Higgins, Eugene: Christians Of History 05 Rembrandt ~ Matthew 7

Would you turn, please, to the Gospel of Matthew, and we're going to read, first of all, in Matthew chapter seven. Matthew chapter seven, verse twenty four. Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. One more reading, please, in the next book, the Gospel of Mark, chapter four. Mark chapter four and verse thirty five. Four thirty five. And the same day when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side. And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship, and there were also with him other little ships. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow. And they awake him and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose and rebuked the wind and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith? And they feared exceedingly and said one to another, What manner of man is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? Only a comparatively few people at any given time have the status of single name. For instance, if I said to you tonight that I was going to be speaking about Bill, or Steve, or Tom, or George, would that be enough for you to know who I was going to speak on? The media, right or wrong, elevates some people to this status that we recognize their names, that a full name is unnecessary. You know who was meant just by the mention of the first name. Now, that is how it is, and eminently so with tonight's figure. It is completely unnecessary and superfluous to say Rembrandt Harmanzoon van Rijn. Just say Rembrandt, and everyone knows whom you mean. And compared to Rembrandt Harmanzoon van Rijn, it it's a lot easier just to say Rembrandt. In fact, if you do almost anything artistically and someone wants to pay you a high compliment, it is his name that they invoke, and they will say, you're just a, you're such a Rembrandt. He was born in Leiden, Holland on July fifteenth, sixteen oh six, the son of a wealthy miller. His mother was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, and she raised him to be a devout Calvinist Protestant. This devotion was reinforced between the ages of seven and fourteen when Rembrandt attended Latin school, with its heavy emphasis on religious studies. At the age of fourteen, he was enrolled at the University of Leiden. The school trained the students in grammar and rhetoric. Rembrandt received a thorough grounding in classical and biblical stories. Sensing at a young age where his talent lay, he soon left the university to study art with a local master who was a specialist in rendering architecture as well as scenes of hell. Three years later, in Amsterdam, he study- studied under Pieter Lastman, a Dutch artist who was known for his historical paintings. Lastman had studied in Italy and was much influenced by Caravaggio, the realist. In these studios, history, rhetorical gestures, historical veracity, and textual accuracy were very important. After six months, having mastered everything he had been taught, Rembrandt returned to Leiden. One biographer wrote about him, this faith in himself was justified. In sixteen thirty one, after three years of private study, Rembrandt went to Amsterdam, and there began a career of most amazing industry. He painted portraits and pictures for the wealthy and made etchings for the poor. Apart from those which have been lost and his earlier studies, which he himself destroyed, this marvelous artist executed six hundred pictures and three hundred etchings. He seems to never have had an idle moment. In the earlier years of his profession, he must have lived with an etcher's needle in his hand. To this passion for the engraved line and Rembrandt's determination to be himself and express what he saw in his own way, he owes his place as the greatest etcher and one of the greatest painters the world has ever known. So at the age of twenty four, he had left himself no room for improvement in the art of etching, end of quote. Now, if he had been just a Dutch master and not a world genius, he would have found infinite satisfaction in painting faithfully scenes from his native land. As it was, the perfection which was the goal of the Dutch artists was where Rembrandt started. He took for granted the things everyone else saw and concerned himself with what they did not see. His status as an artist continued to rise due to his command of portraiture. Such was his reputation as a portrait artist that he received more commissions than he could complete. That led him to establish a workshop that had more than fifty pupils studying under him. Early in his career, Rembrandt demonstrated what would become a lifelong love of drawing and painting biblical subjects. His initial religious work, such as the works such as The Blinding of Samson, with their overtly dramatic presentation, reflected an influence of Caravaggio's tenebrism, combined with the spiraling forms and and emphatical diagonal line movements of the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens. Rembrandt created more than eight hundred biblical subjects, even though biblical themes were not in fashion in seventeenth century Dutch art. Rembrandt's Dutch colleagues specialized in landscapes, still lifes, and genre pieces. To a large extent, this was a reflection, by the way, of the greatest legacy of Protestantism, in art, that is, a greater freedom for artists to broaden their subject matter beyond explicitly religious themes. After all, why should art be focused only on religion if God is the God of all creation? Protestantism opened up the whole world as a legitimate subject for art. Artists were advised that they might paint Bible scenes only for their own diversion. Few chose to do so. Most artists supported the, the flourishing Dutch tradition of portraiture and landscape painting. All except Rembrandt. He stood practically alone as a religious artist, creating for himself a deeply personal and spiritual record of the scriptures. Biblical subjects make up about a third of his works. One of his biographers explained it this way: somehow, Rembrandt knew his identity and authenticity were anchored to the Bible, whether its themes were in fashion or not. The message of the scriptures was at the root and core of his being. He clung to that. Some perceptive critics and collectors of the time did indeed appreciate this biblical work, and especially praised his adherence to the holy text, but few commissioned him to create such biblical paintings. So he worked in an unpopular and unprofitable field, despite the grave financial difficulties that beset his later life. And by the way, he was, um, one of the first artists to pr- uh, to portray the Lord Jesus in his paintings as a Semitic man rather than a European man, sallow in complexion, dark of hair, very much like the pious Jews whom Rembrandt saw every day near his house, near the Jewish quarter in Amsterdam. Perhaps what most succored Rembrandt during his difficult later life was the truth of God's forgiveness of repentant man, one of the gospel's greatest themes. The Prodigal Son particularly appeared- appealed to the artist in the context of his personal hardships, and he often drew or painted the highlights of this parable, even painting himself in his portraits as the prodigal. Moreover, the universal drama of Christ's passion so captivated his mind that he included himself in the raising of the cross, and you'll see on the handout, he is the troubled man in the blue cap, and in the descent from the cross, he is the mourning figure in blue, penitent and shaken with suffering, who is helping to remove Christ's body. Identifying with the suffering and the guilt of the passion story was so important to Rembrandt that in an etching reproducing the descent from the cross, one is captivated by the artist's face. It's important here to note that scarcely any other painter before Rembrandt had ever done this. Documentary evidence indicates that Rembrandt was born, raised, married, and died in the Dutch Reformed Church. But there is also evidence that he had close fellowship with the evangelical wing of the Mennonites. They were called the Dupes gezinder. Um, they were virtually Baptists. The, the word Dupes gezinder literally means Baptist-minded. Imagine having to write that on a medical form going into the hospital, that your religion is Dupsgesinder. Um, he may even have belonged to one of their meetings in the sixteen forties, but apart from that, he was deeply influenced by the Word of God. Sometime in the sixteen forties, he produced what is perhaps the most famous etching in the world. So if you have access to the internet, just go home tonight, if you're interested, and just Google this, Christ Healing the Sick. It's also known as the Hundred Guilder Print because that's what it's sold for, and it is a remarkable thing. You can see it on the internet, um, and somebody has pointed out that it is an illustration of the entire nineteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. In the foreground and the right are the great multitudes following Jesus, waiting to be healed. To the left are the Pharisees set to provoke the Lord Jesus. Between them and Jesus rebuking disciples are the little children seeking his embrace and blessing. Look a little closer, and you will see a camel entering an archway that's off to the right, and that is, of course, representing the rich young ruler. And the Lord Jesus would speak about a camel passing through the eye of a needle there, that that's in the etching, and you'll see the picture of of all of this centering around the Lord Jesus, who is welcoming the children and longing to bless them. Rembrandt knew periods of great sorrow in his life, including the death of his first wife and three of their four children. His only surviving son from that marriage, Titus, died at the age of twenty seven in sixteen sixty eight, just a year before Rembrandt himself died on October fourth, He was buried in the Westerkerk in an unknown rented grave. Now, we are not looking at his life tonight because Rembrandt was saved, only God knows that, or even because he lived as a Christian should live. We know that he did not always do that, but we are looking at him because this master in the field of art was greatly influenced by God's word, and in turn had a great influence on his world. John Carstens, who teaches art history here in California, Pacific Union College in Angwin, pointed out that Rembrandt's works of art, particularly the later ones, reflect a basic spiritual philosophy that may be defined in six major thrusts: a reverence for life, a loving and compassionate God, the humanizing of biblical themes, the focus of the cross, religion in everyday life, and divine strength for the human journey. Now, as I noted earlier, Rembrandt often painted himself into his paintings. He painted himself in as a witness to the stoning of Stephen. He painted himself as the prodigal, squandering inheritance in a far country inn. And as in the handout, he painted himself in that boat and at the cross. And you'll have to have very good eyes, because that's a las- um, that's a inkjet printer, uh, very good eyes to see that there is one extra person in that boat. There are the twelve disciples, there is his painting of the Lord Jesus, but there is another person in the boat, and it is Rembrandt. So I want you to think about this man painting himself in, in that storm on that boat, and painting himself in a cavalry, and just think with me about these two things tonight. The danger, the danger that is common to all mankind, and the deliverance that is available to all mankind. Isn't it interesting that we have an expression when we want to talk about something being a common problem, we talk about we're all on the same boat. We're all on the same boat. That's what you have in this painting. We're all on the same boat. We're passengers on the way to eternity. Think of a ship like the Titanic. Some of its passengers were immoral. Some of its passengers were religious. At least one of its passengers was a gospel preacher. Some of its passengers were wealthy, some were poor, some were immoral, some were decent, but they're all in the same boat, weren't they? They're all going in a common direction. It- the boat was heading eventually when it, when it, uh, hoisted anchor off of the coast of Ireland, what is now Cove, Ireland, and headed west toward the United States. It would have done very little good for somebody to say, no, I am not heading west, and start at the, uh, stem of the ship and race eastward toward the stern and say, see, I'm really not going west, I'm heading east, because the ship is carrying you. We're all in that same boat in that sense that we are all heading to eternity. Lifetime here in this world is like an overnight, overnight stay at a motel. We are moving on to a permanent address in the world where God lives. None of us is here to stay. There are two countries in that world, two countries in that world to which we're traveling. There is heaven and there is hell, and I suppose that the first question that ought to confront every one of us when we're thinking of this subject is, to which of those two worlds are you traveling? Are, as you are making your journey, your one-way trip through this world to eternity, are you traveling tonight to heaven, or are you traveling to hell? Because not only, obviously, was there a common direction, but there was a common destiny. Just as everybody on the Titanic was involved in that crash and in that sinking, and everybody on that Galilean boat were involved in the storm and in the danger, so all of us are traveling to a common end. And there was a woman in the Old Testament called the wise woman of Tekoa, and she explained that. She said, we have to die. Her way of putting it was, was we must needs die. We are like water spilt on the ground that cannot be gathered up again. At conception, we embark on the journey of life. For some people, that journey is very short. Some people don't even have a birth. For others, it's seemingly long. I think I mentioned the last time I was here that I had a funeral in Ontario of a man who was one hundred and seven years old. I had a funeral last year of a baby that lived one hour. One hundred m and seven years compared to sixty minutes. one hundred and seven years seems very, very long compared to, to one hour. One hundred and seven years doesn't even seem like one second when you compare it to eternity. And we're all traveling to eternity. At death, or to be more precise, one moment afterward, we disembark. The journey is over. We arrive, we we land in heaven or in hell. To change the imagery for a moment, Jacob likened the journey through life as as a trek, as a pilgrimage. He was heading somewhere. So, so where where are you heading tonight? Sir Robert Matheson, who years ago was the Registrar General of Ireland, took his family to Scotland. It was eighteen seventy three. He wasn't all that interested in art, but his father-in-law and his wife were very artistic, and they went out one day, and while his father and wife were sketching an old kirk church, he thought he would meander through the cemetery, the grave site that was right beside the building. It was not well kept. It was overgrown. Some of the stones were actually so partially covered by the weeds that he was bumping into them. And one tripped him. He fell, he caught himself. And he said he, he had the greatest urge just to part the weeds and look at the particular stone that tripped him. And he reached out and he, he pulled the grass aside. And Sir Robert Matheson read the name on the tombstone, and the name was Robert Matheson. One letter difference. He spelled his name with an E, M-A-T-H-E-S-O-N. He had just pulled the grass aside and looked at Robert, M-A-T-H-I-S-O-N. And he thought to himself about this coincidence. He thought, how remarkable is this? I bump into a number, a number of gravestones. One trips me. I just happen to check whose it is, and the man has the same name as I. One letter difference. Of course, it was just one simple mental step from that to thinking. I wonder where I will be when it says E, when it's my name, when I am dead. I wonder where I will be. That is what led Sir Robert Matheson to search for Christ. First John chapter five and verse one was the verse he was reading when he realized that the Lord Jesus would save him if he would only trust Christ, and he was saved. Have have you ever stopped to ask yourself where your journey is going to lead you to? Because we're all in the same boat. Doesn't matter whether you come here regularly or this is your first time. Does not matter whether whether you are religious or you never even think about God. Every one of us is on the journey to eternity. We're all passengers in the same boat. But think about the storm. Life is a legion of storms, and we are ill-equipped to face many of those storms on our own. But of course, the biggest storm is what I've just talked about, the storm of death, and we noted in Matthew chapter seven what it does. The Lord Jesus describes the, the storm coming and testing the foundation and the house collapsing because it was not built on a rock. Death will divest us of all that we have. They'll take from us everything we own, what we call our own or mine. Remember how clearly that's taught in the parable of the rich farmer and the incident of Lazarus' rich neighbor. Not, not gradually, not partially, but abruptly, suddenly, completely, and finally they lost everything they had. All that they possessed was gone in the blink of an eye, in a moment's time. This night, the Lord Jesus said the man's soul would be required. Whose would these things belong to? The wealthy man eating, dining on the best of foods, wearing the nicest of clothes, dies that night, and he's begging for a drop of water. Everything that once marked them of wealth, of power, of influence, of position, of prestige, the wave of death came in, the sandcastle of wealth collapsed, and they had nothing. You know, there are two phrases that occur just once each in our Bible. We read in Proverbs chapter twenty three about possessions, that they make wings and fly away. You found that out, haven't you? Have a little nest egg and it's gone, right? Some bills come in and, and they make wings and they fly away. And then you have that expression used about you and me. Moses said about life, it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Just bring those two together, and remember that when it comes to dying, everything we have is going to leave us, and we're going to leave everything that we have. Death will test our foundation. When, when the storm hit these two houses, it really wasn't testing how the, the quality of the shingles on the roof, was it? It really was not so much testing how expensive the windows were. It was the foundation that was the important thing here. Sand gave way, the rock held. The man whose house was built on sand lost everything. The man whose house was built on the rock secured everything, because death will test my foundation. Doesn't matter what I say to you, the words that I use. When I come to die, death is going to test whether Christ is my savior. Mr. Jim Smith and I had gospel meetings in a, actually in a barn in nineteen seventy It was a, it was a typical New England barn. The man, we were going to pitch our tent on the property, and the man said, you know, I've always, I've always had a dream, just, just, uh, just wish that, uh, this barn could be used for gospel meetings. So, of course, that was much easier. It meant no worry about permits, and so he cleared it out, and, um, God was pleased to bless his word and save some souls. One woman was much narrower than this, so you really couldn't see everybody who had come in if you were sitting at the front. But when Betty would come, I would know she was there, because there was a hacking cough that she could not stop. She'd come in and she'd sit in the back, and while she was battling with cancer, lung cancer, you'd know Betty was in the audience because you'd hear that, that cough, that deep hacking cough. And Betty began to listen to the gospel. And the song that we sang tonight, the last one, we sang just one verse. Somehow those words got a hold of Betty's mind and heart. And she began to think about that idea that when it comes to dying, the only foundation that will stand the test is Christ. And one night Betty trusted Christ. When the meetings were done, Mr. Smith and I went to see her to say goodbye. She really didn't have all that long to live. And as we were leaving, I think Mr. Smith was the one who said to her, well, Betty, if we don't see you again on earth, we'll see you in heaven. Yes, she said, coughing, you know. Yes, she said, and we'll sing my song when we get there, okay? On Christ, the solid rock I stand. We'll sing my song when we get there? Yes, we assured her, we'll be happy to sing your song when we get there. Are you, are you tonight resting, depending, relying on Christ? Is that the foundation of your hopes for heaven? Simple way of asking it is this. If somebody said to you, are you going to heaven, and your answer was well, absolutely, I'm a good Baptist, or absolutely, I've been a good Catholic all my life, or oh, I'm s- I'm sure I'll be in heaven, I do the best I can. Well, then that's your foundation. That's what you're trusting, that you're a Baptist, that you're a Catholic, that you've done the best you can. In fact, I had noticed, you'll understand now, I'm not saying that there's a crystal ball that you can gaze in and find out who's saved and who isn't, but this is what I've noticed. All you need to do is focus on the pronouns. Just focus on the pronouns. You ask someone if he's saved, and if he starts to tell you, oh, I, I mean, I've made a number of mistakes, God knows I have, but I mean, I do the best I can, and I, I've always tried to, to, to be faithful to God, and I love God, I've always loved God, and I, I give money, and I have been baptized, and I... And then you ask someone else if he or she is saved, and the person answers, Christ died for me on the cross. He put my sins away. If they use I or me, they'll tell you, I just found out I was lost. I was a sinner going to hell, but Jesus died for me. Just listen to the pronouns, and you'll find out what a person is depending on. Death is going to test that, and it will crest by sweeping us into another world. So please do not make the mistake of thinking that what I am now trying to convey to you is the, the moments of dying, and they can be painful, and they can be very difficult. It's not so much that as the results. It's not fixating on the departure. The Bible reminds us about the importance of the arrival, where you will arrive one moment after you die. Because like these men in the boat, we're all facing the same storm. The master rises up. He's a unique person. Subtract one person from this story, just one, and the outcome is dramatically and horribly different. Take him out of the picture, remove him from the boat, and they perish. But the unique person, the Lord Jesus, rises up. You see, they imagined he did not know what they were experiencing, that he was asleep. So they inform him. They say, save us, we perish. He knows all about you. He knows your life. He knows your longings. He knows your desires. He knows everything you're going through. They imagined he did not care because they not only said, save us, we perish, but they asked, don't you care that we perish? Now, nobody cares more about you than does the Lord Jesus. Nobody cares more about you and your welfare and your eternal well-being than does the Lord Jesus. I don't think the hymn is in this book, but there was an Australian man named James Proctor who was brought up by Christians. He attended Sunday school and other meetings, and he completely rejected all that he had been taught. In fact, he became a founding member of an atheist society that was called the Free Thinkers. He became its president after he founded it. So he was the Richard Dawkins of his day. But the despair that his forlorn philosophy created in his heart led him to compose two lines of a poem that he did not finish. I've tried in vain a thousand ways, my fears to quell, my hopes to raise. Unfinished poem. I've tried in vain a thousand ways, my fears to quell, my hopes to raise. That paper got shuffled in with some of his other papers, and he never finished his poem. But the despair that I have just told you about only deepened as he tried to live without God. During a s- serious illness, that man had time to do some, some clear, logical thinking, and he realized the folly, the foolishness of his way. And he began to read the Bible, and he turned back to what his parents had taught him, and as he was reading the scriptures alone on his bed, he found salvation through the Lord Jesus. Now, this is where the story gets just a little hazy, whether it is his sister who brought him the unfinished paper or whether she brought him the paper after he had finished it. But according to some versions of what happened, he asked his sister to get the paper on which those first two lines were written. I've tried in vain a thousand ways, my fears to quell, my hopes to raise, but he went on to finish it. But what I need, the Bible says, is ever only Jesus. My soul is night, my heart is steel. I cannot think, I cannot feel. For light, for life, I must appeal in simple faith to Jesus. He died, he lives, he reigns, he pleads. There's love in all his words and deeds. There's all a guilty sinner needs forevermore in Jesus. Though some should sneer and some should blame, I'll go with all my guilt and shame. I'll go to him because his name above all names is Jesus. And the atheist who found how forlorn life was without Christ, as he was facing the storm of sickness and possible death, found a savior who would save him and be right by his side. That's the one we're presenting to you tonight, the Lord Jesus. He has a unique power, just as he did in that boat. Nothing, there was no point Peter standing up and saying, peace, be still, or or James or John trying to quiet the waves and the winds. But the Lord Jesus could do that, didn't he? So much so that the disciples would, would literally say, from what country or from what world is this man that even the winds and the waves obey him? So as the meeting closes, let me tell you, please, about the unique power he has when it comes to you tonight. He is the only one who can put your sins away. He is the only one who can forgive you. He is the only one who can banish your guilt and bring you back to God. He is the only one who can deliver you from going into eternal punishment. He is the only one who can save you. And God is offering tonight to you his son, and saying that if you will trust Christ, Christ will save you. Now, the picture that you're, you will look at on the front page of that handout, that was stolen from a museum in Boston. Nobody's ever recovered it. They have no idea where that painting is. They thought just earlier this year that they might have recovered it. But that was stolen from a Boston art museum. But the truth remains, doesn't it? You're going to face a storm one day. The only one who can bring you through that storm and land you safely in heaven is the Lord Jesus. So just please, before you go, think about that other painting, those other paintings, and remember the deliverance that is available to all mankind. The Lord Jesus has a sympathy and a love for the world. Why would Rembrandt paint himself in at the beginning when the Lord Jesus is being lifted up, and at the end when his body is being taken down, unless he was trying to imply to us that he was there for the whole scene, that everything that happened there had some bearing on him. The Lord Jesus was the sin bearer and the sufferer for the world. He is presented as the savior and the redeemer for a world of sinners. John wrote that the Father, God the Father, sent the Son to be the savior for the world. So no matter who you are, what your nationality is, whether your last name ends in a vowel or a consonant, he is the savior whom God has provided for you. And some years ago in England, in what was called the Bar Pit Mine disaster, there was an explosion that rocked the mines. A number of miners were able to get out, but when all was said and done, there were six miners who were missing. I think they had to wait for poison gas to, to evaporate before they could go in, and when they finally got in and dug down to where they thought those men might be, they came to a door in the mine, safety door that was closed. They opened it and walked in, and in a semicircle lying around that door were six bodies. Dead. And then somebody noticed, on the back of the open door, somebody had written in chalk these words. We are all trusting Christ and their name signed to it. When the storm comes, when the waves hit, when the wind blows, when your foundation is being tested to the utmost, when your life and your world is being rocked, will your foundation stand? Have you been to the cross? Have you trusted Christ? Is he your savior tonight? Because God is presenting to you his son, the savior of the world. And if, as in the Gospel of Luke, we are reminded that the savior is a savior for the world, then remember that in the previous chapter, chapter one, Mary can say, he's my savior. I hope you'll trust him tonight and make him your personal savior as well. Shall we pray?