Norbie, Donald: Matthew 1994-34 ~ Matt 26:1-30-Love And Hate

Matthew twenty six is a chapter that's, uh, full of contrast. It's a chapter that has a lot of hate in it, and it's a chapter too that has a lot of love in it. Kind of interesting. And we're going to read, beginning with verse one of chapter twenty six of Matthew. It came to pass when Jesus had finished all these sayings that he said to his disciples, you know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified. Then the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people assembled at the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and plotted to take Jesus by trickery and kill him. But they said, not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people. And when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him, having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. When his disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, to what purpose is this waste? This fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor. But when Jesus was aware of it, he said to them, why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for me. You have the poor with you always, but me you do not have always. For in pouring this fragrant oil on my body, she did it for my burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her." Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests and said, "What are you willing to give me if I deliver him to you?" And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver. So from that time he sought opportunity to betray him. Now on the first day of the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus saying to him, "Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?" And he said, "Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, the teacher says, my time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples. So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover. Now when evening had come, he sat down with the twelve. As they were eating, he said, assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray me. And they were exceedingly sorrowful, and each of them began to say to him, Lord, is it I? Then he answered and said, He who dipped his hand with me in the dish will betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written by him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been good for that man if he'd not been born. Then Judas, who was betraying him, answered and said, Rabbi, is it I? He said to him, You've said it. As they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it, and broke it, and gave to the disciples and said, Take eat, this is my body. And he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. When they'd sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Many contrasts here. There were some who hated the Lord Jesus, and as you start the chapter, they're plotting, the rulers, the religious rulers, they're plotting to destroy him. Now, the problem was, a lot of people believed in him and followed him. And, um, they knew if they arrested him in front of these people, it might cause a riot, especially here during the Passover time when there was a lot of religious fervor and excitement. And so they said, we're going to have to arrest him very quietly when he's away from the rest of the people so that it won't cause a riot. And so they're making this plan, they're plotting, it says, to take Jesus by trickery and to kill him. And they're wondering, how can we do this? We want to destroy him. They hated Christ. Kind of amazing when you think of it. People often hate others because they've done some terrible wrong. For example, many people during the Second World War began to hate the Germans for what they were doing to the Jews and to other peoples in Europe. But here of the Lord Jesus, people said he just went about doing good. No one could say he has harmed me, he has mistreated me, he has abused me. No one could say that of Jesus. He could say to his enemies, who of you convicts me of sin? So here's one who lived a perfectly good life, a life full of kindness and compassion and good work, healing sick, constantly reaching out to others, and he's hated. He was hated, so much so they said, we want to destroy him. More than anything else, we want to just rub him out. We don't want him around. Why? And the truth is, because wherever Jesus went, he exposed sin. And I want to read that verse in John three. John 3, and verse, we read several verses here. Verse seventeen says, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. This is the condemnation that light has come into the world. Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. Everyone practicing evil hates the light, does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. And so here cu- Jesus comes, uh, kind, compassionate, loving, but he is light. He's holy. And in the presence of light, if you're doing things that are wrong, you want to escape. You don't want to be exposed. And the interesting thing is that the, uh, those that were wicked sinners, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the drunks, that wanted to change, that wanted help, could come to him, and did come to him, and were accepted by him and loved him. But here the religious rulers who are self-righteous and, uh, very self-sufficient, very religious. These people were the most religious people on the face of the earth. You, you, when you think of a Pharisee, you think of all the rules, the regulations, how picky they were about their religion in all these different ways. And yet, when Jesus came, they were exposed for being hypocrites, for loving money. Uh, they were exposed for all the hypocrisy of their religion. And, uh, because of this, they hated him. They didn't want to be exposed, they didn't want him to point out to him, to them their sin, and he, uh, they, uh, avoided him, they criticized him, they rejected him, didn't want to see him. And if you're a sinner and covering your sin, you don't want to see Jesus. In fact, you don't want to even see Christians. You want to avoid Christians. You want to avoid the truth. You don't want to hear the word of God because you want to cover your sin. I was reminded of that last night. I, uh, uh, went by a halfway house to pick up, uh, some men for a Bible study, but there was a woman there, and this was a woman that, uh, I'd seen in the jail, and in the jail she had said, oh, she'd wept some, she was in trouble, and she wanted to change and so forth. Uh, she was a married woman, but, uh, when I saw her last night, she did not want to see me. She tried to act like she didn't see me. She tried to brush by me. I, I called to her by name. I spoke to her. She didn't want to talk. Why? Why such a big difference? When she was in jail, she was very anxious to talk to Christians or talk to someone about the Bible at that time, she said. Well, the difference is she's decided she loves sin. She's married, but she's running around with some other men. She's going her own way. She's not interested in being around Christians. She's not interested in hearing the Bible. She's not interested in Jesus. And that was the problem these religious rulers had. They basically love sin. And you know, you can be very religious and be a sinner and be a hypocrite. And, uh, you see this going on all around you every day. People who will be, uh, out Saturday night getting drunk, committing all sorts of sinful acts, and this morning some of them are going to be in church, and they're going through the motions, and, uh, yet their hearts are far from God. So these people, these rulers, hated Jesus. Religious, but lost. Now, the next woman we read about is Mary, and I want to read the, uh, parallel passage in John twelve, the Gospel of John chapter twelve, because it's such a contrast between these religious rulers and this, this dear woman. John twelve verse one says, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, who had been dead, whom he had raised from the dead. There they made him a supper, and Martha served. Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with him. In Matthew, we read this was in the house of Simon the leper. Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. One of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, who would betray him, said, why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor? This he said, not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had the money box, and he used to take what was put in it. Jesus said, let her alone. She has kept this for the day of my burial. For the poor you have with you always, but you, me, you do not have always. So Mary, Mary comes, and uh, she brings this very, very expensive perfume, uh, fragrant anointing oil. In fact, so expensive that, uh, the disciples said, we know what that stuff costs. It would cost three hundred denarii. Now, a denarii, one denarius, uh, was the wage of a working man for one day. So you say three hundred working men's days wages. It's a lot of money. Um, maybe today you'd say, well, fifteen thousand or whatever, somewhere maybe in that area. Now, she wasn't a rich woman. Uh, I don't know, she'd been saving a long time, I guess, but finally here she has this, and she, she brings it to Jesus, and John says she anointed his head, and this points out she also apparently anointed his feet, um, and uh, the whole house is filled with the fragrance of it. It was very fragrant perfume. Now the, uh, some of the lessons I want to learn from this is, are that, um, first of all, if you appreciate someone and you love someone, you like to do for them. You like to give. When a man falls in love with a girl and he wants to marry her, typically what he does, he buys an expensive engagement ring. Costs him quite a bit. He gives it to her. He says, now this shows how much I love you and shows that I'm committed to you. And, uh, love will give. And if we think of Mary here, she loved the Lord very much. What a contrast to the rulers who hated him. They said, let's kill him. Mary appreciated him, and she, uh, she wanted to express that appreciation. Three hundred denarii was what it cost. Now the disciples, and he, John points out that Judas was the one that started it. Judas started talking, and he said, that's waste. Think of what could be done with the money, could be given to the poor. She has wasted it, poured it on his feet and on his head, and it's gone. Could have been used for something worthwhile. Sounds very pious, doesn't it? John, though, having come to know him and knowing the whole story, says he was a thief. We discovered it later, he was a thief, he had the money bag, and he was constantly taken out of it for himself. And, uh, the motive that he had was not at all for the poor. Judas was thinking of himself. But, you know, it's interesting too, how the criticism and talk of one person can affect other people. There's a warning here for us as Christians. You can get critical, you can talk, and you will have a very far-reaching i- influence. I've seen a whole fellowship of Christians divide because a couple start talking and criticizing and finding fault. But Mary didn't care. She loved her Lord. She was going to express this appreciation to him from her heart. I think she loved him for what he'd done for her. She'd seen her brother die, and she'd seen Jesus stand outside the tomb, and she heard Jesus say, Lazarus, come forth. And she saw the one who was dead four days walk out of the tomb. And, uh, Mary loved the Lord for what he'd done for her. But she also loved him really for who he was. She appreciated him, his person, and she realized he was more than just a man. He said, I'm the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. So she appreciated, I think, what he had done, but even more she appreciated his person, the greatness, the wonderfulness of his person. She loved to remember to sit at his feet and hear his voice, hear his teachings. She appreciated Jesus. She valued Jesus. She thought very highly of Jesus. She said, I'll work three hundred days in order to show to him how much I care for him, about him. And, uh, the Lord appreciated it. And he still appreciates when we show our love, when we express our love to him. And sometimes people will belittle worship, and they'll say, ah, the important thing is need to be out witnessing, and you need to be giving out facts and so forth, and that's important. But it's also important that we value the person of the Lord Jesus, that we love him. Because if you don't love the Lord Jesus, I can say this to you, your Christianity will become very laborious and very humdrum, and uh, in time you'll want to get out of it. Because you don't love the Lord. It's like a man who's married to a woman, he doesn't love her, you know, he's thinking, I wish I could get out of this. And, uh, if you don't love the Lord Jesus, your Christianity is going to be a very bare and unhappy time. If you love the Lord, then I tell you, it's going to be a joyful relationship with the Lord. Mary loved the Lord, and she's a beautiful example for us. In the midst of a lot of hatred and plotting against him, here's this woman who is an example for us. She comes to the Lord, she says, I just want to show you how much I care for you, how much I appreciate you, how much I value you. Here I'm pouring this out, and everybody could smell the fragrance. Everyone knew she had done it. I hope that we realize that when we worship, when we praise the Lord, when we express our thanks to him, when we think about him, his death for us, his life for us, uh, it's important. It's important to him, but it's also important to us because we need our love for him to be deepened so that our Christianity is a happy, joyful experience. Because if you're loving the Lord, then it's going to be a joy to live for him. He says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. So Mary's a beautiful example. Now, immediately you have the contrast with Judas. After this, Judas goes out, and he goes to the chief priests, and he knows they'd like to get Jesus, they'd like to arrest him quietly. He says, I'll work with you guys for a price, and I'll show you, I'll lead you to him when the crowd isn't around. And they, uh, they said, uh, well, we'll give you thirty pieces of silver. They counted it out to it. It was the value of a slave, and uh, he uh, he agreed. So here the, the plot is being made. Judas, one of his own disciples, who's lived with him for over three years, who's seen the miracles, who's uh, heard the teaching he gave, has given, who, who knows him so well, yet doesn't know him at all, doesn't value him. That is so sad. So sad that someone could have lived with him those years and not come to appreciate him at all. I, you know, I'm amazed at how blinding sin can be, how blinding the devil can be to the sinner. You can be exposed to these things, you can hear these things, you can hear about the Lord, you can hear about his love, you can be with Christians, and then you see some who, with all of those advantages, turn away, and I think, how can you do it? How can you be so blind? How can you not open your heart to him and receive him and follow him? But that's what Judas did. The mystery, the mystery of unbelief and, uh, the hardness of the human heart. It's so sad. And I've seen some that, uh, I marveled at, that, uh, heard the gospel, who, uh, had godly parents who went to Bible school, and after all this exposure to the Lord and to his word, I've seen some turn away and reject it all. A mystery there. If you've accepted the Lord, you know, as your savior, you can say, well, thank you, Lord. I'm so grateful that I'm saved. So grateful that you've opened my eyes to really see the Lord. Well, Judas was a hypocrite. His life was focused on things, not God. Money. He said, money's more important to me than anything else. Money's so important to me, I'll steal. I'll steal from these men who are trusting me. They they live together like a family, a big family, and Judas says, I'm willing to steal from these, my own family. Sin is very, very blinding. The sinner can do crazy things. I've known people who are on drugs who steal from their own parents, steal from others. And here Judas is stealing, but all the time living a double. He's a hypocrite. He's got one face in front of the others, but he, his heart is very far from that. What a sad, sad picture. Judas. He's a, uh, his name is used as the ultimate of hypocrisy, really. He had no appreciation of the Lord Jesus. He, he just, you think, how could he sell Jesus for the price of a slave? Really, what he was saying, Jesus doesn't mean any more to me than a slave. He has no value to me. I don't appreciate his person. Judas did not really believe he was the Son of God. He didn't really believe he was the Savior. He, he rejected it all. He had no appreciation, really, of Jesus. Sad. And he heard his words, he saw him, he was with him. I want to read that verse in John eight verse twenty four because, uh, it's a strong v- verse. Jesus is speaking, and he says, I said to you, you'll die in your sins, for if you do not believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. Judas didn't believe that Jesus was he. He didn't believe he was God. He didn't believe he was the Son of God. He didn't believe that he was all he claimed to be. Judas simply did not believe, and he died in his sins. And Judas today is in hell. How sad. You know, Jesus went on to say this, that's, that's a strong thing to say. He says, you know, it'd be better for a person like that never to have been born. Would have been good for that man if he had not been born. Sad to say that about people, isn't it? If you reject the Lord, if you go your own way, if you end up in hell, you know, we would have to say with Jesus, you'd be better off never having been born. Too bad you were born. Too bad you ever lived to see the light of day. Too bad. It would have been better off if you had never been born than to be born, to live your life, to reject the Lord, and to end up in hell forever. That's strong, strong language. Be better for you if you'd never, never been born. How's that? That's what he said of Jews. The Lord then tells his disciples, get ready for the Passover, and, uh, the last part of this that we read, beginning with verse seventeen, he tells them, go and make preparations. Now, the Passover was this annual time in the spring when they remembered the great deliverance from Egypt. Time when they remembered how their blood was put on the side post and over the door, and when the Lord spared them, and when he led them out of Egypt in a powerful way. Really, their redemption, the redemption of Israel from slavery. So they remember it every year, they still remember Passover. And the Lord says, I want you to go and prepare now for the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Uh, see, the Feast of Unleavened Bread was a week that began with Passover and ran over for the whole week. Sometimes the whole feast was called Passover, including Unleavened Bread. Just, uh, it started with Passover and ran for a week. And the Unleavened Bread, of course, uh, reminding them of that time when they left in a hurry, they didn't have yeast in their bread. It was just flat bread, unleavened bread. So he says, go into the city, uh, and uh, you find this man, and you tell him the teacher says, and apparently he knew that Jesus was, and Jesus said, I want to use a room in your house. We're going to have the Passover there. So they go and they find it as he had told them, and they make things all ready. Must have had the lamb, they killed the lamb, uh, all things are prepared, they have the herbs, and the, the meal is ready to have. They sit down to the meal, and Jesus begins to talk about being betrayed. He says, one of you is going to betray me. That was a kind of a dark note, wasn't it? He'd been talking about his death, and here they are sitting around, eating the Passover meal, and it should be a time of joy for them because they're remembering this wonderful redemption, this wonderful salvation from Egypt. So it's a happy time for the Jews. But here the Lord begins to talk and say, you know, one of you is going to betray me. And they start talking, and they're wondering, looking at one another and saying, who could it be? Interesting that none of them apparently pointed to Judah, or they didn't all point to Judah and say, well, he's got to be the one. He was such a clever hypocrite. They really didn't know at the time. But here's this, this atmosphere now of, uh, uh, real wonder and concern because Jesus is talking about being betrayed, and he's been talking about dying, and uh, so they question him. And then when Judas que- questions him and says, is it I? Jesus says, you said it, and it was, and then Judas leaves and goes out and meets the rulers and uh, in time then leads them to where Jesus is. As they're eating, it says, he takes a loaf, and he says, I'm going to leave you a new remembrance. Here we're remembering this redemption from Egypt, but he says, I'm going to leave you a new remembrance, because there's going to be a new covenant. And he says, he takes a bread, and he says, this represents my body, because that's the force of it. His body was there. He obviously didn't mean you're going to eat me physically. He's saying, this bread represents my body. All of you eat of it. And then he takes the cup, and he passes it around. He says, all of you drink of it. This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. And so he left them this simple memorial time. Luke tells us that he, uh, told them, this do in remembrance of me. I'm dying, I'm gonna die tomorrow. I'm gonna leave you this. I want you to remember me. Don't forget me. Don't forget me. Don't forget the cost of your salvation. As you remembered the redemption from Egypt as a Jew, now as a Christian, remember your redemption from sin through the blood of Jesus. Don't forget me. This is the monument Christians have to remind us. You know, some time ago they put up a monument in Washington for the veterans of Vietnam, because a lot of those veterans say, were saying, we've been forgotten, and they're, they don't care about us. They don't care about the fact that over fifty thousand men died in Vietnam. We want a monument, a memorial, so they'll remember us. And recently they put up a monument to the Korean veterans, and there were over fifty thousand of those, I believe, too, that died. My younger brother fought in that war. And the veterans were saying, this has been kind of a forgotten war. We want a monument to remember us, and so they erected a monument in Washington to remember those veterans. Now, Jesus said to us as Christians, I don't want you putting up a material monument because, uh, all Christians all over the face of the world couldn't visit it, but this is going to be a spiritual monument, in a sense, one that Christians, wherever they meet, can erect, and by doing so, remind themselves of the greatest war of all time, the greatest sacrifice of all time, the death of the Lord Jesus himself. And Jesus said, this do and remember to me, don't forget me. Don't forget me. Don't forget my death. Don't forget the cost of your salvation. And so he, uh, asked us to remember him, left us his simple memorial, and he said, this do in remembrance of me. It's a very simple thing, a loaf, doesn't matter what kind of loaf it is. He doesn't say it's got to be whole wheat, doesn't say it has to be rye. You can use whatever. There are places in, uh, certain countries, Africa and so forth, where they don't even have wheat or bread like this. They use manioc, so they'll have a lump of manioc dough that they'll eat from. Doesn't matter the composition of it, it's what it represents. Some places they don't have grape juice, and they may use something else. The important thing is, here is a symbol to remind you and to encourage your love for him. So it's a chapter that's full of contrast. After this, they sing the hymn and they go out. He's going to be arrested, he's going to be hated, he's going to be abused, and he's going to die. And there's a little group of people that love him. Mary pictures those, the other disciples who were true to him picture that. And on the other side are those who hate him so desperately they wish to destroy him. And really, all of mankind can be divided into those two groups. Jesus said, he that is not for me is against me. And this morning, you know, as we hear the word of God and we look at our own hearts, we have to ask ourselves, do I love him? Am I for him? Or am I still among those who basically reject him and hate him? It's a wonderful thing to be saved and to love the Lord. Peter says, whom having not seen, you love. The mark of a real Christian. We love him because he first loved us. You don't love the Lord Jesus, you better ask yourself the question, have I ever met him? Have I ever trusted him?