Biblestudy: Matthew (Part Fourteen)

Matthew 9:9-38
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John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 30-Dec-81; 73 minutes

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Let us go back to Matthew. I believe Mr. Register left off at about Matthew 9:9. I am going to step back just a few verses and pick out verse 2 as I wanted to speak for just a couple of minutes on the statement that Jesus made there. He says:

Matthew 9:2 Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you."

I can recall attending a meeting in Pasadena sometime around, I believe about 1973. That meeting was conducted by an evangelist whose name you would very quickly recall. And in the course of that meeting, although I have to admit that I did not pick it up at the time, yet in looking back a couple of years later, I began to see the innuendos in what he was saying. But anyway, at that meeting, he made light of Mr. Armstrong's teaching regarding healing. He made light by asking all kinds of questions about it, asking where there were statements in the Bible that said such and such, and so and so. Now what he was hinting at is that, in this case there was no clear statement that healing is the forgiveness of sin.

Now, at that particular time, they were not fielding any kind of questions that came to the minister's mind. He was just lecturing. And the lecture was really the essence of a paper that he apparently had written, and was going to present to somebody, I do not know who. It was probably G.T.A. or Wayne Cole, or someone along that line.

But at any rate, I wondered how in the world you can get around Matthew 9:2 where He said:

Matthew 9:2 “Your sins are forgiven you.”

Now, it does not say that healing is the forgiveness of sin, but I do not see how it could be more strongly implied.

This man was animating that Mr. Armstrong just dreamed this idea up; that healing is the forgiveness of sin. Mr. Armstrong did not dream it up. And it is very easily seen by anybody who wants to take the time to do a little bit of studying. It is very easily seen in the Old Testament.

I have here the Anchor Bible, and their commentary on the book of Matthew; actually, a commentary on this very verse. I want to read to you what they have to say about this. Now, if these unconverted people can perceive this, surely, we ought to be able to see this as well.

Anchor Bible Commentary regarding Matthew 9:2: “Sickness and disease were commonly regarded both in the Old Testament and in the time of Jesus as being the direct result of the sufferer sins.” That is pretty hard to get around, a very direct statement. And it says: “It is a belief that should not be ignored in considering this passage. In this particular instance, we have no means of knowing the circumstances of the case. The sufferer’s circumstances may easily have been known to Jesus for He was by now well known in Capernaum. In addition, our own age has become increasingly aware of the problems posed by psychosomatic conditions.”

These people very clearly see that is taught in the Old Testament; that there is a direct relationship between a person's health and sin. Now, I just want to go to one place in the Old Testament in the book of Exodus in chapter 20, right in the commandments.

Exodus 20:5 “You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me.”

Now, there He is saying that the effect of sin is going to be passed on. And what is even more interesting is that the effect of the sin is going to be passed on to those who did not commit them.

There is one way to view the effect of sin, an analogy that I feel that pretty well pictures it. It is very much like what happens whenever one drops a stone in a pond. What happens? A ripple is formed from the point of impact, and it just spreads out (if it is small enough) to the edge of the pond, or at least until the energy generated by the stone falling into the water is dissipated. And it begins to encompass everything that it comes in contact with.

That is why the Bible used the illustration in comparing sin to leaven; that once a sin is committed, it just cannot be isolated in one little place, but rather it begins to reach out and affects others, not only spiritually but also physically as well.

We can see that very plainly and clearly today, because we know scientifically that there are some diseases that are inherited from our parents; that they can somehow be passed through the genes and chromosomes and we can inherit the effect of their sins that they committed maybe 40, 50 years before. Sin, then, is what causes disease.

Now, there is one other principle to bring in here, maybe just to clarify it, and that is that the person who gets sick is not necessarily the person who committed the sins. That is shown in that principle there in Exodus 20, verse five. It is very possible for the fathers to commit a sin and the children to be sick as a result of it.

You can see this in terms of where you can be an innocent bystander, and somebody goes berserk with a gun, and you get killed. They are the one that committed the sin, but you are the innocent bystander, and you get killed by it.

You see what is involved with sin? That all the time, you are not the one who is guilty of committing the sin.

Now, if you are [not] the one who is guilty of committing the sin, then there is no possible way that you can repent for that sin. But yet the sin has to be forgiven in order for you to be healed.

You see, this is why it is impossible for medicines, drugs, and so forth; foods, vitamins, anything along that line to heal. According to the Bible, healing is the forgiveness of sin. Only God can forgive sin, therefore, only God can heal. And so it is impossible for some material thing to provide for healing. So, in order to be really healed, we have to have the sins forgiven, and have God to heal us.

The sad part in all this is that without a doubt we probably do not have the right kind of faith as yet to really trust God in the way that we should be trusting Him. However, His promise holds fast. He does not go back on His promises, and He will heal.

Let us jump to Matthew 9 now.

Matthew 9:9 As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, "Follow Me." So he arose and followed Him.

Now, perhaps if we were looking over a group of people, and we knew these people's occupations, we knew these people's background to some extent, probably if Matthew and all of the other apostles were in that group, it is highly likely that Matthew would have been the last one that we would have chosen to be an apostle, because Matthew was a publican.

Turn to Luke 5.

Luke 5:27-29 After these things He went out and saw a tax collector named Levi [who is also known as Matthew], sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, "Follow Me." So he left all, rose up, and followed Him. Then Levi gave Him a great feast in his own house. And there were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with them.

Now, perhaps, of all the people in the Roman Empire, maybe the publicans were the most universally despised and maybe hated of all men. And it was because they earned that.

Rome was a sprawling empire. I have never tried to really figure out, to make any comparison this way, but just the size of Europe, the size of the Mediterranean Sea, the size of North Africa, the size of the Middle East, I am sure Rome encompassed an area larger than the United States. They governed this vast and sprawling area from Rome.

Now they did that without any radio, no telephones, no television, no telegraph, there was no rapid transportation or communication. Everything depended upon the passage of letters from one place to another, either by a post carrying it, or maybe going by sea, which was a long and arduous process. And so communication in the Roman Empire was very much delayed. By the time that a decision reached one of the outlying provinces, months could go by before it could be communicated to the people in the community. Now, in addition, in the community, those people were scattered at as well.

How in the world would an empire that large with communication so lax by our modern standards, how would they collect taxes? What kind of a system would they establish? How would they keep track of whether or not old Judas somewhere there in Palestine, or Levi, or Jacob, or somebody else who owned a little parcel of ground somewhere on a hillside up in some area, how would they keep track of that man paying taxes, and whether or not he was really doing it?

Well, they had an ingenious system in which the publican played a key role. Do you know how they got their tax collectors? They auctioned the position off. It went to the highest bidder. They sold it. In other words, all the people who wanted to be tax collectors would meet at a certain area, and the job would go to the highest bidder. After the highest bidder got his job he would be the tax collector over a certain parcel of land, a certain district, then he would make a deal with the Roman government, and the government would say, “We want so many dollars (I will use that term) a year out of your district.”

Then it was the responsibility of the tax collector to collect that much money, anything over that amount he got to keep, that was his commission for doing the job.

Now, the poor fellow who owned the piece of land, the chances were extremely great (because communication was so poor, and so few people were able to read and write) that they almost never knew exactly what their tax was. They did not have modern computers where they had things down, and all they had to do is press button, and it would say that you own such and such a parcel of land that was so large, and that we are taxing you at this rate. Therefore, your bill equals thus and thus and so and so.

Everything was carried around by the publican who may have had some notes jotted down in a log somewhere. And so, he went out to the farmer, and he said you are assessed thus and thus, and so and so. And the Romans had no system of appeal. Whatever the tax collector set, that was what you owed; there was no appeal.

So the tax collector was in a beautiful position, because he could get money out of the poor, and have the strength of the Roman government to ensure that the tax was going to be collected. If he could collect more, the Romans did not care as long as they got what they had coming to them.

On the other hand, the wealthy people, let us say there was a wealthy Jew who owned a great huge parcel of land and would ordinarily owe a tremendous amount of money, he could bribe the tax collector to lower his rate, or to keep it at just the right rate. And so, the tax collector had money coming in from both angles. Boy, he had everything going for him. And most of the time they were dishonest and became very wealthy people.

Now everybody knew how they got their wealth. You see, they were greasing their palm from every angle, and they were playing every angle in order to fill their pockets. So they became wealthy.

I want you to think about this. Here was a man called to an apostleship. What kind of a mind did that man have? He was accustomed to playing every angle to line his own pockets. And everybody knew it that this man was on the take.

I like to think about those things. What did Matthew have to overcome? What did Matthew have to give up? What was his repentance like?

I will tell you; the Romans had a lot of taxes. Here is just a small list of them. See if they sound familiar:

There was a property tax that was 10% of all of the vegetables that you produced, and 20% of all of the fruit that you produced. They would take that either in cash or in kind. You could give the two of them in produce and then it would be the tax collector's responsibility to turn it into cash, or you could give it in cash.

They had an income tax of 1% of the gross income of a person.

They had a poll tax in which every male aged 14 to 65 was taxed at a rate. And every woman, every female, from age 12 to 65 was taxed.

They had duty taxes of between 2.5% and 12.5% depending upon the item that was either imported or exported.

They had toll roads; toll bridges; towns that had gates across them with tolls that had to be paid to get in. They had harbors that you had to pay a toll in order to get in and harbor your ship. Even the marketplaces had gates on them, and you had to pay to get in to sell your wares. Believe it or not, they had a tax on draft animals, like horses and mules; you were taxed according to the number of axles that you had on your wagon.

Does that sound familiar? Is there anything new under the sun?

They had sales taxes.

And in addition to that, there were some businesses that were government monopolies, namely usually the alcohol business, just like up in Pennsylvania, you have got to buy your alcohol through a state store.

There is nothing new. We just keep copying the same things over and over again. Those things are very familiar. We are familiar with them.

In addition to that, the publican was so hated, that they were almost universally disfellowshipped from the synagogue. If he happened to be a Jew, they were disfellowshipped from the synagogue, because the way the Jews interpreted Leviticus 20:1-5, they applied that principle there to a publican because he was handling money that had the Caesar’s picture on it. And they considered that to be idolatry. And so their interpretation was that the poor publican was involved in idolatry, because he was handling money that had an idol's picture on it. And so, they just disfellowshipped them. They were the pariahs of society.

They were also classed as murderers and robbers!

Now, what we see here in Matthew 9, I feel, is really the culmination of a series of events. I strongly believe that Matthew, like it shows for Peter, James, and John, that they had previous knowledge of Jesus before He said, “Come and follow Me.”

As we just read in this book, Jesus was well known in Capernaum. And this occurred in Capernaum; He had preached there many times before. And so it is entirely possible that Matthew had previous contact with Christ. I do not mean personal contact; I mean by hearing Him speak. So by the time that Jesus said to come and follow Me, he was already beginning to think in the right direction.

Now, one thing about Matthew is that there is no doubt that he was a sharp individual. In order to be a publican you had to be pretty sharp, you had to be able to outwit your fellow man. You had to be a good keeper of ledgers. You had to be well organized, and I am sure that Matthew did have those abilities. He no doubt was schooled to some extent in order to be able to read and write and carry out that responsibility. I feel certain that God used that ability that he had.

When you begin to think of the apostles and their backgrounds, it is highly likely that Matthew was one of the better educated of the group. And so God used that skill in organization, in accounting, and writing in coming up without doubt one of the most important books that is ever been written.

Matthew 9:10-13 Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, "Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" When Jesus heard that, He said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."

It says in the house. Now whose house?

I do not know. If you go back to the account there in Luke 5, it does not help, because what it says there, it says ‘in his house,’ but it does not give any clear indication of whose house it was—whether it was in Matthew's house or whether it was in Jesus’ house.

Now, I would say in all likelihood it was in Matthew's house, because if he was going to be hosting a dinner party for Jesus, I would say that in almost every case, it would be in the host's house, that one would have the party. I would say that is a strong possibility. But there is also an indication that Jesus had a house in Capernaum as well. So there is a possibility that maybe Matthew hosted a party in Jesus’ house. Now, it is quite likely that it was in Matthew's house because he was probably very wealthy, and he probably had a pretty good size house.

But I think it is interesting to consider that. What if it was in Jesus' house? Then this statement that is made in verse 13 might have a little bit more impact, and a little bit more meaning.

Matthew 9:13 “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

Now, if you connect this with Matthew 22 where we have the parable of the king who had a great banquet for those who were invited, and that is what that word ‘call’ means. It literally means ‘invited.’ “I did not come to invite the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

The ones who were apparently invited to this party found the displeasure of the righteous Pharisees because of the reputations—reputations no doubt that were well-deserved. They were publicans and they were sinners.

Now, what Jesus is saying here when you go back and compare this with Matthew 22, that the invitation was sent out, let us just say, to the better part of society. But it says the better part of society maltreated His servants and killed them. And then the master (meaning God) was angry and He sent an army out to slay those people. And there was a great killing.

But the banquet, you see, was still prepared. And so then he sent out others to invite all the ‘refuse’ from society—the lame, the halt, the weak, the beggarly, and so forth—so that his banquet hall would be filled.

Now that corresponds exactly to what Jesus said here, because on the outside looking in were the Pharisees who represented orthodox society, meaning, those people who followed that which was customary or traditional within society. On the inside, invited to the party, perhaps in Jesus’ house, which makes a little bit more sense when you think of it. Here is Jesus inviting us into His house, that is, into His Family. He has invited us into God's house. We represent the lame and the weak. We represent the sinners.

Now on the outside are all those people who are hearing the same message from time to time (those people who I will call the Orthodox of this world) and are rejecting it.

You are here because God called you, but you are also here because you responded. Now, why did you respond? And why do not the Pharisees or why do not the Orthodox respond? Why would a sinner respond? Why do you think?

Because we know we are sinners. What Jesus said here is that the reason that we have responded is because we see that we have a need. Those who do not respond, though they also receive the invitation (it goes out to them), they reject it, because they do not see that they have a need for what they hear.

Now, all these Pharisees, they were in the most part pretty nice people, they are the kind of people that you would not mind having in your neighborhood, they obeyed the laws. They were citizens that I am sure kept their places clean, obeyed the laws of the land.

But do you know what? They did not see that they had a need. They practiced a religion that left them so self-satisfied that they could not see that they had any need. I want you to think about the way that the New Testament pictures the Pharisee. It is very instructive because we still have Pharisees. I am not talking about in this room. I am talking about the people who are on the outside who have not yet seen that they have a need. It is not that God is not calling those people. They have not seen that they have a need. They have got something working in their mind that is prohibiting them from responding at this time—something that you were able to get rid of.

Well, this is the way I picture what the Pharisees were, at least religiously. First of all, they were selfishly religious. By that, I mean that they were comfortable with the status quo, because it really did not require anything of them. Services were really nothing more than a social event. And there was no (in most cases, and I am speaking from my own experience in the Methodist church and the Presbyterian churches that I have attended) there was no real stimulation to a person's mind, no real sense of urgency that is communicated to the people that they need to change. The people are not really aware of how bad this world is. And above all, they do not know what sin is. I totally confident of that statement that they do not know what sin is. And so their religion is rather on the selfish side.

Now, the Pharisees were a little bit more strict, or stricter than most that we see today. I have written this down in my notes. I am sure the Pharisees were more concerned with criticism than they were with an encouragement. They were more concerned with finding fault than they were with helping somebody to overcome.

They did not listen to Christ with an open mind, they listened with a critical mind, analyzing it for faults or differences that they looked upon as being wrong without righteous judgment.

I was visiting a young couple today who were telling me about a long series of encounters that they had with a Church of Christ, and now just thinking about what they were saying about the way those people were, I cannot help but think about these Pharisees that they were more concerned with criticism than they were with encouragement.

Now add this to it: They practiced a goodness that was condemnatory. They looked down on others because they were righteous. It was not that they were really righteous, but rather their attitude gave them the feeling that they were better than other people. I will tell you, I hope that you do not feel that you are better than others, because if you do, you have got the wrong idea. We are not better than others. We are the lame. We are the halt. We are the weak of the world. We have been given a great gift, and we have no right, no basis whatsoever for looking down on anybody. We have what we have because of God's mercy. Now, that is not the way a Pharisee is. His goodness is condemnatory.

Now, finally, what I wrote down here is that they practiced a religion of outward orthodoxy rather than of practical help. A church, to them, was just a round of ritual.

Today, we would say that the people go to church on Sunday, and that is it. It is a Sunday morning ritual that they attend. There are some who are more fervent than that, but not many. All church is an orthodoxy. They are consistent with tradition, and that is about it.

To top it all off, their attitude in everything was, “What a great sacrifice I am making to obey God!” That is what the Pharisee thought. That is why Jesus said here in verse 13, “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’” He is not really talking about the animal sacrifices at all. He is talking about the attitude in which they practice their beliefs.

Now, do you feel that this way of life is a great sacrifice? Well, certainly we have to sacrifice things. I do not mean that we do not. We certainly do have to sacrifice things. But we better not have that attitude. We have been given far more than we have given up by far. There is absolutely no doubt at all about that. And if we think that we are always giving things up for God, we have got the wrong approach there somewhere. We need to reorient our thinking.

Matthew 9:14-17 Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus said to them, "Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."

There are a couple of lessons here. The first one is very brief.

Matthew 9:15 Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they shall fast.”

The children of the bride chamber (KJV) is a literal translation. And what we would say today is the bride, or the bridegroom's best friends, or the groomsmen, or the bridesmaids.

What Jesus is making reference to here is not the actual marriage, but actually to the honeymoon. Now, the Hebrew custom was different than ours. Today, when a couple marry, they go off on their honeymoon by themselves, they get away from everybody else to be by themselves. But the Hebrew custom was different. After the ceremony was performed, then the children of the bride chamber shared the honeymoon with the couple, and the honeymoon was spent at home. They did not go off somewhere, they spent it at home.

The idea was this: when they had a wedding reception, they really had a reception, and it generally lasted, even in poor families, for about a week. Our receptions last for a couple of hour, and they are over, but their receptions lasted for a good while.

Now you ought to be able to see that from John the second chapter. You know, when Jesus had to make the wine, they ran out because the party just kept going on and on and on for days, until finally they ran out and Jesus made some wine.

Well, that is the way their festivities were. They would sing and dance, I guess they would go sleep, and then wake up in the morning, and eat some more, and sing and dance, play instruments, and just have a good old time talking almost endlessly for an entire week or so.

Now that entire time was intended to be a time of great joy. It was a time when you are having a party and you do not fast when a party is going on, you do not fast when there is a lot of music and dancing and all your friends are around, and you are enjoying the occasion with all of your friends.

That is what He is saying here about His relationship with His disciples at that time. Now there is a lesson here for you and me: Christianity is first of all intended to be a joyous experience that we share with Christ, and that there is no reason for us to be depressed, down in the dumps for a very long period of time. However, we also need to understand that no joy can be [garbled] and we should expect times whenever we are going to be separated from Christ—from the bridegroom.

Now, that is not the real lesson. That is only a little side issue. The key to why were they not fasting is that first reason has already been given: Because they were with Christ; they were close to Christ, they were with the bridegroom, they were sharing the joys of His company. And so there was no need to fast.

I use these two illustrations that are very helpful to us. The first one involved putting a new piece of cloth on an old garment. Whenever pieces of cloth are mismatched because one has been washed many, many times, it has really been through the mill, it has been used to work in. It has seen a lot of service, and it has gotten soft.

The threads are a little bit bare, and then it gets a tear in it, and one wants to repair it. It is not a good idea to put a new piece of cloth to repair the old because what is going to happen is that the shrinkage rate, the wear rates and everything of those two pieces of cloth are not going to be equal. And so therefore, the new piece of cloth is going to cause even more tearing in the old piece of cloth.

Now, there is an incongruity here. An incongruity is something that is inconsistent with what would be normally acceptable. It is inconsistent, it is an incongruity for anybody who knows anything about material to try to attempt to put a new piece of cloth on an old garment.

Also, it is an incongruity, an inconsistency that one should fast when one is near his Savior; one only fasts whenever one is separated from his Savior and needs to get close to his Savior. You do not fast while the bridegroom is around.

Now, there is a second illustration. He talks about the wine skins and putting new wine in old wine skins. Here again, we have to get back to the Pharisees. Now, the things that made the Pharisees unable to accept what Jesus was teaching was that their minds were case-hardened by all the traditions that they had been schooled in from the time that they were children. And so there was a resistance to anything new that would come along.

Now, if we were going to rate them on a scale of left to right, the Pharisees would have been way over on the right—reactionaries—extremely resistant to anything that is new.

You know, there is a chapter in the book of Ecclesiastes that covers this subject. Solomon covers it as part and parcel of the way a man thinks. He covers it in Ecclesiastes 3. (It was one of the things that I wanted to go through in that last sermon, but I just ran out of time.) This is the chapter that begins that there is a time to be born, there is a time to die, there is a time to sow, there is a time to run, there is a time to throw away stones, there is a time to gather stones.

All he is doing there is illustrating the inconsistency of events, that nothing ever stays the same way for very long. And that through the course of a person's life, they are going to have to be faced with a multitude of choices to make regarding change.

What he shows there in Ecclesiastes 3 is that man by and large is passionately attached to the status quo; that we, by nature, resist change. We feel very comfortable with the way we are. After all, it is us, is it not? When we begin to apply this principle to us, we are very concerned that what we are is acceptable to others, and we do not want to change what we are if things are going reasonably well, at least if we are somewhat satisfied.

Now, back to Matthew 9. The new wine represented the truth—the new interpretation, if I can put it that way, the preaching of Jesus Christ, the gospel that these people were hearing. The old wine skin represented the minds of these case-hardened Pharisees. Now what He was saying in both illustrations—in the wine skin illustration—is, “Look, you are going to have to be elastic enough to bend with the teaching that you are receiving. If you do not bend, you will not change. If you do not change, you will burst. You will not be acceptable to God.” God will not accept us the way we are. And unless we are going to be resilient enough to change, then there is no hope of us being in the Kingdom. We are going to burst, you see, and all of the wine will run out.

There is a second illustration here and that is that the new teaching is incompatible with the traditions that we have learned from our parents and from society. He is saying, do not attempt to try to blend the two together, it will not work. You will have a person whose mind is so confused; they will not know which end is up.

Now, what Jesus is saying here is it is either all, or nothing at all. We have got to be childlike and be willing to accept new truth, be willing to look for flaws in our character, to be willing to change. And we cannot hope to attain to anything that is right and good if we try to blend true Christianity with [this world’s Christianity]. It will not work.

So the rent [tear] will get worse, and neither one will be any good.

Matthew 9:18-30 While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him, saying, "My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live." So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did His disciples. And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment, for she said to herself, "If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well." But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, "Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well." And the woman was made well from that hour. When Jesus came into the ruler's house, and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing, He said to them, "Make room, for the girl is not dead, but sleeping." And they ridiculed Him. But when the crowd was put outside, He went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. And the report of this went out into all that land. When Jesus departed from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out and saying, "Son of David, have mercy on us!" And when He had come into the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They said to Him, "Yes, Lord." Then He touched their eyes, saying, "According to your faith let it be to you." And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them, saying, "See that no one knows it."

I read that whole thing because we have here three illustrations of healings. And each one of them is different than the other. So I wanted to examine them together and apart.

Let us look at the first one where the ruler came.

Mark 5:21-23 Now when Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a great multitude gathered to Him; and He was by the sea. And behold, one of the rulers of the synagogue came, Jairus by name. And when he saw Him, he fell at His feet and begged Him earnestly, saying, "My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come and lay Your hands on her, that she may be healed, and she will live."

I wanted to introduce that phrase—a ruler of the synagogue—because Matthew does not include that. He only says that he was a ruler. What kind of a ruler? Was he a ruler over a governmental agency or what? Well, no, he was a religious ruler, and he was a very important person, no doubt about it. These people that are called the rulers of the synagogue were sitting in an elected office. They were elected by the people in the congregation. It was not a teaching position, but rather an administrative position. The man may have been a rabbi at one time, but he did not necessarily have to be a rabbi. However, he did have to be a person who was well liked and well known in the congregation.

It was his responsibility once he was in that place to maintain the building and the grounds. He was responsible for the physical appearance and the maintenance of the building. He was also responsible for appointing those who would be preaching the sermon on the Sabbath, those who would be reading from the Scriptures, and those who would be carrying out the spiritual duties within the congregation.

There was nobody in the congregation who outranked the ruler of the synagogue.

Now all of them together, of course, we are outranked by the high priest in Jerusalem, and usually a person who was a ruler of the synagogue stood a very good chance of some day being a part of the Sanhedrin.

I bring this all out because of what you understand about who the people were who were most against Jesus.

Now, who were they? Well, it was these very people because it was to them that He was the greatest threat, at least they perceived Him as being the greatest threat.

This Jairus or whatever his name was, I feel sure again (I am filling in the details in between the lines here, I cannot turn to a scripture), knowing the man and knowing the background, that I feel sure that he did not come to Jesus except as a last resort. That he tried every other means before he came to Jesus to have his child healed. That if there were any doctors available, he would have gone there. If they believed in the laying on of hands and healing by faith in God, he would have gone to the rabbis first, that he would have exhausted every means before coming to Jesus.

And so, when he came to Jesus, I feel certain that it was a last resort because his daughter either was just about to die or was dead. And I get the impression of a somewhat lingering illness.

Now, let us look at the woman because her case is a little bit different. It says that this woman had an issue of blood and that it had gone on for 12 years. It says in verse 26 that she had suffered many things of many physicians. This is Matthew 5:26, and she had spent all that she had and was nothing better but rather grew worse.

Here we have another person who is coming as a last resort. In addition to that, I want you to notice in Matthew 9 what went on in her mind. She said, “All I have to do is reach out and touch the hem of His garment.” Now, I ask you, have you ever thought where in the world did she get that idea? That is nothing but superstition. It is kind of some of the things that Mr. Armstrong has been taught, it is a form of it. “Oh, we saw Mr. Armstrong.”

Well, what did she see? The cloth that Jesus’ garment was made out of was no different than the cloth that other people's garments were made out of. There was nothing holy about those garments. Really, if we were going to update this, in a way, it is no different than the Catholics having relics under their altar; bones that they consider to be holy, because they belong to some so-called holy man.

She did not really understand; she had the faintest idea. That is all she had. I feel certain that she had heard it noised about the community and she had maybe witnessed a few things occur, maybe she had heard a little bit of preaching, but she did not come to Him in any kind of great faith and understanding.

Now, what about the guys in verse 27, the two blind men? You know, they give themselves away. What did they call Him? The son of David. Did you ever look that word up and where it appears? I mean, in the New Testament, how it is used in the New Testament? I think every time that it is used except right here, it is used where a crowd is shouting it.

What did they intend by that? The son of David was a common term that the Jews used for the Messiah, but their idea of the Messiah was not as a humble carpenter, coming and preaching the gospel. Their idea of the Messiah was a conquering soldier, a king who was coming to establish the kingdom and restore Israel to its greatness.

Now, I submit to you that these fellows did not come to Christ with the right idea either. In this case, I do not think that that they were superstitious, but their theology was wrong. They had the wrong ideas.

You can see if you read there carefully that Jesus put those two guys off. It says in verse 27 that they were following Him. He did not apparently turn around and address them until He was in the house and He made them follow Him right into the house. So He did not answer their request right away at all, but He put them off apparently, because they were yelling this thing, you son of David, He wanted to see if they were going to be persistent enough to follow Him right into the house, and they did.

Now what kind of a lesson is there here? There is a good lesson for you and me because despite these people's inadequacies, despite the fact that it is highly probable that the ruler came as a last resort, and maybe had some feelings of antagonism, although he really did humble himself before Christ. And it says he fell down and worshiped Him, but he was trying to get something from Him, you see?

Then we have the woman, who I feel is certainly weak in her faith. And there was an awful lot of superstition there. And then finally, we have the two men who had the wrong theology, and were looking upon Christ as a conquering hero, not the Savior of the world.

The lesson is this: Jesus Christ healed them all. What it says is that we do not have to be perfect to come before God, that God will accept us even though we have inadequacies, even though our theology may not be exactly right, even though we may be somewhat superstitious, even though we may do things from time to time as a last resort, He will nonetheless mercifully give us our request.

Now, if you wait to come to God before you are perfect, until you feel as though you somehow worked up the faith, I say by this example, that is wrong. If you feel that you have a need, that you better take that need to God the way you are right now, and not wait until you somehow feel as though you are acceptable.

Do you realize that if you do that, you are actually trying to earn your way before God, and to be in His presence by your works? Our works cannot stand before Him.

One more thing that we need to consider, and that is all of these people were unconverted. They were common people in all of their sincerity that they could muster up; they were certainly earnest in their desire at the time. But none of them had the kind of faith that we need to have.

Matthew 9:29 Then He touched their eyes, saying, "According to your faith let it be to you."

Jesus certainly had the faith, but the healing was going to be based upon their faith, not Christ’s faith, but their faith, “so be it to you.”

Now, I am not saying that Christ’s faith was not involved in it, because it certainly was. I take it from this that God does not require ‘X’ amount of faith that everybody has to meet in order to be healed; that the requirement is different for everybody, that everybody's case is handled individually, that what He might require of me might be far greater than what He requires of you.

And so, it is according to my faith that I am going to be healed, it is according to your faith that you are going to be healed. God handles each one individually. That is why that statement was put there, “according to your faith.” If it depended on Christ's faith entirely, there would have been no doubt at all that the person was going to be healed because His faith was perfect. If their faith was not involved, then there would have been no necessity for Him to make that statement. But their faith was involved, and He therefore made the statement, and God responded, because He considered it to be enough at the time.

Now for you and me, the case is somewhat different in regard to, let us say, instantaneous healings. God's promise is still true. He never goes back on His word. It is just as firm as it ever was. It is impossible for God to lie. And if God says He will heal, He will heal.

But with these people here, He was not working with them in the same way as He is working with you and me. And so healing to Him is a tool by which He can build character; by which He can increase faith; by which He can increase patience; by which He can give us blessings in His willingness to respond.

So healing may be delayed for you and me, but would not be delayed for those people there. And again, I feel that He would require a great deal more faith of you and me than He would have them. And in the meantime, He will build other things in us through the means of this healing.

Matthew 9:32-34 As they went out, behold, they brought to Him a man, mute and demon-possessed. And when the demon was cast out, the mute spoke. And the multitudes marveled, saying, "It was never seen like this in Israel!" But the Pharisees said, "He casts out demons by the ruler of the demons."

I know that you have heard the phrase that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Have you ever heard the phrase that “What the eye sees depends on what the heart feels”?

Now, look, here were two groups of people who saw exactly the same thing. They saw a man have demon cast out, and they saw that his tongue was loosed, and now he could speak. To the publicans and sinners, it was a great miracle, and they rejoiced. To the Pharisees, they criticized Him and said that He had a demon.

Do you see why Matthew put this in here? You know, we are all prejudiced to some extent this way, just like the Pharisees. We all have ideas, attitudes that have been taught to us by our parents, mainly; by those people with whom we associated. I still have them. I react according to them. I think that way. It is awfully hard to get rid of those things. They are not always right, and they always need to be examined.

But here the Pharisees are a very vivid example of how a people can get into a line of thinking. You would think that you would see somebody healed, and that they would rejoice in it. But they did not rejoice. They saw a threat. It is really, really crazy almost.

Matthew 9:35 Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

What is the difference between teaching and preaching? Preaching comes from the Greek word that we would translate, herald. A preacher was a herald. A herald is one who delivered messages from a king, and he went around proclaiming what the king had decided or determined.

The word came to be associated with certainty. In other words, what the king said was certain to occur, because the king said it.

Now, what the writers of the gospels did, was they applied that principle to what Jesus said; that it was a message from a king delivered by a messenger, and that messenger was proclaiming certainties that absolutely would occur. And so, they called it preaching—the preaching of the gospel. It was the proclaiming of a certainty.

It says that He also taught. The teaching is the proclamation of the significance of the certainties. The significance was making the message practical, how it would apply to you and me in practical applications.

Now, Jesus did both. He proclaimed the certainties of the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and then He explained the significance. He made it practical for the people who were following Him—the disciples—to understand.

There is incumbent upon all of us a certain amount of teaching. For you and me, the Bible lays emphasis on the living of it, that we do our best teaching by living it.

I know that some commentaries that I have looked into regarding this have even stated that there is no stated necessity in the Scriptures for a lay member to feel that it is incumbent upon him to preach to his next door neighbor. It is only incumbent upon him to live what he has been taught. Now, it is not like when my wife and I attended the Christian Missionary Alliance church for a while, and these people were very determined that all of their people would witness, and the idea was to corner somebody somewhere and preach to them the gospel. To them, the gospel was that Jesus died for our sins. And so such statements would be made—you would walk up to somebody, and they would say, “Are you saved, brother?” or something like that.

Well, these people in these books recognize that there is no statement in the Bible requiring anyone to do that. But there are many statements requiring that we obey it, put it into practice in our own lives. And so that is the best way that we can teach—by living it.

But if we do get an opportunity to speak to somebody, we should be ready to answer their questions. and explain to the best that we possibly can.

It also says that He healed, and of course, He used that as advertising, and also it was a means of expressing His sympathy, His compassion, His pity, His empathy for those people.

Matthew 9:36 But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.

There are two words here that maybe need a little bit of explanation. The word ‘fainted’ (KJV) and the word ‘scattered’.

The word fainted. We probably would not translate it that way, today. We would probably put down worn or weary. It literally means prostrated. And the word comes from the idea of someone being drunk and getting so drunk that they have fallen on the ground, and they cannot pick themselves back up again. It also means somebody who has been mortally wounded, like they have been stabbed, hacked to pieces, practically, by somebody with a sword, and they are bleeding to death and they no longer have the strength to pick themselves up.

Now, it is a very vivid word. And you can understand about it when you think about other parts of the Bible where God talks about us being drunk with the wine of the wrath of her fornication. That is, all the false teachings that we have received have caused us to become aimless in our wanderings, that we are practically prostrated. We do not know which way to turn. And our mind is sort of spiritually reeling around so that we do not know what reality is, much like a drunk person does not know what reality is.

The word scattered we would probably translate, bewildered, directionless. And again, He means the people that are kind of milling around, and they have no leadership. They have no goals. They do not know which direction to take their life.

So again, there is a contrast here. Whenever the Pharisees looked at the crowd, they saw them as chaff, to be used and then destroyed; to be manipulated for their own position.

When Jesus looked at the crowd, He saw out of His eyes of people who were directionless, milling around, and were aimless like a drunk person; a mortally wounded person just about ready to fall; somebody who needed a great deal of help or they were not going to be able to make it. An entirely different approach.

Now, this is what I was thinking of when I said earlier that we have no right to look upon other people as being beneath us in any way. If our Savior looked upon the crowds of people as people who needed help, who were wandering around aimlessly, who were kind of bewildered, who had no true goals, who did not know which way to go with their lives, if He did that, what gives us the right to look down on anybody? We just do not have any a leg to stand.

Matthew 9:37-38 Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."

And that command is just as important to us today. The need is greater than ever. When you think back on the scope of the ministry of those men, and you realize that in all of their lifetime, they do not come in contact with as many people, I am sure, as this work comes in contact with in one week in any given year. Tens of thousands of people we come in contact with every day through the World Tomorrow program on radio, and television, and The Plain Truth magazine reaching out now to 4 million people who are subscribers, and we figure that there are about two and a half or three times that many who are reading each one. And so we are beginning to get into big numbers, really big numbers that we are contacting all the time.

Who is going to minister to these people? Well, it is up to us to do what we can.

Now, when He says laborers, we generally think of this in way of ministers, but it does not mean just ministers. It is talking about lay members as well, because it takes an awful lot of lay members to support one minister so that the work can be done. So pray to God fervently that He will raise up laborers. And by that, we mean lay members and ministers.

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