11 October

Bible In 365 Days                                

Matthew 22-23

Matthew 22

The first two parables contained the history of the Hebrew nation up to the slaying of the Son. This one is prophetic. It presents the sin of this people in the light of the day of grace. The King sends His messengers first "to call them that were bidden." "They would not come." A second appeal is made-the mission of the Holy Spirit through the apostles. Of this the people made light. Each went to the material interest of the moment, his farm, his merchandise. The only attention they paid to the messengers was to persecute and kill them. Then came the King's armies, and the city was destroyed. Within forty years of the Crucifixion of Jesus this was literally fulfilled.

Then we have a new departure by the King's enemies in their methods of attack. They endeavored to entangle Him in His own words. They propounded three questions:

1. A semi-political question.

2. A question involving a great doctrinal dispute.

3. A question touching morality.

In His replies Jesus manifested in a wonderful manner His perfect familiarity with all the relations of life here and hereafter, and revealed the ignorance and wickedness of His questioners:

1. Duty to Caesar exists, and is conditioned in responsibility to God.

2. The conditions of the spiritual world cannot be measured by material conditions.

3. Those are the greatest words of the law which include all the rest.

Then with one startling question, He revealed their ignorance of mysteries of their own writing and history.

Matthew 23

This chapter is one of the most sublime and awful in the whole inspired volume. It records the last words of Jesus to the crowds. He summed up, He reached His verdict, He pronounced sentence.

It is awful in its majesty, terrible in its resistless force. With what relentless persistence and unfailing accuracy He revealed the true condition of the leaders of the people, their occupation with externalities and pettiness, and their neglect of inward facts and weightier matters.

Here, indeed, if ever, we have "thoughts that breathe and words that burn." One can almost feel the withering force of His strong and mighty indignation - indignation directed, not against the people, but against their false guides. And yet behind it all is His heart, and the "woes" merge into a wail of agony, the cry of a mother over her lost child.