Jesus is Meek, Not Weak explores Matthew 12:14-21, where Christ heals a withered hand on the Sabbath, provoking Pharisaic conspiracy born of self-righteousness rather than theological disagreement. The speaker argues this malice spans political spectrums, noting that true meekness is reserved for the "bruised reed" while divine wrath consumes enemies. By withdrawing temporarily to protect followers yet continuing healing, Jesus demonstrates wisdom over cowardice. Ultimately, referencing Romans 1:16, the sermon asserts God's redemptive plan flows from Jews to Gentiles, bringing hope to all nations through this paradox of gentle mercy and consuming fire. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Conspiring Against Jesus00:15:33
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Let's stand for the reading of God's Word.
We're continuing our series through the Gospel according to Matthew.
Our text for today is Matthew chapter 12.
Verses 14 through 21.
Again, that's Matthew chapter 12, verses 14 through 21.
I'll read our text for us in its entirety.
When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
One final time, our text for today is the gospel according to Matthew chapter 12, verses 14 through 21.
The Bible says this.
Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there, and many followed him, and he healed them all, and ordered them not to make him known.
This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah Behold, my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will any one hear his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break.
And a smoldering wick he will not quench until he brings justice to victory.
And in his name, the Gentiles will hope.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated.
Let's go ahead and dive right in.
The first phrase that I want us to focus our attention on is as follows But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him how to destroy him.
Jesus, in light of that, aware of their plot, Withdrew from there.
If you were with us last Lord's Day, the most immediate thing that we see Jesus doing right before this phrase that the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him, the prior action of Jesus that provoked this anger and malice within the Pharisees was that he healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath.
And I think that this is significant.
What causes the Pharisees in this instance?
And there are several throughout the gospel narratives.
But in this particular instance, what causes the Pharisees to be stirred up with malice, contempt, and hatred towards Christ to the point that they are now conspiring and plotting how they might kill him and destroy him is not a particular sermon that he preached, although they were certainly angry at his teachings and his words.
And it's not because he trapped them in some kind of word game.
Or publicly humiliated them by being able to get the best of them when they tried to accuse him or trap him.
There's some element of that.
But the most immediate prior action on the part of Christ that leads into the first words of our text today that the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him, is Jesus' healing of a man who was suffering with a physical condition.
On the Sabbath.
In other words, what roused these Jewish Pharisees to immense hatred to the point of wanting to kill Christ was not truth, although they're angry with that,
and not necessarily his own holiness, the fact that they could not pin him with any particular sin, although Christ, of course, is perfectly holy, but rather what made them so angry in this instance is chiefly.
His mercy.
Imagine that for a moment.
I mean, there are plenty of people that were angry with Jesus throughout the course of his earthly ministry.
There are plenty of people who are angry with Jesus today.
That hasn't changed.
But in this instance, these particular men are most angry with Jesus because of his mercy.
Not because of an offensive sermon, not because he publicly humiliated them, but because he chose to heal someone.
Someone is physically suffering, and Jesus chose to alleviate that man's suffering.
And the immediate, instinctive action or reaction of these Pharisees is pure malice and hatred to the point of conspiring to find a way to end Jesus' life.
I've written in your notes the following No sooner does Christ heal and do good than the Pharisees conspire to destroy him.
Herein is shown the depth of man's depravity, that the light of the world is hated not for his iniquity, that is his sin, for there is none in Christ, but for his holiness, yes, his truth, yes, and perhaps most of all, his mercy.
The Pharisees hated mercy.
They hated mercy.
And I have found, and I think that it's true, both experience and the scripture.
That there is a particular type of person still to this day who hates mercy.
And it is the type of person who is confident in and of himself that he has no need of mercy.
That's the only person who gets angry at the mercy of Christ.
It's the person who's convinced that he has no need of the mercy of Christ.
It is the self righteous individual, the person that believes that they're righteous of their own accord.
And it's important that we keep in mind that there's no particular group of people based off of culture or based off of religion or based off of political affiliation that somehow has attained a monopoly on self righteousness.
I remember, you know, when I was younger, I would hear Christians speak about the church, speak about fellow Christians as though Christians were the only ones who were vulnerable or susceptible.
To self righteousness.
But that's not true.
There is a leftist self righteousness.
It is alive and well.
It exists.
To think that conservative Christians somehow have an exclusive monopoly on the sin of self righteousness is naive at best and perhaps even deceptive at worst.
That's not the case.
You can be self righteous.
By your virtues that tend towards conservatism, or you can be self righteous by your perceived virtues, your pseudo virtues that are far more liberal.
The person who's living in Seattle or San Francisco, who has no children, but a plethora of cats and maybe a few dogs that are about the size of a cat that they can carry conveniently in a purse, and who gives money towards the environment and these kinds of things, that person is self righteous.
They are.
They're just attaining this illusion.
A perception of their own self righteousness through a separate avenue.
But it is self righteousness.
It is self righteousness.
Going on in your notes, I've written this Yet Christ is not surprised by this rejection of the Pharisees.
It was foreknown and ordained by his Father.
Jesus fully knew that the opposition of the wicked does not in any way frustrate the counsel and plans of God.
Therefore, Christ withdrew.
Not in fear, but in wisdom, for he knew that his hour had not yet come.
All right, so the first phrase that we find in our text today is that the Pharisees went out, immediately conspired against Jesus, seeking to kill him, to destroy him.
What is immediately prior to that statement?
What is it that stirs him up to such anger and malice?
His mercy.
He healed someone.
There's a guy who's in pain.
Jesus alleviates the pain and the natural instinctive reaction of the Pharisees is there was a guy hurting, now he's not hurting, so we're mad.
That's the type of person that we're talking about.
These are Jesus' enemies.
His enemies are those who don't just hate him, but they hate this man with a withered hand.
They hate those who are suffering.
They hate the lost sheep of Israel who are longing for a shepherd.
They don't just hate Jesus.
For Jesus' sake, they hate Jesus because he stands as a blessing and a provision and a benefit to all these other people that they had bound with many burdens, that they had sought to oppress and cause to suffer.
These are malicious men.
They're not just ignorant men or deceived men, they are malicious men.
They're not just enemies of Jesus, but these Pharisees were enemies of all mankind.
They hated to see someone in pain alleviated and blessed by the Son of God.
And they hated it so much that their instinctive thought, immediate reaction, is we have to kill Christ.
But Jesus is not surprised, and his response is something that we can learn from.
Verse 15, Jesus, aware of this, aware of what?
That the Pharisees are now conspiring to kill him.
And Jesus, being aware of this, Withdrew from there, and many followed him, and he healed them all.
So, Jesus' response, I think we could argue, is twofold.
On the one hand, it's not a response of cowardice.
Jesus heals a man who's suffering.
He knows, right?
So, it's not like they're conspiring in secret.
They probably were, but their secret conspiring is not outside of the God man's purview.
Jesus is perfectly aware of their plots, of their schemes, of their plans.
So, it's not that Jesus goes on doing what he's doing because he's blissfully unaware.
Jesus is perfectly aware that he just healed a man and that now his enemies, in direct response to that, are conspiring to kill him.
And not in cowardice, but rather in courage, Jesus says, You want to kill me because I just did this thing?
Well, I'm going to go and do that thing even more.
You want me to stop?
I'm going to do it even harder.
That's the response of Christ.
He withdrew from there, but look, It goes on, verse 15 many followed him, and he healed them all.
You're mad because I healed someone.
I'm going to heal even more.
And yet, I don't want us to just focus on the latter portion of verse 15.
The former, the first part of that verse, is significant as well.
He did continue doing what the Father sent him to do in courage.
But he also withdrew from that particular region.
So that he might be able to continue ministering longer.
He knew that it was not yet his time.
So he was faithful and not a coward, but he was also shrewd, wise, and not foolish.
And not just for his own sake.
All right, I'm reading into the text a bit here.
I'm not going to say that this is the explicit exegesis, but I think it's an implicit, plausible inference.
Okay?
A plausible inference from the text.
Here it is Jesus, aware of this, that they're conspiring to kill him, withdrew from there and many followed him.
I think that it's possible that in the mind of the God man, part of his withdrawal was not only for his own sake so that he could continue to publicly minister longer because he knew that his time had not yet come, but it was also for the sake of those following him.
He withdrew from there and those following him also withdrew with him.
He knew if I get out of this place where the targeted enmity is most severe and most hostile, these people that I care for will also naturally follow me and remove themselves from danger.
And I think that there is a principle there when it comes to leadership that it's not just you against the world, but there are people following you.
If you are a husband, if you are a father, if you're an employer, whatever your station in life, especially for those of you who are men and heads of households, there is a principle, there is an element in which you need to be courageous and uncompromising, but also shrewd and wise.
And there are times where you can press and then withdraw.
And have those under your care withdraw with you so that they don't become unnecessarily vulnerable to hostile attacks.
And then, having withdrawn for a time, then press back in.
And we see this in the ministry of Jesus on multiple occasions.
He'll be somewhere, he'll do good works, he'll preach truth, and enmity will be stirred up against him.
And then he'll withdraw.
But in the final analysis, Jesus, against even the counsel of others, namely his disciples, when it's time, when he knows that the time is near, he goes into the fray rather than further away.
Withdrawal From Comfort00:12:43
He goes into Jerusalem even when his disciples are begging him not to.
Don't go to Jerusalem.
That's where it's hottest.
That's where there's the most fearsome, concentrated energy.
Hatred against you.
If you go to Jerusalem, you'll be a sitting duck.
You'll be vulnerable.
You'll die.
To which, when it is his time, he responds by saying, Can a prophet be put to death, killed anywhere but Jerusalem?
Jerusalem is the place that kills the prophets.
It's a long, rich tradition, and most importantly, it has been prophesied.
And scripture must be fulfilled.
Jesus is not on a suicide mission.
He's not.
He is seeking to be wholly obedient to his Father, to fulfill every dot, every iota of Scripture, and that which was prophesied in regards to him.
And so when he appears to be foolish, he's being subject to the Father and courageous.
And when he appears, if we're not careful, And our own fallible perception when he appears to be cowardly, withdrawing, he is not.
He's been timely, he's been shrewd, he's been wise.
And not only for his own sake, because it was not yet his time, but for the sake of others who would follow him.
And he knew they would follow him out of danger and live to see another day.
Not for the sake of perpetual comfort, though.
And we have to understand the difference because if not, it's easy to use the wisdom of Christ as a euphemism for our own cowardice.
Jesus is not doing this for his own comfort and he's not doing it for the perpetual, indefinite comfort of his followers.
Because this is the same Jesus who even said that Peter one day, his arms would be stretched out, that he would be led away to a place where he does not want to go.
He was predicting his own disciples' martyrdom.
That he would be put to death.
And in that instance, Jesus does not say, Hey, run, hide.
This is going to happen, but here's how you can avoid it.
He gives him no such counsel because it's the will of God.
So, this is Jesus who leads his followers out of harm's way and yet also commissions them and commands them to do that which later on will lend towards their own death.
So, Jesus is not.
Protecting his people so that we can be comfortable throughout the entire course of our lives just for comfort's sake.
Everything is for the kingdom of God.
Seek first these things, higher things, heavenly things, and everything else that you need that is necessary in God's purview will be added unto you.
There are times to lay low, there are times to be wise, and there are also times where we go into the fray knowing.
Knowing that it would lend towards our own death.
And the determinative factor between the two is ultimately the providence and will of God.
It's not something that we decide in our own wisdom.
And it's not something that we do for our own comfort.
It's something that we do to the best of our ability as we're seeking to co discern with others who we believe are spiritually mature.
And the whole end, you have to have the goal, the aim in mind.
The ultimate aim is how can I use the life that God has given me, the resources that He's provided, to bring about the most optimal glory for God possible?
Possible?
How can I minister the most possible?
How can I be the most effective?
How can I put the most damage to the gates of hell possible with a feeble, fragile, temporary life that God has graciously given me?
And that seems to be the mind of Christ.
And we should seek to have that mind ourselves.
How can I be wise but not a coward?
How can I be courageous but not a fool?
How can I get longevity in my ministry but not longevity to the point where my ministry becomes impotent?
Who cares if you minister for 50 years but your ministry is not a threat?
So you want a ministry that is a threat, that's potent, but you also don't want to be a flash in the pan unless God has made that explicitly clear.
And especially as fathers and husbands, you're not just looking to get out of harm's way temporarily so that you can rally another attack yourself, but you're also looking to those who you lead.
Jesus withdrew, those he was leading followed him.
It secured their safety for the necessary time as he rallied his attack to go back into the belly of the beast, Babylon, namely Jerusalem, when it was time.
When it was time.
And even when he withdrew, notice his withdrawing is not, it's withdrawing from the place where the attack was the hottest, but it's not a withdrawal of compromise.
Jesus doesn't withdraw in the sense that he goes and gets a cabin and stops preaching and stops healing and stops ministering.
No, he continues to do the very thing that put a target on his chest, that rallied the malice and anger of the Pharisees to begin with.
He's still healing, he's still preaching.
He's still ministering, but he moves his vicinity slightly, temporarily, so that the heat might die down in the targeted region where it's hottest, so that he can get longevity in his ministry according to the fulfillment of Scripture, and so that his followers might have relief and be alleviated because it wasn't their time either.
And all this, I admit, requires immense wisdom.
Much of the wisdom and discernment required for us in our own lives, with our families, with our ministries, be they formal or organic, much of this wisdom and discernment is significant.
And so we must lean on God and rely on the Lord and rely on others that we value and trust as we seek to be faithful.
So the first point of the text that we see today is the malice of man.
The second is Is the meekness of Christ.
The text says, He will not quarrel or cry aloud.
This is Isaiah prophesying, and Christ now being a fulfillment of this.
He will not quarrel or cry aloud.
A bruised reed he will not break.
In your notes, I've written this.
Here is a picture of Christ, not as one who is weak, but one who is meek.
He is full of mercy for the weak, the faint hearted.
And the broken.
Who are those who are like a bruised reed or a smoldering wick?
Those who are weak and faint hearted and the broken?
It is those who are weary by their sin.
Jesus is meek, but he is meekness to one and simultaneously a consuming fire to another.
It is not as though Jesus is only meek and that he is meek universally across the board.
That's not what the text is referring to.
His meekness is propelled toward the bruised reed and the smoldering wick.
His meekness is not toward the Pharisees, it's not toward his enemies.
His meekness is for you, his meekness is for his disciples, his followers.
And again, what does it mean to be a bruised reed or a smoldering wick?
If it were to be defined by one particular characteristic, it would be this the acknowledgement of your own sin and a hatred and weariness and holy misery over your own sin.
You see your sin, acknowledge your sin, and hate your sin.
For that man or woman or child, Christ Jesus in his earthly ministry and still the spirit of the risen Christ to this very day is meek.
He is meekness toward the sinner, the sinner who acknowledges he is a sinner and who is miserable with his sin.
He is not meek towards his enemies.
He will consume them as a fire.
And when he finally appears in his final physical return, He will be nothing but destruction to all his enemies.
The difference is self righteous or self aware.
Awareness of sin, brokenness over sin, and not just as I preached a couple weeks ago, brokenness over the sin of the world or brokenness over the sin of others, but an awareness and brokenness over your own sin.
Going on in your notes, I've written this.
Christ does not quench the smoking wick, but fans it into flame.
He does not break those who are already bending, but binds them up.
Therefore, let none despair of coming to him.
But take heed this gentleness is reserved for those who bend the knee.
The proud shall find him to be a consuming fire.
It's been said before, but it bears saying again that every knee will bow.
On that final day, and every tongue will confess.
Some knees will bow because they bend by grace, and other knees will bow because they break.
And they will be broken by Christ, that he who rules the nations with an iron scepter will break their kneecaps and force them to bow.
You can bow because you're forced to by Christ, or you can bow by grace.
Break or bend, but everyone will bow.
Break or bend, but everyone will bow.
To those who bend by grace, Christ is meekness for you.
Christ is compassion for you.
Christ is mercy for you.
You have nothing to fear in Christ if, by God's grace, you contain repentance.
That you are aware of your sin, broken by your sin, and see Christ as the only remedy for sin.
If that be the case, you have nothing to fear.
Run to Christ.
He'll scoop you up, He'll embrace you with open arms.
But the person who should be trembling and very afraid is the person who is self righteous.
Fear The Self Righteous00:02:43
And again, there are so many different avenues to ultimately landing in the position of having a self righteous heart.
You can be a liberal who is self righteous.
You can be a conservative who is self righteous.
You can be progressive and leftist and communist who is self righteous.
You can be a nationalist who is self righteous.
The question is, am I burdened over my own sin?
And these are the arenas where Christians have to be able to think in categories.
For a long time, it has been preached from the pulpit that we should be broken over our own sin, which is true, but that's all we should be.
And that because we ourselves are sinners, we can't seek to make any political, practical, cultural difference in the world.
And that's a lie.
You can seek in practical, tangible, political ways for your nation to be a God fearing nation.
You can fight against, as some have called it, gay race communism, which I think is a good label.
You can say, no, no, I don't want globalism.
I don't want 20th century liberalism.
I don't want leftism.
I don't want communism.
I want Christian nationalism.
I want a God fearing government.
I want God honoring laws.
I don't want to be a liberal.
I want to live in the world that God made and see it as good.
Not with arrogance, not with pride, not with oppression, but recognizing that according to God's natural order, it is not an egalitarian system.
That God has necessarily, in the world that He has made, He has placed hierarchy.
And the correct response, wherever we fall in God's providential station that He's assigned to us, is not that we be arrogant and also not that we be envious, but that we be grateful for the station in life that the Lord has assigned to us and we seek to honor those above.
And be kind to those below, you can live in the real world, the natural world, God's world, without artificially manufacturing and manipulating everything with worldviews that are the antithesis to the Christian faith, once and for all passed down to the saints.
You can do that, and you will be labeled all kinds of names.
Courageous Persecution00:03:01
Ask me how I know.
You will be persecuted, you will be hated, but you can do it, and you can do it courageously.
And with shrewdness at times, and with wisdom.
And here's the final thing with our text today and acknowledge before the Lord and others on a daily basis that you yourself are a sinner, and that you hate your sin, and that you are miserable under your sin, and that your greatest longing, 1 John, that when we see him, we shall be sinless, for we shall see him as he is.
The greatest suffering in this life is not sickness.
And it's not death, even.
And it's not political persecution.
It's not the oppression and attacks of others.
It's not an economy that has been rigged to steal from you before you were ever born.
And that does exist.
All these things are terrible.
It's not a full scale invasion of your country.
To where you don't even feel like you have a home anymore.
True, but not the greatest evil.
The thing that makes me most miserable is that Christ bled out and died for me, and yet I can continue to commit treason against my Savior and King every single day.
After all his mercy, after all his kindness, after all his grace, I keep failing.
I do.
I fail privately.
I fail publicly.
For me, it's really hard because a lot of my failures are recorded.
I can go back and watch them.
Have mercy on me, oh God, a sinner.
Forgive me.
Forgive me.
That's the bruised reed, that's the smoldering wick.
You are not a raging flame.
You're not a force to be reckoned with.
You're not.
You need to get that through your head.
You're not a bonfire.
You're a little dinky candle from bed, bath, and beyond that's barely sparkling.
And yet, that's the person that Christ loves.
That everything in him moves powerfully towards that person.
If there is a condition, if you own it, you hate it, and you desire him.
Own your sin, hate your sin, desire Christ.
Own your sin, hate your sin, desire sinlessness.
Beyond Pagan Strategy00:02:40
Who is Christ and only Christ?
Because if we ever lose that, then it's not Christian nationalism anymore.
It's not.
It's just another secular political strategy or a pagan political strategy.
Which, to be fair, this will probably weird some of you out, but I do prefer the pagan alternative to secular.
Not because it's Christian, not because it doesn't have massive problems, but one of the most timeless pagan traditions is eventually converting to Christianity.
So I am more hopeful in that regard.
I'm like, oh, you guys, you think Thor's going to get the job done, right?
We're going to revert to, you know, Nordic pagan tribes.
Okay, that's kind of silly, but, you know, I feel like we have a ticking timer now.
If you truly convert to paganism, it's like rock, paper, scissors, right?
Secularism is like paper, it's covering the rock of Christendom right now.
But.
But if secularism folds and gives up to scissors, that is paganism, then the rock of Christianity is pretty effective historically.
We've got a rich tradition of pagan stone idols having their heads sawn off or crosses etched into the idol.
That's what pagan tribes have done for hundreds of years, converting to Christianity.
See St. Boniface as a prime example.
So, we must fight.
Yes, we want to be potent.
We want to be potent in our ministry, politically, culturally, in our families, first and foremost, starting at home and broadening out.
We want to do all these things, and if Christ would bless it, if Christ would bless it, then his people, the church, can change the world.
But at the same time, what makes us different is not just our views, although our views are different.
It's not just our ideology, although our ideology is different.
It's not merely our virtues, although our virtues and values are distinct.
But chiefly, it is an awareness of our sin, a misery for sin, and a desire for Christ.
Jesus hated the Pharisees not just because they were malicious, and not just because they were deceitful, and not just because they had twisted and perverted the law of Moses to oppress others under.
Christ As Hope For Nations00:07:44
Their authority, which they had.
But he also hated the Pharisees because the Pharisees were arrogant.
The Pharisees were blind guides.
Blind to what?
Blind to the ways of God, blind to his holy law, but most importantly, blind to their own sin.
I've quoted it several times, but I'll quote it again.
Charles Spurgeon famously said that a man cannot appreciate the beauty of Christ lest he first come to see the necessity for Christ.
And we can't see the necessity for Christ lest we see our own sin, our own need for Christ.
The final point malice of men, meekness of Christ, and the majesty of God's redemptive plan for all peoples, all nations.
In the final two verses, beginning with verse 20, we see these words A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to.
Verse 21 now.
And in his name the Gentiles will hope.
Some translations say the nations will hope.
In your notes, I've written the following This entire passage is a fulfillment of scripture.
Christ is not merely a good teacher or healer, he is the servant of the Lord.
He is chosen and anointed by the Spirit to accomplish all the Father's will.
And what is this will?
To proclaim justice to the Gentiles, to bring salvation to the nations, and to cause hope to arise in those who previously sat in darkness.
The calling and mission of Christ extends far beyond Israel to all peoples.
This was always the plan.
Romans 1, verse 16, is not meant to express levels of love.
But a sequence of salvation.
I'm going to say that again.
Romans chapter 1, verse 16, which is often quoted by those who are Judeo Christians and not historic Christians, it is misquoted, tweaked, and twisted.
Romans chapter 1, verse 16, which is the infallible word of God, but it must be used rightly.
The law is good if it be used lawfully.
What the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit, means to convey is not an order of God's love, but a sequence of his redemptive plan of salvation.
Romans 1 16, to refresh your memories, says this For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, that is, to all the elect, and all the elect among every tribe and tongue and nation.
And then we have an order to the Jew first and also to the Greek, or some texts say the Gentile to everyone else.
Again, this is not a hierarchy of God's love.
This is not God's Ordo Amoris, the order of loves that God Himself contains for people.
No, this is rather not an order of loves, levels of loves, but a sequence of loves.
Salvation.
It's speaking not to a hierarchy of affection, but the timing of God's redemptive plan.
That it was prophesied by God that salvation would come to the Jews, but then from them it would then extend to all peoples.
So, not that God loves Israel, Old Covenant Israel, more than other nations, but that Christ would come to them first.
And this is the fulfillment.
Verse 21 again of our text, in his name the Gentiles will hope.
Christ came to his own, Isaiah says, but they received him not.
It was prophesied that Christ would come and that he would come at a particular time to a particular people, but that those people would reject him and ultimately that those people would crucify him.
Some of those people would be saved.
And others would be condemned.
But the plan, the redemptive plan of God for Christianizing, discipling all nations, was never meant to stay in that one place, but always intended by God to extend from that place to all the world.
Christ came as the hope of Gentiles, the hope of nations.
Even when he flips over the tables of the money changers and fashions a whip of cords and drives them out.
What does he say?
My father's house is a house of prayer.
A lot of times we forget the second half of his statement for all nations, but you have turned it into a den of thieves.
The salvation of the world has always been the intent of God.
Before the foundations of the world were ever even laid, the world's salvation has been God's stated plan.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.
That whoever should believe in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Yes, Christ came to the Jews.
He was rejected and killed by the Jews.
And yet, in all of this, it was so that his gospel might go out from there and be a light unto the Gentiles, a hope and salvation to all people.
Again, verse 21 of our text And in his name, the Gentiles, the nations, all peoples, Let's pray.
Father, thank you for your word.
Bless it to your people.
Help us to see the malice of men and to see the sin in even our own hearts.
Not just malicious men, but to see ourselves as bruised reeds and smoldering wicks.
Lord, help us see for us the meekness of Christ, but to know that his meekness towards the broken is not weakness towards the wicked.
And lastly, Lord, help us to exult in and to have joy in the majesty of your redemptive plan for saving all nations.
Thank you for saving us.
Help us to do the work of an evangelist in the context where you've placed us, that we would see the nation's hope in Christ and nothing else.