that take and give unto them for me and thee." As I pointed out above (cf. But observe, he doth not say, "Let him be to thee as a devil or damned spirit, as one whose case is desperate," but "as a heathen and a publican, as one in a capacity of being restored and received in again. The first of these lessons is, "Many first shall be last, and last first." if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a This as yet draws out wonder, at least from the witnessing multitudes, that God had given such power unto men. If, however, those bonds have not been developed, the task could be much more difficult. The Father and the Son have their appropriate part, even as we know from elsewhere the Spirit sent down from heaven in due time was to have His. The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me,Psalms 69:9. Now, it was an established principle, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word should be established. It may be so. 33), it is added, "And with many such parables spake He the word unto them . She now understands her emotional upheavals and helped her to see herself as normal.. Anyone who thinks he or she might be prophetic, or works or lives with someone who is, should attend this seminar. When the incestuous Corinthian was to be cast out, the church was gathered together (1 Corinthians 5:4), and it was a punishment inflicted of many, 2 Corinthians 2:6. Thank you. It is the love which seeks and saves. That is what the Jew could not understand about the Christian idea Of God. Jesus says that whoever receives one such little child in his name receives himself. If we do not want to be publicly humiliated for our sin, especially if we have not been given the opportunity to repent, we should take a private approach to go to someone in love and let them know of their error. Pauls first letter to the Corinthians gives an example of how a congregation was to react when one of its members persisted in sin. He didnt blackball them. The spoken word can often settle a difference which the written word would only have exacerbated. This made it to be plainly and only a difficulty for God to solve. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. 17 "And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be . Note, Christ has been pleased to put an honour upon, and to allow a special efficacy in, the joint-prayers of the faithful, and the common supplications they make to God. And when the devil was come out, the dumb spake: and the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel." If I didn't bother to take the biopsies and determine whether or not you had cancer of the lymph nodes, but I just said, "Oh, probably you've got cancer in your lymph nodes. hen a sinner has been rebuked with love and yet refuses to repent, he is no longer demonstrating the spirit of a sheep but rather of a wolf. About an argument in Famine, Affluence and Morality. My wife has been freed. See Leviticus 19:17. Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click, to understand why. Though a testimony to them, still it was in the result a recognition of what Moses commanded. What an anticipation of the walk by faith, not by sight, in which the Gentiles, when called, ought to have glorified God, when the rejection of the Messiah by His own ancient people gave occasion to the Gentile call as a distinct thing! No word whatever implies that the cleansing of the leper happened at that time. It is evident that the bodily presence of the Messiah is the very essence of the former scene, as it ought to be in dealing with the leper, who is a kind of type of what Israel should have been in seeking cleansing at His hands. It is the death-blow to human tradition and ordinance in divine things, and in reality depends on the truth of the absolute ruin of man a truth which, as we see, the disciples were very slow to recognize. We have here. At this point, Jesus is on a road trip to Jerusalem for Passover. & Moses Kotsensis Mitzvot Tora, pr. "I will build my church." The church belongs to Jesus. I read Silent Killers Of Faith and it has changed my pastoral life from legalism to New Covenant preaching. of Your teaching on praise and worship has given articulation to what I have been thinking for ten years! Let them read their error in One who was evidently superior to the condition and the ruin of man in Israel. Here there may be a difference. But our Lord with dignity demands of Peter, "What thinkest thou, Simon?" I feel like Ive been spinning my wheels for years and now like a babe relearning everything fresh n new. 10) has a terrible account of a Galilaean revolt in which the Galilaeans took the supporters of Herod and drowned them in the depths of the Sea of Galilee. To lose a hand, to lose an eye by my own doing is just a horribly repugnant thought. that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three And He came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up, and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them." And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard . Controlling authoritarians use Matthew 18 to silence dissenting speech, prophetic criticism, and to label people as trouble makerssources of contamination in the assembly that must be purged. This often has devastating effect on children and their relational networks as they simply do not understand what is occurring. In what follows we have that which is necessary, to complete the picture of the other side. It was the place into which everything that was useless was cast and there destroyed. (i) If we feel that someone has wronged us, we should immediately put our complaint into words. Jesus says, "That is perfectly true; this world is full of temptations; that is inevitable in a world into which sin has entered; but that does not lessen the responsibility of the man who is the cause of a stumbling-block being placed in the way of a younger person or of a beginner in the faith.". That is why the Kingdom of Heaven can be likened to what happened when a king wished to make a reckoning with his servants. If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican: To illustrate His point regarding unrepentant sin, Jesus uses two classes of people who are particularly despised in His day. And how is the rule usually observed? Our Lord then answers, with perfect dignity, as well as grace; He puts before the disciples of John the real state of the case; He furnishes them with plain, positive facts, that could leave nothing to be desired by John's mind when he weighed all as a testimony from God. "My daughter is even now dead, but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live." And always God's answer is the offer not of escape, but of victory. It was Rabbinic teaching that a man must forgive his brother three times. I am to have the spirit of forgiveness.And then Jesus went on to illustrate it. I cant tell you how much your posts have blessed me and challenged me. It betrays the Spirit of Christ, even while professing and attempting fidelity to the text. In the Old Testament Law we find instruction on handling a sinner much the same way with accusation confirmed by investigation and witnesses then followed by all the people dealing with the sin. Why are they postponed here? The ninety-and-nine were not enough; one sheep was out on the hillside and the shepherd could not rest until he had brought it home. But it was for a land of darkness and sin and death that Jesus came from heaven the Messiah, not according to their thoughts, but the Lord and Saviour, the God-man. (ii) When prayer is unselfish, it is always answered. Then, alas! And if there is some sin that you are tolerating, allowing, playing with, and messing around with, you cannot do it. "I will build my church." Jesus has only one church. The care of children is something which is carried out for the sake of none other than Jesus Christ. My experience of them is that they, too, have a heart to be touched; and there are many of them, like Matthew and Zacchaeus, who have become my best friends. Particular epochs in Luke are noted with great care; but, speaking now of the general course of the Lord's life, a little attention will discover, from the immensely greater preponderance paid to the consideration of time in the second gospel, that there we have events from first to last given to us in their consecutive order. "Telling it to the Church" probably does not refer to a public announcement, but probably a discrete fellowship with some members of Church who will find an appropriate way to deal with the issue. How little they had learnt the divine lesson of grace, not ordinances! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Believers do not take action against offenders out of spite, but out of a concern for the offenders spiritual good. Had she not such confusion of thought that, if the Lord had heeded her words, it must have been destruction to her? We have noted that the terms "lord," "disciple," "apostle," and others came to have more specific meanings as Gods kingdom plan unfolded. Every nation had its angel; every natural force, such as the wind and the thunder and the lightning and the rain, had its angel. We may take this great promise of Jesus into two spheres. They were always wrangling about well, I am going to be bigger than you. 16But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.[c](B) 17If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church;(C) and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.(D). (Compare Mark 3:13-19, andMark 6:7-11; Mark 6:7-11; Luke 6:1-49; Luke 9:1-62) The mission of the apostles did not take place till afterwards. No Christian can be satisfied to live complacently and lethargically in a civilization where there are conditions of living and housing and life in general where a young person has no chance of escaping the seductions of sin. A man must always be confronted with his first temptation to sin; he must always receive his first encouragement to do the wrong thing; he must always experience his first push along the way to the forbidden things. Copyright 2019 by Zondervan. (ii) It stresses the terror of the punishment of those who teach another to sin. Just like if you have a problem with a sibling and you "discuss with the family" it might not mean that you brought the issue to all your aunts, uncles, cousins, grand parents etc. Proceed in this method: First, "Go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. Christ and believers have twisted interests; what is done against them Christ takes as done against himself, and what is done against him they cannot but take as done against themselves. Neither did He need to wait for His exaltation as man; for He was ever God, and God's Son, who therefore, if one may so say, waits for nothing, for no day of glory. "And He entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into His own city." It was a scorned Messiah who, when rejected of His own people, Israel, turned to the Gentiles by the will of God: it was One who could look upon publicans and sinners anywhere. He talks about offending these same little ones. If he were willing to follow the Lord, it was for what he could get. This passage speaks of the Gehenna ( G1067) of fire. Jesus was talking about the assembly of His disciples that He was calling out of the world to represent Him that He knew would become a large body. Now most of our prayer is done in private, but there are times when agreement in prayer is extremely valuable. For he figures it's better to be a free muskrat with three paws, than having four paws be tacked on a fur board.So Jesus is saying much the same thing here. If he doesn't pay attention to them, tell the church. Jesus probably used Gentiles and tax gatherers as examples because the Jews typically withdrew from them. Among the separatist community at Qumran - those who kept the Dead Sea Scrolls, later discovered in the 20th Century - there was a "Manual of Discipline" (known as 1QS by scholars). A kingdom divided against itself will not stand. 15If your brother or sister[a] sins,[b] go and point out their fault,(A) just between the two of you. A great tempest. Surely, had he seen this, everything was there; but he saw it not, and so the Lord spread out His actual portion, as it literally was, without one word about the unseen and eternal. God's sternest judgment is reserved for those who put a stumbing-block in the way of others. In the chapter that follows we have a companion picture, carrying on, no doubt, the lord's presentation to Israel, but from a different point of view; for inMatthew 9:1-38; Matthew 9:1-38 it is not merely the people tried, but more especially the religious leaders, till all closes in blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Far from lowering the position of His servant, He declares there was none greater among mortal men. Some consider that John the Baptist enquired solely for the sake of his disciples. When we think of punishment, we can only say, "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" There are no recriminations; there is no receiving back with a grudge and a sense of superior contempt; it is all joy. There may be desires, there may be the working of the Spirit of God, but there can be no power to walk before men and to glorify God thus till there is forgiveness possessed and enjoyed in the heart. But I see no sufficient reason to refuse the impression that John found it hard to reconcile his continued imprisonment with a present Messiah; nor do I discern a sound judgment of the case, or a profound knowledge of the heart, in those who thus raise doubts as to John's sincerity, any more than they appear to me to exalt the character of this honoured man of God, by supposing him to play a part which really belonged to others. The Church Refugee sanity video you posted last week gave us some sanity. The man who is useless, the man who is an evil influence on others, the man who cannot justify the simple fact of his existence, is in danger of the punishment of God, unless he excises from his life those things which make him the handicap he is. Table fellowship was a huge ethical deal in their world that is not so much so in ours. What special mercy and tenderness, not only in the end, but also in the way the Lord deals with Israel! Jesus is just as much present in the little congregation as in the great mass meeting. . (SeeMatthew 9:32-33; Matthew 9:32-33.) The unparalleled grace of the Saviour must form and fashion the saints henceforth. As to any one else, even the most liberal gift that ever was given of God to fallen man on earth, to the golden head of the Gentiles, exempted the deep and its untamed inhabitants. Thus the fresh revelations of grace in no way detract from that which God had of old established in nature; but, contrariwise, only impart a new and greater force in asserting the real value and wisdom of God's way even in these least things. (1.) But if he does not listen, that is, if he chooses to justify his sin Jesus had uttered similar words in Matthew 16:19 when discussing the divine authority He had given to Peter and the other 11 apostles of the Jerusalem Church. We can imagine how the other shepherds would return with their flocks to the village fold at evening time, and how they would tell that one shepherd was still out on the mountain-side seeking a wanderer. Matthew 18:17-18 NIV - If they still refuse to listen, tell it - Bible This was testing matters more closely.