Hearing the Law from Jesus’s Mouth

Matthew chapter 5 verse 21 through 26, these are God’s words. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of judgment. But I say to you, that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, Raqqa, shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, you fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there, remember that your brother has something against you. Leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge. hand you over to the officer and you be thrown into prison, assuredly I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.

Amen. This ends this reading of God’s holy, inspired, and arrogant, sufficient authoritative word. We rejoice to know and look to him to do that he adds his blessing to the preaching of it. Please be seated. It’s very important as we come to this portion of Matthew chapter 5 in which the Lord Jesus is expounding upon the commandments, particularly selections from the 10 commandments.

What we call the moral law, that which he and his divine nature thundered on the mountain to such an extent that the people begged that they would not hear anymore and that Moses would go up and receive the word, which was a type, a foreshadowing of Jesus even in his human nature, Jesus as he is right now. For one of the great and last things Moses was given to tell the children of Israel was that God would raise another prophet up like him among their brethren, one who would speak and Moses would say, when the Lord raises him up, you listen to him. Whoever doesn’t will be held to account for that. And now, Jesus, who is from all eternity God, the Son, dwelling in unapproachable light, the nature, the divine nature of the Godhead has come, and he is the great prophet. In these last days, God has spoken to us by his Son, who is the brilliance of his glory.

The exact imprint, which is to say having one nature, complete with the Father and the Spirit, one God in three persons forever. And not only has Jesus come as Immanuel, so that his being named Yahweh saves Jesus, is a fulfillment of the name Immanuel, God with us. He has come to gather from himself out of the world those whom he is saving by giving them new natures, new minds in repentance, that as he comes and he is the king and his kingdom is invading this world, there is a necessity, if there are going to be redeemed subjects in it, that they be given new natures so that they may believe into him. and be qualified for the kingdom with him as their qualification, but also now we have heard to be made suitable for entry into the kingdom with he who qualified then, he who qualifies you. the only qualification you have for glory.

He is all of, as it were, your ticket into heaven. He is all of your right standing with God. If you do not have him, or if you think that anything that you do stands together with who he is and what he has done in making you right before God, then you are not right with God. Only those who have Christ alone as their standing with God are right with God. And so he is all of our qualification for the kingdom, and yet he who has determined to bring us into his kingdom, he who is our righteousness and the atonement by which our guilt is put away, is also determined to prepare us to be able to enter his kingdom.

Not only because there can be no unholiness, there can be no sinfulness or sin, but also because if you were to be in the presence of his glory with any sin at all, it would not be with great joy, as Jude says at the end of his little letter, but to be in the presence of the glory of God, the glory of Christ, with any sin at all upon us, would be a hell, not a heaven. For we would not delight in him as we ought, and his fury would burn upon us as it ought. We’ll actually consider that a little bit more next week when he increases the vividness of the warning not to enter hell with your whole body. A genuine warning from the Lord Jesus Christ. He spares us to hear the next portion of the chapter together.

We will consider it together. But this exposition of God’s law, then, is being preached by the king to those whom he’s gathered to himself out of the world. And he’s given them display of that, hasn’t he? By sitting down to preach and granting to them that they whose hearts have been changed by his spirit would see him sitting to preach and would leave the crowd behind and come up to him. And he’s already announced to them, hasn’t he, the blessedness of the ones in whom he has done the work that he has begun in them.

The blessedness of Realizing that you’re bankrupt, you’re spiritually bankrupt, and in Jesus alone, is there any spiritual currency? And of course, all of the riches of God and his righteousness in Christ. There are those who mourn, there are the ones who have been brought low, there are the ones who have been given this hunger and thirst for righteousness. and so forth. And so he described at first their blessedness in the third person, you remember, and then he came back in the last third person, blessedness was blessed are those who are persecuted.

And then he switched from the third person, those who are persecuted, to the second person, blessed are you. when they revile you and persecute you. And so he’s given those who are hearing him this recognition, this awareness. He’s speaking about us. Now, as he expounds upon the law, we are going to find all anew.

We are going to make fresh discovery of how poor we are in spirit. and God the Spirit helping us, we are going to mourn all the more over whatever sin remains in us, won’t we? And so it’s very important that we hear the rest of this chapter with this awareness, that you hear the rest of this chapter with this awareness. the blessings that he was telling you about at the beginning of this chapter. He was not just speaking to you, he was speaking about you, because he is doing this work in you.

He whose righteousness doesn’t just exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, but is the righteousness of God even as he lives by way also now of his human nature that he has added. He whose righteousness is the righteousness of God is also working in you to conform you to himself, to satisfy your hunger and thirst, not only to have him as your righteousness, but to be righteous to whom he’s given all of these other prerequisites, indicators of blessedness in the Beatitudes. And so we need to hear the portion of his word before us this morning and afternoon in this sermon on the Lord’s day. We need to hear it from the one who is doing this work in us. He is declaring what he is like He is declaring what He has been already on our behalf perfectly.

He is declaring what we must be like to enter the kingdom. And that’s the immediately preceding statement, I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. But he is also declaring to us what he is doing in us. Now if you don’t find that to be the case about you, we’ve just heard, haven’t we, from the second half of James chapter two, that a faith that doesn’t produce works, whatever we call it, if we use that name for it, if it is not producing works, if it has not produced a new heart and a new life of friendship with God, not that Abraham, when he was the friend of God, did perfectly well, did he? In fact, there is much in which we are amazed.

At how much sin remained, but there was also much in which we were amazed at what God had done in him, the gracious work that the Lord had done in him. And so also for everyone whom God has given a like faith unto Abraham. It’s a faith into a Christ who is a complete Savior. It’s a faith into a Christ who makes a difference in our lives. So that faith works, it does works.

Because faith works, it is effective. It is given by God. It makes our union with Christ. It makes a difference. It produces those works.

And Jesus is producing these works. So if you hear it like someone else’s mail, then come to the same Christ who saves all who call upon His name and believe it to Him. who makes them righteous before God, who begins working righteousness in their character and their conduct and will perfect that because he will not secure heaven for you without fitting you, making you suitable for the heaven that he has secured. And so in this passage, we learn to receive this portion of God’s word, even in the way that the Lord Jesus talks. And we’re going to see this several times by the time we get to the end of verse 48, the end of this portion of the Sermon on the Mount.

And he uses this, you have heard that it was said, and then, but I say to you, And so the first thing that we’re gonna consider then in verse 21 and 22 is that Jesus is Yahweh, the eyewitness, or if you will, the ear witness. Yes, even the mouth witness of Sinai. That Jesus is Yahweh, the eyewitness and the expert, therefore witness, verses 21 and 22. And then he’s going to help us He’s going to help us in our consideration of what it means for us that sin is so much more pervasive and the commandments of God’s law, the character of God, first of all, but his commandments, his law, being the applications in our life and to us of the implications of his character, That is what the law of God is for us, and how much more demanding that is than anything that this dear group of disciples, these brand new baby Christians, as it were, on the mountain, had ever heard in synagogue. And so he is going to use an illustration that comes actually out of what we have recently been studying in Leviticus.

Some of us, I hope all of us, will be much helped in verses 23 to 24, remembering that public worship is practice. for preparing to enter heaven, and especially the trespass offering and restitution and giving us then not just this weekly view of being those who are preparing to come and enter God’s presence in the public worship, but a lifelong view as people who want to so live in this life, and even so worship in this life, as those who are preparing to enter the kingdom, preparing to enter the blessedness of the King, that favor and fellowship that in God’s providence we hope to hear preached together this afternoon. And that’ll be in verses 23 and 24. And then in verses 25 and 26, He gives the illustration of earthly judgment about which even someone who is merely worldly wise would know to do what he says in verses 25 and 26. And yet, that principle of obvious wisdom in preparing to go to an earthly judgment being something that should shape and inform how we think about being on the road to judgment, on the path.

We are all going to die. We are all going to the judgment. We are all going to enter eternity. And he uses the same illustration, or at least the same final application in verse 26 when he speaks specifically of that in chapter 18 and verses 34 and 35 at the end of the parable there of unforgiveness and the great and eternal danger that there is in being an unforgiving person. So earthly judgment as a reminder of the exactness and eternality of heavenly judgment in the third place.

And that’ll be in verses 25 and 26. So first, Matthew 5, 21 and 22, Jesus, Jesus is Yahweh, the eyewitness and the expert witness. Note the way that these introductions, you have heard that it was said. And each one of these things, that was said, is something from the scripture. And so he’s not saying, you have heard, you shall not murder.

He’s saying, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder. In other words, when they went to synagogue and they read from the scroll and the rabbi told them about it, he would close the scroll and sit down to preach, as Jesus we have an example of doing in Luke chapter 4. one of the cues that they took even to come up to the mountain on this occasion, then the rabbi would tell them about it and explain it to them. You see, to your fathers, some 1400 years ago, God said to them, you shall not murder. And so the rabbi would explain to them, whoever murders is in danger of the judgment.

And that’s actually good instruction. That if you were caught murdering, yes, you would be excommunicated. You would be cut off from your people. And very specifically, if you murdered, you would be executed. For he who sheds man’s blood by man his blood shall be shed.

But the rabbi who teaches, you know, your excommunication is a small thing. compared to being cut off from God himself forever. Your execution, your death in this life is a small thing by comparison to being damned by God, condemned by God forever. And so if Jesus here is actually describing what is a right and good sermon, You shall not murder. Those who murder cannot be part of the church.

There must not be shedding of man’s blood by those who come by the blood of the sacrifice to approach the living God. You shall not murder. The nation is under obligation to execute, under obligation before God to execute anyone who murders. But do not think that these are the worst things that happen to you if you murder. Because if you murder, you are in danger of the judgment.

It’s a good sermon. It’s a right sermon, isn’t it? But how can we come away from a sermon like that? We can come away saying, never killed a man in my life. I’m good on that one.

I’m not in danger of You see, there is a danger of feeling safe by limiting what we think about God’s commandment and its requirements, by limiting how we see sin to those things that are crimes or offenses. If I think that only those things that I can get discipline for in the church, or punished for righteously by the state. Not that churches can’t do it too, but increasingly now in a state that calls evil good and good evil, you see that Romans 13 isn’t being followed in a way that makes us obey and honor for the sake of conscience and for the sake of wrath. But you say, if I’m good as far as what other people would think about me and say about me, if I’m good as far as what the church would or wouldn’t do to me, if I’m good as far as what the state would do to me, then I’m good. And so the Lord Jesus comes and he uses exactly the same language, but I say to you, that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.

And suddenly none of us are good. It is how often the heat has arisen in our heart without a cause. And the church can’t see that heat. And the state only flatters itself with delusion when it says it can or can’t see that heat, right? This hate crime idea.

If you only knew, we would all be executed and there would finally be peace on the land. Because we’ve all committed the hate crime. But God can see it can’t he? And it’s his law, and it’s his kingdom that Jesus is preparing us to enter. And before him, it’s murder.

If we are angry with our brother without a cause, we’re in danger of the judgment. And the way Jesus says this, the way Jesus says this is the sort of thing that astounded them from synagogue to synagogue. Because he didn’t teach like the rabbis, did he? He didn’t just repeat the same thing that had been repeated over and over for so many generations. He spoke as the one who was there at Sinai.

He spoke in the synagogue as the one who had spoken at Sinai. And so he who said, you shall not murder on that mountain and thundered it to the children of Israel 1,400 years prior, is now giving his authoritative explanation and exposition of what he said on that other day. And so yes, my rabbi, if I was one of these verse 21 disciples, if you were one of these verse 21 disciples, your rabbi had told you truly. But now the Lord himself, whose character is the basis of the law and whose commandments are the substance of the law, he is explaining to you what the requirements of the law actually are. And suddenly none of us are good, which is why, of course, we must have Christ alone as all of our right standing before God.

And it’s also why the work of being increasingly made fit for heaven, fit for entry into the kingdom, is a work that’s going to be for the rest of our lives. We say with the psalmist, how exceedingly broad is the law of God, because that’s what Jesus is teaching us. Now think about the commandments as an application of the implications of the character of God, an application to us of the implications of the character of God, because that’s exactly where he starts. the commandment in which it is most obvious. You remember when capital punishment, at least in scripture, is first explicitly commanded in Genesis chapter 9.

The reason for it is because man is made in the image of God. Now, men are sinners, and men are wicked, and every one of us give everyone else cause at some point and some way to be angry. And praise God that love can cover a multitude of sins, and that even when love is unable to do that, there are ways of reconciling. And so there is such a thing as righteous anger. In fact, because God is righteous and because men are sinners, there is necessary anger.

It is wrong not to be angry at sin. But you know your own sins much more intimately, don’t you? Or you want to, if you weren’t suppressing the knowledge of them. So let not a man who fails to be angry with his own sin think that he has righteous anger. This is why a couple weeks ago in our James reading he said, Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry, because the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

That reflex of heat that comes without thinking, without meditating on God’s word, without taking this into consideration, and love for God, and love for man, who is made in the image of God, without all of that, then our anger is without a cause. Our anger is not because God is angry. Our anger is because we are angry, and we are angry not because something has been done against God, but because something has been done against the way things would be if I were God. And if I am willing to be hostile in that situation and hateful and bitter and burn against him, what have I just done to the one with whom I am angry? I’ve forgotten.

I’m not treating him as made in the image of God. I’m not having respect for that one. And this anger without a cause doesn’t just rise up in moments. It continues, doesn’t it? In things like bitterness.

I mean, whether you do it consciously, persistently, persistently over a long time, or whether you just momentarily, as a reflex, cut off interaction, isn’t what we call the silent treatment Isn’t that just a form of wishing someone out of existence? Or communicating that wish to them? Is it not hatred without a cause? Is it not the opposite of what the Lord tells you to do? Or the one who has offended you?

Let him go. Not just let them come to you, you go to them. And so we say, I don’t care that he’s made in the image of God. I hate him. I want him to suffer.

I want him to burn. I want him to feel the pain of what he did. Anger without a cause is a sin against the image of God. A sin against God will form a boon when we’ll stand at the judgment. Similarly, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

And so here in verse 20, in the second part of verse 22, whoever says to his brother, rock up. Empty head. Very easy. Idiot. Stupid.

What happened? We’re angry in that moment. And it just overflows. It just comes out. And there’s that anger without a cause.

And you’ve been despising the image of God in that person at whom you have lashed out. But now, what’s happened? It’s come out to where it can be treated. Now, praise God, in a functional church, you would become in danger of the council. The council here cannot be in heaven.

There is no council in heaven. There’s just God. There’s no prosecution. There’s no defense. He prosecutes.

Praise God, if you’re a Christian, Romans 8, he defends. There’s no jury. There’s no deliberation. There’s no hearing for sentencing. He knows immediately what he is going to do.

There’s just God. This council, however, this council’s on earth. Now there’s been mouth murder committed. Don’t let this go in your homes, dear parents. Don’t let this go yourself between you and your siblings, your children.

Don’t let this go in the church. Don’t let this go wherever you have believers together who care about one another’s eternal souls. Because yes, we still have sin remaining in us, and we often We often have that which overflows from our hearts from our former nature, from that remaining fleshliness. But what does it show? It shows that there is still this hostility, this failure to consider one another in the image of God that is in our hearts from our former nature.

And when it comes out, we’re in danger of the council, or we ought to be. Now you don’t proceed immediately to a hearing before the elders when someone yells idiot at their sibling. then you do have a situation where you need help reconciling. First, the one by himself, trying to retrieve his brother, not using Matthew 18 as the, aha, I got ahead of you spiritually because you sinned against me club, with which to beat your brother over the head. But oh no, my brother has done something that offends God and sins against me, and we need to be reconciled.

We want to recover from that. And so seeking after him in that spirit of love and retrieval, and not just the words of love and retrieval. Don’t you see that I am trying to help you with your spiritual life? Oh yeah, sure sounds like it. Just knowing how it should be doesn’t make it what it ought to be.

But actually having that before God, that’s how it ought to be. And if we’re doing that and we don’t get repentance, and we bring now one or two more so that there’s two or three and we don’t get repentance. Yes, any unrepentant sin eventually, any unrepentant offense eventually, puts you in danger of the council. And why does it put you in danger of the council? Because there is a connection between church discipline on earth and the judgment of God in heaven.

Later in this same gospel, he’s gonna make the same point in chapter 16 and verse 19, where those apostles to whom God has given the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, are gonna be the first shepherd teachers in the church. that which extends now in the office of Elgar. And they’re going to have what he calls the keys of the kingdom, because there’s a visible expression of the kingdom on earth. But there’s the heavenly reality of the kingdom. And even in the language there, in chapter 16, verse 19, and chapter 18, I have 14 to 20 down here, but I think it’s verse 18 specifically.

In chapter 16 and chapter 18, the language is, what you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. I don’t know if any of our English translations do it that way, but it’s a future perfect tense. implying that church discipline is a practice by which Jesus gives the visible church on earth to display the reality that is happening between someone and heaven. And this is why it must not be followed selectively or vindictively, but according to the word of God, so that it can actually be useful to the church between the council and the hellfire are connected. Raka means empty head and fool here is moron.

If you ever heard, well, let me not say it that way. There can be a temptation for preachers to do the deep dive word study and try to make them mean really different things. You get an extra point for the sermon that way. But the point in verse 22 is that it’s the same offense. And that when you lash out like that, if you are not hostile to your own hatred to your brother, if you’re not hostile to your own rash anger, if you’re not hostile to your own lashing out with your mouth, then you may well be in danger of hellfire.

Regardless of what you have professed and you’re being permitted to come to the table and being a member in good standing and attending all of those things and being highly thought of. When Jesus says that if you do this, you are in danger of hellfire, then if you do this, you are in danger of hellfire. And we mustn’t come to texts like this and try the intensity or urgency of the warning. Christians are committed to sanctification and holiness in heart and mouth and relationship with my brother because Christ and all those who have been counted righteous before God and Jesus Christ in a way that can never be taken away and never diminished. Don’t let that idea enter your head.

But all those who have been counted righteous before God in Jesus Christ also have an ongoing work of that Christ to bring us into conformity to his commandments, and not his commandments the way the rabbis teach, and not his commandments the way we, from our flesh, try to follow them, just enough for others to think well of us and to be clear of church discipline and to be clear of penalty and mistake. according to His holiness. Who now is not just Yahweh our God, you shall be holy as Yahweh your God is holy. But, verse 48, He is our Father in heaven. Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Because His only begotten Son is perfect and He is counted as your righteousness. and therefore all of his adopted children are going to be perfect. Because that is the group project of Father, Son, and Spirit. That is the family mission. And you brought into the family, so it’s your mission too.

Heaven will not tolerate sin in the heart, or its overflow from the lips. That will never happen in the new heavens and the new earth. Any of that that is still there at the judgment, it and its possessor are going to be cast into the lake of fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. That’s what Jesus is saying there. Follow Jesus’ lead.

Don’t tolerate murder in your heart. Don’t tolerate murder in your mouth. This is kingdom mission number one. There’s so many people want to be kingdom builders. Well, follow the king on mission.

Yes, parenting and church reformation and obedience to God and all of our life, love for the Lord Jesus and the glory of his name, those are all kingdom missions, not either or. But when Jesus starts talking about the kingdom, He presents this as kingdom mission number one. So follow him. Make the mortification of your sin kingdom mission number one. Jesus is Yahweh, the eyewitness and the expert witness.

Verses 21 and 22. In the second place, public worship is practice for preparing to enter heaven. One of the wonderful things that we have seen the Lord provide in the book of Leviticus is not only the tabernacle itself, where the glory of God would dwell in it, but also as we have just finished hearing last week in more fullness in chapter 23, that the tabernacle is also called the tent of meeting. And that although God’s glory dwells in the tabernacle in such a way that Moses could not at first enter, He has given them the ability, he had given them the ability now, by the time you get to Leviticus 23, to enter and use it as a tent of meeting for all of these cold meetings with God in the life of his people in that annual rhythm that he had given in the covenant under Moses. And there were the three main sacrifices, the ascension and the tribute and the peace.

And we won’t try to cover four weeks of Leviticus preaching now, but if you had sinned against God or against someone, or even if you weren’t sure But your conscience was troubled. Or even if it was something you did a long time ago and you didn’t know at the time that it had been sinful, but it’s just been revealed to you that it was, you couldn’t immediately go to the ascension and the tribute and the peace. He provided the sin offering, the trespass offering, for the cleansing of the conscience before God. so that you could make things right with God and come with boldness and confidence and joy in those other sacrifices, offerings, by which He had given you to be able to come near. But the sin and the trespass offering, which was covered from the beginning of chapter 4 in Leviticus to chapter 6 and verse 7, had a special category, and that was offerings with restitution.

Because often we haven’t sinned only against God, we’ve sinned against a brother. And so something had to be made right. And not only exactly made right, but a fifth on top of it. Usually that was it. There were other, it depended on what it was and so forth.

But you were required to settle up with your brother first. And then the sin offering could be offered to cleanse your conscience before God. So what Jesus describes here, is not some new thing. It’s actually a further application of something they already had in the law. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, If you’re coming to enter the presence of God, to ascend by way of your substitute upon which you lay your hand and the lifeblood is applied to you, identification of life with life, to ascend, and as tribute, you would have the grain that was offered with it, and then in ascension and tribute being completed, there would be peace, and part of the animal would go up in smoke and the other part would remain on earth and you would have fellowship meal with God.

If you’re coming to do that, you have to do the sin offering first because you want to come with a clear conscience. But the sin offering also required restitution in places where you had incurred a debt to your brother. So he says, therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, remember that your brother has something against you. Now, this is not that your brother isn’t super happy with you yet. This is that your brother has a legitimate claim that you have not paid.

In the context of the Leviticus 5.14.6.7 portion, You’re at the altar, you’re about to offer the gift, but you haven’t given the amount back, the amount destroyed, plus one-fifth, or just the amount if it was negligence, not intentionality. Then you can’t offer your sin offering yet, and you can’t ascend yet, and you can’t bring the tribute yet, and you can’t enter the peace yet.

And so Jesus is here reminding us that public worship is actually a foretaste, is a type, a shadow, of preparing to enter eternal worship, everlasting worship. And so he says, leave your gift there before the altar. Go your way, first be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift. Now we don’t have all those offerings anymore, why? Well, Hebrews 9, 10, Jesus has offered himself once for all.

He is not only our sin offering and trespass offering, he is our ascension, he is our tribute, he is our peace. In fact, he is our tabernacle and our priest and all the sacrifices. And so it’s through him through the new and living way that is his flesh, that not just one man once a year, but all of the men and women and boys and girls by faith every single week pass through the veil. But there is still the coming with our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience by the blood of God. See, it’s not enough to have had the water applied to your body the one time.

Every week as you come, you must make fresh application of the blood of Jesus, putting away all of your sins. And you need to also heed his instruction here in verse 23 and 24, that part of the cleansing of the conscience so that we can come to worship with boldness, Don’t let any sin go undealt with, unrepented of. I think in the devotional I put on the Saturday evening, you don’t have to wait till Saturday. The blood of Jesus is always available for the cleansing of the conscience. But do not let sin linger, and certainly don’t plan anything for Saturday night that you know is going to be something that you’re gonna end up, or likely is, you’re gonna pray, lead us not into temptation to God on the Lord’s day, but you pray to yourself, lead me into temptation on Saturday evening, that’s solitude.

But we should keep our consciences clean. You always have the once-shed blood of Christ available to you to come to God and confess your sin and enjoy again the fullness of Christ’s atonement for you. But a part of that is going to have to be, isn’t it, reconciling with your brother. If you haven’t come and Ask for that forgiveness, and if it’s something that can be recompensed, making the restitution, whatever it is. Then you are not suitable for the public worship, are you?

It’s not saying, you know, hold a grudge for 30 years and skip every Lord’s Day for that entire time. and excuse yourself on the basis of Matthew 5, 23, 24. That’s just wicked, isn’t it? What I’m saying, you have to go to the worship, so you have to go to your brother. Public worship is practice for preparing to enter heaven.

Because that 30-year man in the illustration a moment ago, he’s gonna die, isn’t he? and he’s gonna enter eternity, he’s gonna come to the judgment, isn’t he? And if he wasn’t prepared to worship God on earth, what makes him think that he’s gonna be prepared to enter the kingdom and worship God first? Preparing for the public worship and participating in the public worship is practice for participating to enter glory. preparing to enter glory and preparing to participate in the worship of glory.

In the last place, then, earthly judgment is a reminder of the exactness and eternality of heavenly judgment. Now, he uses a civil illustration this time. It says, verse 25, Agree with your adversary quickly while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge. Now, this is a debt that is not just necessary to pay as far as restitution goes to be admitted to the worship of God, but the debt is being turned over also to the civil magistrate. Lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.

Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny. Now, just taking the civil illustration at first, in this world, we do not know what kind of judge we are going to get. We do not know what kind of jury we are going to get. It is ordinarily a wise thing to do If someone is making a claim against you and you don’t know if the jury or the judge are going to be righteous, it’s generally prudent to try to settle out of court if you can get a reasonable amount. Just make it right with your brother before you get there.

Don’t let that happen. And so there is this idea that you are in the word picture in verse 24, you’re on the way to court. You’re on the way to a judgment. And you want to be prepared. In fact, if you can, you want to know that that judgment is neutralized before you get there.

Dear congregation, every one of you is on the way to judgment. And you have not only men against whom you have sinned, Because however much you have sinned against men, you have sinned infinitely more against the living God. And you want to come to an assurance of faith, not just to faith, but to an assurance of faith. You want, by Jesus working in you, by his Spirit, to grow in holiness. to put to death hatefulness in your heart, to put to death the overflow of language that lashes out from your mouth, to put to death all of your sin.

Not that you will succeed in doing so perfectly, but the process is actually only possible for believers, only possible for those who have a new nature to live out of. because holiness unto God cannot proceed from the former nature, cannot proceed from a man who is still in himself. It only proceeds from union with Christ. It only proceeds from Jesus. It only comes from his life in you.

And so as Jesus is working in you to fit you for the kingdom, and as you, dependent upon his grace and devoted to him with a desire that has come from him in the first place, and growing in grace and becoming more mature in the faith, you are seeing that you have agreed with your adversary. In fact, he’s not your adversary. You are gonna come to the judgment and you’re gonna ask these wonderful rhetorical questions from Romans 8. Who can bring a charge? against God’s elect.

Sorry, wrong book. It is God who justifies. Sorry. Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.

Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Don’t you see what is offered to you in sanctification as the Lord Jesus gives you assurance that He is not your adversary, but your advocate? You are on the way to the judgment. But how glorious it is to know that when you get to the judgment, in the judge’s seat will be God your Father who has declared you righteous in Jesus.

And in the prosecution’s seat there will be God the Son who is advocating for you and interceding for you, so that Jesus is both prosecution and then for believers, the defense. For unbelievers, there’s no defense. And so, yes, there’s... There is some here in verses 25 and 26 about our interaction with men, wanting to enter heaven with a clear conscience with men. If you’ve had a long-standing grudge or a long-standing broken relationship, that is not a right way to live as someone who is on the way to the judgment.

But what is especially here is that Jesus, the King, by his own work in his dear subjects, and they are dear to him, gives them opportunity to know that they are reconciled to him. He uses this language later, of course, for those who are reconciled to him, Matthew 18. You remember the parable of the servant who was forgiven 10,000 talents, astronomical amount, and what was offended against him was not small in and of itself. It felt big, right? 300 denarii is a year’s wages.

Between men, that’s not a small debt. But for men who have been forgiven 10,000 talents, It’s a small debt. You remember the parable? Well, just the end of it. 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. And listen to verse 35 now. So my heavenly father also will do to you, sorry, so my heavenly father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses. Do you hear the parallel between the two passages?

It’s talking about what goes on in your heart. He’s talking about never being black out of hell until you have paid a debt that you cannot pay in Matthew 18.35. And so how wonderful that God the adversary gives us opportunity before we get to the judgment to make agreement with him through Jesus Christ and to have assurance of that agreement by the sanctifying work that Christ does as he is preparing us to enter heaven. You are going to die.

You are going to enter eternity. Preparation for heaven cannot even begin until you are justified in Christ. And so if you have not believed into Jesus, if you don’t have Him and His obedience as all of your obedience before God and His sacrifice on the cross as all of the payment for your sin, then the rest of this sermon is not yet for you. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Receive who He is and what He has done as your only right standing before God.

Be forgiven all of your guilt by His enduring all of the wrath that it deserved at the cross. Preparation for heaven cannot even begin until you are justified in Christ and qualified for heaven. But if you are entering heaven, you are coming to worship in an infinitely greater way than we do together week by week. And so make preparation to enter that worship. Jesus tolerates no sin in those whom he saves because he has determined that the kingdom will be a heaven for them.

Not of hell. Are you determined with him that you would be fit for heaven? Receive the law from his mouth and independence upon him and his grace. Seek that his spirit would conform you not to what men think the law says you need to be like, but to what Jesus himself says you must be on the day that you enter the kingdom. Amen, let’s pray.

Our Father in heaven, how we thank you that you have given your Son to be our King so that your law in His mouth is a royal law and your law to us whom you have set free in Him is a law of liberty. And so we pray that you would hear Him who pleads that we would be sanctified by your truth and that your word is truth and that you would hear us as we plead as he has taught us to plead as well. Grant it, we ask in his name.