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Matthew 9:14 - 9:15

Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of MatthewSteve Gregg

In this lecture, Steve Gregg explores Matthew 9:14-15, where Jesus is seen addressing the disciples of John the Baptist. Gregg notes the tendency within human nature to be critical and judgmental of others who do not follow the same religious calling; however, he emphasizes that self-denial does not necessarily constitute a relationship with God. Jesus himself welcomed sinners, and while his disciples were required to fast, he did not necessarily offer an easy road to life. Gregg also touches on the concept of mourning and how Jesus reassured his disciples that he would never leave or forsake them.

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Transcript

Today we'll be looking at the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, and I'm going to begin reading at verse 14. As long as the bridegroom is with them, but the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse.
Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved. Well, this passage begins with a challenge that is brought to Jesus by some of another denomination.
There were different religious groups in Israel, and they were not all that friendly toward each other sometimes. Now, the disciples of John the Baptist at this point in Jesus' ministry are a strange anomaly, it seems to me. Why John the Baptist would still have disciples at this point is not clear.
It is not really unclear why people would initially be drawn to John the Baptist, but John had pointed Jesus out to his disciples and said, that's the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. And some of his disciples, notably James and John and Peter and Andrew, had actually left John and become followers of Jesus because John had pointed him out in this manner. What is astonishing is that any of John's disciples chose to stay with John rather than following Jesus at this point.
Later still in the Gospel of John in chapter 3, we read that some of John's disciples are complaining to him because John's popularity is diminishing and the popularity of Jesus is increasing. And John said, well, you know, I'm the bridegroom's friend. Jesus is the bridegroom, and the people are the bride.
And the bridegroom's friend is not supposed to get the bride. The bridegroom is supposed to get the bride. So this is right for him to have these people following him.
And he said, John said, I must decrease, but he must increase. Now, once again, having said this about Jesus, John would have seemingly been encouraging them to become followers of Jesus, not of himself. Since he said, I must decrease and Jesus must increase.
And yet, at a time considerably later, we find that John the Baptist still has disciples. And they're not just disciples who follow John, but they are actually jealous for John. And they seem a little bit resentful that they have to follow a harder path in some ways than the disciples of Jesus followed.
Now, John did lead a more hard life than Jesus did. John lived out in the desert. He abstained from all products of the grapevine, including wine and grape juice, which were typical table beverages for most.
And he ate a very limited diet. He ate only locusts and wild honey. And he wore rough garments and so forth.
And those who followed him probably imitated some of these behaviors. Now, Jesus, on the other hand, mingled quite comfortably with ordinary company. He did not live out in the wilderness.
He did not wear rough clothing. He did not limit his diet. And in that respect, he was very different from John.
And it's often the case that people who are adhering to a religion that demands a lot of them, in the sense of the sacrifice of pleasures and comforts, that those people often have some resentment toward people of another religious mindset who don't deprive themselves of such things. Even within Christendom, there have been different camps. For example, there have been the Catholic orders of monks that would go off into monasteries.
And they would sometimes live very uncomfortably, wear rough clothing. Sometimes they would eat plain foods. They would abstain from marriage and so forth.
And they would live ascetic lives. And yet there's other Christians who have never felt called to do that kind of thing. Now, I'm not going to say that God does not call some people to live a life that is considerably more ascetic and self-denying than he calls some others to live.
But I will say there's something in human nature that makes it so that if a person is following a religion that is very demanding upon him, upon his comforts and his pleasures, and that calls him away from a great deal of ordinary enjoyment of life, that that person is often inclined to be critical and judgmental toward the one who does not feel called that same way. For example, we read in Romans chapter 14 that in the church in Rome, there were some who believed that they had to abstain from all meat. And others did not feel the need to abstain from all meat.
There were some who felt they needed to observe a Sabbath day and do no work on the Sabbath. And there were others who didn't feel that that was mandatory for them. And so there were different practices in Rome among the Christians.
And Paul addressed them in the 14th chapter of Romans and said that both groups could do what they wished, but they should not judge one another and be critical of one another. And that they should do what they felt inclined in their own conscience to do. Well, as long as a person does not become legalistic and judgmental, it has never bothered me if a person chooses a way of life that involves poverty or celibacy or vegetarianism or whatever.
But I'm afraid that too many times, because of human nature, people who choose these stark lifestyles, these Spartan lifestyles, often do not enjoy them and only continue in them because they feel somehow they need to do this in order to be right with God. These people, I think, often have a wrong understanding of what it means to be right with God. Because getting right with God is not a matter of sleeping on a bed of nails or restricting your diet a certain way.
Getting right with God has to do with simply putting your trust in Jesus Christ, becoming His follower, repenting of your sin, and walking with Jesus day by day. That's the normal Christian life. And while God may call some people to special degrees of self-denial, those degrees of self-denial do not constitute a relationship with God.
And a relationship with God is based on something much more basic, and that is faith in Christ and commitment to Him. So, we find that many times people who are in these ascetic-type cults or groups, or simply choose an ascetic lifestyle, many times they are doing it because they are afraid to do something else. Jesus often offended religious people who were afraid to be as free as He was.
Remember, Jesus said, John the Baptist came neither eating meat nor drinking wine. And you say he has a demon. He was speaking to the Pharisees.
And He said, the Son of Man has come both eating and drinking. And you call Him a wine-bibber and a glutton and a friend of sinners. Now, of the two, I think the religious Jews, the Pharisees, were more attracted to John the Baptist than to Jesus.
Because John, at least, followed in the same traditions of self-denial and so forth that some of the prophets like Elijah had done. Jesus, on the other hand, frightened the religious people, because He seemed to befriend those who had neglected religion, who had violated the law. The people that the more strict religious group would condemn, Jesus seemed to associate with.
And in some ways, He shared their lifestyle. Not all things. He certainly never sinned, as many of them were doing.
But He did feast with them. He enjoyed their company. And as He had said in the previous passage that we saw in Matthew 9, He came to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Well, because Jesus was so free in His affiliation and association with sinners, those who were more strict in their religious convictions often were critical of Him. Now, here we read in Matthew 9.14 that the disciples of John the Baptist came and brought a challenge to Jesus. Something in the way of a criticism.
As you compare the parallels to this in the other Gospels, you'll find that the disciples of John were not alone here. That they were joined by the disciples of the Pharisees. Now, the Pharisees were one religious denomination in Israel.
The disciples of John were another. And, of course, the followers of Jesus were yet another. So, it's like in Israel, there were these different religious denominations, and they're critical of each other.
In most cases, the Pharisees would be critical of the disciples of John, and the disciples of John would be critical of the Pharisees. Because, remember, John called the Pharisees a generation of vipers. The disciples of John would not, generally speaking, have respect for the Pharisees, nor vice versa.
But in this case, both groups joined together to confront Jesus. Because the disciples of John and the Pharisees had one thing in common that Jesus did not. And that was that they called their followers to fast frequently.
As a matter of fact, the disciples of John and the Pharisees fasted twice a week. And this was regular practice for them. Now, this just meant abstaining from food from sunup to sundown.
They could eat after sundown, or before sunup. So, it wouldn't really mean even that they had to go 24 hours without food. It just required them to go through the daylight hours without eating.
And this they did, who knows why. The law never commanded them to do this, and it's hard to know how they came to develop this. But I'm sure that they felt that this somehow commended them to God, or made some positive spiritual impact.
Jesus, on the other hand, apparently did not require his disciples to fast at all. And that was offensive to those religious persons who felt that fasting was essential to their righteousness. And here Jesus comes along, and he's got a much more slack hand in requiring his disciples to deny themselves from their natural bodily pleasures, like food.
Jesus himself, by the way, was not a slacker. He, on one occasion, fasted for a full 40 days and 40 nights. So, Jesus did not necessarily take the easy road in life.
But his disciples were never required to fast. Now, this puzzled the religious leaders, and particularly the disciples of John, because John had spoken so positively of Jesus. Jesus would have been viewed as superior religiously to John, and yet he seemed to lay such little restriction in matters of food and drink on his disciples.
And so they come to Jesus, and they say, why do we and the Pharisees fast often? But your disciples do not fast. Now, this is essentially saying, it's sort of like if someone came to you and said, we go to church three times a week. Why don't you go to church as often as we do? Now, you may be among those who believe that church is the body of Christ, and that when you get together with other Christians, no matter what the setting, you are at church, as it were.
You are in the body. You are fellowshipping. You can worship, and you can study the scriptures, and pray, and do all the things that are done at church.
You can do all those things in other places when you're with other Christians. And where Jesus said, where two or more are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. There are many who feel, and I think quite legitimately, that the so-called institutional church meeting is not the only place where Jesus meets with his people.
And there are some, indeed, who have found the institutional church so compromised that they have gathered in other locations, in other types of settings, in homes, and so forth, for fellowship. And one could just imagine people who are very regular in an institutional church saying, well, why do we go to church frequently, but you don't go to church? It would be a very similar situation. The people who go to church, the institutional church, apparently, would feel that that is an essential part of their righteousness.
Because if they did not, there would be no reason to ask why others don't do it. I mean, if the institutional church is not a necessary part for righteousness, then there would be nothing to criticize about those who don't use it. Especially if they are fellowshipping with God and with others in other settings.
Well, here the disciples of John feel that the disciples of Jesus are being negligent in some ritual matter. Fasting twice a week would be comparable to going to church in terms of its moral value, because going to church may or may not be a positive spiritual experience. There is a tradition in the modern church that somehow going to church on Sunday is to be done, regardless of whether you get something out of it or not.
Regardless of whether you have a contribution to make or not. I mean, most churches would say, well, you can get something out of it if you try, and you can have something to offer to the church if you go. And this can be true.
But there are many who have gone to churches and they find consistently they don't get much out of it, except their kids maybe get corrupted by contact with bratty, undisciplined children in the youth group, and they decide not to go to those things. Now, of course, a person doesn't have to go to church, in the ordinary sense of that word, to be saved. Certainly a Christian must and will seek out fellowship with others.
And certainly the writer of Hebrews says, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. I'm sure that all Christians will assemble with true Christians as often as they can find them, but not necessarily with a mixed multitude they find in some of the churches. So, it is a ritual thing.
The idea in the modern church is you go to church because that's just what you do, if you're really truly religious. Never mind that many of us don't get very much out of it. It's just what you do, because Christians do that.
Well, that's how the disciples of John and the Pharisees were about fasting. Never mind it doesn't do us any spiritual good. It's just what you're supposed to do.
It's been part of our religion for a long time. It's just what the Jewish, pious Jews do. Well, Jesus didn't really have any use for ritual piety.
And Jesus said to them, can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, but the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. Now, notice that Jesus equated mourning with fasting. There are other uses of fasting than as a means of mourning, but apparently Jesus indicated that fasting is appropriate for times of mourning.
You don't expect the disciples to mourn, that is fast, as people do when they mourn, while they're at the wedding with the bridegroom celebrating with him. Now, when he's gone, they will have occasion to mourn and to fast, but they are celebrating with him right now, and don't expect them to fast at a feast. They're at the wedding feast with the bridegroom.
Now, what is this wedding feast? He was not talking about some future wedding feast at the second coming. He was talking about his presence there at that very time. The disciples were celebrating with the bridegroom.
Now, what's rather interesting about this in particular is that Jesus was addressing the disciples of John the Baptist. And this is the only time that Jesus directly referred to himself as the bridegroom. Now, there were some times when Jesus told parables about weddings, and we could apply sometimes in those cases the bridegroom image to him, but this is not so much a parable as an analogy, and he refers to himself as the bridegroom.
Now, John's disciples, the very ones possibly who are asking this question, had been told by John the Baptist himself that Jesus was the bridegroom, and that those who were coming to him were like people who were like a bride, or as Jesus gives the analogy, the friends of the bridegroom, who are at the wedding. This being so, we can see that Jesus is then alluding back to something John the Baptist said, and he's doing so with the disciples of John the Baptist. This is in John chapter 3, verse 29, John the Baptist said, He who has the bride is the bridegroom.
He's referring to Jesus.
The friend of the bridegroom, meaning John the Baptist, who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. So, John the Baptist had told his disciples that Jesus was like a bridegroom taking his bride.
In other words, there's a wedding feast going on here. And so, Jesus picks up that imagery that John had taught his own disciples, and speaking to John's disciples, he says, You expect the guests at the wedding, the best man and the friends of the bridegroom, you expect them to be fasting at the wedding. They don't mourn when their friend is rejoicing.
Now, the time will come when he will be taken from them, and then they will mourn, then they will fast. Now, what I want to point out to you is that Jesus essentially equated fasting with mourning. Now, there are other uses of fasting besides in mourning.
There are times in the scripture where fasting and praying go together well. In fact, Jesus himself on one occasion seemed to have said, depending on which manuscripts are consulted, that there are certain demons that cannot be cast out except through prayer and fasting. And Paul said in one of his letters in 2 Corinthians that he was in frequent fastings and losing sleep too, although that may have been involuntary because of the perils that he faced at the sea and so forth.
But the point here is that mourning was not appropriate for the disciples while they were with the bridegroom, with Jesus. The time would come that he would be taken from them, and then there would be occasion for them to mourn and to fast. Now, what is the fulfillment of this? Jesus said his disciples would fast and would mourn when he was taken away from them.
Well, he was taken away from them for three days when he died and was buried, but then he returned to them, and he said, I will never leave you nor forsake you, and ever since then Jesus has been with the disciples. And for that reason, many people feel that Jesus meant that the disciples would fast during that three-day interim that the bridegroom was taken from them, that is, while Jesus was in the grave. However, now that Jesus has come back and we're rejoicing in Jesus, they would argue that we don't fast anymore.
There's no need to fast because the bridegroom has come back now. He came back from the grave and he's with us always. However, that doesn't seem to fit the biblical material because the disciples did not fast when Jesus was in the grave.
In fact, when he appeared from the dead on Sunday morning, they had food already cooked and he asked for some of it. They were not fasting. And after Jesus ascended into heaven, certainly after his resurrection, the disciples sometimes did fast.
The apostle Paul, right after his conversion, fasted for three days while he was waiting to have his sight restored and to be baptized. The church leaders in Antioch, where Saul, as he was then called, was ministering, they fasted as they were preparing to send out Paul and Barnabas in Acts chapter 13. So we know that fasting was done in the early church and it therefore must have a place among Christians.
And the only way I know of fasting being useful in the New Testament is when coupled with prayer. When you miss meals, that's what fasting means. You forsake food for the time being in order to pray and to mix your prayers with your abstinence for the time being.
However, this idea of just fasting routinely, just to put on a long face and look sad, well, that might be appropriate for Pharisees and it might be appropriate for the disciples of John the Baptist because of the austerity of their religion, which, by the way, did not put them directly in touch with God. The Pharisees had no fellowship with God and John's disciples probably didn't either. But they were just following religious practices that were not all that fun to follow and they might as well mourn about it.
They might as well fast and be sad about it. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6 that the Pharisees, when they fast, they put on a long face and look real sad. Well, they didn't want anyone to think they were enjoying their religion and a lot of people don't enjoy their religion.
However, Jesus indicated that normal walking with God and with Jesus Christ is a happy experience, an experience for which mourning is not really appropriate. And there may be times when we will fast because it is suited to our special needs in prayer, but as far as having a sorrowful mourning countenance and being gloomy about our religious practices, this is suited for people who don't really know God and aren't really with the bridegroom. I do believe that although Jesus is absent from us in body, he is present with us in our hearts if we are his followers.
And therefore, fasting as a means of mourning is not necessarily something that Jesus taught or would approve. I would say this. Jesus nowhere in his teaching ever commanded his disciples to fast.
But it is clear that on this occasion he predicted that they would. He said the disciples would fast when he was taken from them. So although we don't have a direct command anywhere to fast from Jesus, we do have his anticipation that there would be times when Christians would fast.
And I believe that when we pray and fast, this is what he would have anticipated and that is appropriate at times. We're out of time for this session, so we'll continue next time.

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