Biblestudy: Matthew (Part Twenty-Five)

Matthew 18:21-30
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John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 16-Jun-82; 77 minutes

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Let us go back to Matthew 18 and we will begin in verse 21. I believe we got as far as verse 23 or 24 but I want to go back to verse 21 because the things that occur after verse 22 are directly related to those things that are in verses 21 and 22.

You might remember that in the preface for this chapter, I gave the background material, and I said that maybe, as a general title, we could entitle this chapter “how to get along in the church,” because it covers various areas that are very important to maintaining unity within the church.

And so it talks about the attitude of a child. In order to maintain this unity within this community, we have got to have the right kind of attitude.

He talked about offense and then what to do about offense and how important it was that we not offend one another, but if somebody does get offended, then what should be done. And so the instructions follow that we are to exert efforts to try to rescue that person. That is the illustration about the shepherd leaving the 99 and going to the one who was lost and foundering somewhere. It is not God's will that anybody should fail.

We should, if we are going to be like God, make some kind of an effort to try to rescue this person who has been offended.

Now, if we are directly involved in the offense, then comes the instruction beginning in verse 15 and carrying through verse 19 or 20. He gives a three-step procedure that is to be followed. We are to go directly to our brother. And then if that does not work, then we are to take two or three witnesses with us. And these witnesses are not intended to be necessarily close friends, but rather people who are able to give wise advice regarding the situation as they hear the problem discussed. And then finally, if that does not work, then the ministry is to be drawn into the matter. Then Jesus Christ says in verses 18, 19, and 20 that he will back up the decision regarding what should be done. And He is talking there about disfellowshipping the person who is unforgiving, and will not bend on the issue at all.

Then comes the instruction in verses 21 and 22.

Matthew 18:21-22 Then Peter came to Him and said, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

The figures given here are kind of interesting. First of all, let us consider the seven that Peter said. It was an instruction of the rabbis that a person should be willing to forgive his brother three times. This did have some seemingly biblical basis. If you look back in the book of Amos, God says over and over again [7] times, “that for three transgressions, and for four,” you know, I will forgive. But then My wrath is going to come.

And so from this, the rabbis developed the principle that they should forgive three times. So Peter, feeling magnanimous about this instruction that Jesus was giving, decided to double it and add one. So he was really being generous according to his teaching. You know, I do not think that he was being smart-alecky or frivolous or anything like that. He seriously was considering that seven would be a better number.

Now, Jesus’ reply was not intended to be taken literally, but rather was to establish an exceedingly large number. In other words, that we should always be open minded enough that the door to forgiveness is always open. So the 490 times, the seventy times seven is not to be taken literally at all.

So it was really sort of an infinitesimal number. Our attitude? Leave the door open!

Now comes a very interesting parable. And again, it is directly tied to the subject material, and it shows why we should be willing to forgive. It makes the comparison between what God has forgiven of man, with what man is required of God to forgive.

Matthew 18:23-35 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, 'Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.' Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!'

So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.' And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?' And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses."

The last verse is the overall summary of the intent of that parable. And that is to show how important our forgiveness of our brothers is. It is so important that our forgiveness by God is directly connected to our forgiveness of our brother.

Let us go back to Matthew the fifth chapter, verse 7 where we will see this principle so clearly stated in the opening statements that Jesus made regarding the attitudes that the people in the Kingdom of God are going to have. The fifth one listed is:

Matthew 5:7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

Now, a merciful person is one who has pity, one who has compassion, one who forgives. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” There is a principle here. God relates to us the way we relate to men: As we forgive, we are forgiven; as we are merciful, He is merciful.

Now in Matthew 6:14-15, in the example prayer, it says, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Back to James 2 where this principle is shown as in many, many places.

James 2:13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

This directly ties into what Jesus said. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” James just turns it a little wee bit; changes the wording. He says that God will judge us according to the mercy that we have extended to others.

Now, you can see with those scriptures why Jesus said seventy times seven. If we want to be forgiven of God, we had better be open minded enough to forgive somebody's offenses against us.

Let us go on to another section of this parable because it makes a very interesting comparison and gives impetus—emphasis—on why we should be willing to be merciful, because it compares God's mercy toward us with our mercy toward men.

Now, it is contained in the comparison of the monies that were involved in the debt. Notice that the debt of the first servant was 10,000 talents. The debt of the fellow servant was 100 denarii.

I will give you a pretty good relationship between the two: The 10,000 talents according to the commentaries that you look into (depending upon whether they are English commentaries or American commentaries, and also when they were printed, you see, trying to update or re-evaluate the money that is involved here from their time to ours) the smallest ratio I was able to find—this is a conservative estimate—was that 10,000 talents is equal to $5 million. The 100 pence is equal to $50. So we are dealing here with a ratio of 1 to 500,000.

So the man who is forgiven was forgiven of 500,000 times more than the man who is not forgiven by the man who was forgiven.

Now let me make this comparison. Let me illustrate it in another way. If we made weights out of this money, and let us just for fun, say that the 100 denarii was worth $10, and that we counted it all out in pennies and just for the sake of measurement that each dollar weighed one pound. And so then the $10 would weigh 10 pounds worth of pennies. And that is something that anybody could easily carry in their two pockets if he was a man or maybe the purse, if it was a woman.

By comparison, the $5 million multiplied by 100 (to give you the number of pennies), we are going to use the same weight method. Well, in order to carry the $5 million in pennies, if you distributed $50 worth of pennies to each man, it would be 50 pounds, it would take 10,000 men to carry the $5 million in pennies.

To put it another way, if you put the one person who was carrying the $10 that the one person owed in one line, and you put the 10,000 people who were carrying the $5 million in pennies in another line, and you spaced all of these people 3 feet apart, the line would be six miles long.

Now that is the comparison that is being made in the parable. It is a tremendous exaggeration in order to illustrate something. Again, it is not to be taken literally. It is an exaggeration in order to show the comparison between what God forgives us, as compared to what we are required to forgive another human being.

Turn with me to Acts 2. You see what is involved in forgiveness of our sins, since the wages of sin is death, and God's Word requires the life of the sinner in order to pay the penalty for sin, but He has permitted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to take our place. And since Jesus Christ was the Creator, therefore, the life of the Creator is required to forgive our sins. Otherwise, we die.

Now, how much is the Creator's life worth? Well, see that that cannot be estimated. Certainly His life is greater than the entirety of the creation. How much is the earth worth? How much are all the minerals in the earth worth? You see, there is no way of even arriving at any kind of a figure. So that is what is involved in the forgiveness of our sins. Acts of offenses committed against us are just like a drop in the bucket by comparison.

Here, in Acts 2, verse 2II Peter was saying,

Acts 2:22-23 "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death.”

He accused them of the death of Jesus Christ. They had not literally carried it out, but their sins were responsible for it. It was actually the Roman soldiers who carried it out. But Peter blamed those people standing there for doing it.

Colossians 2:6-7 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Colossians 2:11-12 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

He is going through a figurative account of what occurs at baptism. We were as good as dead until God forgave our sins. And then as a symbol to you and me that we were once again alive, we come up out of the water; we are resurrected.

Colossians 2:13-14 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

What was nailed to the cross? Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. He became sin, and sin died in the flesh. And that made possible the forgiveness that God is able to give to us.

And so that is why the comparison is so great in the parable.

Now, the lesson in this to you and me is that if we appreciate this, if we understand it, it ought to humble us to recognize the forgiveness that God is willing to extend, that it is far greater than anything that He requires of us.

You see, most of the time, what kind of offenses are we forgiving? We are forgiving insults, we are forgiving the destruction of our ego. That is all we are giving up. Most of the time that is about all it is. Once in a while, it might involve some money. Sometimes it is more serious. It might be something like adultery; maybe even murder might be involved. But even there, you see, the life of a human being is nothing compared to the life of God. So Jesus gave this in order to impress on our minds that God is not requiring something of which He has not required Himself a far greater price.

On to Matthew 19.

Matthew 19:1 Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that He departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.

Oh, yes. I am giving you titles as we go along here. We will accept the title of Divorce and Remarriage. If you want something else to remember the chapter by, it might be The Rich Young Ruler. Either one of those would be acceptable; just so you can identify what is in the chapter.

Here is a little sidelight: The last phrase, “Judea beyond Jordan.” Whenever you see a direction in the Bible, if it does not give any other indication, they are always oriented from Jerusalem. And so, “beyond Jordan” means on the east side of the Jordan River, because Jerusalem was on the west side. And if it says beyond it means on the other side. So He was on the east side of the Jordan River in the land of Judea. This would have put him down in the area of Jericho, only on the other side of the river in that general vicinity, not too far from the Dead Sea, in what is today the land of Jordan.

Matthew 19:2 And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there. The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?"

Now, they were deliberately trying to involve him in a controversy. The controversy was between two schools of thought regarding the interpretation of a single scripture, which I will show you in just a little bit. But before we get to that scripture, I want to preface it with a few remarks regarding Jewish attitude toward marriage and women.

The Jews made fairly large numbers of proselytes of Gentile women. They did not seem to have much success with Gentile men, but they did have a great deal of success with Gentile women. And the major reason, according to the historians, was the biblical attitude toward women and marriage. And that is that these women, if they had access to the Scriptures, were able to see that women were given a far better shake in the Bible than they were by the laws of their own native religion, and their culture. And so they were influenced to become Jews by what the Scriptures had to say about a woman's role.

However, the ideal that is given in the Bible was not what the Jews practiced in their own homeland, because their attitude toward a woman was that of a possession. There was a wide variance between the ideal and the practice. The Jewish approach was that when the woman was a girl, she was first the possession of her father. When she married, she became the possession of her husband. She had no legal rights at all, unless her husband gave them; if he wanted to deny her any legal right, he could. She could only get a divorce if he gave her permission to get the divorce. And if he did not want to give her permission for the divorce, then there was no divorce.

But he was free to give himself a divorce, because all he had to do to meet the requirement of Jewish law and write a bill of divorcement stating that he was no longer married to this woman. He had to turn her loose, and he also had to give the dowry back to the father. And that incidentally, is a reflection on the Jewish attitude toward money, and apparently kept a lot of marriages together, because they did not want to give the dowry up, and give it back to the father. She had no legal rights unless the husband would give them.

Now, the society would recognize if there were tremendously extenuating circumstances, and actually impose a divorce. For instance, if a man failed to consummate the marriage, would not do it, the woman could not take action herself. But it was a ground by which the marriage could be annulled if others would approve, and if the husband would say, “Yes, this was true.” There had to be good proof. So she was really bound, hand and foot.

Let us go back to Deuteronomy 24. There were of course those who recognized that these things were unfair, and I am sure it was those souls who maybe decided to do something about the interpretation of this verse.

Deuteronomy 24:1 "When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, . . .

Now, one thing that, that needs to be interjected here: God is not unfair to women. This verse does not mean that a woman cannot get a divorce. God shows in other places that He has one law for the Jew, one law for the Gentile, one law for man, one law for woman. And He did not intend to imply by this that a woman could not sue for divorce. That becomes very plain and clear in the New Testament. But the scripture here is, of and by itself, left uninterpreted, because it was God's way that He revealed the Bible—His Word—little by little, and not everything was given at every time [one place]. And that is why Paul says that this book was written for those of us upon whom the ends of the world are come. We are the only ones who have the fullness of God's revelation. These people did not have the fullness of God's revelation. And so, of course, their ignorance in this area, I am sure, is going to be forgiven by God.

The statement, here, “because she has found some uncleanness in her”: The one school under a man by the name of Shamai, who lived and died before Jesus was born, his line of thinking was that the only ground for divorce given in Scripture is given in Deuteronomy 22, two chapters before, and it was fornication. And so his approach was very strict.

The other school of thought was formulated by a man by the name of Hillel. Now from Hillel and his students (Hillel also lived and died before Christ) was developed a very liberal approach to the matter of divorce, as it is stated here in verse 3 [Matthew 19], “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”

Now their approach toward divorce, following the line of reasoning of Hillel, was every bit as liberal as it is in modern United States. And a divorce could be granted based on this reasoning if a woman married a man and maybe she had five or six children in five or six years, she began to lose her shape, got heavy. She was no longer considered to be pretty by her husband. He could divorce her. Nothing really wrong with the marriage. Nothing wrong with the woman at all. All she did was lose her beauty, giving birth to a lot of kids, but that was grounds for divorce.

There are statements in various commentaries that the liberal judges using this line of reasoning were able to give divorces for the most insignificant things: A poorly cooked meal that displeased the husband; just one poorly cooked meal, that kind of approach.

This controversy was still raging at the time of Christ, and their question was designed to pit Him against one or the other of the groups, because they thought they really had Him now. Let us read Jesus’ reply:

Matthew 19:4-6 And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."

If we would stop right there and consider the background that these men (who are asking the question) had, it begins to help you to understand their reaction. Their reaction was, “You are even stricter or opposed to Moses.”

What Jesus did was that He cut through all the folderol and showed what God's intention was by using the example of Adam and Eve. Now think about Adam and Eve. They were created for one another. They were specifically made by God, male and female, and even if they would have divorced, there was nobody else to marry. That was Jesus' point: That from the very beginning, God did not intend that there be even any divorce at all. And you see, Adam and Eve set the pattern for mankind, that when God created them, the first thing He did was create the institution of marriage, and there was no competition for either one, either for Adam’s or for Eve's attentions. And that was the way that God intended a man and a woman to look at marriage, as though they were made for one another, and that their union was not to be broken under any circumstances.

Then came the Pharisees with this retort:

Matthew 19:7 They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?"

This made Jesus seemingly opposed to what Moses said because Moses was the author of Deuteronomy 22, and also of Deuteronomy 24, which clearly showed that a marriage union could be broken. So they said, “Are you abrogating the law of Moses?” Well, Jesus’ answer makes it very clear that He was not abrogating the law of Moses at all. But He begins now a New Testament teaching helping us to understand God's intention. And He helps us to understand why God even permitted divorce in the first place.

Matthew 19:8 He said to them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.”

So Jesus’ reply is that Moses’ act (if we can put it that way), that is, the legislating of a law permitting divorce, was a concession to the un-conversion of their heart and mind; that it was a concession that was given only because they were carnal, and God was not intending on converting them. And so in order to preserve society, in order to preserve marriage, he gave them an inch, because if he had not done that, then they would have committed adultery on a massive scale, which would have been far worse than to allow them to go through the process that would actually protect their minds for the time that God would convert them. He gave them this concession allowing them then to transfer their feelings from one mate to another.

Now, admittedly, it is not the best. See, that is what Jesus is saying here. “Because of the hardness of your heart”: It was a concession. It is not the best. It is not the ideal. It was not God's intention that there be anything like divorce at all, but it was only something that was given temporarily in order to preserve society, because it would have fallen into chaos.

Matthew 19:9 "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery."

Jesus appears to come down solidly on the side of Shamai and his reasoning. Certainly, Shamai and his group was far closer to the truth. There is no doubt about that. But Jesus here quotes or interprets Deuteronomy 22. And He very interestingly shows that the only reason that a divorce could be granted would be for something that occurred before the marriage ceremony actually took place. So what He is saying is that the only ground to this point was fraud in which one or the other, the man or the woman, misrepresented to the other that they were a virgin when indeed they were not a virgin. And that had the other person known, that is, the deceived party, that the other person was not a virgin, they would not have married. So if they were tricked into the marriage by the concealment of the loss of virginity, then Jesus said that is a ground for divorce.

Otherwise to this point in the revelation of God's Word, there are not any other reasons. It was this scripture primarily upon which our former divorce and remarriage doctrine was formulated, because we did not fully understand I Corinthians 7.

[several moments of audience participation; too vague to hear clearly]

We cannot project what is going to go on in the future. And so if we are able to see by the evidence that is given that the one who left the marriage is indeed unconverted, the converted person is free to marry. And so is the other person. Well, we cannot worry about the future. That way, we can only deal with the present and we can only view the fruits that have been produced in the past, I mean of the marriage.

And so then the decision is made based upon the evidence that is given. And we cannot worry about the future because God in His Word says that if there is a case of desertion like that, then the converted person is free to marry. So we cannot worry about the future in that way and not worry about that other person coming back. But it could make for some uncomfortable situations.

You see, what we have always got to be concerned about is that we do not play games with God and kid ourselves about our responsibilities within the marriage. We have caught some people doing that to get rid of a wife or husband that they were not pleased to live with and still remain in the church. And you know, the only thing you can do is shrug your shoulders and wonder about that person's faith. Do they not know the Lake of Fire is out there? What are they living for? The Kingdom of God, or to go to bed with somebody?

Back to Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 24:3-4 If the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife, then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD.

You see, that is where there has been a marriage in between time, but it says nothing about remarrying your former wife should there be a real reconciliation and should she be converted. Because we always have to remember (I am using a woman here as though she was the unconverted one), II Corinthians 6:14 because it says to be not unequally yoked with the unbeliever. And let us say that the man is the converted one and the woman deserts the marriage, and we declare her to be unconverted and disfellowship her, and then down the road, she decides for whatever the reasons are to go back to her husband. Does he want to marry somebody that is unconverted. Can he marry her remembering all the trouble that there was within the marriage when she was really unconverted before and there were two spirits at war within the same house? Is it really advisable to marry that former mate unless she has been really converted. I will tell you, if that man remarried that woman and she was not converted, I would not give you a plug nickel for that marriage. It is not going to last because that principle that God lays down there in II Corinthians 6:14 is there to protect people.

In Matthew 19:10, not only were the Pharisees astounded, so were the disciples because they began to realize that what Jesus was saying is, “Hey, you can’t get a divorce!” This is serious.

Matthew 19:10-11 His disciples said to Him, "If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry." But He said to them, "All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given.”

What saying? The saying back in verse 4 where he was using Adam and Eve as the ideal. Now, Jesus is still here speaking of the ideal that God intends. The ideal is that a man and a woman stay together through thick and thin and attain to the unity of love that God intends.

Now, that is why God permitted divorce. That ideal could never be reached by hard-hearted people. And in order to protect society, the giving of a divorce was a concession in order to do that, because far worse things would have occurred had divorce been totally unobtainable.

What He is saying in verses 10 and 11, is that the ideal that God intends in marriage can only be reached by those who have His Spirit, those to whom it is given. Even psychologists recognize that of all of the marriages that exist that only a tiny percentage of them can be considered to be happy. I mean, even the ones that hold together. The latest statistics which I have given you in sermons are that they feel that only 5% of all marriages that stay together through thick and thin are happy. The other 95% are in varying degrees of unhappiness.

So Jesus is saying here that the ideal of marriage that God intends can only be attained by converted people—those who are in agreement with God's purpose, have repented, have the Spirit of God, and are striving with all of their being to submit to the laws and principles of God's Word in service, in courteousness, consideration, kindness, everything from politeness, you name it, everything that is listed there in I Corinthians 13 describing love.

[audience participation, unclear]

Matthew 19:11 But He said to them, "All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given.”

No one then can live out the emphasis on the teachings of Jesus Christ, except the one who has Jesus Christ living in him. That is the sum of what He said in verse 11. You can read in John 14 and other places where He was talking about the Holy Spirit. He says, I and the Father will come to him and take up Our abode in Him. In Galatians 2:20 Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” You see, Christ is living in us and it is Christ who enables us to live up to the laws and principles of God. And so therefore, they are the only ones who can live up to those precepts.

Matthew 19:12 “For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it."

A eunuch, of course, is a man who has been de-sexed. And that was a fairly common custom in Gentile nations. It was done especially to those men who might have responsibilities over the king’s or the sheikh's harem. And in that case, they were bound to the sheikh and were trustworthy servants because of that. Then there are some who are unfortunately born that way. Then there are those who make themselves eunuchs, that is, as though they were not capable of marriage, and they do it for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

Probably the best example, clearest example that we have to this point in this era is Gerald Waterhouse who has made himself a eunuch for the Kingdom of God's sake. And it is highly unlikely that as long as he continues in the kind of responsibility that he is carrying out that he ever will marry. You just could not have a marriage under those kind of circumstances where he is living out of a suitcase, and in a motel constantly, and he is on the move, having no place to put down any kind of roots. So it is unlikely that he will ever marry. Well, he is a eunuch right now for the Kingdom of God's sake.

It is conceivable that there are others who have dedicated themselves to God because of the circumstances that they find themselves in. Let us suppose that you were a young woman called into the church, repented, and baptized. And you are the only converted person on the South Sea Island that you lived on. I do not think that is too far-fetched. Who would you marry? If you are going to obey II Corinthians 6:14, you just could not do it. If you are going to submit to God's Word, you would have to make yourself a eunuch for the Kingdom of God's sake, and really trust God to supply somebody at some time in the future. But until then you would have to consider yourself a eunuch.

[audience participation]

Matthew 19:13-15 Then little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." And He laid His hands on them and departed from there.

I do not believe that the disciples were being hard, here. I do not think that they wanted Jesus to be bothered that is all. He was a busy man. And these little children were kind of just there, getting underfoot, and the mothers were maybe carrying them, or bothering Jesus, or whatever. At least that is the way they looked at it. I think that they in their zeal wanted to protect Him so they just wanted to keep the children away.

But He said of such as the Kingdom of Heaven. We know that the Kingdom of Heaven is open to those of mature mind, who repent, submit themselves to the government of God. And it is something for adults. So He obviously could not mean that the Kingdom of Heaven was open to little children. And so it is something about the children that He was using to illustrate qualities necessary for those who are going to be in the Kingdom of Heaven. We, of course, know that these are attitudes that He is talking about. And there are many, many attitudes that children have by nature, and they lose them as they become sophisticated. But while they are children, they have them. We need to study them, and evaluate ourselves in the light of them, and do what we can to emulate them and have them, and ask God to give us those kinds of attitudes.

Now, this is important. It was not stuck there in a haphazard way. It fits into the subject material that begins in verse 16.

Matthew 19:16-20 Now behold, one came and said to Him, "Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" So He said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments." He said to Him, "Which ones?" Jesus said, "'You shall not murder,' 'You shall not commit adultery,' 'You shall not steal,' 'You shall not bear false witness,' 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?"

Jesus did not deny that the man was keeping the commandments.

Matthew 19:21-22 Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

This is very interesting in the light of what preceded it about the children. I believe that when Matthew put this together, he put that illustration about the children with forethought, because what the children had, the rich young man did not have. And his keeping of the commandments was of no avail. Why? What is so important about the way that we keep the commandments? It makes the difference between eternal life, and not having eternal life. Jesus did not deny that this young man was keeping the commandments. He was. Does it not say in Matthew 5 that our righteousness has to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees? Now, the Pharisees were keeping the commandments; they were generally what could be considered moral people. They were upright citizens of their communities.

Paul said back in Philippians 3:5-8 that as far as the law was concerned, he was blameless. He, too, a Pharisee, was keeping the commandments, but he was not converted. The Pharisees were not converted, and this rich young man who was keeping the commandments was not converted. What was wrong with all those people? It was their attitude that was wrong. It was not that they were keeping the commandments. It was why they were keeping the commandments.

Why were they keeping the commandments? I will tell you why. It was because they were trying to get something from keeping them. Notice what this young man said. He said in effect, “What must I do to get eternal life?” And Jesus shot right back at him, “Keep the commandments.” If you do not keep the commandments, you are sinning. If you are sinning, you are not going to be in the Kingdom of God, because you're not submitting to the government of God.” But I know that Jesus answered the way He did. Because He knew that young man essentially was keeping the commandments, and He knew that He was going to lead that young man into a trap, which He did, because he was not keeping the commandments in the right attitude. It was all to get. It was all for show. It was all to be seen of men.

Let us go back to Matthew 23. In this great chapter on what is wrong with the Pharisees. What is Pharisaism anyway? Pharisaism is an attitude; more than anything else it is an attitude.

Matthew 23:1-3 Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do.”

The teaching of the Pharisees essentially came out of the Scripture. They were teaching the keeping of the commandments. And so the teaching was essentially good.

Matthew 23:3-6 “But do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. They love the best places at feasts, . . .

See, always pushing themselves ahead, not in an attitude of service, not in an attitude of giving, but an attitude of getting everything.

Matthew 23:6-7 . . . the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, 'Rabbi, Rabbi.'”

You see the admiration of men. Again, they were hypocrites, as He says in verses 13 and 14.

But I want you to go down to verse 23 because I want you to see something that is very important here. He says,

Matthew 23:23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.”

Now, the Protestants have jumped the track and they have said, “Well, let’s be real liberal. Jesus isn’t concerned about whether we’re real careful about keeping the commandments, because all that counts is your intent.” That is not what Jesus said. He says, “I want you to pay strict attention to all the details.” Is that not what He said? He says, “I want you to pay tithe on mint and anise and cumin.” He is saying “I want you to be strict. I want you to watch every jot and tittle of the law. I want you to be careful about your life.” But He says, “I do not want you to leave out the intent of the law, which is judgment, mercy, and faith,” which is what the Pharisees completely overlooked.

Judgment is another word for understanding. You see, they did not understand the intent of God's law, which was for the good of all of mankind. They manipulated and used the law for their own good. They took advantage of their knowledge to get things for themselves.

There are people who tithe to prosper. That is a wrong approach. You see, you are using the laws of God to get. God might go along with that for a while because of your ignorance. So you see, they used their knowledge to get things for themselves. The attitude was all wrong.

Back to the rich young man: What was his attitude? His attitude was grasping. You see, he was unwilling to give up his wealth. His wealth was more important to him than eternal life. Jesus said, “Look, keep the commandments and give.” They made the keeping of the commandments a means to an end and the end was to get.

What God wants us to do is to use our blessings as a means for serving others. The blessings accrue because we keep the commandments. You see, if we keep the law, we will be blessed. But we are not to keep the law with the idea of getting the blessing, but rather to keep the law with the idea of using its blessings to give to others.

And that is what Mr. Armstrong does. He is always looking for ways to use his blessings to give to others. That is why this work has been prospered so greatly. We give away The Plain Truth. We give away The Good News. We give away everything, but we cannot out-give God. The more we get, the more we give; the more we get, the more we keep giving. It is a wonderful system.

And you know what, the more we give away the richer we get. It is a beautiful system. The work just keeps growing and growing. You know like topsy. We have to watch what we give away because we could be foolish about it. But it shows that the principle works.

Jesus intended that we keep the law very strictly, but we do not keep it as an end to itself, but rather as a means of blessing others and glorifying God. The difference between the children and the rich young man was one of attitude. That is why that was placed there.

What is the way into the Kingdom of God? To keep the laws in a childlike attitude while not trying to accumulate at all, but just keep them in the joy of living, and loving, and serving, and on and on.

Now, when a person does that, when his intent is always for the good and betterment of others, do you know, it is almost impossible to sin! It is virtually impossible, because you are concentrating not on getting anything for yourself, but rather in giving satisfaction to others. And you are always going to be looking for ways to accommodate them, to please them, to help them, to give to them, to be courteous and kind, and cheerful and uplifting and positive; not tearing down, not destroying their reputation or whatever, not cutting them up. And when you are doing that, it is almost impossible to sin.

So when a person pays attention to judgment, mercy, and faith, he quits sinning. See, that is the way to eternal life. And in doing that, you will be keeping the commandments; you do not have to worry about breaking them.

All the commandments do in a sense is describe the boundary line. When you cross that boundary line, you have gone too far. But if you are actively trying to do good, you will never even come near the boundary.

This young man's problem was in his attitude; that his attitude was grasping to get.

Matthew 19:23-26 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

The reason it is difficult for a rich man is because wealth tends to turn a person's thoughts inward away from others. Now, there are three reasons for this: First of all, riches encourage independence. And of course, it is very easy to be independent from God because God is invisible. We begin to rely on our money rather than on faith. And so riches encourage independence from God. I will give you a verse on that. It is Revelation 3:17 where it says about the Laodicean, “Because you are rich and increased with goods, you have need of nothing.” That is what wealth does. It turns you away from God.

We oftentimes think of poverty as being a curse. In a way it is. But it might be the very thing we need for salvation, because it keeps us humble, it keeps us dependent on God.

A second reason is that wealth shackles a person to earth in that Jesus gave the principle that where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And so a man pays attention to where his interests lie. And if his interest is in wealth, then he is going to be shackled to this earth. His spirit will never soar, as it were. He will never get on that plane.

And the third reason is that wealth breeds the desire for more wealth. You never have enough.

In Ecclesiastes 1 Solomon observed that, “The eye is never filled with seeing, and the ear is never filled with hearing,” and the pocket is never filled with money. That is John Ritenbaugh speaking. Our need always seems to increase with the amount that we have. We always need more.

Matthew 19:27 Then Peter answered and said to Him, "See, we have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?"

Peter, unlike the rich young man had given up everything, and so had the other apostles. They probably left their businesses behind, and who knows, they might have been reasonably prosperous.

Matthew 19:28 So Jesus said to them, "Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

What He saying is that those who do as Peter and the other apostles did, will share in Christ's inheritance. Christ is going to inherit the earth with Abraham and Abraham's children. And so we are going to share in all that God has created through Jesus Christ. It is just a fantastic thing, beyond our wildest dreams.

And there is enough work out there to do in building and keeping and beautifying our inheritance to keep us going, I am sure, for all eternity.

So that is His promise: If we are willing to forsake all now, and follow Him in learning to keep God's commandments God's way, then we are going to share in that beautiful inheritance.

JWR/rwu/drm