The Reward of Faith

Matthew 8:10-12.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 5, 2021.

Today, there is much being made over trusting in science.  The problem is that science is not a being that can “speak for itself.”  It is a process by which men and women posit an answer, test it, and have their tests scrutinized by others.  The hope is that such a process will eventually bring the right answer to the forefront.  Notice that, in this method, scientific tests are done first and much later consensus occurs.  Today, we see the opposite happening.  An official consensus is declared and any contradicting tests, scientists, etc. are shut out.

Those who purport to speak for science often do so with an incredible lack of humility, and a great excess of personal interest tied into the outcome.  Governmental organizations along with medical, media, and business collusion, bully any scientist, or doctor, who doesn’t bow down to their unscientific decrees from on high.

This is an age-old problem.  The Bible warns believers, “Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help.”  Psalm 146:3. The psalmist goes on to point out that even someone who have a good plan to help you can die the next day and their plans die with them.  The frailty of humans, whether in body or in morality, is no place to put our trust.  There is only one son of man that we can trust, and that is the Lord Jesus.

Let’s get into our passage.

The feast of the Kingdom of Heaven

Although the word “feast” is not found in these verses, it will be shown in a bit that this is what is in view.  God has promised his people a time of feasting in a kingdom that has been established by heaven.  Amen!  This is in contrast to all of the attempts from this earth to create a perfect time of peace and feasting. 

Of course, Satan recognizes that the Bible prophesies such, and so his ultimate attempt at bringing in a global kingdom will appear to be from heaven in some way.  Whether pretending to be from the stars, or spiritual entities from a higher dimension, the world will be deceived by pretending usurpers who desire to strip Christ’s inheritance away from him.  In short, he will pretend to be bringing in a kingdom from “heaven,” and I am sure that he will put down some truly bad guys while he is at it, thus attempting to cloak his own evil.

The destiny of Satan and his angels is to be cast out of heaven completely.  Theirs is not a kingdom of peace established by heaven, but rather, a dominion of cruelty established by hell.

Our passage is on the heels of a centurion of Rome who comes to Jesus asking him to heal his servant.  Jesus agrees to go to his house and heal the servant, but the man begs him not to do so.  He proclaims that he is not worthy to have Jesus come to his house.  Instead, he asks Jesus just to command it, and he trusts that it will happen. 

The centurion is not telling Jesus how to do his business.  Rather, his faith in what Jesus can do is being expressed.  Jesus doesn’t have to come to his house to heal.  The man of military authority recognizes that just as it is in the natural with him, so it is in the spiritual with Jesus.  Jesus remarks that this centurion has “great faith,” and that he has not seen faith like this in Israel. 

Great faith is faith that doesn’t need any aids or helps.  Going to the house, laying hands upon someone, even praying out loud are not necessary in order for God to heal.  They simple help us to believe when we see them.  They are like training wheels to our faith.  However, the goal of riding a bike for every kid is to quickly get those training wheels off.  In what ways do I overly rely upon things I can see in order to trust God?  What if those things were taken away?  Is God any less trustworthy?  May God strengthen our faith, for we are in a day in which more and more great faith is needed.

This sets up a classic teaching moment that Jesus famously used to teach those who were watching and listening.  The issue at hand is the healing of the servant, but the great faith of this Gentile is worth stopping and highlighting.

Jesus refers to people coming to “sit down with” Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  These are the patriarchs (father-rulers) of Israel.  This phrase “sit down with” literally means to recline.  It can mean to do so in order to rest, but most of the time it is used of laying down in order to eat, which was the custom in Israel at the time.  Their tables were short platforms and people would lie on their side angled away from the table.  No doubt, Jesus is not referring to people coming from all over the world to sleep with the Patriarch.  A feast is in view.

By the way, there is a humorous scene in The Chosen series in which Jesus builds a modern-style table.  His mom is asking him why it is so tall, and Jesus is trying to explain how chairs would be used.  The point being that the way we eat here in the USA would seem foreign to them.

This idea of people gathering to eat with the patriarchs in the kingdom of heaven would have been unmistakable to the hearers.  They would immediately be thinking of the Kingdom that would be set up by God’s Anointed King, Messiah.  This feast was prophesied in the Old Testament.  One such place is in Isaiah 25:6-9.

6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

7 And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.

8 He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.

9 It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.  This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

The main point I want to draw from this passage is the promise that God gives of a feast that He will throw when he saves his people.  Notice that verse 8 is picked up by John in the Revelation connected to the Millennial Kingdom.

Now all of this is true already in a spiritual sense.  We can spiritually eat at the Table of our Lord and feast with all who have gone on before us.  Jesus is a spiritual food, and a spiritual drink, to those who put their trust in him.

However, there is something more than a spiritual blessing promised in this.  When we think about Revelation 19, we tend to think of the Second Coming, and that is appropriate.  However, the chapter also features two very different feasts.  The first feast is the Wedding Supper of the Lamb (Marriage Feast of the Lamb).  Of course, this is a feast in which you want to participate.  This is a post-resurrection celebration as all who have put their trust in Jesus are joined with him both spiritually and physically (we will have heavenly bodies as he does now).  Thus, those who have spiritually feasted upon Christ in this dark day, will then literally feast with him in the light of that day.

The other feast is the Supper of the Great God in which birds feast on the bodies of slain soldiers.  You do not want to be a part of that feast. 

Our salvation is not just spiritual it is both spiritual and physical.  People often make one of two mistakes about God’s salvation.  They can see it as a purely spiritual thing in which we exist forever as spirits who are beyond or above the physical plane.  In fact, such a concept smacks of the pantheist vision of ascending from this illusory world into a non-physical plane.  This is not the biblical picture.  It is a false religion.  The other mistake is to let our sinful flesh corrupt the physicality of that time.  Thus, for some, heaven is wine, women, and song for eternity.  It has an over emphasis upon the physicality.  Heaven to them is getting every pleasure you didn’t have on this earth without end.  The wisdom of God is to first save us spiritually, so that we can be tested and formed into the likeness of Jesus.  Our salvation is a complete spiritual and physical thing.

This feast with a resurrected Abraham, et. al., will literally take place in the future.  This was part of the hope and expectation of Israel.  Imagine that.  God has fixed a point in time ahead of us in which the righteous of every generation will feast together with God in a perfect kingdom of peace.  Looking at the world today, it does not appear that this is our destiny.  This is where great faith comes into play.  Who, or what are you putting your trust in?

What wasn’t part of Israel’s understanding was what Jesus emphasizes.  Those coming from the East and the West, in the mind of an Israelite, are the scattered tribes of Israel that did not come back from the Assyrian exile, or the Babylonian exile.  They viewed the Messiah as quelling the nations of the earth, bringing home the exiles, and setting a table before them in the presence of their enemies, the Gentiles.  To them, the proper place for Gentiles was to be shut out, watching them eat.  Yet, Jesus is clearly picturing this centurion as part of those who are coming from the East and the West.  In other words, there will be many Gentiles gathering into the kingdom in order to feast with believing Israelites, even the patriarchs (who technically weren’t Israelites, but Hebrews).  This would smack the hearer in the face.  Similar to John 3:16, Jesus declares that everyone of every tribe and language who will simply believe God are invited to this feast.  As shocking as that would be to them, the next verse will make their jaw hit the ground.

The sorrow of those who are shut out

This whole scene hinges on the “but” (NKJV) of verse 12.  In contrast to the feasting of this mixed multitude of believing Gentiles and Hebrews in the Kingdom of Heaven, there are those who have been cast out, or “shut out” as the parable depicts in Matthew 25.

The feasting is synonymous with joy and rest.  The battle is over.  The victory has been won.  However, those who are not invited to this feast will have great sorrow.  The hearer would not be surprised that some are shut out.  However, they would be shocked at just who is being shut out.  Before we get into it, Jesus is simply pointing out that some who you would think should be there won’t be, and many who you thought should not be there will be.  This great switch of apparent destinies is part of the amazing grace of God.  The “sons of the kingdom” is a way of saying those who were born into Israel and had the promises of God.  Like natural Israel coming through the desert out of Egypt, they were promised many wonderful things from the Lord.  Jesus doesn’t use the word “many,” but simply states that the sons of the kingdom will find themselves shut out.  Clearly, he does not mean every single one of them.  Otherwise, none of the disciples could participate.  The contrast is meant to blow their confidence in their DNA, biology, ethnicity, etc. out of the water.  You cannot bank on these things, and neither will these things exclude you.

Finding themselves in a shut-out situation will be a source of great sorrow, which is described as weeping and gnashing of teeth.  The focus here is not so much on where they will be, but rather on what they will miss and how it will affect them.  A typical wedding feast would happen at night under the lights, or in a well-lit house.  Those who are not invited would be outside in the dark.  The outer darkness emphasizes that they are not in the light enjoying its blessings.  They are shut-out.

No matter how haughty and arrogant people are today about the promises of God, they will be filled with sorrow and regret when they find themselves in that situation.  Oh what deep pity we should have for those who seem so hard today. 

So, what makes the difference?  How could a Gentile be invited while a High Priest of Israel may be shut out?  Before I answer that, we must recognize that the same principle applies to the Church of Jesus.  Being born into a Christian family, hearing the Gospel all of your life, even joining a church, cannot in and of itself guarantee you a ticket to that feast.  Many “Christians” who should be there will not.  Why?  They will not be there because they didn’t put their faith in Jesus.  Oh, they may have said the right words, and gave intellectual assent.  Like Israel following the cloud through the desert, they to are headed in the “right” direction with their bodies, but their hearts are far from God.  In the desert, lack of faith revealed itself in an attitude of grumbling and complaining against the Lord.  It showed itself in a lack of obedience the commands of God.  It showed itself in a concern for the desires of the flesh more than a concern for the needs of the soul.  And so, God sent leanness into their souls (Psalm 106:5).  They stumbled along within an institution that could never do anything for them because they did not trust the God who gave them these things.

Oh, Christian, deliver yourself from such an awful fate of being shut-out from the joy of the Lord.  Only faith in Jesus can give us a place at this table.  No denomination, doctrinal formulation, or religious leader can take his place.  We must all live with a faith that is greatly placed upon him and him alone.  Who is your trust in?  Put it in Jesus only today.  I warn you even now that the aids to faith are one by one being kicked out from underneath our leaning frame.  You will either stand by faith in the days ahead or fall in the desert of this world, having fallen short of the Promised Land.

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