is the way for
the subjects of his kingdom.
This is the way.
Now this is not unrelated to the question
of war and peace, but I can't go
after that this morning.
That's a subject all its own.
Let me sum up what I want to
say about this first point by quoting to
you from John Stott.
To sum up the teaching of this antithesis,
says Stott, Jesus was not prohibiting the administration
of justice, but rather forbidding us to take
the law into our own hands.
An eye for an eye is a principle
of justice belonging to courts and law.
In personal life we must be rid of
not only all retaliation in word and deed,
but of all animosity of spirit.
We can and must commit our cause to
the good and righteous judge, as Jesus himself
did.
But it is not for us to seek
or to desire any personal revenge.
We must not repay injury, but suffer it,
and so overcome evil with good, as Paul
says.
So the command of Jesus not to resist
evil should not properly be used to justify
either temperamental weakness, or moral compromise, or political
anarchy, or even total pacifism.
Instead, what Jesus here demands of all his
followers is a personal attitude to evildoers, which
is prompted by mercy, not justice.
Which renounces retaliation so completely, as to risk
further costly suffering, which is governed never by
the desire to cause them harm, but always
by the determination to serve their highest good.
Now come to the second illustration.
I shall probably have to stop with this.
We must learn to make legal action against
us wholly unnecessary.
Verse 40, And if someone wants to sue
you and take your tunic, let him have
your cloak as well.
Now though it is not specifically stated, it
may be reasonably assumed that the cause why
someone is here envisaged as taking another to
law, is because of the non-payment of
the debt.
Now that's not specifically statement, but the terms
are such they seem to reflect that kind
of situation.
Christians were generally poor in our Lord's day.
Their association with him often cost them everything.
We've referred to Peter's first epistle.
He was writing to a people who had
lost their homes, lost their jobs, lost the
prospect of everything material.
He addresses them as the sands scattered abroad
throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.
There they are, like a crowd of sheep
that have been scattered.
And that was generally the case.
Thus it is quite feasible that unable to
pay debts incurred, a Christian might be brought
before the magistrate, where a creditor would demand
his tunic for goods rendered.
And it's a very sad background.
Now the tunic, the chiton, was a person's,
not exactly his undergarment, but next to the
undergarment.
Maybe the undergarment in ancient times, but not
necessarily so.
It would correspond to the lady's dress, or
to a man's suit.
It's not the garment above everything, it's the
second layer, as it were.
In normal circumstances, most Jews in our Lord's
day would have at least one change of
costume, or of tunic.
Many, of course, would have more than one.
But most people, however poor, would have two
tunics, and they could change from the one
to the other.
So that one might reasonably be expected to
surrender one tunic, perhaps in order to pay
up one's debt.
But Jesus says that at the suggestion of
being thus taken to court, somebody's trying to
take away this undergarment.
He says that a subject of his kingdom
should not only surrender his tunic, but also
his cloak.
Now the cloak was something of the kind
of our overcoat.
Only, you see, it was more than that.
During the day it was worn to keep
the cold out, but it was also the
blanket during the night.
It was thick, it was heavy, and very
few Jews would have more than one.
But you see what Jesus is saying?
You see what Jesus is saying?
He is saying that if somebody takes you
to court, to the court, because he wants
to take your undergarment away, the cheaper one,
the lighter one, look, he says, don't let
him take you to court and go into
a squabble and a battle there.
He says, let him have your cloak also.
Now this is very significant, because you see,
in the Old Testament, in Exodus 22, verses
26 to 27, we read these words.
If you take your neighbor's cloak as a
pledge, return it to him by sunset, because
his cloak is the only covering he has
for his body.
I told you, it was his blanket.
What else will he sleep in?
This is the Scripture, this is Exodus.
When he cries out to me, says the
Lord, I will hear, for I am compassionate.
And that is another way of saying, look,
if you take a man's cloak away, I'll
see that you have to pay for it.
God is compassionate.
Even so, Jesus here insists that subjects of
his realm must never so oppress their rights,
even in a perfectly legal possession, as even
to their perfectly legal possessions, as to make
such litigation necessary.
Says Jesus, somebody wants your undergarment.
Don't argue and say, well I can't do
it, you mustn't have it, or I have
this reason or that reason.
He says, look, he says, if he is
bent on that kind of thing, rather than
make a fuss and have an argument and
a quarrel and spoil human relationships, let him
have the big, the outer cloak as well,
to which he has no right, save at
the most for a few hours during one
day, and bring it back before sunset.
What he's saying is this, look, rather than
quarrel with somebody else, surrender your rights, even
the things that you have rights to according
to the Scriptures.
Now you see, this is where, this is
something that touches us right on the raw,
isn't it?
We talk about our rights to this and
our rights to that, and we clamor for
our rights, rights, rights, rights, rights.
Says Jesus, subjects of my kingdom have surrendered
their rights to me, haven't you, brother, sister?
You call yourself a Christian?
Who has sovereign rights in your life?
You say it, the Lord knows what you're
saying.
As a subject of my kingdom, says Jesus,
there is something more important than the pressing
even for your own rights.
Personal relationships must be respected.
You must never drive wedges between you and
people.
The other person, even though he's a blaggard,
was made after God's image, and God may
want to love him through you, and save
him through you, and bring him into the
kingdom through you.
And you must express God's life before that
awful man, or that awful woman.
You are put there, you are placed there,
as a subject of the kingdom, to show
him the kingdom's life, and love, and liberty.
And it's only by doing that, that you
can bring him in.
You got it?
Now, this is not to say that the
state cannot have police, a police force, and
the state cannot have troops.
But this is to say that in personal
relationships, you and I have never to separate
from men, and even the most difficult people
to get on with, who will strike you
on the cheek, or take away your cloak.
Don't argue about it.
There's something more important than getting my cloak,
even if I get a cold without clothes
on my bed.
It's the extension of the kingdom.
Jesus is king.
It's the extension of the kingdom of God.
And you see, when we come to the
end of chapter 6, Jesus will say this,
seek ye first the kingdom of God, and
his righteousness, and all these other things I've
talked about, they'll be given to you.
I'll deal with a man who hits you
on the cheek.
I'll deal with a man who's stolen your
undergarment, or your upper garment, or whatever it
is.
I'll sort all these things out, and every
need of yours I will supply.
Now I end.
Oh, is this practicable?
Well, I've already indicated.
It's only practicable for people who come the
way of the Beatitudes, who repent of their
sins, who accept Jesus as a Savior, and
who begin to experience that they're poor in
spirit, humble, and who begin to mourn for
their sins, and to become meek, and to
hunger and thirst after righteousness, and so forth.
It is only people who live on that
level can possibly come here.
You ask me why, and I'll tell you,
because that is the way to a real,
living, ever-deepening knowledge of God.
That's why.
And fundamentally, you see, it's only the man
or the woman who knows God as God,
that can surrender his or her right, and
tell the guy who wants the undergarment, take
the other one as well.
My God will look after me.
You see, many of us can't say that,
because we don't know God like that, and
we've got to fight for it, because we
don't know anybody else who will.
If I don't fight for my right, who
will?
Poor me.
You see, I'm a pagan at that point,
but if I know God, a God of
justice, in His own time, He will straighten
things out.
He'll see to my needs.
You see, this is why Jesus will ultimately
put the capstone on this kind of teaching,
and He will say there's something like this.
He says, take a lesson from the birds
of the air, the sparrows.
They're so cheap, you can buy a couple
of them for a half a penny.
But He says, there's not a sparrow that
falls without my knowing it and taking note
of it.
Aren't you of much more value than a
sparrow?
Or look at it, look at the lily
of the field.
It grows today, so attractive, so wonderful, but
tomorrow it's vanished, and it has to be
thrown into the...
Oh, you of little faith.
He says, don't you believe that the one
who closed the lily of the field just
for a day cannot close you?
Let your cloak go, man.
He'll close you, if you know Him.
But you see, the way to know Him
is via the Beatitudes, and obedience to Him,
and service to Him.
Refer to in chapter 5.
Now, if I were able this morning, you
know how I'd like to put to end.
I can't do it, of course, but I'd
like to sing to you, send you all
away, and frighten you.
Any of you ever heard Ethel Waters, the
American Negress, sing a sparrow?
Put your hands up.
Praise the Lord.
I want one of you to give me
either a record or a tape.
I want to hear it.
Because, whisper it, Martin Gaff, but I've been
reading her biography recently, and I'd like to
hear her sing this.
You know it was her favorite.
On the stage, even when she was a
backslider, this was her favorite.
Why should I feel discouraged?
And why should the shadows come?
Why should my heart be lonely away from
home, and from heaven and home?
For Jesus is my portion.
My constant friend is He.
For His eye is on the sparrow, and
I know He watches me.
You know that?
You can't turn the other cheek unless you
know that.
You can't give your cloak away unless you
know that.
But if you know that, my friend, you've
got the answer.
You've got the key to the Sermon on
the Mount.
Not only the understanding of it, but the
application of it.
I sing because I'm happy.
I sing because I'm free.
I'm not worshipping mammon.
I'm not worshipping myself.
I'm not out for my own rights.
I sing because I'm free, and because my
concern is His glory and His kingdom.
He look after me.
His eye is on the sparrow, and I
know He watches me, even me.
Hallelujah.
There's someone here who's a stranger to Him.
Come near to Him today.
You may never have a better opportunity.
He is seeking men and women to know
Him.
Our God wants you to know Him like
this.
That's why He's written a book, the Bible,
to tell us about Himself.
Come to Him.
We don't often make an altar call here.
Maybe this morning there are some who would
benefit from that.
You might like to walk down the frontier
to indicate, today you're coming to the Lord
like that, to begin to walk with Him,
in a way that will lead to this
ongoing, deepening knowledge of Him, that will enable
you to surrender trivial things, because you have
Him.
I shall not make an extended invitation, but
as we sing our last hymn this morning,
I shall come and stand there by the
communion table.
If you feel this is the right thing
to do, come and let the congregation know
and pray for you.
But whether you come or not, may this
be a day when you recognize that life
consists in the knowledge of God.
Let us pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, really we have prayed to
You, even as we've uttered these words from
the pulpit or heard them in the pew.
For You know how our hearts have been
taking over, how our thoughts have been crystallizing,
our objections have been raised, or alternately, how
we have been pleased to know the truth
in order to obey it.
Help us now, crisply within our own souls,
to acknowledge the truth, and to ask for
Your help.
And if this is a day when You
are calling some of us to trust You
as our God and our Savior for the
first time, to set out in life as
those who trust You, please, Lord, call, call
effectively, call mightily, call such persons, young and
old, to You.
But confirm in the heart of every believer
convictions that have grown up by Your grace
and Spirit, under the ministry of Your Word,
here or elsewhere, confirm in us the fact
that Your calling to us is high because
Your privilege, the privilege You've given us, is
so great.
And the ability to obey accompanies the command
to obey.
Hear us in Jesus' name.