Gooding, David: 7 - One Soul and Two Kingdoms—Chapter 17

So welcome once more to our Bible study this evening. This is the fourth and the last one in this particular series, and in these four we are studying the Gospel of Matthew and that part of the narrative that goes, uh, from the end of chapter thirteen to the end of chapter seventeen. And tonight we shall be concentrating our attention on chapter sixteen verse twenty one to the end of chapter seventeen. But before we read the passage, we have a little preliminary thinking to do. At the end of our session last week, you will remember, those of you who were here, that I raised the question of what the Bible means by the term soul. I invited people to admit if they had a soul, you see, and as far as I could see, most people admitted they did have a soul. And then I asked them, you see, to be ready to tell me where they kept it and what it was like anyway. I suspected that some of them, if not all of them, would say, my soul is saved. I hope every one of us can say that before God. The soul is saved. But then, of course, if we, uh, uh, uh, we rightly say that, but when we do, we should remember that our Lord, in his teaching about the soul, informed us that the way to keep it is to lose it. And that sounds a little bit contradictory, doesn't it? So first of all, I'd like us to think about what the New Testament means by the term. The term in the Greek language is psuche. Uh, you already know that bit of Greek, uh, you pronounce it every time you say the word psychology, which is the science of the psuche, the soul, do you see? But it's a word that in Greek has a number of connotations, different shades of meanings. So let me illustrate that for you first by asking you to read with me in Matthew's Gospel, this time in chapter two. um Matthew's Gospel, chapter two, verse nineteen. But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead that sought the young child's. Now, what did they seek? The Greek word is our word sukhe. Here, rightly, surely translated, life they sought the young child's life, and they were intent on killing him if they possibly could. So suke here refers to one's physical life. So then let's look at three John, the third epistle by John. And verse two. This is the writing of the elder unto Gaius, the beloved, whom, so he says, I love in truth. And now John prays, beloved, I pray that in all things thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy, and here we meet our word again, thy psuche prospers. So what does it mean here? In Matthew chapter two it meant your physical life, but here it stands in contrast, does it not, to one's physical life and physical health. I pray in all things thou mayest prosper and be in health. Presumably he means physically, even as thy soul prospers. What would you say that means? His emotional health, perhaps? Or, but then you'll tell me presently, won't you? Because you surely are expert in these, having a soul yourself, you must know what it is. And then there is Ephesians chapter six, do you see, that we ought to consider at this stage. Ephesians chapter six and verse six. And And Paul. Paul is here talking to servants, perhaps also slaves, but household servants anyway, telling them that they should work well for their masters. Verse six: not in the way of eye service, as men pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the... Well, lo and behold, that's our word suke again. So I hear a contribution here in his translation, apparently it's doing the will of God from the heart. This is very near our English usage, isn't it, when we say, put your heart and soul into it, man. What do you mean when you put your soul into something? Is that the same soul as you were telling me was saved just now, or what? Anyway, I provoke you, if not to love and good works, yet to do some thinking on what is meant by this term suke, and in particular when it is translated life or soul. Because now it becomes, uh, uh, very important operatively in the passage that we are to begin to study in Matthew chapter sixteen. We saw last week how, being challenged by Christ, Peter answered on behalf of all the other apostles and came out with a great confession. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And how Christ congratulated him, blessed art thou Simon, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And then our Lord announced that he would use Peter and his confession as the foundation upon which he would build his church. Later on in scripture, in that same epistle to the Ephesians, Paul remarks that the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Our Lord told Peter, likewise, that he would give him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and in the Acts of the Apostles, Peter is shown to exercise the power of the keys when on the day of Pentecost he was a f- the first of the apostles to preach the gospel to the Jew and to tell them how they might enter into the kingdom of God. And then again, he was the apostle officially appointed to bring the gospel to the Gentiles in the person of Cornelius, the Roman centurion, and was, uh, the instrument under God of leading Cornelius, the Gentile, to faith in the Lord Jesus. But after that, from verse twenty one onward, our Lord began to teach them, to show them how he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed the third, uh, uh, uh, and be killed, and the third day be raised up. And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall never be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art a stumbling block unto me, for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever would save his psuche. Whoever would save his, in my version translated, life shall lose it. And whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what shall a man be profited if he shall gain the whole world and forfeit his psuche. How would you translate it here? What shall it profit a man if he gained the whole world and forfeit his... My translation here says life. Others read soul, do they not? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then shall he render unto every man according to his deeds. Verily I say unto you, there be some of them that stand here which shall in no wise taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Now I suspect I have a duty to let you all know what my personal belief is when it comes to man's constitution. There are those who teach that man is simply nothing more than physics. Professor John, uh, Polkinghorne of Cambridge, who believes in our blessed Lord, believes in the physical resurrection of believers when the Lord comes again, nevertheless holds, he being a mathematical physicist, that man is nothing but physics. And many evangelicals, to my knowledge, that used to hold differently have now abandoned faith, uh, uh, uh, a belief in the soul, and have gone round to the view that man is nothing but physics. There are others that say that man is a bipartite, that is, he's made up of two things, body and soul. Mm-hmm. And that the soul is immortal, whereas the body is subject to death. Now, it is a very interesting thing. Yeah? The scripture does teach that b- uh, the life, death is not the end of everything. People live on. You'll see. But the phrase the immortal soul is nowhere found in Holy Scripture. It came into Christian theology from the philosopher, the Greek philosopher, Plato, who wrote a great dialogue with Socrates on the immortality of the soul. Plato and Socrates believed the soul was immortal, and from their writings it has come into Christian theology to express the idea that the soul lives on after physical death. That, of course, is true, isn't it? Death isn't the end. When our Lord said to the dying thief, in answer to his request, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. When our Lord answered him, he said, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. He didn't just say, did he, today thy soul will be with me in paradise. He said, today thou shalt be with me in paradise. The real you. I like that business myself. I don't sort of, um, warm to a notion of being a disembodied soul somehow. But anyway, that's apart from my preferences. Let's hear what elsewhere is said. When Paul is talking to the Philippians, he says, you know, I have a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, but considering your need, I think I shall stay for a while in the body yet. Notice his phrase. I have a depart- I have a desire to depart and be with Christ. I shall be with Christ. Not simply my soul will be with Christ. I shall be with Christ. And in two Corinthians chapter five, the classic statement on this matter, Paul uses the illustration of, say, a businessman who normally lives in a house in Belfast, but has to go away on business sometimes to six for six months to America. So poor man, or shall I say happy man, i- in America, you'll see he is, um, away from home in America. As long as he's there, he's away from home. When he comes back, he's at home. The Greek has special words for this. And so Paul says, while we're in the body, we are not at home with the Lord. But absent from the body, we, notice the phrase still, it's consistent, not where our soul is with the Lord, absent from the body, we are with the Lord. That is the terminology, then, of the New Testament. There are those who say that man is tripartite, that is, he's three parts. So, yes, perhaps you are more complicated than you think you are. Who knows, do you see? Those who say man is merely two parts, say that the things that are said about the soul in the Bible are equally said about the spirit of a man, of a person. Do you see? And therefore, soul and spirit are alternative words for the same thing. I doubt it myself. There are person phrases in the New Testament where you cannot possibly substitute soul for spirit. Said our Lord talking to the Samaritan woman, God is... What is God? God is soul? No, no. God is spirit. Hebrews talks of the spirits of just men made perfect, and so forth and so on. And I say that just to put you in the clear, otherwise you might be wondering for the rest of this session, what does the man believe himself? He seems to have got it all so complicated. So yes, I do believe man is three parts. And you say to me, my soul is saved. Well, hallelujah for that. Your soul is saved. And if you have trusted in Christ, yes, your soul is saved. But I come back to my question. What is it? It's saved, you say? Well, what is it then? What is this thing of yours? Some sort of shadowy you? Well, it of course is part your life, isn't it? Suke does mean life. And if your soul is part of you, we are to remember it has a time element in it. You, you, you aware that you were born with a soul, yes? And you've had this soul for uh sixty seven years or something? And it's the same soul? It has a time element in it, hasn't it? And do you know what? You can't keep it in a box. That element of soul you have to spend, don't you? You have to spend your life. And it's not so just your physical life, is it? When you work for the Lord and you do it out of your soul, and you put your heart and your soul into it. What do you mean you put your soul into it? When you say that, that means really meaning business. It means putting everything you've got into it. You know, your energies, your time, your talent, your ingenuity. Yes. It's funny that, isn't it? Because you have to spend it. Your love is part of your soul, and when you serve the Lord out of your soul, you do it out of love, and this is an outpouring of your love for the Lord. Notice it? You have to spend your love. You can't keep it in a box, can you? It becomes of vast importance, therefore, what you spend it on, doesn't it? And perhaps that's enough said to begin to indicate to us why Peter found it so shocking when the Lord Jesus, whom Peter had just confessed to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, said he was going up to Jerusalem and going to be rejected by the authorities there and be crucified, dead and buried. Oh no, says Peter. Lord, come now. You need to get that kind of idea out of your head, really, Lord. You see, you're not going to be rejected, Lord. If you get that idea into your head, yeah, yeah, yeah, you you'll be a failure. You want to do, learn the power of positive thinking. You want to say to yourself, I'm going to Jerusalem, I shall be a success, I shall be a success, I shall be a success, and everybody will accept me. You don't want to say this business about being rejected. And our Lord rebuked him, didn't he? And said to Peter, in the gorgeous language of the Authorized Version, thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men, or you mindest the things that be of men, not of those of God. In other words, there's something very wrong with your thinking, Peter. But I can understand Peter, can't you? Because he'd come to believe in the Lord, a year and a half ago it was. And in the end, at P- at the Lord's call, he had abandoned his work, left his nets, and whether it's commendable or not, he'd left even his wife behind and traveled with the Lord, uh, uh, uh, around and went on the preaching tours for Christ, put his energy into it, his time and his money. He'd invested a whole lot of his very soul in Christ and his work. And if Christ was going to be rejected, and as far as Peter could see, everything he'd invested in Christ was going down the drain, lost. No, no, he said to Christ, you, you must get that idea out of your head. You're going to be a success, of course. So our Lord had to tell him and the fellow disciples, the fellow apostles, these basic principles. If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever would save his, we'll translate it life here if you wish, shall lose it. But you might as well translate it soul. For whosoever would save his soul shall lose it. And whosoever shall lose his soul, his life for my sake, shall find it. If you translate it life, then you think perhaps in terms of the martyrs who lay down their life for Christ's sake. And if in loyalty to him they lay their life down, theirs shall be nonetheless a life eternal. But it's true in the sense of soul, isn't it? I want to keep my love for myself. I want to spend it on myself. My energy in my own interests. My career for my own interests. And I hesitate to obey the Christ, the call of Christ, to spend it for him. Not to abandon my career, but to spend my career for him. To spend my love, my energies, my time, my talent. To invest it in him. If we do it, as far as the world counts it, we've wasted our time. Some friend of yours asks you tomorrow with a superior voice, um, what, how did you spend the evening? Did you go to a beautiful show? No? You didn't? Well, perhaps you prefer orchestra. Oh, you didn't go to that either, no? Well, what did you do? I went to a prayer meeting. What a waste of time. As the world counts it. You've lost it. And says our Lord, you prepare to lose your life, my s- your soul for my sake, you shall find it. For what shall a man be profited if he gain the whole world and lose his life, his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Now that must have been a conundrum and difficult to understand for the apostles, surely. How can you make sense of it? So the Lord in his mercy gave them a vision, and that is recorded in chapter seventeen. It was a vision of the coming of the Son of Man. Listen to our Lord's introductory words. For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then shall he render unto every man according to his deeds. So then he says, there shall some, there be some of them that stand here which shall in no wise taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. What he was going to show them in this vision was this. There are two worlds. There are two ages, to use the biblical term. If you live simply for this age, what you have invested in this age is finally lost. If you invest your life in that other age, you keep it. Now I have just said that when our Lord pointed out there be some of you that shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom, I have suggested to you that he was referring to the experience he would give them after six days on the Mount of Transfiguration. Now I ought to pause, I suppose, because many serious Bible students s- would say I'm not correct there, you see, and that could well be what chances are, I think, in the majority that I'm not correct. But anyway, let me argue the case. And they say it couldn't possibly refer to, uh, what they saw, uh, six days later. But co- why couldn't it? Well, they said, listen to what the Lord is saying. He says, there's some of you standing here that will not taste of death until you see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom, and you say that was only six days later? What would you think if I said there's some of you sitting here tonight that shall not taste of death, uh, uh, and until you see next Saturday week? You would say that's a very funny statement, isn't it? We're all so ill, uh, and so old that there'd be some of you that's, uh, that sit here tonight, you'll not taste of death until the end of next week. Before the end of next week. They say our Lord could not possibly have been referring to the experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. They would see the Kingdom of God come. Perhaps he was referring to the coming of the Kingdom of God on the day of Pentecost or something like it, uh, uh, and they would live to see it. I personally think, as I have told you, that our Lord was referring to the coming of the kingdom of God in the vision that he gave them up on the Mount of Transfiguration. For when they came down from the mountain, he told them not to tell the vision to anyone. Then what did they see? The story of the Transfiguration is told us three times over in the Gospels, and once in the epistles in two Peter chapter one. Each of the Gospels has a different emphasis as he tells the same story. Matthew's version of it is this, that what they saw was the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. For our Lord had just announced in verse twenty seven, for the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels. Now they were given a vision of it. Come with me up that mountain, would you? Ooh. Look there. Wow. They saw the Lord transfigured. His face like the very sun. And just as the planets all go around the sun, so they saw our Lord's face shining with unearthly glory, he the center of the whole universe. It's what it will be like when the Lord comes in the glory of his Father and with the holy angels, the epiphany, the manifestation of our blessed Lord in glory. Oh, what a sight it will be. By calling it a vision, it was not meant to indicate it's an insubstantial thing. What they were given to see is a foreview of that coming great Reality. reality. Oh, look there. There appeared Moses. Uh, Moses and Elijah. Well, how could they both be there at once? I mean, Moses lived centuries before Elijah, didn't he? Yes, and there was that other interesting thing about those two gentlemen. The one died and was buried, though nobody knew where he was buried. The other went to heaven without dying. But now the centuries are obliterated. There, in the coming kingdom of God, Moses and Elijah stand together. Together. Peter, he began to enjoy this. Lord, he said, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. It was well meant, but an inapposite suggestion. And as he said it, a bright cloud overshadowed them. They didn't need to be told what it was. It was not a rain cloud. It was the cloud betokening the very presence of Almighty God. Such as in olden times came down when Moses erected the temp- the tabernacle and filled the tabernacle so that the priests were unable to go in. So it was. And in the cloud of the divine presence, there came a voice. This is my beloved son. Listen to him, Peter, and the rest of you. It set up a contrast, didn't it? Down here, the Pharisees were saying to Peter, look here, old chap, don't be a fool. You're investing your life, your soul, your talents, your time, your energies. You invest them in this Jesus. Now let's tell you, we don't like your Jesus. And if he's not careful, we're going to have him crucified anyway, Peter. Don't listen to him, man. And there was his voice out of the cloud saying, Peter, this is my beloved son. Listen to him, Peter. That voice, those two conflicting voices, we still hear, don't we? As the world says, live for this age. Live for your own soul. The voice of Almighty God saying, this is my son, listen to him. You can't do both. This then is the lesson that our Lord taught when Peter made his sad mistake and told the Lord, no indeed, Lord, you're not going to be rejected. You're going to be a great success. You must abandon those ideas of being crucified and thrown out. Our Lord used the occasion to teach Peter the question of the saving and the losing of the soul, of the life. Now let me turn aside and point out an interesting fact about the apostles. When you come to Paul's writings, Paul will not talk to you about the saving of the soul. Largely, he will talk about being justified by faith. Marvelous part of the gospel, isn't it? Being justified by faith with peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. When you come to the writings of John, he will very rarely talk to you about being justified by faith. He will say that when you believe in Christ, you, Christ can give you eternal. For that you must be born again, of course. But the result of being born again is to have eternal life. Well, Paul believes in it, it's just that he doesn't emphasize that part of salvation, uh, like, uh, John does. And when you come to Peter, what do you suppose Peter talks about? Well, shall we have a look? Yeah. That might be an idea, mightn't it? This is First Peter. Do see. And this is first Peter chapter one. And he says, verse six, wherein you greatly rejoiced, though now for a little while, if need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold temptations. That the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold that perishes, though it is proved by fire, might be found unto praise and glory and honor at the appearing of the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom not having seen you love, on whom, though now you see him not, yet believing, rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith even the salvation of your soul. Look at verse twenty two of that same chapter. Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth and to unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from the heart fervently. Or look at chapter two and verse twenty five. For you were going astray like sheep, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. And let's look at chapter four, verse nineteen. Wherefore let them also that suffer according to the will of God commit their souls in well-doing unto a faithful creator. It's surely no wonder that when Peter comes to write his letter, that aspect of salvation that he gives prominent emphasis to is not so much eternal life or justification by faith, though he believes in both of them, but the salvation of the soul, salvation of the life. Watch how he does it. Now he says, you have purified your souls, uh, by being born again. You have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth, unto unfeigned love of the brethren. Love therefore one another from the heart fervently. I sometimes feel like saying to Peter, Peter, my boy, you tell me to love the, my brothers and sisters. Peter, do you happen to know my brothers and sisters? Huh. Hmm. Because I got friends, they're not Christians, and they're delightful souls, you see. Very colorful and very gifted, you see, Peter. I could find it easy to love them, but my brothers and sisters, difficult. Why, why now should I love them and spend all my love on them? And Peter says, well, you see, this is the reason you should, having been begotten again of corruptible seed and not of incorruptible. Uh, sorry, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and abides forever. They're going to last, my boy, says Peter. Why should I love my brethren? Why should I pour out my love and my energies for them? Why? They're going to last. Eternally. And every bit of love and energy I spend on them, though I spend it, I shall keep it. Unto life eternal. Whereas the world, all flesh is like grass, flowers beautiful, but they fade and are gone. And in the wrong sense of the term world, what I spend on the world, okay, but it's lost. You don't get it back. Yes. An example, therefore, of how Peter talks to us about the use of our soul, the spending of our love, and how we should wisely spend it. It's like I imagine it of a young child, four or five, and Uncle Sam, as Uncle Sams do from America, he sent this child fifty dollars for his birthday. And so mother has the job of going down to the toy shop, you see, to help the child spend the fifty dollars. Now there's a thing at the front of the toy shop there, and it's all beautiful colors, and the child is keen on that. Mother can see that it's made of cheap old plastic, and the child's only got to sit down on top of it and stumble, and it will be broken to pieces. So mother tries to then urge the child, don't spend it on that. Spend it on this over here, but this over here is a good substantial toy. It's painted a sort of a brownie color, and a child doesn't find that, that doesn't look attractive, you'll see. Spend it on that, she says, but that's going to last and will give you a d- uh, enormous satisfaction. Now, says Peter, when you were unconverted, you were like sheep going astray, not knowing how to develop themselves for the best. That's how sheep are, you know. They need a shepherd to be stand beside them so as to bring out all their qualities and so forth. You were a sheep going astray, but you have now returned to the shepherd and bishop of your soul. The lovely thing that is, isn't it? As I have to spend my soul, I can't keep it. I've got to spend it. My love, my time, my energy, my career. As I spend it and have to choose what I'm going to spend it on, I have beside me the shepherd and bishop overseer of my soul. And he's saying, Mary, John, don't spend your soul on that. It's not going to last. Spend it on this. It's going to last, is this. The lesson, therefore, in Matthew of the Transfiguration. And when our Lord came down the mountain, so chapter seventeen of Matthew tells us, there came to him a father, pleading with the Lord Jesus to heal his son. It's verse fourteen of chapter seventeen that takes up the story. And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a man kneeling to him and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is epileptic and suffers grievously, for often he falls into the fire and often into the water, and I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. And Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out from him, and the boy was cured from that very hour. Shall we notice the particular illness from which the lad was suffering. It's Matthew that tells us that he was, so our modern translations have it, epileptic. The Greek word means moonstruck, solani adzamai, which the Latin translates as lunatic. Lunatic, as you know, means moonstruck. The ancient had the notion that the the moon could affect your brain, do you see? And then it came to be used of mental disorder, of brain disorder, and so forth and so on. So this lad was epileptic, if you like, had a brain disorder. His thinking wasn't altogether under control. The result was he didn't intend to destroy himself, but he would fall into the fire, nearly destroy himself, you know, or he would fall into the water and nearly drown because his brain wasn't working properly. And you know, as we read the story, I think we feel Peter nudging us in the ribs. And he says, you know what? Did you listen to that? What was wrong with that boy? Something wrong with his mind, you know. Mm-hmm. He said, do you remember what our Lord said to me before I went up the mountain? He said, Peter, you something wrong with your mind. You mind the things that are of men and not the things that are of God. And with that mindset, Peter was in danger, wasn't he, of suffering eternal loss. So the exhortation of the passage reminds us to climb the mountain, doesn't Doesn't it? it? That God by his spirit will make re- real to us the vision of what shall yet be, the Son of Man coming in his glory, in his kingdom. Then shall he administer to each person according as their works deserve. Writing from prison, very soon to be executed, Paul says to Timothy in two Timothy chapter four— well, in chapter one, all that are in Asia have turned away from me. I wonder why they did it. That great church at Ephesus, where Paul spent three years systematically teaching the word of God. How had they soon turned from Paul? Do they think perhaps he was an extremist? Going up to Jerusalem and then to Rome to witness for the Lord or something? But the sadder note is this. Demas, he says, has forsaken me, having loved this present age. Age. Oh dear. However, says Paul, fight the good fight of faith, Timothy. I'm ready to be offered. I'm going in for the crown which the righteous judge, the Lord, shall give me in that day, and not only to me, but to all those that have loved his appearing. God help us to keep our eyes on that coming appearing. To see the Lord Jesus, his face shining as the sun, the center of the universe. Come to reward his faithful servants. And to execute the judgments of God. On a sinful world. What motivation have we got to do it? The end of this chapter tells us a small story. I think on a previous night we thought about it. Let's think about it again as we close. When they got in the house, they came to Peter, the men that received the temple tax. And they said, does not your master pay tax? And Peter, without thinking, said, oh yes, of course he pays the tax. Now this was a tax that probably originated when the tabernacle was built, and God said that at the census, everybody that was recorded in the census lists should pay half a shekel as a ransom for his soul, and the money should be put to the upkeep of the tabernacle. As the years went by, it was extended and made among the Jews into a yearly contribution to the temple. So that when they came to Peter and said, doesn't your master pay tax? It was a tax for the temple that originally had been the ransom money. Does your master pay tax? Without thinking, Peter said yes. But when he was coming to the house, our Lord said to Peter, Peter, as a matter of interest, tell me this. Of whom do the kings of the earth take taxes? Of their children, of their sons and daughters, or of strangers? And Peter said, well, of course, of of strangers, not their sons and daughters. So then the sons are are free then, they don't have to pay tax. Yes. Our Lord didn't have to pay tax to keep the temple going. It was his father's house. He didn't have to pay any ransom money. He never needed to be redeemed. But lest we offend this generation, said he. You see, if he had refused to pay the temple tax, the crowd wouldn't have understood why he refused to pay it, and they could be stumbled. So in case we stumble this generation, go to the sea, said he, cast in your line, and the fish that comes up first, you'll find in its mouth enough money. So Peter did, enough to pay for Christ and Peter. What right has Christ to govern and guide how I spend my soul? Well, he bought it, didn't he? Didn't he pay the ransom money? To buy my soul. And as the one who bought it, paid for it, he now comes graciously by our side to guide our spending of our souls. So may God help us to understand and to put into practice the lesson that we are here taught. Shall we pray? Lord, these are serious lessons, but along with them, thou dost show us glorious things. And for the certain hope, blessed Lord Jesus, that one day we shall see him, we shall see thee descend from the sky, coming for us, in the glory of the Father and with thy holy angels. We bless thee for the assurance that when we see thee, we shall be with thee and be like thee, for we shall see thee as thou art. Help us, however, deliberately to serve thee and seek thy grace and constant guidance, that we may spend our redeemed souls for thee and for thine interest and for thy people, and for thy purposes in this world. Whatever loss it may involve, we thank thee, Lord, shall be consum- uh, compensated for a thousand times and more, over and again, in thy coming kingdom. Hence, make that coming kingdom a reality in our hearts, we pray, and give us the grace to invest our souls accordingly. We ask it for thy name's sake. Amen.