Have you ever noticed that passages of liturature you
think you understand and then come to understand that
you don't understand, can become the most difficult
to come to understand.
For example, for those of you who know the Robert
Frost poem the "Mending Wall" know that there is a
phrase in that poem that says, "good fences make good
neighbors". People who quote that are usually
isolationist who want to build walls between
themselves and other people. And they feel that
Robert Frost is indorsing what they do.
But if you look at the poem closely, you'll discover
that is not the poet's sentiment at all. Those are
the words of a next door neighbor, a kind of a borish
lout who hasn't had an orignal thought in his life
and he's quoting what someone else has told him. And
he says; "good fences make good neighbors".
So when you go back to read that poem, if you know
that line, it can confuse you. Because when you
think you understand something and then discover you
don't understand it, it can get a lot harder to
understand.
We come to that with some of the sentences that Jesus
spoke. Especially one of them that is in the heart
of the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew chapter ,
verse 5 Jesus says, "Do not give dogs what is
sacred," and verse 6, "and do not throw your pearls
to pigs, for if you do, they may trample them under
their feet and turn and tear you to pieces."
Now that is a tough sentence to understand. I would
never think of feeding Charlie something sacred. In
fact, I don't even know what something sacred is that
you could give to a dog. I just give Charlie some
Purina Puppy Chow.
I want never in a thousand years think of taking
Louise's pearls, if she had any, and feed them to
pigs. So I read the sentence and I am not really
sure what Jesus is talking about. And then to make
matters worse, this thing about sacred things & dogs
and pigs and pearls is stuck right in the middle of a
passage that follows "do not judge or you to will be
judged, in the same way you judge others you will be
judged, with the measure you use it will be measured
to you.
Why do you look at the speck in your
brother's eye, and pay no attention to the plank in
your own eye. How can you say to your brother let me
take the speck out of your eye, when all the time
there is a plank in your own eye. You hypocrite,
first take the plank out of your own eye and then
you'll see clearly to remove the speck from your
brother's eye."
Then you've got the piece about the dogs and the pigs
and then following that you have the section that
says, "ask and it will be given unto you, seek and
you'll find, knock and the door will be open unto
you,"
Well, it isn't too hard to understand, on the surface
at least, what Jesus is saying. When Jesus talks
about dogs, He is not talking about puppy dogs that
jump up in your laps and lick your face and wag their
tail. He is talking about first century dogs in the
ancient near east. Those dogs were scavingers. They
ran around in packs, they were mangy and had filty
fur. There were burrs in their coats and their long
red tongues hand out. And they frightened people.
When Jesus talks about not giving what is sacred to
dogs, He's talking about the meat that was offered in
the chapel to God. The worshiper brought a
sacrifice, some of the sacrifice was given back to
the worshiper and another part of the sacrifice was
given to the priest, but the rest of it was placed on
the altar and it was burned with fire, but at the end
of the day, the meat was not completely comsumed and
so the priest, who ran a kind of sacred slatter
house, at the end of the day had this charred meat to
do something with.
If a farmer had a cow that was killed by lightning he
could drag the carcus out to the edge of town and a
pack of hungry dogs would come and make a meal out of
it. But it didn't seem quite right to do that with
the meat that had been offered to God.
Same kind of problem I have with old Bibles. I have
a bunch of them in my study, I've used them over the
years. They are worn out now, but I don't know what
to do with them. Doesn't seem right to take them
down to the furnace and burn them. And I don't feel
like I ought to bury them and I certainly wouldn't
want to throw it in the garbage. Those book have
ment too much to me. So there they sit on my shelf,
like old soldiers in a retirement home. I suspect
I'll keep them till the day I die and let my children
worry about them.
Jesus talks about giving pearls to pigs. I don't
know that much about pigs, but from I do know they
seem to be always hungry and grunt a lot, and snort
and whyne and push. So the farmer goes out to feed
them some grain but if for some reason he was to get
ahold of some pearls and he was to throw those in
front of those pigs, those pearls would look like
grain and the pigs would look at them and then
realize that it was not the real thing and as
precious as they were, they would stump them into the
mud.
The pigs of the first century came from the bores
that were imported from Euorope, they were still half
savage animals and if that pig became frustrated and
felt that it had been fooled, it would attack the
farmer and tear him apart.
You go to Yellowstone Park you see a sign that says,
"Don't Feed the Bears!" You can feed the chipmunks,
you can feed the squirrels, you can feed the coyote,
if you can find one, you can feed the racoon, but you
can't feed the bears.
You see, if you feed a bear and the bear doesn't like
the menu, he'll tear you apart. That's just the way
it is with wild animals and wild pigs.
So it's clear in the eye of Jesus and His listeners,
dogs and pigs did not have a high place in the
picking order.
Jesus is obviously saying, "Don't take what is sacred
and give it to a dog and don't take what is precious
and give it to a pig.
But having said that, we are not quite sure what He
is referring to. One thing that we suspect is that
He is not talking about animals. He is not talking
about dogs or pigs, He's talking about people. And
when you go thru the Bible you discover that when the
Bible refers to dogs and pigs it is not
complementary.
For and example in the 22nd Psalm,
verse 16, the psalmist says, "The dogs have
surrounded me" then he explains the reference by
saying, "a band of evil men have encompassed me".
These were those who turned upon the righteous and
wanted to tear them apart.
Or Paul in Philippians chapter 3 verse 2 says,
"beware of the dogs" and then he says, "they are the
men who do evil". "They are the mutilators of the
flesh" So in that reference the dogs are those who
oppose the Gospel of the Grace of God.
Or in 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 22, Peter has been
talking about false teachers, about men who offer
cream but really end up giving people stricnine. He
says of them, "they are like prodical pigs, or as a
dog returns to its vomit, as a sow that is washed
returns to wallow in the mud. So these false
teachers have natures that have not been changed."
So that makes it a little clearer doesn't it. Don't
give what is sacred to dogs and what is precious to
pigs less they trample pearls under foot and tear you
apart. He is obviously referring to unrighteous
people. We are not to give them what is valueble and
sacred.
Still the question is, "What is Jesus referring to in
this passage from the Sermon on the Mount?" Well,
Christians have had a number of views, from the
earliest of times people thought that Jesus was
talking about evangelism. What He was saying is
"Don't take what is sacred and give it to those who
are basphemious, don't take what is precious and give
it to the enemies of the truth." There is some
biblical support for that.
But I don't know what it would have to do with the
Sermon on the Mount. Then at the end of the chapter
Jesus tells His followers to go into all the world
and spread the Gospel. That doesn't sound like One
who is restricting the Gospel to those who will
appreciate it.
There were others, who in the early church felt that
these words applied to the Lord's table. When
Christians gathered in those early days they gathered
around the Supper of the Lord. And an Elder would
begin the service by saying, "Holy things are for
holy people" In an early book of church order it
says, "Let no one eat or drink of the Eucurast except
those baptized into the Name of the Lord, for as
regards to this the Lord said, give not that which is
holy unto dogs."
So the early Christians wanted to fence off the
Lord's table so that the pigs and dogs would not be
invited to eat. It wasn't that they were against
evangelism, but the wanted despeately to preserve the
purity of the church and they knew that if they did
not take stern measures the church would be swamped
by the sea of pagenism.
Now that was their application, but I question
weather or not that is what Jesus meant. I see
nothing about the Lord's table in the Sermon on the
Mount. And I cannot imagine that He would throw in
this one verse in the middle of the sermon and
somehow be talking about the Lord's Table.
The question is, "What does Jesus mean by this, do
not give dogs what is sacred, do not throw your
pearls to pigs, for if you do they may trample them
under their feet and turn and rend you to pieces" I
think that the answer comes, if you will back up into
chapter 6 of Matthew and you will see that in the
first part of that chapter Jesus is talking about
worship. About the gifts that we give and the
prayers that we make and about fasting and then in
the heart of the section about prayer in verse 9 of
chapter 6 He says, "When you pray this is how you
should pray" and He gives what is sometimes called
the Lord's prayer.
Now if you'll look at the Lord's prayer you'll see
that it is divided into 2 parts. The first part we
are to talk to the Father about the Father. We are
to say, "Father, hollow it be Thy name". In other
words what you are saying is that when you are
praying in your prayers in your life, you want God to
be God to you. You want to honor His Person. Then
you are to pray for God's program, for the time His
kingdom will come, then you are to pray for His
purposes to be worked out in the world. "Your will
be done on earth as it is in heaven".
That section
of the Lord's Prayer is commented on beginning in
verse 19 thru verse 24 and Jesus is going to comment
on that first major petition. That if your business
in life is to honor God's name, to advance God's
kingdom, and to see that God's will is done on earth,
Then you are not going to store up for yourself
treasurers on earth were moths and rust destroy and
thieves break in and steal. You're going to store up
treasurers in heaven.
And what's more, He says in verse 22 you're going to
have an eye that is single. You are not going to
have double vision. And in addition in verse 24 you
will have decided the biggest question in life, that
is who will master you. Either you will be mastered
by God and God's kingdom and God's glory or you'll be
mastered by money and things of earth. All of that
is a commentary on the first part of the prayer.
But having told us that we are to Pray to the Father
about the Father, then having done that, we are to
pray to the Father about the family. We can ask,
"Give us this day our daily bread". We can ask God
for provisions. And beginning at verse 25 Jesus
comments on that petition in the Lord's prayer. He
says, "If you are doing God's business and you are
about glorifying God's name, then you can be sure
that if your interest is to take care of God, God's
interest is to take care of you. So you don't have
to worry about life, what you'll eat or drink or
about your body, what you'll wear. God will supply
the bread and the thread you'll need in order to get
along.
You're not going to be taken up with those things
because that's the kind of thing the Gentile has
taken up with, they are the ones who have their
affections set on things on earth. If you have to
worry, then worry about God's kingdom. As He says in
verse 35, "Seek first God's kingdom and His
righteousness and all these things [what you'll wear
& what you'll eat, what you'll drink] all these
things will be given you as well. That whole section
is a comment on that petition.
You not only ask God for the provisions for the
family, you ask God for pardon. "Forgive us our
debts as we have forgiven our debtors." That's so
important that in verse 14 Jesus commented on that,
He says, "If you forgive men when they sin against
you, your heaven Father will also forgive you. But
if you don't forgive men their sins, your Father will
not forgive your sins."
In chapter 7 verse 1-5 Jesus makes another comment.
He says, "Don't judge or you too will be judged, the
same way you judge others, you'll be judged, with the
measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do
you look at the speck of saw dust in your brothers
eye and pay no attention to the plank that is in your
own eye." When you really pray "Forgive us our sins"
and you really mean forgive me my sins, what you have
done is to revise your estimate of yourself downward.
You admit that you are a sinful person.
You
recognize all of the tretsurey that is in your life.
So when you see a brother who has sinned, if you know
your own sin and the tretsurey of your own heart,
then you are not going to come to your brother as a
critic and a judge. If someone has a splinter in his
eye it is an act of mercy to take it out and a
splinter in your eye hurts. But if someone comes
with some kind of Judgmental attitude, and says, "I'm
going to help you get that splinter out" You would
rather go blind.
But if you know what it is to be a sinful person and
you know God's forgiveness, that changes your
attitude completely. You don't come as a critic, you
come as a friend.
But the last petition for the family ask for
protection. "Lead us not into temptation but deliver
us from the evil one" The truth is if it weren't
here in the Bible we wouldn't pray that. Most of us
are pretty fond of temptation. It's the consciences
of our sin that we don't like. The temptation,
that's fun. If it weren't attractive, it wouldn't be
temptation. It's kind of nice to be tempted. It
gets the fire going in your bones. That's the reason
we watch the television programs we watch. That's
the reason we read some of the magazines we read.
Someone said, don't pray, "lead us not into
temptation" God might answer your prayer and spoil
all of the fun. But Jesus reminds us that behind the
temptation there is the tempter. Behind the lie
there is the liar. Behind the trap there is the
hunter. Behind the temptation is the enemy of your
soul.
And so in verse 6 Jesus comments on that, "Do not
give dogs what is sacred, do not throw your pearls to
pigs, if you do they will trample them under their
feet and turn and rend you to pieces."
You see, Satan is not out to make you a naughty boy
or girl. Satan is out to separate you from God. He
is out to get you to honor your own name, to build
your own kingdoms, to do your own will, to bake your
own bread. And not give a rip about forgiveness.
No, Satan is out to separate you from God. And what
is precious to God and is sacred to God is your
discipleship, is your commitment. What is sacred to
God, and precious to God is the Gospel His people
preach.
If Satan lures you away from the Father, he has won a
great victory because he has been able to attack what
is precious & sacred to God. You would think,
wouldn't you, that when a man turns his back upon his
commitment, when he sacrifices upon some wayside
altar and goes back to the way of the world, the
people out there would welcome him home. Not so.
They dispise you also. They attack you like dogs
after the sacred meat. Like pigs seeing something
precious, they will grind it into the mud. They will
tear you apart.
A few years ago one of the Dallas Cowboys gave his
heart to Jesus. It was so outstanding that it made
the newspapers, local and national. When the Cowboys
were on their next road trip a couple of his buddies
paid a call girl $50 and said if you can get him into
bed you can keep the $50 and whatever he gives you.
He hear about it and did not fall because he knew if
he had he would have been the brunt of their jokes
and they would have tore him apart like wild animals.
They would have taken his testimony and trampled it
into the mud. They would have torn him apart.
You see, Christians want to forgive. When they see a
man overtaken in a fault they want to restore him.
When Satan catches you in a trap like that, ......he
has not mercy. He turns the dogs loose, the wild
pigs trample what is precious under foot. They tear
you apart.
If your commitment as a disciple is sacred to God,
your commitment to Jesus Christ is precious to Him,
satan takes keen delight in destroying you and
turning the pack loose. Go back on your
discipleship, sometime you'll find that the thing you
held most sacred is defiled. And what you felt was
most precious, the blood of Jesus Christ, like pearls
to a pig were trampled into the mud.
The question is, how do you keep that from happening?
The answer in the context is only by prayer. This
section begins with the Lord's prayer and it ends by
Jesus saying, "Ask and it will be given you, seek and
you will find, knock and the door will be opened to
you." You know it's keep on asking, keep on seeking,
keep on knocking.
There isn't a man or woman in the sanctuary, who
cannot go the way of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker.
Don't kid yourself that that's something that only
happens to other people. I know full well the
tretsurery of my own soul. I know the weakness that
I have and I know that I can't stand up against the
wilds of trickery of the evil one.
I happen to know
that behind the trap there is the hunter, behind the
lie there is the liar, and I need to pray, "O God,
lead me not into temptation but deliver me from the
evil one. If you fail to pray that and you fail to
come before God and you fail to avail yourself of His
power and it is easy to do that and go it on your
own. You may discover that the pack of dogs are
howling outside the door of your life. The pigs are
ready to trample you and your life into the mud and
tear you to pieces.
That's just reality. That's not preacher talk.
Thaty's just straight talk from a man who knows full
well the evil in his life and the dangers that are on
every hand.
Martin Luther understood it. That great national
anthem of the reformation, he said "a mighty
fortress is our God, a bul-work never failing, Our
helper He amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing,
for still our ancient foe Doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great. and armed with cruel
hate, on earth is not his equal. Did we in our own
stength confide, our striving would be losing. Were
not the right Man on our side, the man of God's own
choosing: Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus it
is He; Lord Sabaoth His name, from age to age the
same, and He must win the battle."
Keep asking and it will be given you, keep seeking
and you'll find, keep knocking and it will be open
unto you. The stakes are high! Don't give to dogs
what is sacred, don't throw your pearls to pigs, for
if you do, they may trample them under their feet,
and then turn and tear you to pieces That's what
Jesus says, and He knew the enemy better than we do.
Shall we pray: Father I am a sinful man, You know
that better than I do. And I know it better than
anyone sitting in this sanctuary this morning,
forgive me my sins, may I minister with a pure heart
and clean hands in Jesus name I pray. Amen
