Matthew-092

Today, we will study Matthew 23:29-39, and in this passage is the meaning and the nature of sonship. Whose son are you? Are you a son of God? Or is it perhaps that unknowingly, and even without desiring it, you are a son of darkness, a son of the devil? This is the message we will look at in this passage:

These words of the Lord Jesus are truly powerful and to the point. We have already seen that the one sin that he cannot tolerate—he is so understanding and so forgiving about every other sin—is this sin of hypocrisy. This sin of “acting out”, if you might say, is not necessa­rily insincere but it is as though one is religious and righteous, or even thinking that one is religious and righteous without genuinely being so. That is, the reality is not the same as the appearance.

We can choose to be sons of God, not sons of the devil

Today, I would like to particularly expound on the Lord Jesus’ teach­ing concerning sonship. What is to be a son of God? What is to be a true Christian as distinct from a false or nominal Christian? What is it to be a disciple of Jesus? And how can we be sure that we are such a disciple?

In this passage, we will notice many times the words “sons” and “fathers,” you have the picture of a hen and its offspring, and you have the picture of vipers or poisonous snakes and their offspring (v. 33). If you are born from poisonous snakes, then you are going to be a snake. If you are born of God, you are a child of God. Which kind of people are we? The Bible recognizes only two kinds of people: Either you are sons and daughters of God, or sons and daughters of the devil; you are sons and daughters of the light or you are sons and daughters of darkness. So everyone who comes into this world is divided into one category or another: We are sons either of God or of the devil.

There is one thing that we don’t have much choice of initially, and that is, whose son and daughter we are. I may not have chosen to be by the surname of Chang but I did not have too much choice. You did not choose to be a Chen or a Huang or Wang, but you were born into that family. And if you don’t happen to like your surname, what choice have you got? Do you go to your father and say, “Why did you end up with this surname? I like some other surname”? Your father doesn’t have any choice; you don’t have any choice.

When we were all born, we were in some way or other sons of darkness. That is something we did not have too much choice in. We were born into a world in which sin is predominant. We all know that every person who is born into this world is remarkably selfish by nature. We are all self-centered. Every psychologist knows that the ego is the key element in man’s psychology. His life revolves around himself, his “me,” “my” and “I,” and every attempt to change that has run into all kinds of difficulties. You can tell people that he should put something else as the center of his life, but that is extremely difficult for him to do. In the first instance we don’t have a choice, but in the second instance we do.

Here is the big decision that we have to make in the second instance. Although we may be born as sons of darkness, although we may be born into a world in which sin is predominant, although by nature we are selfish and have been corrupted, the Scriptural teaching is that we don’t have to remain sons of darkness, sons of disobedience, sons of the devil. We have a choice to become sons of God. That is why the Bible is called “Good News.” What is the good news? The good news is that although we are born to live in the world that is under the power of the devil, we can become sons of God.

When I was not a Christian, I was gripped with a deep sense of futility

When I was not a Christian, I wondered if there is any choice in this world, whether there is any direction in life other than living a life the Bible calls “futile.” “Futile” means you look at your life and you wonder, what is the point of being born into this world? What is the point of going to so many years of primary school, secondary school, university and maybe some more years of graduate school? It seems the whole point is to get a job, so as to have bread and butter, and hopefully, you can make some small contribution to your particular field of study. In most cases, people don’t have the genius to make that kind of contribution. So you are simply one of those people who keep the system going. And at the end of this, you become old, sick, and you die, and that’s life. It all seems so futile! As Romans 8:21 says, the whole creation is caught up in this futility because everything ends in death.

I remember, as a young person with all of my life ahead of me, I had this deep sense of meaninglessness. It seemed to be pointless, and this sense of futility gripped me so powerfully that many times, I just sat on my bed and wept because I couldn’t see any purpose in my life. So I disciplined my life with my love for exercise and sports, so that while I was engaged in sports and in the fun of it, I forgot the whole problem of life. My problem always began either early in the morning or late at night. When everyone was in bed, suddenly, this question, “What is it for?” comes back again. I tried to forget this question and turned on the music, or did something else, but this question came back at me again.

Sometimes, going to a “good movie,” which causes you to think of things which are above the everyday things of life, could be one of the most disturbing times. You think of something noble, grand, excellent, like someone living and dying for his country and the like, and for a moment, your spirit is lifted up to higher things than eating, studying and the same everyday routine. But this “higher thing” tends to bring back the old question of, what is the meaning of life, doesn’t it? And that begins to bother me again.

The principle of corruption in human nature pulls history downwards

I love my country. I would like to do something for my country. And then I think of the history. History always has a very depressing effect because it is a cycle of going in a spiral, and we keep hoping that the spiral goes upward, but it seems to always be going downward. I love to read history. I have read Chinese history from beginning to end several times. Each dynasty beginning with some very capable emperor who has a great vision of making China a great country. Take the Tang Dynasty or the Han Dynasty when it had new blood. The first leaders are capable men of vision and idealistic desires, who are going to raise the whole nation. Then the second emperor is not as good as the first, and the third is even worse than the previous one, and it goes down and down until finally, the last two emperors are corrupt, useless weaklings, who never go out of the palace to see what goes on in the lives of the people. I find myself getting more and more frustrated as I read about the next emperor and all these corrupt officials, and finally, there comes another welcome revolution! It starts from the beginning again, that there comes a new emperor with great vision, with great capabilities, who throws out the old dynasty and begins a new one. There is hope again with a new start! Unfortunately, the whole story repeats itself! The first emperor is really good; the second one is not so bad; the third one is not so good; the fourth one is no good at all. It all starts so beautifully and all ends so badly, and so it goes on and on. It’s so depressing! And you wonder why doesn’t history keep going upward instead of forever going downwards?

China is lifted up and dropped again. It’s better not to be lifted up than to be dropped again, isn’t it? The reason why I was so interested in this was because I was wanting to have a part in this. Like so many young people in China, my intention was to lift the country up to the peak and stay there by some means or other! But alas! History is history, because there is something in human nature that tends to go down!

That is what the Bible means by sin. Sin tends to go downward like the principle of gravity. The mass of the earth pulls everything downward, and our nature, as the Bible speaks of it, is precisely like the earth. When you keep on throwing something up, it has the gravity to pull everything down again. That is history. The first person tries to launch off a new dynasty like sending up a rocket, and the earth pulls it down again. Man simply does not have the power to escape the pull of this gravity. That is the point of the gospel.

When a rocket goes up, you see the power that thrusts down from this motor. Why do you need this enormous power to take these few tons of metal up? Because the pull of the earth’s gravity is so strong that it takes enormous power to be able to shoot out away from the gravity of the earth Even if you shoot a satellite into the earth’s orbit, it will stay out but come down again, slowly but surely. Even if it takes a few months or a few years, in the end, the earth pulls it in again. So either you go completely away from the earth, or the earth will surely get you back again.

Human nature is like that. We cannot overcome this gravity of sin in our lives. We don’t have the power. We have made a thrust quite far up many times, like someone who has a strong arm, who throws a baseball so far up, but it will come down again no matter how high you throw it, because our strength is not enough to overcome the power of gravity.

Only God can set us free from the all-encompassing power of sin

Now the point is that becoming a son of God requires God’s power! By nature, we are enslaved by this gravity of sin whether we like it or not, and often we don’t like it. People who are enslaved under a certain system may not like it but they don’t have too much choice. We are slaves to Satan, if you like, not because we like to be slaves of Satan but we don’t have a choice because Satan is the great big center of gravity! We don’t have the power to overcome this field of gravity that locks us in. Many times, we attempt at moral reform to overcome, but we don’t win. We might come a long way sometimes, but we still don’t win. Sooner or later, it pulls us down. This is no “good news” to us. We seem to have no means to escape the power of sin, the power of constant decline, this power, this Law of Thermodynamics, if you like, that everything must fold in. It forever means that power is not sufficient. There is the principle of decay, the principle that something that moves must decline. Everything comes to a halt eventually. So it all depends on power.

I am a Christian because I know that the only solution to this problem is the power of God! When you experience God’s power, you will know it is true. There is no other way by which you can escape this all-encompassing power of sin that will win.

The world has tried everything to produce a new nation. To have a new nation, you have to have new people. How can we have new people? What has the world got to offer? It has tried education for example, but as all of you know, educated people don’t make better people. They are a more sophisticated people, but not better. If it were not so, all our intellectuals would be wonderful people. They commit the same evil, doing it in a cleverer way, but they are still the same sins. You can try moral reforms which don’t last, because they cannot change man in the heart. When I was a non-Christian, I thought of using military power to establish righteousness by the force of arms. That may be fine so long as you are alive, but the person who takes over the army may have different ideas from you, and the whole scene changes.

Frankly, either we accept that God’s power is going to set us free from this principle of corruption that brings history downwards all the time, or there is no other solution at all. Man has tried everything and none of these things can succeed. Only the power of God is going to help us through. Is this just a theory? Is this just a hope? If it is a hope, I am wasting my time preaching. I preach the gospel because I have the certainty and the conviction which come from experience, that God’s power can set us free. This is the reason why I am a Christian today.

The world under Satan’s power and control will be destroyed by war

Today, we live in the 20^th Century, when your existence and mine could be wiped out in the next five minutes when someone presses the wrong button! That is the glorious prospects we live in nowa­days. Science has brought us to the stage where our existence is very far from certain. So today, there is a panic in many countries when people think about where to run off to take shelter in case of war or human error. Do you know what one of the best-selling businesses is in England today? Those who are doing the bomb shelter business are doing a booming business! They can’t catch up with their orders! People who can afford it are building nuclear bomb shelters in their backyard. Just the other day, I was reading a report that these people who build underground bomb shelters cannot catch up with their contracts. There is a long waiting list of people who want to build these bomb shelters.

In Switzerland where I have visited many times, it is compulsory for every house to have a bomb shelter. Did you know that? In the basement of every house and apartment building, there is a bomb shelter. I very much doubt whether it can stand a nuclear bomb, but at least it gives some sense of security. I was staying in an apartment building and there was a bomb shelter of solid concrete with thick metal doors in the basement. Everyone wants to survive, so we live in a world of bomb shelters!

There is another thing that is very curious. You might have noticed nowadays, that there is a new business coming up that is making a lot of money in North America as well as in Europe. And what is that? It is freeze-dried foods. Freeze-dried food is a really growing con­cern. You can buy freeze-dried foods right now which keep from 4 to 6 years. So you must get your bomb shelter, and then you must stock it up with freeze-dried foods, or else you will starve to death living in a bomb shelter during bomb attacks. Canned food in good condition can only last for about a year or so depending on whether it is vegetables or meat, but freeze-dried foods have a long, long shelf life. So people are stocking up on that.

We live in very interesting days! Why? The reason is sin is the domi­nant element in this world whether we like to acknowledge it or not, so destruction will come. People are convinced that sooner or later, hopefully later, but destruction will come at some stage. This is the kind of world we live in. That is the reality of it. It’s no use pretend­ing. Today, the weather is nice, but who knows what this world will be like by next week or next month? Why? It’s because of sin! This is what the Bible speaks of as a world under the power of Satan, under the power of the force that you don’t like, but you know it is in control. You cannot determine what will happen next week, but some other force is going to determine that. Man seems to be con­trolled by some other force outside of himself.

It seems that no one wants war but we still get war. Right now, the argument over the missiles in Syria is pretty dangerous as everyone knows that this situation could trigger off a big explosion in the Middle East. Every little thing seems to be like a fuse going to set off the next bomb, and you don’t know who is going to light that fuse. Nobody seems to want to light it, yet somehow, it gets lighted. So what is happening?

Let us understand that is what the Bible means. You may not be familiar with the language of the Bible, but it is saying this very thing: The sons of darkness are in control of this world insofar as they are under the control of the power of darkness, that seems to run every­thing in this world. This is what the Bible means by the world being under the power of Satan. Man does not even understand why he does the things he does, and he looks back in shame after having done it, but it’s already done.

You don’t want to be a son of the devil, but sin overpowers you

I did a very cruel thing once, and many times, I feel very bad about myself when I think about it. I once asked a German friend of mine, “When I look at the German people, you seem to be very civilized and intelligent, but what kind of mentality do you have that could make you put 6 million people to the gas chambers?” He was so stunned and upset by this question that he could not answer me at all. He said he didn’t understand. When I thought back, I felt so bad for having asked him a very unfair question although it was a question that bothered me. It was an unfair question because he was even more upset about it than I was, because he also couldn’t understand how his fellow-countrymen could have done a thing like this.

If the Germans themselves couldn’t understand why they did this, then it is as the apostle Paul says, “I sin and I cannot help sinning. And I don’t know why I have sinned.” The only thing I could think of is that there is a principle of sin that makes me do the very thing that I don’t want to do. And yet I do it. And yet when I think about it afterwards, I ask myself, ‘Why did I do it?’” This is what the Bible means to be sons of the devil. It’s not that you want to be a son of the devil, but it is if you are under his power, under the power of sin, you do the things that you regret and you wonder why you did it.

I want to put it in this way so that you understand the Bible is saying this very thing, even if the law may sound unfamiliar to you at first. You know it’s true. The German people know it’s true. They are disgusted with themselves at having done such a monstrosity, and yet they don’t understand why they did that. Isn’t that painful? As I say, I’ve thought about it many times, and I have felt disgusted with myself that I asked him this question. It’s not a fair question because the truth of it is that you and I might have done it too under that circumstance of being carried away by false ideas as so many people are. They do things which they thought were right at the time, but later realized they were wrong.

In the New Testament, sonship is not status but a new Christ-like life

So how can we be free? Let us look now at the Scriptural teaching because I am not here to give my own ideas. I am here simply to expound the Word of God, but I want to expound it in a manner that you can clearly understand. In the Bible, time and again, we read of this choice that everyone must make, and so people are divided into two groups. Either you are a son of the devil which you may not like to be, but that’s the way it is; or you can choose to become a son of God. That is what it means to become a true Christian. We will have to look at this in a moment because there are false Christians too.

In the Bible, the act of faith is a choice which we make when we say, “I don’t want to be in sin or darkness anymore. I don’t want to be a son of darkness, a son of the devil anymore. I have this choice because God has given it to me. I choose to become a son of God. He has given me this invitation to be his son, and I want to accept his invitation.” That is what it means to become a Christian.

Notice what the Lord Jesus says to the Pharisees in John 8:41-45.

This is a very important passage. These religious people, the Jews, (and false Christians too) said, “We have one Father, even God. God is our Father. We are sons of God!” Jesus said, “Not so.” Why not? Why are we sons of the devil? It is because we do what the devil does. What does the devil do? He lies. He is self-centered. The devil is always putting himself first; he wants to displace God. He wants to have the glory to himself.

The Bible then shows us that the mark of sonship is that the son does what the father does. What is a son of God in the Bible? It’s not just that he has some kind of physical connection to the Father. It’s very important for you to understand that in the Bible, sonship has to do with likeness in character and conduct to God. That is the mark of sonship. That is exactly what the Lord Jesus says in John 8:39,

That is the key to understanding sonship in the Bible.

If I claim to be a son of God, but I don’t behave like a son of God, I don’t behave in the way Yahweh God’s Son, Jesus Christ behaves, then I am a hypocrite. I am a liar; I don’t speak the truth. That is why the Lord Jesus calls the Pharisees hypocrites. They are not speaking the truth. They say that they are sons of God but they don’t behave like sons of God. Do you behave like a son of God? How do you be­have at home? How do you behave at school? What is your attitude and mentality? You must grasp this very important principle that goes through the whole of Scripture, that sonship has to do with likeness in attitude and in conduct. When we choose to be sons of God, we don’t just choose a relationship to God that we think we can establish by a profession of faith. That is what the Pharisees did. Rather, we choose a whole new lifestyle, a whole new way of thinking, of behaving. That is what it means to become a Christian. You do not just choose to believe certain doctrines, you choose a new lifestyle!

I would like those who are about to be baptized to understand this very clearly. Otherwise, you will simply become a hypocrite. You are going to speak as though you are Christian and you are going to behave like a non-Christian. That is what hypocrisy is about, and we already have too many people like that in the church. Outwardly, they claim to be Christians, they speak as though they are Christians, but when you look at their mentality and the way they behave, you don’t see a Christian. They are no different from any non-Christian, and yet they claim to be “Christians.” If that is the way you behave, and you call yourself a son of God, or a daughter of God, you have only deceived yourself. The Bible does not draw the line by saying, “All Christians are sons of God and all non-Christians are sons of the devil.” Not at all! There are a lot of so-called “Christians” who are sons of the devil. It’s very important to grasp this situation, and this point goes right through the Scripture!

This is the reason why the Lord Jesus says to the Pharisees in Matthew 23:33, you are serpents, you are the offspring of vipers. The devil is pictured as a serpent in the Bible because of his deceit­fulness, his poison, his corruption, his readiness to harm other people.

When the Lord Jesus calls them sons of the devil, he is not insulting them by calling them names. It is a medical diagnosis. When the doctor says that you have cancer or diabetes, he is not trying to insult you; he is telling you your condition, that unless you do something about it, you will die. When the Lord Jesus tells the Pharisees, “You are serpents. That is your nature, he is not insulting them. He’s telling them, “That’s your condition, and unless you are changed by God, unless you become a new person, you will die.” He says this in the very next verse, John 8:33, “How shall you escape being sen­tenced to hell?” Unless you stop being serpents, unless your whole inner character is changed, you have no way to escape from hell.

Many people think that Jesus is insulting the Pharisees, that he is more or less swearing at them, when they read Matthew 23. No, to think like this is not to understand the Lord Jesus at all. He is diagnosing their spiritual condition and warning them they must go through a fundamental change, or else they cannot escape from hell. Their eternal welfare is at stake!

Sons of God bring others blessing and love their enemies

Throughout the Bible, when you study the nature of sonship, you will find that sonship has to do with a mentality and with a way of life. For example, in Matthew 5:9, we read “Blessed are the peacemakers.” They are not vipers, which are poisonous serpents that harm people. Peacemakers bring blessing to other people. “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God.” Sonship is connected with a certain type of attitude and beha­vior, namely, those who make peace. People who make trouble are not sons of God, whatever they think themselves to be. People are the sons of God when they make peace, bring together the injured parties and heal their wounds.

A little further on, we see the same thing again in Matthew 5:45, those who love their enemies are the sons of God. Being sons of God is not tied up with a certain religious stance; it has to do with a whole attitude of mind which results in a loving conduct towards others, even those who are your enemies. That is the mark of sonship. And that is something we cannot do by our own strength. That is why I said we are lifted up by God’s power like the power that lifts the rocket, out of the sphere of influence of the gravity pull of sin. I cannot love my enemies but God’s power can make me do that. He can enable me to do it, so that I am surprised at what I do. What I cannot do by nature, I find myself doing by God’s power. If God’s power is not real, I won’t be able to do it. But because God’s power is real, I can do it. That is the evidence of God’s power. If you try to do it by yourself, you will find you cannot do it. It is against human nature; it is against the law of gravity. But God enables us to become children of God and to function as children of God.

You will find in the New Testament, this sonship is not connected with a status but with a whole new lifestyle. I want to stress this point because there is teaching in the church that is contrary to this, saying that if you make some kind of profession of faith, you can keep on sinning as much as you like and you will still be saved. That is incredible teaching! That is not Biblical teaching. That is why I am constantly pointing out to you that in the Bible, sonship is not just a status, but a way of life. It’s important to grasp this! There are some Christians who did not grasp this, they think that because you are a “Christian,” you can keep on sinning—even though your mentality and behavior do not change—and you are still going to be saved. I don’t know what kind of teaching that is because I don’t find it in my Bible.

2 Corinthians 6:17-18 for example, tells us the same thing:

God tells us what kind of people he will call his sons. God will say to people who come out from the bondage of sin, who don’t have anything more to do with the unclean things that he will be their Father, and they will be his sons. He expects from them a total change in their lifestyle. That is the necessity in becoming sons.

The same thing is true in Ephesians 1:4-7.

Verse 5 says we have become sons of God through his adoption, but verse 4 tells us that we have left the old way of life of sin, that God wants to present us holy and blameless in his presence. Verse 7 tells us that through the blood of Christ, God cleansed us to make us holy and acceptable in his presence.

The same is true in Romans 8:14,

It is not a status. In the Bible, the sons of God constantly follow God’s Holy Spirit. So don’t think that because you were baptized or because you made some profession of faith, you now have this status of being called “born again.” And because you are “born again”, you can sin! That’s exactly the opposite of the meaning of being “born again”!

1 John 3:8-9 says this very thing that whosoever is born of God does not continue to commit sin.

Verse 8 says that whoever commits sin is of the devil. It is made very plain to us that if you continue to live in sin, you are of the devil even if you profess to be a Christian. But if you have become a son of God, you don’t continue to live in sin. It doesn’t mean that you never com­mit a sin. Occasionally, you slip but you don’t make it a habit to sin. When you slip or fall, you need to come back to God for forgiveness. But what is certainly true is that your whole mentality is changed and different, and the whole direction of your life has changed.

Revelation 21:7 tells us who God will call his sons and his daughters.

It is they who conquer, who overcome the gravity pull of sin, and who do this not in their own strength because they have long dis­covered that they cannot do it in their own strength but by the power of God.

Time and again, the Scripture keeps on telling us that “if you are Abraham’s son, you would do what Abraham did.” What did Abraham do? He obeyed God. When God told him to do something, he did it. Every son of God does what Abraham did.

To be or not to be a son of God, transformed and new

Are you or are you not a son of God? That is your choice that you must face today. Are you sure that you are a son of God? Just look at your daily life. Does your mentality and the way you behave show you to be a son of God? Do other people see a Christ-likeness in you? That is the question. If not, then come to Yahweh God in repentance, and ask to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus, the Christ he sent. Then let the Holy Spirit of Yahweh God come into your life and change you. That is how we become new people. Becoming a Christian is to be changed. This is the choice you have to make.

Let us be quiet before God in prayer.