Matthew 4

Matthew 4:1-25

CHRIST’S THREE THREE-FOLD Matthew, Chapter 4. THE chapter breaks in the Bible are seldom breaks in thought. “Then” is, in an essential sense, a conjunction, and indicates that Jesus went straight from His baptism and from the sound of the Divine voice to the wilderness and to the temptations of the devil. This may impress us strangely; but it should not. Practically every human experience repeats it. If there is ever a time when the devil will attack you, it is immediately upon your turning to the Lord; and if there is ever a day when he will try you, it is the day succeeding one of obedience to the Divine will and Word (1 Peter 4:12). Mr. Moody was very fond of a story of a black man who often complained of trials and temptations to his unbelieving master, to be laughed at, and asked, “How does it happen, Sam, that you, a Christian, have so many more temptations than I, an unbeliever?” One day this black man was hunting with his master. With a double shot, the master brought down two ducks. One fell stone dead, the other with a broken wing, and the white man said, “Sam, hurry into the weeds and get that crippled duck. He is about to get away.” After a difficult chase Sam finally captured him, and as he came up to his master, it was with a smile, and he said, “Master, I can answer dat ar question of yours now! You shure was scared for fear that live duck would git away; but I noticed you didn’t trouble none about the dead one.

Dat’s the way it is with us! The devil knows youse a dead duck and he don’t bother you. He’s got you fer shure; and he also knows I’s a live one and is likely to get away, and that’s why he is after me so hard”. There’s a sound philosophy and sane truth in Sam’s suggestion. Satan is deeply anxious over the man alive in Christ Jesus, and solicitous to prevent his safe escape. Temptation, then, doesn’t prove that one is a sinner. It may even prove that he is a saint. I ask your attention to THE THREE-FOLD found in Matthew 4:1-11. “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to Him, He said, If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh Him up into the holy city, and setteth Him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto Him, If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down: for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee: and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou dash Thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Again, the devil taketh Him up into an exceedingly high mountain, and sheweth Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto Him, All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth Him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him”. These temptations take a three-fold form. In fact, they take on the complete form of Satanic attack. John reduced all temptations to a single statement, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). There may be ten laws in the decalogue and each of them intended for protection, but, as a matter of fact, a man is vulnerable at three points, and at three only. The devil utilized each and all of them in the temptation of Jesus. Mark the strange statement, “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” He who is our Saviour was to be “tempted in all points like as ‘we are.” That was a part of the Divine will. That was the way divinely chosen—He was “led up”. It has never been God’s plan to save us from temptation, but rather to keep us against temptation, and mark the three forms employed against the Son of Man. He appealed first of all to His flesh hunger. “And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to Him, he said, ‘If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread”. Hunger is an oft-recurring and an immeasurably powerful appetite. It is imperious in its demands, and through this passion thousands of men have gone to ignoble graves. Gormandizing has always been a sin and will always so remain, but the appeal to the flesh, made here, is a type of Satan’s physical temptations. There are other passions equally imperious and even more dangerous; and the devil utilizes them in turn to take, if possible, even the very elect captive to his wiles, and is altogether sinister and smooth in his method of presenting them. Satan says, “Hunger is a natural passion! Why not gratify it, then”? So is lust, and Satan often suggests gratification of the same with that identical argument, “Your passions were put into your body, not by you, but by God”. You crave for strong drink! “Gratify the natural appetite”. “You would exercise illegitimate love? Why not, since there is implanted in your very physical existence this desire also?” In other words, the devil defends, by the most specious argument, his most destructive intention. “The body is the temple of the Holy Ghost”, we are told, but that’s no guarantee against satanic depredations. He will climb to the pinnacle of the temple itself, if by so doing he can desecrate the same. He will enter even the “holy of holies” with no sense of shame. The garden which God made, and into which He placed Adam and Eve, was a holy enclosure, guarded by a flaming sword, and yet Satan dared to enter, and by an appeal to the lust of the flesh, effect the fall of our first parents! As a matter of fact, the body of the man or of the woman is the avenue of the easiest Satanic entrance, and if we let him into the flesh, he will make it a highway to the mind and soul. There’s progress in the three temptations presented to Christ, but only in the point of importance. In strength of temptation, the body lends to the devil his greatest opportunity. He began there with Christ because he knew that there he had the greatest likelihood of success, and equally knew that if he won in the body, he would then go on to degrade the mind and soul. No wonder, it is written by the pen of inspiration, “Flee youthful lusts”. But, as we have suggested, this was only a beginning, and being thwarted here, he turns to the second vulnerable point in life: “The lust of the eyes”. “Then the devil taketh Him up into the holy city, and setteth Him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto Him, ‘If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down, for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee; and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou dash Thy foot against a stone”. Unquestionably, there is a close kinship between “the lust of the flesh” and “the lust of the eyes”, between the hungers of the body and unrighteous ambitions. I will not stop here to discuss just what form the devil took on this occasion. No man knows. I can readily conceive that Judas Iscariot might have made all these suggestions .to Jesus, for he had “a devil” from the beginning, and he proved in the end that he was a medium for that Master of Evil. At any rate, this second temptation, is to this day, one that besets men, and even good men, godly men. Sensationalism is the curse of the Christian ministry, the desire to ascend the pinnacle of the temple that all people may look on one, and the desire to have God, in any way, make it perfectly manifest to the people that one’s ministry is the subject of His special favor, the object of His unusual love. That is now and has always been his peculiar temptation. To shine in the eyes of one’s fellows as a man of whom “angels” seem to have charge; to stand on such eminences and perform such matchless feats as to make it appear that “their hands” bear one up. That, indeed, is the pride of intellect that is cursing the Christian ministry to-day. There are men by the thousands who have yielded to this temptation and sought, by parading their scholarship to show that they were the special subjects of grace, and by declaring a new and unusual course of things, they were in advance of their fellows—high above them, and yet, in spite of their misrepresentation of the Divine Word, sustained and supported. It’s a subtle temptation! Such an act would have made Christ the chief man of the holy city instantly. Had God sent his angels to save Him in the dash from pinnacle to pavement, His Name would have been on every lip and forever after He could have been pointed out as He walked the streets as “the miracle man”. The greatest single misfortune that has overtaken the blessed biblical doctrine of Divine healing, lies at this point. Men and women have become ambitious to be known as individuals upon whom Divine power rests, and personalities around whom the very angels themselves gather, and with whom those angels constantly co-operate. It’s something of this same temptation that accounts for “spiritism”; but it is not in the fulfilled Scripture. It’s in the fact that the individuals have succumbed to a Satanic temptation and are themselves, in turn, tempting God. The third form of this temptation is “the Pride of Life”. “Again, the devil taketh Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto Him, ‘All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me’. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written; Thou shall worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve”. What an appeal to one’s ambition, to own, and control, and dominate! and God knows how easily we succumb to that suggestion. There is one thing that a man seems to want above all things else—it’s “the world and the fulness thereof”, and that, in spite of the fact of revealed Scripture that “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world, and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof”. Even a temporary ownership and a temporary control has been the ambition of thousands, and what has not man given up that he might get it?! As Joseph Parker said, “Give up everything for the world”. “Give up your prayers and your hymn singing and all your religion for ‘more mud’, and ‘more mud’ and ‘more mud’. That’s the thing that is keeping many a man at his desk for sixteen to twenty hours a day—’more mud’. That’s the thing that has sent the highwayman to his evil work’—’more mud’. That’s the thing that has given impetus to the plans of the bank bandits—’more mud’. Yes, that’s the thing that has animated emperors as they went forth trampling alien peoples to their feet and conquering new continents—’more mud’”. My brother, my sister: review your life this morning and you will find that the devil has not changed his tactics in 2,000 years. Three points at which he will make his onslaught even today—“the lust of the flesh”, and “the lust of the eyes”, and “the pride of life”. In these temptations THERE IS THE THREE-FOLD . First of all, he asked Christ to doubt His paternity. “If Thou be the Son of God”. In the second place, he asked Christ to doubt the promise of God, “See if He will keep His Word”; and in the third place, he asked Christ to doubt the provision of God, “Don’t go poor: get the world for Yourself”! Think of the doubt as to His paternity. “If Thou be the Son of God”! How largely in history that little word “if” has loomed. “If”? Sometimes it voices a condition, more often it expresses a doubt. It was a doubt that the devil meant to suggest here. Doubt of His relationship to the Father, doubt of his Virgin Birth, doubt of His Divine mission, doubt of His infinite wisdom and power. “If Thou be the Son of God”? That same temptation comes to every baptized man, and to every believing man—“Were you ever converted?” “Are you sure that regeneration has taken place in your heart?” “Can you assert with confidence that you are a child of God?” “Particularly in view of the temptations that are yours, the evil desires that you find in your heart, and the disposition to yield to the Adversary’s suggestions, are you a Christian at all?” The man who wrote that tract, “Safety, Certainty, and Assurance” did a great service for the Christian. It is a dire need of every regenerated soul. If the devil can get you to believe that you are not converted, that you are not really a child of God, or if he can even get you to doubt it and discuss it continually, he has won a victory. John seems to have known much of this temptation and he wrote for the express purpose of confirming men in sonship. It was John who wrote, “Our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ”. It was John who said, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. It was John who said, “He is the propitiation for our sins”. It was John who said, “Whoso keepeth His Word, in him verily is the love of God perfected; whereby we know that we are in Him.” It was John who declared “He that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also”. “And this is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life”. It was John who declared, “Beloved, now are we the children of God”.

It was John who said, “We know that we have passed out of death unto life because we love the brethren”. It was John who wrote, “My little children, let us not love in word but in deed and in truth; for if our heart condemn us God is greater than our hearts, and knoweth all things”. Of all the experiences of the Christian life assurance is one of the sweetest and it can rest alone in the Word. Not in feelings, for they come and go, but in the Word that “standeth fast”. The Word says, “Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out”, and those who come to Him are thereby made the sons of God, and “if sons, then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.” Don’t let the devil defeat you with his “If”. In spite of the temptations, in spite of trials, in spite of all the failures of the past, in spite of the world’s pressure of the present, declare your relationship, “I am a child of God, a child of the King”. Go back into the Book of Job and be enheartened. The Book will tell you that Job was a man “perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.” And yet what a sop Satan made of him; to what temptations he subjected him; through what trials he dragged him. But let not Job be your comfort only but your example also, for in the midst of it all he declared his confidence in God, saying, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him”. As we said, he also tempted Him to doubt the promises of God.“Then the devil taketh Him up into the Holy city, and setteth Him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto Him, If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down: for it is written, He shall give His angels charge over Thee and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou dash Thy foot against a stone”. The devil knew something of Scripture then. There are few devils who do not! Clarence Darrow, attempting to quote Scripture in his cross questioning of Mr. Bryan, made sorry work of it. Mr. Bryan had to correct him and to tell him where to find it. It is one thing to appeal to the Scriptures in some desultory way, and almost any man can do it, and Satan’s man often does it. They take clumsy hold of it. As some one suggests “They do not know whether they have it by the hilt or the point; whether they can use it or whether they will be killed by it”. In almost every instance, like the devil’s handling of it, they want to test it to disprove it. Listen to the answer of Jesus, “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God”. If it had been an occasion whereby Jesus Himself had accidently fallen from the pinnacle of the temple would God have kept His promise, and would angels have drawn Him up in their arms? Aye, verily! We believe it! But “Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins” is an appropriate prayer when men are tempted. God’s promises never fail of fulfillment but God’s promises are kept to the man who is non-presumptuous. And then he tempted him to doubt God’s provision. Worship me and I will give Thee the world! As though to worship God was to be in want! Is that true? David did not think so. He was an observing man, yea, even an inspired man. David said, “I have been young, now am I old, yet have I not seen the righteous to suffer, nor his seed begging bread.” On the whole, what part of the world is best provided for? Does any man doubt that God’s children realize His promise of plenty and that compared with their fellows the world around, there is a more abundant provision for them than any other class that ever did live or ever will live?

History is replete with such illustrations. The godly shall be “like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper”. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you”. But I pass in the next place to the THREE-FOLD ACTIONS We will find this recorded in Matthew 4:12-15. “Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, He departed into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Naphthalim: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, The land of Zabulon, and the land of Naphthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles”. I speak of a threefold action because I find it in the following things: 1st, He departed into Galilee; 2nd, He thereby fulfilled prophecy; and 3rd, He therein preached repentance. He departed into Galilee! This going into Galilee was not like going into Gadara. He left Gadara because the Gadarenes did not want Him. They preferred pork to sanity. They could not afford to have men made whole at the expense of their pigs. They plead with Him to depart out of their coasts. If you want to get rid of Christ, He will go. Christ is a sensitive lover, as every true lover is sensitive. He will not stay when you have told Him frankly that you are tired of His presence. He quit Gadara; He will quit any man, any church, any community that desires His absence. But here He departs from a place where He had fought His enemies to a finish, and He went on to new fields of conflict with new intentions of conquest. He moved as Alexander moved, conquering and to conquer; He moved as Grant moved, as He won a battle He straightway started for the next scene of conflict. And possibly in addition to this call of conquest He moved because His own sore heart suggested a journey for mental and spiritual relief, for He had heard that “John was cast into prison”. I like to believe that Jesus loved John so ardently that this news depressed Him, and I know perfectly well that when one is depressed that travel and motion is far better than seclusion and inaction! and a man seldom suffers more and seldom more surely calls upon the body to travel and take him away from the scene of suffering, than when a fellow-laborer, whom he loved as this life, has fallen. And I believe that Jesus moved into Galilee, that by the very action of body, and travel, and the occupation of mind, and in new scenes and duties He might the less feel the depression of John’s imprisonment. But the fourteenth verse also gives us another occasion for His going. He therein fulfilled a prophecy, spoken by Esaias, saying “The land of Zabulon, and the land of Naphthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan Galilee of the Gentiles, the people that sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up”. Christ’s every movement was a fulfillment of prophecy. Christ was a man of prophecy. There is a sense in which all our lives are foreknown to God and probably in the infinite annals, open to God, they are all fore-spoken and written. But if so, the books are closed to us. But the life of Christ was written in a Book before He was born a babe in Bethlehem! His name was chosen, His career was described, His character was depicted, His whole Course and conduct were pre-written to the last possible word. I spoke to you a week ago on the Child of Prophecy, and such a child was Christ. I talk to you now about the Man of prophecy, and such a Man was Christ. All human history was wrapped up in Him and revelation is but the unfolding of the same. One can read the Old Testament and if he were possessed of sufficient spiritual discernment He could find in it the accurate life history of Jesus Christ. The Prophets did find it: the Apostles saw it, and spoke of it; Christ Himself realized it. For that matter, all human history is pre-determined and pre-written. There has never been a change since Christ was born, but the essential features of such are now to be seen in the great prophecies of the Old Testament. Daniel, after prayer, learned that the figure of the stone symbolized the unborn centuries, including even the millennium. Then He who departed into Galilee went that He might preach repentance.How marvelous that this Man, the Man before whose wisdom all philosophies pale, the Man in whose presence all teachers become kindergarten pupils, the Man beside whose philosophy of life the words of the wisest seem foolish! How strange that He should preach and be guilty of plagiarism! Not a novel word in His lips; not a new idea phrased by Him. His language is the language of John the Baptist. His sentences intentionally the same: His the-ology is no whit a departure. Why? Because when God gives a message, though millennium succeed millennium, that message will never need to be changed. How futile for the poor modernist to inveigh against “a static revelation”!

What other revelation could you have? God once created the stars. They are old now, how many trillions of years old, none can tell. Should we change them? Should we get an up-to-date moon and demand a new sun? Hardly! We need no new ones. And the Gospel is as adequate this morning as when the Child of Bethlehem was born.

We need no new Gospel! In fact, there is no new Gospel. What men are giving us is “another gospel”. If Paul were in the world this morning and went into a modernist church, as a friend of mine did in Chicago last Sunday, and heard a modernist preacher stand up and say, as this friend heard one say, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, the future will see a great religion. Men and women of all cults are getting together; they are comparing things, they are going to take the best out of Buddhism, out of Theosophy, out of Christianity, and other world faiths, and they are going to combine the best, and they are going to make for us a new religion and preach for us a new gospel”. Paul would answer, “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ, but though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.

But I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:6-12).Parents, in the name of Jesus Christ, preach what He preached! Teachers, teach what He taught! Citizens, you need no new message, but an emphasis upon the old one, “repentance”. Yea, if the statesman of the world would regard this call of Christ and would declare it as a necessity of government, the world would experience an uplift, and Satan an instant repulsion, if not an overthrow. But I pass to the concluding sentences to invite your attention to THE THREE-FOLD First, He selected the locality for His endeavors. “And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee”. To what field men should go when they have graduated from college, is a great question now, and it is sometimes strangely determined. The truth is, that at no single point in Christian conduct have men departed so far from the New Testament model as in this matter of selecting fields for our service. The average theological graduate and the average missionary permits that to be determined often by financial and social features of the field itself. We have all heard the old story, of which Mr. Spurgeon was fond, of how a neighbor calling one morning at the minister’s house, said to the son, “Where is your father?” “Up in his study praying”. “What is he praying about?” “He got a call to a bigger church and a better salary and he is praying to find out whether the Lord wants him to go”. “Well, then, where is your mother?” “She’s in the back room packing up to move”. Thousands of pastors have been determined after the same manner, but the work of Christ and the work of His Apostles followed no such lines. In fact, we believe we find the exact reason why Christ went into Galilee, “the people sat in darkness”. What a call is there! I suppose in my lifetime as a preacher, I have had some thousand letters from men asking me to secure for them a new field. They have read, “This town is too small for me to do a great work. I deserve a larger place and could fill it. Find me one!” I have had them say, “This is a manufacturing town. The people who make it up are common day-laborers for the most part, and I yearn for cultured society where both my wife and myself can make agreeable friends. Can you put me in touch with a church so situated?” I have had them say, “This city hasn’t the best schools. My children are getting well grown and I want them in the finest University in the land. Can you secure me a pastorate in proximity to such an institution?” Up to this good hour, I do not remember to have had one letter asking, “Do you know, of any spot where it is dark; where the work is difficult and where nobody else will go; where the people sit in the shadow of darkness and the light of the Gospel is needed? If you do, send me there”. How refreshing it would be to get such a letter! Don’t misunderstand me. I do know people who are acting upon that principle, but they have not voiced it that way. I know young women graduates of the Northwestern Bible School who deliberately went into northwestern Minnesota and picked out for themselves neglected districts; made for themselves a circuit, and when they didn’t get a lift, they walked from one city to another and preached as they went, and they are there now! I know young men from the same school who have asked for no church at all, but who have carefully searched to find needy districts and have willingly given themselves to the same. I visited recently the Churchill Tabernacle in Buffalo, N. Y. Buffalo is a great and beautiful city, but modernism has eaten the heart out of its ministers. The gospel that is preached in that city, for the most part, is “another gospel”, consequently, “no gospel”. When, therefore, in the Billy Sunday meeting, young Mr. Churchill, a business man, was converted and felt the call of God to preach, what did he do? He went into evangelism. He found the people hungry for the Word. He noted that in his own city where he had been born and brought up, they were needing it; so he went and picked out one of the finest locations on the main street, and then he laid that location before a few of his consecrated brethren, and he said, “Wouldn’t it be great if God would give us that! Let us put up a Tabernacle there seating two or three thousand people and preach the old-time Gospel”. And God gave it to him, and the people “who sat in darkness” are now “seeing a great light”. You don’t need a nest made for you if you are to be in the ministry. What you need is the direction of the Spirit to the place of great need, that the Gospel may be carried there. The time used to be when our foreign missionaries were attracted to the foreign field by reason of the fact that heathenism was deep, and the moral atmosphere was dark and the dangers were a multitude, and the difficulties seemed insurmountable, and souls were perishing. The time has now come when too often it is a lark—a trip to a foreign land—a good office as an educator. A few years and back with the world travel and world-observation, and that thought makes its appeal to too many young men and too many young women whose ambitions are selfish rather than sanctified. Christ will forever stand as a right example in choosing a field. He went to “the people in darkness”. He was attracted to those “who sat in the shadow of death”. Here he selected the men for His co-laborers. “And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishers. And He saith unto them, Follow Me, and I mil make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed Him. And going on from thence, He saw other two brethren, James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets; and He called them. And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed Him”. What men they were, Peter and Andrew, his brother, and James and John, sons of Zebedee! In all the Apostles that Christ had, the first four selected were never exceeded. It is little wonder; they were busy men, men with a job every one of them, for they were fishermen. Christ can never make a minister out of an indolent or an unemployed man. They were partners in business in each instance, Andrew in with Peter, and James in with John. Christ can never make a minister out of a man who does not love his own blood brother. They were sincere men, though, so far as we know, unschooled men. Christ can never make a minister out of a man who is schooled, but lacks in his sincerity. We have seen it tried a thousand times! It’s a significant failure. But Christ can make a minister out of a Dwight Moody, the consecrated youth, though by his orphanage he had been deprived of an education. We can speak of “standardized ministers” as much as we like. We can determine our “standards” and reject every Christ-called man who does not measure up to them. But remember that in the end, the Divine approval, not the human ordination, makes a preacher. I would rather have a call from Christ than from all the churches of the earth beside; and I would rather have the ordination of His favor than that of all Presbyteries and Bishoprics; yea, even Cardinals and Popes. Finally, He selected the points of emphasis for His ministry. “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought unto Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy, and He healed them. And there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judæa, and from beyond Jordan”. It is easy to see what those points were: “teaching”, “preaching”, “healing”. These three constituted the ministry of Christ. He taught! Men need to be taught in the Word. He preached! Men need to be persuaded into reconciliation with God. He healed; and crowds thronged the place. “And great multitudes followed Him, of people from Galilee”, “and His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought unto Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and He healed them. And there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan”. It is ever so, and probably it will ever so remain. There are men among us who despise healing, who speak against healing; who declare healing has nothing to do with the Gospel. I do not so read my Bible. I agree with certain of my fundamentalist brethren that healing is sometimes made a medium of personal publicity. I grieve that there are instances of professed healing where there is no corresponding fact. I grieve that healing has been connected up with foolish conduct, such as falling on floors and foaming at the mouth, and with unwarranted doctrines such as the gift of tongues as the proof of the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

But, I confidently believe that a great deal of this is in consequence of the sheer neglect of the Church of God and the present-day ministry. We have not executed His command to “preach” and “heal”. We have not trusted the God who has promised to answer prayer. We have disregarded James’ injunction to “anoint the sick and pray for them”, and despised the promise of God that “the prayer of faith should save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up”. Our gospel is a partial gospel. The points of our emphasis were not where Christ put them, and in consequence of that, multitudes do not come, for an emasculated gospel is the consort of an empty house. No wonder! A prayer-meeting in the church over which I preside is never concluded without taking time to pray for the sick. For years, every Sunday afternoon, a great company of people have gathered in this House of God to pray for the sick, and the answers have revealed the compassionate Christ—the powerful Christ—the Christ that saveth and healeth!