Israel had been taught that the “anointed of God” – the Messiah – Christ – would one day walk among them. That meant a variety of things to most of them. They understood that the Messiah was going to be their king, which meant that the Romans, their taxes and their foreign laws would be driven out. They believed that the Messiah would work miracles – such as the healing of leper, the curing of other diseases and the casting out of demons. They were seeing these sorts of miracles and were convinced that Jesus was the Christ. They also believed that their Messiah would be something like Moses, so some were looking forward to gifts of daily manna and occasional quail, water out of the rocks and shoes which never wore out. This Jesus, from just up the road in Nazareth, was teaching God’s Word with unique authority –surely this is the prophet “like unto Moses.” Deuteronomy 18:15 – “The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken.” When Peter was preaching about Christ on the Great Day of Pentecost he said, “For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.” And Stephen just before his martyrdom said essentially the same thing about Jesus – “This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear.”
Matthew 8 is at the beginning of Jesus’ short period of general popularity. With a variety of things in their minds, people were flocking to His side, expecting great things. Sadly, like so many professing Christians today those people either didn’t see the whole revelation, or else they saw it and rejected it. Those people didn’t see Christ as the Son of God. They didn’t see the need of His sacrifice on the cross. They didn’t understand that there was a lot more to take place before the Millennial Kingdom. And they didn’t want those things about Moses which related to the law and to judgment.
Unlike a great many preachers of the 21st century, Christ wasn’t interested in building a church, or a kingdom, on a non-scriptural basis. He didn’t welcome these people through compromise and rose-colored glasses. He wasn’t interested in disciples who were content to live on the fringe of His will. He wasn’t interested in the crowds of people who were hungry only for what they thought that they could get out of the Lord. He wants people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness. He is looking for disciples who are interested in serving, not being served. And we, as sincere children of God, shouldn’t be content to live on the fringes either.
“Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side” – of the Sea of Galilee. This will not be the last time that Christ gave His disciples orders like this. There were several times when He went out into the desert in order to drawn near to His Heavenly Father. There were occasions when He went out to stay among the heathen so that He could catch His breath. I wonder how many times when in Jerusalem He visited the Garden of Gethsemane to pray and refresh Himself, before that night in which he was betrayed?
Apparently before Jesus and the disciples could reach Peter’s or John’s fishing boat, several people confronted Him. We have accounts here of two of these people, but there was at least one other. Luke 9:61 says, “And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
One of the fringe disciples that we have here was the IMPETUOUS variety.
“And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.” I can’t tell you if there is anything of special significance in the fact that this man was a scribe. Quite often in the scriptures you’ll see “scribes,” sometimes called “lawyers,” tied to the Pharisees. They are lawyers in the sense that they considered themselves to be experts in the law – of Moses. They were employed by the synagogues as teachers and interpreters of the law. Some of the more prominent scribes became a part of the Sanhedrin – the ruling body of the Jews. And as time progressed, perhaps including this man, they will as a group reject Jesus as the Christ. Is Matthew only telling us that this man was a scribe by trade, or was there a special reason for bringing this to our attention?
I am calling this man impetuous because of Jesus’ reply. Without knowing where Christ was going for the next three years, this man announced that he would go anywhere – he would go everywhere that Jesus was going to go. But “Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” If a needy man sees an ad in the paper for a really great, high-paying job, he might go and apply. He may fill out the application, and sit down for an interview – with certain expectations in mind. He may even try to negotiate certain conditions, but those conditions will probably hurt, not help, him to land that job. The employer has every right to design the job around his particular needs – not the employee’s. The employer can make demands, stipulate payment, create limitations as he chooses. And the potential employee has no recourse but to withdraw his application if he doesn’t like the nature of the job. Have there ever been people who took a job and who didn’t take time to understand the requirements? Have there ever been disciples who didn’t understand the job?
The Lord Jesus is not uninterested in having disciples – He wants them and intends to use them. But it must be understood that discipleship is not just “following Jesus.” I wonder where this man expected Jesus to go? Eventually it had to have been to Jerusalem. He was probably expecting Jesus to walk into – or to storm into – the fortress of Antonia or where ever it was that the Roman Governor lived. He was probably thinking that despite Jesus’ appearance of poverty, one day very soon, he would be surrounded by the wealth and luxury which belonged to the king of Israel. He was going to sit upon the same kind of throne which David and Solomon had enjoyed. And this man was going to join him there in that throne room. But rather than talking about that “Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.”
How many professing Christians are there in the world today, who grew up in church memorizing John 3 :16? “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” How many people have followed Christ to church Sunday after Sunday with no other desire but to be transported to Heaven when they die? The Lord might have told this man a great many things, but He only made this one extended statement. For example, He might have added, “if you want to follow me, you have to join me in all that I must suffer.”
To be a Biblical Christian, we have to lay our hands on the sacrifice – we must identify with Him. We aren’t saved by the things that we suffer in Jesus’ Name. But with Jesus’ Name may come all kinds of things, including potential suffering and privation. “Mr. Scribe, are you willing go everywhere that I am going? Are you willing to go through everything that I will be going through?” The Lord is not interested in impetuous, impulsive disciples, who rashly make promises which in a few day’s time they will have no interest in keeping. The Lord is looking for disciples, like Peter, who will be able to say, “Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee.” If I had to guess, after Jesus’ comment to this man, and His apparent rejection of his desire to be a disciple, this was one of the scribes who later turned against Him.
The Lord does not bless those flippant, casual declarations of love to Christ. He is not pleased with servants who put their hands to the plow and then looking on the size, or the difficulty of the field, turn away after the sweat begins to collect. Impetuosity is not one of the characteristics of the disciple of Christ. Shortly after this scribe came another potential disciple of Christ.
I will call him the HESITANT disciple.
“And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my Father. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” Does this sound cruel and harsh to you? It might not have been as harsh under the circumstances as you might think.
This second disciple was quite a bit different from the first. For example, he was not volunteering his services to Christ; he was actually commissioned. Immediately following Luke’s account of the first man, we read in Luke 9:59 – “And (Christ) said unto another Follow me. But he said, Lord suffer me first to go and bury my Father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead; but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.” This was not a matter of a wishy-washy mind, but of hesitancy borne out of semi-rebellion.
I don’t know whether or not I agree, but some commentaries suggest that this man’s father was not yet dead. They try to say that he was sick, or that he was just old. Remember that there aren’t the same social responsibilities today that there were in that day. And when someone died, burial took place relatively quickly, unless there were very special circumstances. Usually there was no inquest or police investigation – no autopsy or tons of paper work. Rarely was the body embalmed, unless the person was very special – as it was with Jesus. Furthermore, if this man’s father was dying, then it is very unlikely that he would have been standing before the Saviour at all. It’s believed by some people that this man was only looking for an excuse not to follow the Lord’s call. And others think that the man was torn between conflicting responsibilities – social and spiritual.
Conflicting responsibilities is indeed a problem and one that is faced to some degree by every servant of God. Today, it’s not so much fathers and mothers, as it is wives and children. And, of course, it is somewhat harder today to determine if in fact the Lord has really called a man to preach His Word. I won’t go into that tonight, but as a general rule, if the Lord has called someone and wants him in a particular place of service, the man’s wife will be willing herself to go. In the case of this potential full-time disciple, what might his father have said about the Lord’s call? The Lord told the man to follow him, but he, for some reason was hesitant and used his father as his excuse not to obey Christ. Perhaps we should add the other potential disciple from Luke 9:61 to this. “And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
What should we make of the Lord’s reply to this second man? “But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” Apparently, the Lord Jesus had already given some instructions to His disciples on this subject. There are more than one sphere of existence in life. There is the spiritual and there is the physical. Sometimes they come together – praise the Lord that sometimes they come together. But for most – the vast majority of people in this world – physical life is enjoyed in the absence of spiritual life. This disciple, as an apparent child of God, had been regenerated. He had been given a new heart and he possessed eternal, spiritual life. He had an heavenly Father and there were spiritual brethren around him, including his elder brother, Christ. There are plenty of non-Christian, spiritually-dead people to take care of secular responsibilities. When the Lord calls a Christian into His work, then he needs to get with it.
Our Saviour points out to this man, and to us, that the things of the Spirit outweigh the things of the flesh. The responsibilities of the Lord, are more important than our responsibilities in the world. I suppose that each and every situation has to be examined separately. But in this man’s case, there were others who could bury this elderly man if and when he died. And in the mean time there were others in need of new life in Christ who were perishing through a lack of evangelism. Christ was telling this man to put first things first. Peter’s boat was about to set sail with the Saviour in it. There was not time to run back and to “bid them farewell, which are at home at my house.”
Christian discipleship is a serious subject; the work of the Lord is eternally important work. There is no room for impetuosity, hesitancy, laxity or flippant frivolity – souls are at stake. If the Lord calls a man into His ministry, then he needs to put his fishing net down and jump aboard.