Christ's Proof of His Ministry.—Luke 7:18-35

Notes

1. "To the poor the gospel is preached." Let every poor, afflicted soul remember this. Poverty, either of purse or of intellect, is no bar to the favor of God. He was made in all things like His brethren. "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich." 2 Cor. 8:9. As a poor man He mingled with poor men, those whose poverty would not admit of their being learned in the wisdom of this world, adapting His teaching to their comprehension. The gospel is simple, suited to the comprehension of a child. This does not exclude the rich and learned; for what the weak and feeble can comprehend may easily be understood by the great, if they are only willing to receive it. The truth of God is revealed to faith, and not to intellect. They who trust only to their own reasoning faculties cannot perceive the things of God. Not that reason is to be ignored, but faith is to be its guide and instructor. "For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." See 1 Cor. 1:22-29.

2. "And all the people that heard Him, and the publicans, justified God." God declares that His words and ways are right; but, tried by that standard, every man is sure to be wrong. Every man, therefore, who either directly or indirectly justifies his own course, thereby condemns God's way. But every man who acknowledges his guilt, thereby declares that God is right. This is what is done in confession of sin. God says that we are sinners, and He points out to us the particular sins. Confession of sin is the simple acknowledgment that God is just in declaring us to be sinners, by the standard of His own life. And when we thus justify God, He justifies us, for "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9.

3. Fault-finding is a necessary accompaniment of unbelief. It is useless to try to remove objections from the mind of a man in whom is the spirit of unbelief. Though you answer one objection to his satisfaction, you have accomplished nothing, for the same process must be repeated on every point, and objections will rise faster than they can be met. Each individual objection must be met; and though ninety-nine out of a hundred were satisfactorily explained, the objector would be no nearer the truth than at the first. Neither would he be if the hundredth one were explained. The reason is that those objections have been explained satisfactorily to his reason; he can plainly see that there was no reason in them. But the spirit of unbelief is still in him, ready to raise a hundred other objections equally inconsistent with reason. If, however, that spirit of unbelief is once destroyed, those objections will not arise to require explanation. The Pharisees and others were full of the spirit of unbelief, and so, although they refused to receive John's teaching, on the ground that his abstemious habits indicated that he possessed a devil, they as promptly repudiated Jesus just because He did not follow John's practice but ate as other people did. Those who are so cautious that they cannot receive the truth, unless it is in harmony with their captious intellect, are the very ones who eagerly devour the most flagrant falsehoods. See 2 Thess. 2:9-12.