Luke 6:1-5

We have the privilege this Morning of returning to our ongoing study of the Gospel of Luke and Chapter 6. We go from incident to incident in the life of Jesus at this point in the gospel of Luke culminating of course in his death and his resurrection. We are only in the sixth chapter of Luke the longest gospel of the four in terms of words, 24 chapters, a lot to go. We're just at the very beginning of Luke, but already the bitterness the hostility the resentment, the animosity, and the hatred of Jesus is escalating severely.

We began the gospel of Luke with so much Joy; Angelic announcements, angelic hosts praising God and saying Glory to God in the highest for the birth of the Messiah. Shepherds, Joseph and Mary, Elizabeth, Zechariah, Simeon, Anna the old folks in the temple who were part of the Jewish remnant waiting and waiting for the long expected Jesus who finally came. The gospel began with such hope as do the other gospels. But it didn't take long for the realization to set in that there would be a severe conflict, and that Jesus would generate deadly hostility.

Admittedly the response to his ministry at first was positive. Back in chapter 4 verse 15 we read "and he began teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all." And in verse 42 of that same fourth chapter "when day came the departed and went to a lonely place and the multitudes were searching for him and came to him and tried to keep him from going away from them." He was in tremendous demand. They had never heard anybody like him, they had never seen anybody like him. No one had ever done the miracles that he had done, of healing, the casting out of demons. No one had ever spoken the way he spoke. And the crowds wanted him, all the time.

Even in chapter 5 and verse 26 its says the whole crowd was seized with astonishment and began glorifying God, they were filled with awe or fear "saying we have seen remarkable things today." There was a tremendous explosion of popularity on the part of Jesus. At first, at first.

Even the religious leaders who had a lot at stake because they were in power, religious power, and political power and influence. Even they at the beginning were curious. Chapter 5 verse 17, he was teaching and there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting there, and they had come from every village of Galilee and Judea, and from Jerusalem. He was starting to attract a lot of course not only the crowds, but the religious leaders who came to hear his message, and to see the wonders that he worked, the healings and the casting out of demons.

I guess we could say it all began with a lot of hope. It all began with a lot of enthusiasm. But it didn’t take very long to turn. In fact by the time we come into chapter 6 the hostility has reached a severe level. And even by this time the Jewish leaders, the Pharisees and the scribes who were really architects of Judaism, who were viewed as the leaders, who were the reigning theologians, they viewed Jesus as the most dangerous person alive. The severest threat to their religion and their religious position, and power. And frankly, they were exactly right. They were exactly right.

He was the most powerful teacher the world ever saw or ever will see. And he was attacking them. He was attacking their religion. I suppose you could say he was attacking what some would say was the best part of them. He wasn’t attacking the prostitutes, and he wasn’t attacking the tax collectors, he wasn’t attacking the riffraff of society. In fact just the opposite, he seemed to be drawn to those people, and attacked the religious nobility. And he not only attacked them, but he attacked them at the foundation of their religious system as well as at the level of their own false spirituality. And his attack was relentless. And there’s a very important message as we shall see.

We live in a day when the reigning view is tolerance, isn’t it? And that if you’re a real Christian your going to manifest tolerance. And it’s a day when we’re going to hear the word ecumenical or ecumenism, which is a word that simply means getting everybody together. And the mood of the day is tolerance and ecumenism, and "let’s find what we have in common and we’ll all get together." For the sake of morality and for the sake of righteousness and for the sake of "the kingdom of God."

Jesus took the very opposite approach. Jesus didn’t attack the immorality of the society in particular. Obviously he was concerned about sin and called sinners to repentance, but Jesus attacked the religious establishment, because they were the "dammers" of souls. Because they offered people the false solution. The deceptive lie. The ultimate delusion, that God is pleased with you when He’s not. And so He attacked that system. And every time there was a point of conflict, he exacerbated it. It was almost as if, every time he made a wound he poured salt in it.

It started from the very beginning to be so. The message in chapter 4 recorded that he gave his own hometown, Nazareth in his own synagogue where he had grown up as a boy, that was still attended by family and friends. The message there was that the whole system of Judaism was out of touch with the purposes of God. Because Jesus said I came to fulfill Isaiah 61 I came to the poor, prisoners, blind and oppressed. I didn’t come the spiritual elite. I didn’t come to the self-righteous the spiritually proud, the people who are trying to merit righteousness with God and accomplish that by their works. I didn’t come for those people. I came for the poor prisoners blind and oppressed, the downcast the people who know they’re spiritually bankrupt, and so forth. And in so doing he so infuriated the self-righteous people sitting in that synagogue, who had owned the religion of Judaism, orchestrated by the rabbis and the Pharisees. He infuriated them to such a degree that even the synagogue in his own hometown before the day was over they tried to kill him by throwing him off a cliff.

He assaulted that system because that system needed to be assaulted. And its going to get worse. And it wasn’t just general. It wasn’t that he just spoke in generalities about what was wrong with the system, when had an occasion to meet with Pharisees or scribes, who were the leaders of that system, he confronted that system face to face. It was really intolerable for Jesus to attack the system it was even more intolerable for him to attack them. But that’s what he did because they were the purveyors of that system.

Why did Jesus do that? Listen to what I say. Because divine truth was more important that anything else. Did you hear that? That may be the most profound thing I have ever said. Divine truth is more important than anything else. And do you know why Jesus always escalated the conflict? Because He always spoke the truth.

If I ever do end up on Larry King or some other program like that, and somebody says to me, will ‘Mormons go to heaven?’ I will say "no." If they say will the Jews go to heaven, who reject Jesus as messiah? I will say "no." Do I want to start a fight? No. Do I want to be resented? No. Do I want to tell the truth? Yes. That’s the issue.

Jesus didn’t escalate the conflict by being insensitive. He didn’t escalate the conflict by being ungracious. The conflict escalated of it-self because he spoke the truth. That’s the issue. And every time there was conflict, instead of trying to relieve the tension, instead of trying to lower the hostility or ease the conflict, He escalated it. He advanced it. He agitated it. He increased it. By always being absolutely truthful. And as I said in our last study the gospel is incompatible with error in any from. Is that not so?

And the Pharisees come to Jesus and say ‘why are you doing this?’ ‘this is not according to our law.’ He could say ‘Oh we’re really sorry, um we didn’t really want to offend you.’ ‘Maybe we could create an organization called the um, the um national conference on the gospel and Judaism.’ ‘And we could meet. And we could find common ground.’ He didn’t do that. He didn’t do that. There wasn’t any common ground, because you had the truth and you had error. And there is no common ground.

It isn’t that you want to pick a fight for the sake of a fight. It isn’t that you want to be ungracious for the sake of being ungracious. It isn’t that your some kind of a self styled messiah who wants some how to become a martyr. It’s not that at all. It’s that the truth matters more than anything else and if you always say the truth in every situation the truth will have the effect of exposing everything else as error. And people who are in that error aren’t happy about that. That’s the bottom line. And Jesus was compelled by the truth. And when conflict occurred he went immediately to the truth. And took it to another level. So that there was this continual escalation of the their hostility.

Last number of months I’ve been doing thinking in my own mind. And I’m living this with our Lord as I study all of this. And I’m trying in my own mind to come to the appropriate place for me and for us in this generation. It’s not hard to identify where we need to be. Where we need to be is to always speak the truth. I understand that has immense implications. In a day when tolerance has become the mode that is acceptable. Jesus knew that the gospel was incompatible with any other form of religion. He knew that the truth was incompatible with error and so he continued to elevate the truth and therefor escalate the conflict with error.

And I think the Pharisees and Scribes were probably insulted by Jesus, because obviously Jesus had divine power. There was no way to, there was no way to deny his miracles. I mean you just couldn’t deny them, he banished disease form Palestine. They were there when he healed the paralyzed man who came down through the roof as we saw in chapter 5. There was no way to deny those miracles. They were all over the place, happening at a massive level. There was no way to deny that he was casting out demons. There was no way to deny that he was the most profound speaker of truth that had ever been heard by anybody. There was no way to deny that he had divine power.

So his claims to be the messiah, the son of God, etc. might have been believable but there was a problem that I’m sure irritated the socks off the Pharisees, if they wore socks. Maybe I should say irritated the sandals off the Pharisees. And it was that when Jesus this Messiah this man of God chose his official authoritative representatives that we call the disciples or the apostles, he didn’t choose a Pharisee, and he didn’t choose a scribe. In fact he choose a bunch of no name, nobodies from up in Galilee, who weren’t even educated. Fishermen. And of all abominations a tax collector. And a lot of other common people.

He didn’t say, you know, ‘um I’m coming into Israel to hold some evangelistic crusades’ ‘and I need to form a committee of folks. I’m going to take some Pharisees, and some Sadusees and some scribes, an were going to involve them.’ Not going to happen. Not going to happen. I don’t think they liked that too well. But there was no possibility of an alliance. Absolutely impossible. What fellowship has light with…? With darkness. What concord has Christ with…? Satan.

Now the text before us, chapter 6 gets to the heart of this conflict. And the heart of it surrounds the Sabbath. The Sabbath. Because Judaism of that time, has I suppose as its anchor, Sabbath observance. That routine every seventh day. Saturday - from sundown Friday, to sundown Saturday. That is the anchor, that is the touchstone of Judaism. And what you have in the beginning of chapter 6 is Jesus complete disdain for their observance of the Sabbath. He doesn’t say, ‘you know its really nice for you guys, that you do that I certainly applaud your devotion.’ He shows nothing but disdain for it. And this is really hitting them at the very core their system. Because for the most part, self-righteousness and trying to earn your salvation by your works came down to how you observed the regulations of the Sabbath. If you did all the Sabbath stuff, you had earned your righteousness. And so if Jesus is truly going to attack their system, he has to attack their Sabbath structure.

They were wrong about the Sabbath, and Jesus was concerned about the truth and so the truth, He literally dropped like a bomb in the middle of their Sabbath mentality. You see what Jesus was doing, you see this all through his… He was forcing people to choose. He didn’t come in and say ‘you know were going to preach the gospel but were going to get all these various religions together and, you know we all kind of have a lot in common…’ Jesus came in an said ‘Here’s the truth, this is the truth, this alone is the truth and everything else is a lie. Make your choice.’

You choose, the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel of humility, the gospel of repentance, the gospel of grace, the gospel of faith, and not spiritual, pride, self-righteousness, merit, and works. Which is what Judaism was, and its what every religion in the world is, except the truth, of Christianity. And Jesus was constantly drawing a big thick line. Choose this or choose that. Here’s the truth and that’s the lie. And the choice is still the same. Still the same. If your going to preach the gospel faithfully. The Gospel is singular, it is exclusive, doesn’t mingle or mix with anything. As we learned at the end of chapter 5 didn’t we?

You can’t bring the gospel in like a new piece of garment and sew it into old Judaism. You can’t bring the gospel like new wine and put it into the old wineskins of Judaism. You can’t mingle the truth with error. You can’t mingle a gospel of grace and faith, a gospel of humility and repentance with a religion of spiritual pride, self-righteousness, merit and works, which is what every other religion in the world is under any name including the Judaism of the time of Jesus.

Now the Jews took the Sabbath very, very seriously. Not just at the time of Jesus. They really had inherited an accumulated tradition that had been, sort of accumulating for centuries. And the Sabbath day had become literally a collection point for complex restrictions that had been mounting and mounting and mounting and mounting. As Rabbis made regulations and then they interpreted them and they were reinterpreted, and reinterpreted, and reinterpreted until finally this accumulation of things made the seventh day the, listen, the worst day of the week. It was repressive, it was ridiculously strict, and Jesus wanted to show the difference between that and the true heart of God.

Now we come into this Sabbath controversy in verse 1 "it came about that on a Sabbath." some texts say a second Sabbath which we don’t know exactly what that means it may not be the original text. It could be the second Sabbath of a given month but in any case it doesn’t make any difference. ‘it came about on a certain Sabbath’ now were are introduced into Jesus attitude toward the Sabbath. The word Sabbaton is the Greek word for Sabbath. Sabbaton, the root of sabbaton means to cease. Double B or a double Beta in the middle can add intensification, so this is some kind of complete cessation. Sabbath means to completely cease. The word was used to describe the seventh day command.

Go back to Exodus 20. I’m not going to take a lot of time with this. I’m just going to read you this and its important that you know it. Back in the Ten Commandments, God instituted the Sabbath Law. I want you to see how clear it is and how simple it is. Here’s the Sabbath day verse 9 Exodus 20 "six days you labor and do all your work. Seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God in it you shall not do any work; You or your son or you daughter, your male, your female servant, your cattle, your sojourner who stays with you." That’s the end.

So what was God’s law? Don’t work. That was it. Don’t work. That sounds good, Right? Take a day off. Refresh you body, refresh your spirit. Refresh your relationships in the family. Enjoy the creation. Go out and see what God has made. Take a walk. Go to the shore take a swim. Do what ever you want, just don’t work. This is a day restoration, Re-creation. That’s all God ever said about it. Just rest. It was a complete cessation. And by the way, although God rested from his creation on the seventh day in Genesis, He didn’t command man to do that until the Law of Moses. And seventh day rest was one of the ten commandments, it was ceremonial rather than moral, and thus it is not repeated in the New Testament because it wasn’t a part of moral law.

But it was just a general gift from God to Israel, and I think it’s a very wise thing in general beyond even the nation Israel although God didn’t require it before, and doesn’t require it in the New Testament. Take a day off enjoy! And in the development of Sabbath they began to use it as a day to worship. But then their religion became so external and so hypocritical and so superficial that they began to look for ways that they could earn their salvation with God. By filling that day with all kinds of rules and regulations that if you kept, you would please God and earn salvation. None of which are biblical.

It finally became the most painful day of the week. People hated it. It was a day of tremendous restriction. Let me just give you a little of the things that fit into Sabbath law. And I can’t give you all of it, for example in the Talmud there are 24 chapters of Sabbath laws required. twenty-four chapters and one Rabbi said the Talmud spent two and a half years in the study of one of those twenty-four tying to figure out all of its ramifications. It was ridiculously, complex system by which you could earn your salvation by maintaining all of these strictures. And what were they? Well you could travel no more than 3000 feet from home. Unless on Friday before the Sabbath you had planted food at the 3000 foot point and then you could go 3000 more. Because you and constituted that point as a home because your food was there.

Now if you lived down a long narrow street, and you might have been a few hundred feet down from the end of the street or the end of the alley you could take a piece of wood and put it across the end of the street or alley. Or you could take a piece of rope and put it across the end of the alley, or you could take a piece of wire, and that in the eyes of God, would turn it into a door way. And you could consider that the front door of your house, so you could go 3000 feet from there.

You could lift up certain things and put down certain things. Only from certain places. You could lift up something form a public place and put it into a private place. Or from a private place and put it into a public place. You could lift up things from a wide place and put them into a narrow place. You could put things in a free place… you say what is that? I don’t know because you have chapter after chapter of rabbis with endless discussion as to what it means.

You couldn’t carry anything that on your person that weighed more than a dried fig. There goes your wallet. And certainly there goes your purse. But you could carry half a fig two times on the Sabbath. (Audience laughs) You couldn’t eat any of the forbidden, there was all kinds of food forbidden on the Sabbath. You couldn’t eat any forbidden food larger than an olive. And if you put an olive in your mouth and spit it out because it was bad the Talmud said you couldn’t replace it with a good one because your pallet had tasted the flavor of the first one. Now remember your salvation depends on this. (Murmuring) This is how the people thought…pleasing God.

If you threw an object in the air you could catch it with the hand that you threw it with, but if you caught it with the other hand it was a sin. Because there’s less work in doing that, than that. (Audience laughs) If you were in one place and your arm stretched to reach for food and the Sabbath over took you had to drop the food rather than bring back your arm, or you would carry the burden in sin. The Tailor couldn’t carry his needle, a scribe couldn’t carry his pen. A pupil couldn’t carry his books. You couldn’t even examine your clothes before you put them on lest in the examining any kind of brushing and shaking you killed an insect. Wool couldn’t be died, nothing could be sold or bought or washed. A letter could not be sent, even with a heathen. No fire could be lit, no fire could be put out. Cold water could be poured on warm, but warm couldn’t be poured on cold. An egg couldn’t be boiled even if you buried it in the hot sand, which is how they would boil an egg, in the desert. You couldn’t take a bath, for fear that the water would flow off of you and wash the floor. You couldn’t move a chair since it might make a rut, and that would be too much like plowing. Women could not look in a mirror, or put on any jewelry and if she were to find a white hair she had to resist the temptation to pull it out.

When it came to grain and food the laws are just staggering. You could have no more grain than a lambs mouth full. That’s the maximum amount you could pick. You couldn’t leave a radish in the salt, because it would make a pickle. The laws go on endlessly, about wine, about honey, about milk, about spitting, about getting dirt off your clothes… You could have enough ink to write two Hebrew letters. You could carry enough wax to fill a small hole some where. You could stick a wad in your ear, if you had an ear-ache but You couldn’t put on false teeth. And this is how it goes, 24 chapters of this.

The following 39 are forbidden things, and here’s a list from Alfred Edershime, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Classic work on the history of the people of Israel. "They are forbidden, sewing, plowing, reaping, binding sheathes, winnowing, sifting, grinding, sifting in a sieve, kneading, baking, shearing the wool, washing it, beating it, dyeing it, spinning, putting it on the weavers beam, making two threads, weaving two threads, separating two threads, making a knot, undoing a knot, sewing two stitches, catching dear, killing, skinning, salting, preparing its skin, scraping off its hair, cutting it up, writing two letters, scraping in order to write two letters, building, pulling down, extinguishing, the fire, lighting the fire, beating with the hammer, carrying one thing from one place to another."

Now what kind of a fun day is that? This is supposed to be the rest, and you can’t even sort out the stuff you have to, not do. Jesus said this to the Jews in Matthew 11 "come unto me all you that labor and" are what? "heavy laden." This was an oppressive life. "and I will give you rest! Take my yoke, and learn of me for my yoke is easy and my burden is" what? As he was comparing himself this ridiculous Sabbath stuff that the people were convinced was what earned their salvation. Rituals and ceremonies and regulations, ad infinitum ad nazism. The Jews were dead serious about this. It still hangs around today, in modern Israel.

If you’ve been over to the land and you get away from the Arab sector where you tend to tour and you get into the Jewish sector where the Jews, the Israeli people live. Those that are orthodox and you see it in America, New York City for example. They eat only left over food and drink day old coffee. Because they can’t prepare anything, cook anything. The buildings, the apartment buildings in New York City and other Cities have what they call a Sabbath Elevator. It has no buttons on it. It just goes up, hits every floor and goes down, hits every floor. So you don’t have to push a button, that’s work. And they have Sabbath timers in the houses that turn the lights on and turn the lights off on Sabbath because they can’t start a fire or put one out. This is ridiculous. But his was the heart of their religion. The Sabbath was the staple of their system.

Now lets turn to the text. "It came about that on a certain Sabbath he was passing through some grain fields, and his disciples were picking and eating the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands." Uh Ho! He was going through some grain fields literally in the Greek "sewn fields" probably wheat or barley. The grain was ripe, probably means it was spring, or summer. In the Jordan valley usually the grain ripens in April and east of there in August. And so harvest was perhaps near. The fields were full of grain, ripened, and basically the way you traveled in the land was through the fields. The fields were laid out in little narrow strips. And between them, between the rows, were paths, and that’s how people went places. Roads were not always distinguishable from fields. Because the paths went right through the fields and that’s how people went from one place to another.

And there and been a wonderful provision that God made in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 23:25. It’s a great thing to know, this is what God said "when you enter your neighbors standing grain." Your going through his field "there you may pluck the heads with your hand but you shall not put a sickle in your neighbors standing grain." You can’t go over hand harvest his crop and hall it off. But when your walking through his field if your hungry you can pop off whatever you can get in your hand. You can rub it together and when you rub it together it takes the outside shell off, and you can throw away the chaff and what you have is the grain and you can get some nourishment. You can do that. God’s law provided for a wonderful way in which the people of Israel could enjoy the blessing of the land without necessarily owning the crop. And that’s exactly what the disciples where doing. They were doing what God had provided for them to do, in that wonderful provision of Deuteronomy 23:25.

It says they were going through the fields. The disciples where hungry along with Jesus, they were picking, eating the grain. Rubbing them in their hands. Verse 2 "but some of the Pharisees…" What!? Where did they come from? Well some where inside three thousand feet… (Laughter) Unless they were doing a tag team deal, I don’t know how that works. But they always going to be around. And there dogging the steps of Jesus, and there looking for anyway that they can indict him, and discredit him. Some of the Pharisees said "why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?" Now let me ask you a question. Did the, the Sabbath law of Exodus 20 say anything about this? Absolutely nothing. It just said enjoy your day off. Worship the Lord, honor Him, make it holy to Him. Enjoy Him and Enjoy the day, and rest. Didn’t say anything about this.

Oh but they had this system. There they were with their constant scrutiny. Looking for any way to get rid of Jesus. This is very serious stuff. And according to the Talmud it says, ‘in case a woman rolls wheat..’ Rolls it to remove the husks. ‘It is sifting, and if she rubs the heads of wheat, it is threshing, and if she cleans off the shell it is sifting, and if she’ bruises I guess they would call it, ‘the ear it is grinding, and if she throws it in her hand, it is winnowing.’ Can’t do that on the Sabbath. And the Rabbis said that reaping and grinding grain, can only be done to something the size of one dried fig, or less. Any more produces guilt.

Some of the Pharisees said, why do you, plural, you meaning Jesus and the disciples. Why do you violate this? Well they had violated a lot of those rules, they had been reaping, threshing, sifting, grinding, winnowing, and preparing food. The real question of the Pharisees is ‘why do you have such utter disdain for our religion?’ You know where here! I mean it wasn’t that they jumped out from behind a bush… Why do you do this?! Why do you so flagrantly do this? That’s the real question. Why do you have such disdain for our religion, why do you challenge our religion?

And as always Jesus response is perfect. "Jesus answering them said, have you not even read…" and there’s a bit of sarcasm there, exposing their ignorance. They knew the story He was about to tell, but they never understood its meaning. They were great at knowing the story, but not the meaning. "Have you not even read what David did when he was hungry? He and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God and took at ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for any to eat except the priest alone, and gave it to his companions?"

Well let me give it too you quickly. Listen carefully, brilliant, fascinating story. Back in the twenty-fourth chapter of Leviticus, don’t turn there just write it down if you want that information. Leviticus twenty-four verses five to nine. God lay down some things for the tabernacle, certain things in the tabernacle. One of the things that God wanted in the tabernacle was a golden table. Golden table in the holy place, and on the golden table was the show bread. Have you ever heard of that, or as it’s called the bread of the presence. And it was a symbol. And God said in that section, every Sabbath bring in 12 loaves of hot bread, and line them up in two rows, of six, on the table. Before the Lord, symbolic of the fact that you know that God is the source of your bread. That God is your provider. And you need to do that every week, every week, every week. As a continual recognition that God is your bread provider. And according to Leviticus twenty-four, the old bread that comes off, can be eaten only by the priests. Because it has been consecrated, to God. So it can’t just be treated like common bread. Can’t be sold or just given to any common person, because it has special consecrated significance. Only the priests can eat it.

Now you say, who wants seven-day-old bread anyway? Well this is that kind of flat bread, and without preservatives, it becomes cracker, in a dry climate, and its edible. So they would eat it. And that was the provision. Well in first Samuel twenty-one, you can jot that down and read the story, first six verses, first Samuel twenty-one. And there’s a lot of things in the story that Jesus doesn’t deal with, but he just deals with this one aspect of it. In the story David lied, and it created all kinds of problems, but the Lord doesn’t deal with that.

What is germane to his story is this, first Samuel twenty-one, David is being chased by Saul. David has been the anointed king, he’s going to replace Saul. Saul wants to kill him. Right? You know the story. So David is running from a place called Gbeah. And he’s running away, he’s got a few guys with him, his friends. Trying to escape for Saul. They come down to a place called Nob. Verse 3 says "Have you not even read what David did when he was hungry?" He gets down to Nob. Nob is a mile outside of Jerusalem. Its really right on the edge of Jerusalem. Where the tabernacle was. David gets down there and he’s hungry, and those that are with him, are hungry. And he goes to the tabernacle. And there’s a priest there. His name is Ahimelech. Apparently Abiathar was the high priest of that time, Mark makes reference to that. But Ahimelech was the priest that David ran into. And He says to this priest, and first Samuel twenty-one records it. ‘I need some bread, I’m hungry’ and he is the king even though he’s not yet taken his throne and these men are with him. I’m hungry my men need bread. And he says I need 5 loaves of bread.

And in first Samuel twenty-one verse four we read this "and the priest answered David and said there is no common bread on hand." We don’t, this is not a bakery. We don’t have any bread here. But he said there’s holy bread! There’s holy bread, if only the young men have kept them selves from women. He wanted to make sure that they were…clean. And so he said there’s this holy bread, show bread, the bread of the presence. It may well have been a Sabbath, and the new bread been put there, the old bread taken off. And David said, Yes the men are clean, and were hungry. And in verse six of first Samuel twenty-one the priest gave him consecrated bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the presence which was removed from before the Lord in order to put hot bread in its place. So the old bread that came off, the priest said, sure take it and eat.

What’s the point? The point is this, mercy and compassion is far more important than ceremony. Far more important than, ritual. Frankly that was an indictment of the whole system of Judaism. The whole Sabbath system, was oppressive, merciless, void of compassion, grace, kindness. As we will see in the next passage, they get irritated at Jesus because he healed somebody on the Sabbath! It was like the Sabbath was supposed to be the most painful day of the week! They missed the whole point.

Well verse four, David entered the house of God and took and ate the consecrated bread, the show bread, the bread of presence. Which is not lawful for any to eat except the priests alone, and he gave it to his companions. And God never even reprimanded him for that. That priest, that Ahimelech, understood that hunger and mercy toward somebody who’s hungry and compassion, and kindness, and goodness, is more important than ceremony. The Pharisees didn’t get that. They didn’t get it at all. They were all about, the shallow superficial, and ceremonial.

If David could be allowed, by a priest to violate a divine regulation, (maybe on a Sabbath) then the disciples could be allowed to by the SON of GOD to violate Listen, an UNBIBLICAL regulation. A stupid regulation, that you couldn’t take a little grain and rub it in your hands and eat.

Just as a foot note to this, you meet people today who say they are Sabbaterian, and I always wonder weather they’re Sabbaterians like Exodus 20 or weather they’re Sabbaterians, like some kind of non-biblical accumulated Judaism. The day was meant for rest, the day was meant for relaxation, refreshment, recreation. They day was meant to look at the wonders of God’s Glory, and to worship him. It was meant for meeting needs, and showing mercy, and showing compassion. And Ceremony and ritual to be burdensome. David was allowed to violate a Divine LAW, to fulfill the truest law, Mercy. Certainly Jesus and his disciples could violate a human law to fulfill the true law of mercy.

And then Jesus dropped the bomb. At his point he could have said, ‘oh I’m sorry we offended you guys, please forgive us.’ He didn’t. Verse 5 "and he was saying to them the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath."

You say, what does that mean? Here it is ‘guys you aren’t in charge of the Sabbath, I am. I’m in charge of it.’ I would love to see the expression on their faces. This is what I say about the way he escalated things.

The Greek order is this "the Lord of the Sabbath is, the Son Of Man." Whom he had claimed to be back in chapter 5 verse 24 and is a Messianic title drawn from Daniel 7:13. ‘The greater than David’ He said I am the Lord of the Sabbath, I will interpret the will of God on the Sabbath. I will interpret the law of God. I will interpret the word of God. I will tell you what God means by what he says. I will tell you what the Sabbath is to be, and what it is not to be. You are not in charge of the Sabbath, I am. Wow. You don’t rule the Sabbath, you don’t set the standards, I do. Jesus is the great interpreter of God’s law. He’s the great interpreter of God’s word. He’s the great interpreter of God’s will, and Beloved I say it to you, You can never, ever understand the Old Testament law with out the New Testament interpretation of that Law by Christ, and the Apostles who wrote the words that Christ wanted them to write, to interpret the truth. Jesus is the Interpreter of God’s will, God’s law, and God’s word.

Mark tells us that he also said "man was not made for the Sabbath but the Sabbath was made for man." The point being, you weren’t designed to somehow conform to some impossible rules, but rather the day was made for you, for your benefit, for your blessing, for your Joy, for your fulfillment, for your rest. And for Mercy and for Compassion, and for doing Good. He could have reminded them of Micah 6:8 "what does God require of you? But to do justice, to love kindness, to walk with humbly with your God." They didn’t have any of that. No kindness, no mercy, no compassion. Jesus indicts them in Matthew 23, in that real diatribe against the leaders when he says about them that "they bind on people burdens impossible to bare" Matthew 23:4 "and they give no help in carrying them." The legalists knew nothing about Grace. The Lord offered only Grace. They knew nothing about Humility, he came only to the humble. They thought they were righteous, and therefore they were the enemies of true righteousness.

To live as a Christian is to live with a God who is merciful. Hebrews 4:16 says "let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of Grace that we may receive…" What? "mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." Jesus said I don’t care what your religious system says, your not in charge of the truth. I don’t care how you interpret scripture, your not the interpreter, I am. I am Lord of the Sabbath. And in so saying that, he was saying I am the Lord of the truth. True meaning of Sabbath. True meaning of rest, the true meaning of worship. And all that the Law of God describes.

To live as a Christian is to live under the Lordship of Christ, isn’t it? There is no compatibility between a system of self-righteousness, spiritual pride, merit and works, by whatever name, and the true gospel, of repentance, humility, grace and faith. They’re utterly incompatible. And so of necessity we always if we speak the truth, escalate the conflict with error, do we not? But for the sake of the Glory of God and for the sake of the eternal souls of men we speak the truth.
 

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur's Collection" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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