Sermon: The Meek

Humble Compliance to God
#1651
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 07-May-22; 69 minutes

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Not long ago I was watching the new program "1883." It has got Sam Elliott and Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, and many others of course. But I was intrigued by it because I heard in some of the reviews that it was said by some to be one of the most realistic depictions of the conditions and privations and perils of the Old West during the time of its heyday of settlement. The show was pretty gritty, pretty crude at points, very violent. And I have heard that that is pretty realistic about how it was. It was man against nature, man against man, man against himself. And so there was a lot of violence going on.

But one thing that was not very realistic, if I could say that, is I did not think that the main character, which was actually a young 18 year old girl, she was a romantic and uber-independent, and I did not think that was very realistic for the times.

But be that as it may, I generally like westerns, but I will admit that I tend to like the Louis Lamour kind and not these ultra-gritty realistic ones.

Nevertheless, during one episode, they came upon some rather tame Comanches. (Comanches have a reputation for being very cruel and violent.) And before long they spotted a herd of wild horses led by a very feisty, proud black stallion. Their wagon train on their way to Oregon was in need of horses, so the cowboys and some of the Comanches rode out and rounded up the whole herd. It seemed like it was about 30 or 40 horses. But the way they did it was smart. They ignored the whole herd except for that black stallion and they rode up to the stallion as close as they could get and began to herd him back toward the corral that they had made up there in an open space. Once they had him under nominal control, the whole herd followed him right into the stockade and all they had to do was close the gate and they had the whole herd.

Later the Comanche warrior that the show focused on taught the Tim McGraw character (his name is James Dutton) how his tribe breaks a horse. Because he was aware that white people, I guess is the best way to put it, did it differently. You know, we have the old bucking-bronco-type way of breaking a horse. You just ride the thing until it understands that the rider has control and so it just kind of gives up, it is defeated by the rider, and then they are able to make it into whatever kind of horse they want it to be.

Now, James Dutton thought that this very proud black stallion, really wild, could not be broken in a gentle way. But the Comanche took the horse and led it into a pond. There was nothing on the horse except the rope that he had put around its neck and he was saying soothing words to it and he began to put the blanket on its back and then he put the saddle on. He did not tie anything down, just let the horse stand there in the pond getting acclimated to the weight of the blanket, feel the blanket and the saddle. Then he began to tighten it just a little bit so it was not really tight. But the horse could begin to feel the pressure on its belly. He kept talking to the horse and patting it and letting it just take some time to get used to all of it. Then he tightened it up a bit more and of course all this went on and on for a fairly good while. They did not show all of it because that would have taken too long in the particular episode. But he then began to put some of his weight on the saddle and then more and more and more until he was sitting on the horse. And after a few moments, at least in episode time, they walked out of the pond and the horse was broken.

Dutton was skeptical throughout the whole process. He thought this could not be done, he thought the Comanche was insane. But it worked, the horse was broken. Actually, I should probably call it gentled. The horse was never jarred, the horse was never ridden hard, the horse was never broken to the bit in a way that it was done at the time. It was just done calmly and gently and the horse was then usable.

This taming or gentling process has a connection to my topic today. (Ronny Graham spoke about this in a sermonette just last June. He called it "Wild Horses" and he spoke about the Greek author and soldier Xenophon and his work, The Art of Horsemanship, which he wrote in the late 4th century BC. Cavalry horses were an indispensable factor in many Greek military victories. They had a splendid cavalry. We always hear about their phalanx, but they also had a great cavalry, both before and during Alexander's march across Asia.)

But like the American Indians (or native Americans, however we supposed to call them these days), the ancient Greek army would catch wild horses and bring them back into the camp to train them for war. There the horses would be strictly evaluated by a veteran wrangler because not every horse that they caught possessed the qualities necessary for a war horse. They all might be useful in some way, but they were looking mostly for war horses and they were looking for specific characteristics in these horses.

To become a cavalry steed a horse needed, among other traits, was strength, of course, to bear the the rider and all his equipment and to take those things into battle under speed. They had to have a willingness to obey. There are lots of things, lots of maneuvers that they had to go through while in battle and even out of battle. But they also look for a streak of wildness or fighting spirit, even a bit of nastiness in the horse. Now that would not come out against the rider or any of the Greeks, of course. It would come out against the enemy. But they liked to see that little bit of fire in the horse so that it could be most useful.

Of course, in the however many they caught out in the wild, some did not make the cut and so they were set aside for another purpose, like as a pack animal or to draw a wagon. Others were not up to stuff at all and were simply discarded and in times of war, on campaign, you would expect that they were likely butchered for meat.

But those that qualified after being broken, were described by the Greek word praus. This is the Greek word that in our English translations is translated as meek or gentle. To the Greek horse wrangler a horse that was no longer wild, that is no longer unruly, no longer rebellious, no longer out of control, was meek or gentle, and that has come down to us in our phrase, which I have used a couple of times already, about gentling in a horse. The new horse, now that it had been made meek, or praus, would now bear its master into battle under control and following his commands, whether by speech or by knee or some other manner of however he worked with his horse.

A war horse is a strong, dangerous machine under authority of its rider and that is nowhere near what we consider to be meek. That is, our modern term implies that it is compliant, timid, or docile. But even warhorses are meek.

Please turn with me to Job 39. This is right toward the end of God's speech to Job. Of course, He is trying to get Job to understand how little he is in comparison to Him. You know, what has Job done that even compares to anything that God did? But as He comes to the end of chapter 39, before God gets into His speech about Leviathan and behemoth, He speaks about horses, particularly war horses. And this is how God describes a war horse.

Job 39:19-25 "Have you given the horse strength? Have you clothed his neck with thunder? [Actually, that word is better "a mane." That sounds a lot better. Have you clothed his neck with a mane?] Can you frighten him like a locust? His majestic snorting strikes terror. He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength. He gallops into the clash of arms. He mocks at fear, and is not frightened; nor does he turn back from the sword. The quiver rattles against him, the glittering spear and javelin. He devours the distance with fierceness and rage; nor does he come to a halt because the trumpet has sounded. At the blast of the trumpet he says, 'Aha!' He smells the battle from afar, the thunder of captains and shouting."

So here is God's depiction of a war horse and it is of a strong, vibrant, proud, and eager beast. The ancient and medieval war horse was a trusted offensive asset on the battlefield. They were trained not just to bear their masters. That would be pretty futile. But they had to learn skills such as in the thick of battle they had to know the command to kick, to rear with hooves slashing, to turn with hooves flying, to bite, to crash into and trample enemy soldiers. The loud noises, as He says here in in Job, did not bother or frighten them. They were actually eager to run into that hubbub, into the fray. God describes it here as them basically reveling in it. They were just eager, zealous, to go into battle.

Yet this behavior that we are seeing in this war horse, as long as it is under the command of its rider, is what the Greeks called prautes, like praus, meekness. This was how the Greeks thought of meekness. Not the way we think of meekness.

Today we are going to continue my series on Christ's beatitudes in His Sermon on the Mount, and of course we are focusing on Matthew 5:5, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." And here, in these few words, Jesus presents another facet of humility, one mostly misunderstood by Christians and non-Christians alike who have been deceived in various ways to think meekness is tantamount to weakness and docility and timidity and even general passivity, doing nothing, just taking it.

Now meek, the English word meek and also the other word, meekness, have suffered from what is called semantic drift. You have probably heard me or Dr. Maas talk about semantic drift before. But that is, their meanings have slipped or drifted from what they meant many centuries ago. They have been around for a long time, these words, maybe just a little bit different in the way we spell them, but they do not mean today what they meant then.

For instance, the word conversation. We understand that to mean a discussion or an exchange of opinions or ideas or feelings or observations. You know, we will get together and we will have a conversation about whatever. Well, it did not mean that back when the King James version was being written or translated in 1611. Then it meant conduct or behavior. So if you read Hebrews 13:5 in the King James version, it says "Let your conversation be without covetousness." It is not talking about you talking to somebody else about things. It actually should read, and does in many English Bibles because they recognize the word has changed, "Let your conduct be without covetousness." That covers a whole broader area than just our conversation.

What I am trying to say is because of semantic drift and other linguistic changes that have happened over the years, it can be easy to get the wrong idea about a term or about a verse that that term appears in because the words have changed. They are spelled the same or very nearly so, but their meanings have drifted or slipped over the years.

Today, if you would go into a normal dictionary, let us say Webster's, meek is generally defined as submissive or docile or even deficient in spirit and courage. But that is not what it originally meant. Originally the word meek was closer to our word gentle and so it is often translated gentle in modern Bibles. But it was not quite what we think of as gentle. And it does not help at all that meek and weak are rhyming so it is easy to put the definition of weak into the definition of meek.

But it is not that. The original word meek in the English language did not have anything to do with weakness, but it described, not a weak person, but one who endured insult or injury with patience and without resentment. At the time, meekness was considered a strength of character, not a weakness at all, describing a person who did not react with violence when injured or abused in some way, or retaliate when under pressure or duress. He was just humbly patient and restrained.

Let us see an example in the life of Jesus in Mark 15 and we will read the first five verses. Mark only has 16 chapters, so Mark 15 means we are in the midst of His trial.

Mark 15:1-5 Immediately, in the morning [this is the morning of His crucifixion], the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council; and they bound Jesus, led Him away, and delivered Him to Pilate. Then Pilate asked Him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" And He answered and said to him, "It is as you say." And the chief priests accused Him of many things, but He answered nothing. Then Pilate asked Him again, saying, "Do You answer nothing? See how many things they testify against You!" But Jesus still answered nothing, so that Pilate marveled.

Jesus here models this character strength in His trial before Pilate. The Jews were slinging accusations at Him. They were slandering Him, calling Him names, accusing Him of things that He never even dreamed of doing, and generally trying to bury Him under the weight of their hatred before the governor. The governor had power to execute, whereas the Jews did not. They wanted the ultimate sentence against Him and so they thought if they piled higher and as much as they can, maybe something would stick and then Pilate would call Him guilty and execute Him. And Pilate watched this happening before his face. The red anger, the red faces of the Jews accusing Him of these things, and Jesus just standing there unperturbed, not saying a word, answering Pilate's questions very succinctly but not doing anything against the Jews in any way.

Now just think of this personally. Were you in this situation how would you react? If you had a bunch of people calling you names, cursing you, accusing you falsely of things that you would never have done? I think in that situation we would probably try to defend ourselves in some way. Our anger would rise at every insult and we would probably begin blasting our opponents with curses, retaliating with counter-accusations, and maybe having to be restrained by officers of the court because we were trying to get at them with with tooth and claw.

But Jesus did not. Jesus stood and took all the abuse, all the false accusations, all the hatred, placidly. Pilate was astounded at His humble self-restraint and patient endurance under all this duress. In Him, in this little vignette here in Mark 15, we see meekness in action. But the Jesus known by most Protestants and Catholics is not the model of strong virtue and humility that we see here. We know that historically the paintings and other depictions of Him that most Christians have seen are usually one of two types: they either go to the beginning of His life and they show Him as a baby in His mother's arms, or maybe He is lying in a manger and his parents are looking at him like they are seeing the beatific vision. Or they go to the end of His life and they show Him carrying His cross, bowed down and pretty much defeated, nailed to a cross or dead on that cross with head down and all His blood out. He is pale and He has no vigor.

Except for a very few paintings of Him, say the ones that show Him taking up a whip and chasing out the money changers in the Temple, or depictions of Him at other times during His ministry which the Bible shows, they show Him as weak, pious. A pious and insipid man who likely would have been blown over by a stiff wind. They do not show Him with strength. It did not help when getting into a time closer to ours, that Charles Wesley wrote the popular hymn, "Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild," which got worldwide and perpetual circulation since he wrote it. Here are the first and third verses of that hymn. I would like to read them to you:

"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child. Pity my simplicity, suffer Me to come to thee."

And now the third verse,

"Lamb of God, I look to thee, thou shalt my example be. Thou art gentle, meek, and mild, thou wast once a little child."

You can see how that might be inspiring in one way, but the picture that it gives you is of Jesus as a very weak person. As we have heard before a child is probably the weakest person in society and always has been. Look what we do to ours.

But that is not the Jesus that the Bible shows predominantly. Sure, Jesus was gentle, meek, and mild at various times and in certain situations, the way we think of it. But those virtues are not necessarily what the word meek describes. They are not necessarily the virtues that we think they describe. So when they are sung together in this hymn we imagine not strength or boldness or courage, but kind of a cringing person, cowed. Like I said, a child, a bit mousy, simpering, in weakness. We think of people who are described this way as doormats, cry babies, weak, powerless, passive, docile, unmotivated people. That is not what meekness is all about.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus is not encouraging us to be so submissive that we allow ourselves to be walked over. That is not what being meek is. What he does is He expresses a character trait that is strong and restrained even when being bullied, attacked, abused, or somehow at the receiving end of something that is bad. Verbal, physical, it does not matter. Have you noticed, just kind of as an aside, that at first when you look at the Beatitudes and read them, that they, from a human point of view, all seem like weaknesses? They all seem like negative traits. They do not seem very assertive at all. They all seem very weak. But Christ is not presenting us weakness. He is presenting a strength. He presents them as eternally positive strengths. Things that God considers strengths, not weaknesses. And they reveal, then, the stark difference between the human point of view and the divine point of view on what is strong and what is weak.

So what does this word praus mean? That is the adjective written in many Bibles as meek. What does it suggest? Interestingly, the apostle Matthew here in his book, his gospel, uses praus three times. Once there in Matthew 5:5 in the Beatitudes. Let us go to the next one, just to read it, in Matthew 11.

Matthew 11:28-29 "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle [there is praus] and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

Let us go a few pages ahead to Matthew 21 where he uses this word again. He is using it from the Old Testament in this verse. This is where Jesus comes in His triumphal entry into Jerusalem right before He is arrested.

Matthew 21:5 "Tell the daughter of Zion, 'Behold your King is coming to you, lowly [there is praus], and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of the donkey.'"

Very few others, except for the apostle Paul and a couple of times by Peter, used praus. But Matthew does, he uses it three times in his gospel. And this is somewhat ironic because, of all the gospel writers, if you remember my dad's sermons on the "Four Views of Christ," Matthew emphasizes Jesus' royalty, His kingship, His royal power, His ancestry going all the way back to David, and before then.

Yet in this gospel, side-by-side with this, he presents Him as the opposite in this human life. He is a common man. He is kind and even-tempered. He is humble, He is socially, politically, and militarily weak. He is even bullied and oppressed and persecuted. And finally, when you get to the end, He is killed. All of these things that you do not expect of a king. This is how Matthew presents Him. This is what a king should really be rather than the king we might expect.

Matthew, in the spirit of his times where there were all the zealots were trying to rebel against Rome, presents Jesus as the anti-zealot proclaiming a future Kingdom of God who was meek. He was not what we think of as a proud king with great power. It should emphasize to us as God's elect, that in the pattern of Jesus Christ and the life that He lived, temporal lowliness and meekness come before exaltation and power. The same pattern of life that He lived is what we live in this world. Does it not say that? That as He was, so we are in this world. And so we have to understand that Jesus modeled this very strong character trait of meekness so that we would be able to face persecution, suffering, trial, abuse, or whatever in the way He did. And the way He did is right. The way He faced those things leads to the Kingdom of God, leads to eternal life. And so He gives us an idea here throughout the gospels of how we should react to these things.

Now, on the surface, praus suggests mildness of disposition or gentleness of spirit. A truly meek person does not react with aggression or with self-assertion or self-interest. He is calm, especially under duress when others are against him in one way or another. He does not lash out, but returns a placid and composed face toward the trouble and the troublemakers. Now, how can you do that? How can you, in this world of violent people (and we see it in our streets), face a mob placidly with gentleness of spirit or a mildness of disposition?

The answer is actually quite simple, but it is very difficult to put into practice. You see, we can do that when we know that God is on His throne. We can do that when we remember that we are the apple of His eye. We can do that when we know in our innermost being that He has our best interests at heart. And we trust Him. We do not need to retaliate. We do not need to fight back. We can take it like Jesus did—with calmness.

Now, writing about the noun form, which is prautes, a man named Richard C. Trench, who was the Archbishop of Dublin back in the early 20th century and was known for his ability to define theological terms, explains it this way. I will just read you quotation from a book of his on theological terms. He writes, "It, meekness, is that temper of spirit in which we accept God's dealings with us as good and therefore, without disputing or resisting. It is closely linked with humility and follows directly upon it because it is only the humble heart which is also the meek."

Like I said, Jesus, in the Beatitudes, is describing various facets of humility. And if meekness is not humility, which I believe it is, it is just a part of it as he says here, it follows immediately upon it because we are humble before God and we accept what it is that He has given to us as our lot. Because He does have our best interests at heart.

So we can conclude, at least I feel confident in saying this, that meekness is a form of submission or humble compliance. Yes, that is true. Meekness is a form of submission and humble compliance. But we, like good lawyers do, must stipulate and emphasize that this is not submission or compliance to men. A meek person humbly submits or complies with God. That is who he trusts, that is who has given him the promises, that He is the one who has taught us His will and taught us the way in which we are to live, and so we submit to Him no matter what is going on around us. No matter how abusive and terrible it might be, wherever we happen to be, whatever situation has come along, we submit to Him and react as Jesus reacted in the same situations.

Remember, the Christian, or God's elect, are living as ambassadors for Christ trying to duplicate as closely as possible the very character and way of life of Jesus Christ so that in any situation in which we appear before people who are not among the elect (and among the elect too), we should always behave towards these people in a gentle way without any kind of retaliation, without any kind of aggressiveness towards them. We have to act like Jesus Christ did.

How did He act? With outgoing concern, kindness. He tried to help people, He tried to give them the Good News. He healed them, He cast out demons. He has powers that we do not have, but we can at least show the good qualities and character of Jesus Christ in our own way of speaking to people, in our way of acting and reacting to them. There is no retaliation, no offense, no violence, even when the going gets tough.

So, let me give you a kind of summary statement of what I have said so far in terms of what meekness is. Meekness, then, is an inner power of spirit, heart, and mind that enables a person to suffer and bear injury or adversity without being emotionally rattled because he knows he is safe under God's direction and guidance. So one who trusts God's control over his life can be calm and even be kind, even under fire.

Notice how this ties together, not just with humility and some of the other character traits that I may have mentioned along the way, but that it ties in with faith. We can be meek because we trust God, we can have faith in God. So meekness is not only an outworking of humility, it is also an outworking of faith and faithfulness, loyalty to God.

Let us go to the book of Proverbs and see some examples or descriptions that may help to clarify this even more.

Proverbs 16:32 He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

A very simple proverb but it helps us a great deal here when we are thinking about meekness. But I should mention here that slow to anger is not a definition of meekness. That is not why I have come here. What slow to anger does is describe a way meekness is expressed. So, while slow to anger does not define meekness, it does describe a way that we can express it. A meek person will not fly off the handle, as we might say. A meek person will not blow his stack when something goes against him, he will not erupt in red hot fury when provoked or threatened.

Instead, it says here in the second part of the verse, that he "rules his spirit." That shows a great deal of control and self-restraint. He is poised and calm as he possibly can be under the situation. He has himself under control. He cannot control all the events. He cannot control the minds that are spitting out words of hatred against him. He cannot control the violence that may be coming his way, but he will and does control himself. That is the only thing he can control.

God wants us to have control over ourselves. Is that not the last fruit of the Spirit, self-control? I have often said that I think it is listed last because it is the one we learn last because we have such a hard time controlling ourselves. And it gets worse when we are in adversity of some sort. We find it harder and harder to control ourselves. We want to retaliate, we want to run and hide. And maybe neither of those are good. Sometimes it is good to get out of a situation. That is right. It is probably never good to fight because that would not be exhibiting the characteristics of Jesus Christ who did not fight.

But the person who is meek has himself under control. It is a strength. As it says here, it is more noble and excellent to control the self than a mighty king or a general who takes a city and thus controls the city. Is that not something, that comparison there? It is harder to control yourself than it is to control an army to take a city. Now I know there is a bit of hyperbole there, but Solomon wants us to understand how difficult this is. But when it is done, we show ourselves to be kings, if you will, of this virtue. We show ourselves with a truly royal character. So a person who can control himself, who rules his spirit, can accomplish something far more difficult than something that the world considers great.

But we have to remember whose eyes the Bible is written from. God's eyes. When He sees somebody rule his spirit, He elevates that person in His own mind above the worldly person who most people would think would be great kings who take cities.

Now we understand why Pilate was so astounded at Jesus. It is almost never seen, that a person can control himself so firmly in the midst of abuse and accusation and even cruel punishment and death. Thus Pilate marveled that He could restrain Himself that way. So to a person who is under the thrall of human nature that sort of thing seems incredible, and because they cannot do it, they usually demean it as weakness rather than as the strength that God sees it as.

I gave a sermon about seven and a half years ago on meekness. But I did it in reference to the fruit of the Spirit because it is indeed a fruit of the Spirit. It is found in Galatians 5:23. And in that sermon, I used an illustration that I think bears repeating here in this sermon. It is from Puritan Jonathan Edwards and he used the illustration of a mighty river that flows serenely on (think of great rivers like the Mississippi or the Amazon or the Nile or any of the great rivers of Europe, let us say the Rhine or what have you). What does the river do? It wells up from its source and it flows and it flows and it flows, and it keeps flowing all the way to the sea. It is not disturbed in the least by jutting cliffs or massive boulders or huge trees or large sandbars, whatever may be in its way. It just finds a way around them and flows serenely on its way to the sea.

A meek person is like that great river who, from his source, the source being Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that has been given to us through Him, keeps on flowing, no matter what the obstacles. It does not change by the situation, it just moves forward whether it has to go around or over. Sometimes it even goes through, but it just keeps flowing. It is not perturbed by obstacles. A meek person has such self-control, such self-possession in him, as I said as a fruit of the Holy Spirit, and such submission to God and God's way that He has revealed to us, that he seems wholly imperturbable. He moves forward toward the Kingdom of God, no matter what the situation or how bad it has gotten. He just goes on, he keeps on doing what God expects him to do.

Turn with me to Matthew the 26th chapter. The best examples of meekness in the Bible are given to us from Jesus Christ so I pretty much confined myself to using Him as the example in my sermon here. Here again, we are in the midst of that horrible last day of His life. This time we are going to be reading about His arrest. Like I said, another example of Jesus illustrating meekness. They just had the Passover service. They had walked out to the Mount of Olives, they were talking, they sang their hymn, and Jesus had His prayer in the garden and such. Now they were just walking again because Jesus had just told them that the betrayer was near.

Matthew 26:47-57 And while he was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, with a great multitude with swords and clubs, came from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now His betrayer had given them a sign, saying, "Whomever I kiss, He is the one; seize Him." Immediately he went up to Jesus and said, "Greetings, Rabbi!" and kissed Him. But Jesus said to him, "Friend, why have you come?" Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and took Him. And suddenly, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew a sword, struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear.

Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus?" In that hour, Jesus said to the multitudes, "Have you come out, as against a robber, with swords and clubs to take Me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and you did not seize Me. But all this was done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled." Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled. And those who had laid hold of Jesus led Him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled.

Let us think about this situation that we have here, that Jesus faced. Here He faced a great multitude. How many did that mean? Were there tens, dozens, scores, hundreds? We do not know. It gives us an inexact number, a great multitude. But it was clearly much larger than the twelve of them, or however many were with them. Judas was not with them. He was with the great multitude. But it was a much larger number of people than were with Jesus. They had come to overwhelm them if they needed to. And not only was it a great multitude, they also were armed with swords and clubs. And they had the power of the chief priests and elders because that is who had sent them to make this arrest.

So, this was not just a small, a minor confrontation. This was like an army coming out against a dozen. And of course they knew about Jesus' power to work miracles, cast out demons, to heal the sick. So maybe they thought that they would need, who knows, a couple hundred or 1,000 men because they thought that He would use His sorcery, or whatever they thought of it as, in a violent way. But this is the situation: many against few, many armed people against a few and only one or maybe a couple were armed. We know from another place that the one who drew his sword was Peter. It had to be Peter, would it not? Because he was the very impetuous, emotional, and reactive person among the apostles.

But it says here that this multitude, after Judas kissed Jesus, came and laid hands on Him. Now that may be a mild way of saying what actually happened. You do not come with clubs and swords and gently escort the one you are going to arrest away. I do not know. Perhaps they were very rough. Perhaps blows were struck. Maybe these were the first blows that Jesus received on that day. But I would not doubt it. Maybe they used the clubs on Him. I do not know if they did. It just ratchets up the greatness of Jesus' meekness.

They did something that was so untoward that Peter pulled his sword and went in fighting, went in swinging, and cut off the ear of the high priest's servant. So Peter was ready for a fight. He probably thought it was (trying to put myself in his mind there), do or die. You either go in swinging with your sword or you are going to lose your life. And that is what he did. He just took the initiative and started swinging, trying to probably kill the other people. And he was lucky that he only chopped off the high priest's servant's ear.

But notice the impression you get when you consider Jesus in this situation. As volatile as the situation was, He was composed. He appears unruffled, calm. He does not start shouting, He does not retaliate. As far as we can tell here, He does not even resist in the least. He allows Judas to come right up to Him. He allows hands to be laid on Him. He is very self-possessed. Rather than rebuke the crowd, He rebukes Peter, His own disciple, because Peter should have known better. He heals the high priest's servant's ear, we find in one of the other gospels. And if you read it from a certain point of view, He essentially forgives the armed multitude for what they have done, telling them, "Hey, you guys were just doing what was in God's plan. You were just fulfilling God's will in this matter." So He was very even in this whole vignette, this whole scenario.

Notice that He makes a point of saying to His disciples and maybe it is to the crowd too. He says you know that I could call more than twelve legions of angels. Now, if we have got our numbers right about how many people were in a Roman legion, that could be maybe 7,200 angels. Maybe 10,000. That is a lot of angels! He could have called a whole host out of heaven to protect Him, to spirit Him away to some place, to beat the living daylights out of the multitude that had come with clubs and swords against Him. But He did not. He had enormous strength and authority. He is the Creator. He could have made the trees on the Mount of Olives get out of their dirt and come and fall on those people. I mean, what had He done to the Sea of Galilee? He calmed the storm, He walked on the water. He could have done something like that. He is the Master over all creation.

He had that power, but He did not use it. He would not use it and He did not use it because certain things had to happen to fulfill the prophecies. He gives us the answer why He did not.

So even though He was in a position of strength and had that all of that spiritual power behind Him, He did not use it to save Himself. He knew God's will must be fulfilled and though He was strong and powerful and had authority of Deity, He submitted to the Father's will and went calmly with those who arrested Him to Caiaphas' house. Can you imagine having that same self-possession as Jesus Christ did? To be able to face an army with such implacability, without drawing on the power you know you have, without retaliating in the least? When the going got tough, He remained like that river and He just flowed through it, doing the will of God.

The passage that was just before this is the prayer in the garden and we know from Luke that He sweat blood over how agonizing it was to go into this situation. He knew that He was going to be beaten, eventually all His blood drained out of Him after being nailed to the cross and all those beatings He took. It would be a day of suffering that no human being has ever endured. Yet in the very next situation He proved He was all in. He was roughly taken and He did nothing to stop the progression of the will of God. He just went with it. So He showed meekness, humble self-controlled submission to the will of God.

Let us see how Peter describes this in I Peter 2. Think about this. Peter was the one who pulled the sword. Jesus was the one who said, "Put your sword away. This needs to be done to fulfill the will of God." So that stayed with him all his life. I am sure that one of the major things that made Peter what he was, was his mistakes that he had made during the ministry of Jesus. They were continually on his mind about how much he failed, how much he failed to live up to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. How he denied Christ three times. How he did this. How he did not believe truly, until after Jesus was raised from the dead. Even though he had said back in Matthew 16 that, "You are the Son of God." Yeah, he said that with his mouth, but it is very clear in John that it was John who was the one who first really believed. When he looked into the tomb and saw Him gone and then it was, yeah, this is the Son of God. He was probably piqued that John beat him to it, Peter was. But notice how he speaks of this at the end of I Peter 2.

I Peter 2:18-24 [he starts out with this passionate passage on submission] Servants [we are all God's servants], be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: "Who committed no sin, nor was guile found in His mouth"; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.

So, Peter, in a way, encapsulates this sermon in a nutshell. God commends, God praises people who like Jesus Christ suffer the slings and arrows of this world's hatred and they do it with patience. Not reviling, not threatening, not retaliating, but instead committing themselves to God and His purpose. Such people, as we have seen in the example of Jesus Christ, carry themselves with poise, strength, and they move forward doing God's will, whatever the situation.

Now, you know all the Beatitudes come with a reward half. First is a statement of what God is looking for—a blessed character trait—and then the second half is a reward statement. And in this case, in Matthew 5:5, it says, "the meek shall inherit the earth." This is actually a perfect quote from Psalm 37, if you will start turning back that way. Verse 11 adds beyond that point "and they shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace." Just listen as I go through this and you will see elements of what I have described as meekness come out.

Psalm 37:1-11 Do not fret [that is, do not burn, do not be either angry or terrified] because of evildoers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. [Instead, we could say,] Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.

Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath. Do not fret—it only causes harm. For evildoers shall be cut off; but those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more; indeed you will look diligently for his place, but it shall be no more [it does not exist anymore]. But the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

Psalm 37:34 Wait on the Lord, and keep His way, and He shall exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you shall see it.

Psalm 37:39-40 But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them and deliver them; He shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in Him.

So, the elect of God, His disciples, can be meek because they put their trust in God. And like that ever-flowing river, they can move through their lives with the confidence that they will prevail in the end. Remember the end of Mystery of the Ages where Mr. Armstrong said, "we win." That is the truth. That is an element of faith that we need to have—to know that no matter what happens in the meantime, no matter what happens to us in the meantime, and how bad it could get against us, we know that even if we allow the evil of this world to get the upper hand, it is only for a short time. Because, as in the scriptures we went to, it told us twice that the wicked are going to be no more when God finally moves against them. We do not have to worry about that. That is taken out of our hands about when that will be. We just know that ultimately God does deliver us, He does save us, and we will inherit the earth if we just keep on doing what He has revealed to us as His will.

We know that God does not fail. He never fails, He has never failed, and He will never fail. So, the elect of God can show great strength in times of trouble because they know God will ultimately deliver them from this world into the Kingdom of God.

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