I'll begin with verses 23 and 24. And it happened that he, that is Jesus, was passing through the grain fields on the Sabbath. And his disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? Okay, it's the seventh day of the week, it's a Saturday, it's a Sabbath, and Jesus and the disciples are making their way through grain fields, and the disciples are plucking heads of grain. And the Pharisees say to Jesus, behold, why do they do that which is not lawful on the Sabbath? And as modern Americans, we might think, yeah, why are they trespassing on someone else's land and snacking on their crop? But that would be missing the point. That was not the concern of the Pharisees that Jesus and his disciples were trespassing or stealing or eating. The transgression they are accused of is not trespassing on someone's property. The Pharisees have no objection to that. Their objection is labor on the Sabbath. In the minds of the Pharisees, plucking the heads of grain was harvesting, albeit a small amount, but harvesting nonetheless. In the rabbinical exposition on the Sabbath commandment, the disciples of Jesus were performing forbidden work on the Sabbath of reaping. was prohibited on the Sabbath, and harvesting is mentioned specifically. Let me read to you from Exodus 20, verses 8 through 11. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Yahweh your God, and you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female slave, or your cattle, or your sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. And then in Exodus chapter 34 verse 21 you read, You shall work six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest. Even during plowing time and harvest you shall rest. Now apparently Jesus is not plucking the heads of grain, but his disciples are. But teachers are responsible at least in some degree for the actions of their disciples. Plus Jesus is with them and he's letting them do this. He's not telling them they can't. And so the Pharisees bring their question and their allegation to Jesus. Now first of all, back to our American way of thinking regarding trespassing and stealing. For the nation of Israel God, and thus the Jews, saw it very differently. Let me read to you Deuteronomy 23 verses 24 and 25. When you enter your neighbor's vineyard, then you may eat grapes until you are fully satisfied, but you shall not put any in your basket. When you enter your neighbor's standing grain, then you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor's standing grain. Deuteronomy gives broad permission to eat your fill from your neighbor's vineyard and grain field as long as you don't gather it in a vessel or cut it with an implement. This is akin to God's legislation to support the poor in the land of Israel. In Leviticus 23, 22, we read this, when you reap the harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor gather the gleaning of your harvest. You are to leave them for the afflicted and the sojourner. I am Yahweh your God. Produce ultimately comes from God. Bounty comes from God and we don't have the right to begrudge others of God's bounty when they are traveling through according to these laws in the Old Testament. And apparently the fields and the vineyards were laid out in such a way that people often had to pass through fields belonging to others. And this was not considered trespassing. And Jesus himself shows that he was support, of course, he was supportive of this. He's part of the Trinity. But we read in another place, when he became hungry on a journey, he saw a fig tree in the distance, not his own fig tree, and he approached it to pluck fruit from it. It wasn't fruitful and he cursed it. But Jesus and his disciples were fully within their rights and were acting in accordance with commonly accepted practice of going through grain fields and plucking the heads of grain, although Jesus was not plucking here. But But according to the Jewish tradition, they needed to do it Sunday through Friday. And then when the Sabbath began on Friday evening, they should not. And according to these Pharisees, they were transgressing the Old Testament law against harvesting, and so they questioned Jesus about it. Now, verses 25 and 26. And he, that is Jesus, said to them, have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry? How he entered the house of God around the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him? Okay, Jesus answers their question by appealing to scripture. And here's the background. 1 Samuel chapter 19, Saul tries to kill David. The next chapter, chapter 20, Saul's son Jonathan warns David. And then you get to 1 Samuel chapter 21, and David and his band are on the run. And in the beginning of chapter 21, we read this, then David and the men who were with him, came to know to Ahimelech the priest, and Ahimelech came trembling to meet David. I'm gonna skip a few verses. David says, so now what do you have on hand? Give five loaves of bread into my hand, or whatever can be found. And the priest answered David and said, there is no ordinary bread on hand, but there is consecrated bread. Now, I'm gonna stop for a second. Each Sabbath, 12 fresh loaves of bread were to be set on the table in the holy place. And the old loaves were removed, and they could be eaten by the priests. And so, this priest says, there is no ordinary bread, but we do have the consecrated bread, bread that's been removed from the table in the holy place, that is only for the priests. And he goes on to say, If only the young men have kept themselves from women, he's wanting to make sure that they're ceremonially clean, right? And David answered the priest and said to him, surely women have been kept from us as previously when I set out and the vessels of the young men were holy, though it was an ordinary journey. How much more than today will their vessels be holy? So the priest gave him consecrated bread for there was no bread but the bread of the presence which was removed from before Yahweh in order to put hot bread in its place when it was taken away. Then David arose and fled from Saul." Well, why in answering the Pharisees' question does Jesus choose this passage from 1 Samuel 21? Did you catch the parallels? In David's situation and in Jesus' situation, we have a leader with his men, a leader with his companions. Both groups are hungry. Both began to eat as David gave bread to his hungry men, so Jesus permits food for his hungry men. David and his companions' actions are not lawful. If you go back to Leviticus 24 and the instructions regarding the bread for the tabernacle, those loaves we were just talking about, here's what you read. Then you shall take fine flour and bake 12 cakes with it, and you shall set them in two rows, six to a row, on the pure gold table before Yahweh. And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be a memorial portion for the bread, even an offering by fire to Yahweh. Every Sabbath day he shall set it in order before Yahweh continually. It is an everlasting covenant for the sons of Israel. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, the priests, and they shall eat it in the holy place. for it is most holy to him from the offerings to Yahweh by fire, his portion forever. So in this case with David and his men, It's no mere question of plucking the heads of grain. This is a much more serious charge of eating the bread of presence, which after its presentation to Yahweh was hallowed, kept apart from secular uses only for the priests. And yet here it's given to David and his men under this circumstances of duress. But This action of David passes unreproved in scripture. The fact that God does not condemn David for his actions. indicates the narrowness with which the scribes interpreted the law and not in accordance with the tenor of scripture. It is always lawful to do good and to save life. Such compassionate acts are within the spirit of the law. And so Jesus argues that the tradition of the Pharisees is unduly stringent and exceeds the intention of the law. Think of Hosea 6.6, for I desire mercy and not sacrifice. Think of Micah 6.8, he has told you, O man, what is good and what does Yahweh require of you, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Now the Pharisees themselves supported a rabbinic concept known as Pekuach Nefesh. It was the importance of preserving life. Its origins are found in Leviticus 19.16. Nor shall you stand idly by the blood of your neighbor. And it goes back to something that is written in the book of 1 Maccabees in chapter 2, an event that took place in 167 BC. 1,000 Jewish freedom fighters were attacked and butchered because they refused to break the Sabbath by fighting to defend themselves. And when word got back to the leaders of the Maccabean revolt, they declared, if we all do as our kindred have done and refuse to fight with the Gentiles for our lives and for our ordinances, they will quickly destroy us from the earth. So they made this decision that day. Let us fight against anyone who comes to attack us on the Sabbath day. Let us not all die as our kindred died in their hiding places. So the rabbis agreed that these ordinances could be broken in order to save a life. Now, David's actions and his companion's actions were not lawful, and yet they pass uncondemned because what was done was merciful and for the support of human life. Now, in the case of Jesus and his disciples, it seems to me like one of two things is going on, and I don't know which it is. But one is this, is that the disciples actually broke the Sabbath. But mercy to human life made it okay. That is, that they broke the letter of the law, but were covered by the spirit of the law because it's always lawful to do good and to save a life, even on the Sabbath. And both David and his disciples, and Jesus and his disciples were within the spirit of that law. That's one option. This is the second option. If I had to guess which one was true, I would guess the second option, but I don't know for sure. Here's the second option. The disciples of Jesus did not actually break the Sabbath law. They only broke the rabbinic tradition. That is, they didn't transgress the Sabbath law, rather they transgressed the rabbinical exposition and traditions on the Sabbath. David broke the law of Moses concerning the Holy Bread. Jesus' disciples broke the Pharisees' interpretation of the law. Either way, Jesus defends the disciples against this charge, and he teaches the Pharisees in the process. Just like in 2 Timothy 2.25, where Paul exhorts Timothy to, with gentleness, correct those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth. Jesus corrects and teaches the Pharisees here. Verse 27, And Jesus was saying to them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Jesus points out that the Pharisees, with all their hedging, with all their restrictions, originally designed to avoid any possibility of infringing on the Sabbath, they have made it an intolerable burden. They had forgotten that the origin of the Sabbath was God's merciful provision for man. Man was not created simply to observe the Sabbath, but to enjoy the Sabbath. About 150 to 200 years after Jesus walked on earth, A legal document called the Mishnah was written and it codified Jewish law and preserved centuries of Jewish legal opinion and debates. And the Mishnah sought to bring everyday reality and practical application to the 613 commandments presented in the Torah. And it's still used today for this sermon. I spent some time reading it and it was fascinating. And within the Mishnah is a section on the Sabbath. And there are 39 categories of work that are forbidden on the Sabbath according to the Mishnah. I'll just read to you a few of them. Plowing, planting, reaping, baking, weaving, slaughtering, writing two letters, erasing two letters, kindling a fire, a final hammer blow or completing an act, carrying. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to read you some of what the Mishnah teaches regarding three different areas of work and some modern Jewish teaching on the Mishnah regarding this. Now, let's first consider reaping. what we have in our text today. And do remember that the Old Testament says, you shall work six days, but the seventh day you shall rest, even during plowing time, and harvest you shall rest. Okay, now the Mishnah regarding reaping says this, the definition of reaping is severing a plant from its source of growth. Here are some of the things that are forbidden. Removing all or part of a plant from its source of growth is reaping. Climbing a tree is rabbinically forbidden for fear that it may lead to one tearing off a branch. Riding an animal is also rabbinically forbidden as one may unthinkingly detach a stick with which to hit an animal. Plucking a flower is forbidden. Plucking fruit from a tree is forbidden. It is forbidden to smell a growing flower. Fruit which falls from a tree on the Sabbath may not be used on the same day. Okay, so those are some of the things that are forbidden in regards to reaping on the Sabbath day according to Misha in modern interpretations. Now, I'm going to get to a second category of work according to Misha, and this is carrying. Okay, remember when Jesus healed a man by the pool on the Sabbath, and he told him, get up, pick up your mat and walk? And the Jews were saying to the man who had been healed, it's the Sabbath, it's not lawful for you to carry your mat. Well, when I was a pastor in North Carolina, we had a man in our church by the name of Ted Dissasour, and he worked with some folks, he worked in North Carolina, but he worked with some folks out of New York, and I remember him telling the story of a man, a New York Jew, who on his way home on a Friday missed his subway stop and went too far. And he realized he was not going to make it home before the Sabbath started on that Friday. And so he looked around in the city and found a hole in a wall in a building where he put his wallet and his keys so that he would not be carrying them during the Sabbath. Went to his home, and after the Sabbath was over, he came back, and they were still there. And I didn't even know that kind of a thing existed. Well, it's right here. It's right here in the Mishnah. Okay, here we go. carrying in the Mishnah. All areas are divided into four categories, private domain, public thoroughfare, an open inhabited area, and areas not designed for human habitation. Transferring an object from a private domain to a public thoroughfare and vice versa is biblically forbidden. Transferring an object between an open area to a private domain or public thoroughfare is rabbinically prohibited. Transferring an object between an exempt area and any other domain is permissible. In addition, transferring an object for a distance of four cubits or more in a public thoroughfare or an open area is forbidden. If a man leaves his house, he may carry nothing but the clothing on his back. The category absolutely forbids all carrying in the street. Even such trivial things as a key or a handkerchief must be left at home. Certainly pocketbooks, purses, wallets, keychains may not be carried. The only thing one may carry outdoors are the things that are actually worn. Carrying in a private home is permitted on the Sabbath. It is only in the public domain that it is forbidden. The spirit of the law, however, forbids the carrying or handling of unnecessary objects even indoors. The Sanhedrin therefore legislated things which may not be handled on the Sabbath. These include useless things such as pebbles and stones. They also include things which may not be used on the Sabbath such as pencils, candles, and money." One more category. Lighting a fire. Oh, I forgot to mention, under carrying, we did have in in the book of Jeremiah. Thus says Yahweh, take care for the sake of your lives and do not carry a load on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. Now we get to lighting a fire. Exodus 35.3 says this, you shall not kindle a fire in any of your places of habitation on the Sabbath day. And they run with that, right? Judaism requires Sabbath candles to be lit before the Sabbath. It is forbidden to light them on the Sabbath. In Orthodox Judaism, it is completely forbidden to use electrical devices on the Sabbath, as some believe turning on an incandescent light bulb violates the biblical prohibition against igniting a fire. Refrigerators. Though most Sabbath-observant Jews permit opening and closing a refrigerator during the Sabbath, some authorities require that the door only be opened when the refrigerator motor is already running. Otherwise, the motor will be caused to go on sooner by the increase in temperature indirectly caused by the flow of heat from the outside. However, Auerbach and most authorities permit opening the door because this result is indirect and because there are no additional grounds than because there are additional grounds to be lenient. Additionally, any incandescent light which is triggered upon opening the door must be disconnected before the Sabbath. It is not permitted to open the door if the light will be turned on. The light is turned on immediately as an effect of opening the refrigerator, whereas the motor turning on is an indirect effect. Elevators. Opening an elevator, excuse me, operating an elevator is generally prohibited by Orthodox authorities for multiple reasons. However, Sabbath elevators have been designed automatically to travel from one floor to the next regardless of whether a human being is riding the elevator, so many authorities permit the use of such elevators. Because what, if you go up to an elevator and you push the button, what, you're turning on a light. That's some form of ignition, right? Now, to us, much of this sounds silly, but I want to be careful here. I don't want to denigrate anyone who is seeking to be obedient to the Lord. Rather, I am trying to convey what Jesus was teaching in this text in his interaction with the Pharisees. Let's give an example. Let's say you have a children's playground, and the children are free to play throughout the playground. But let's say there's one thing on the playground you think, oh, we better fence that off from the children. Let's say if you had a propane tank or something like that. I'm just teasing. I really find it humorous that the one structure that children play on here is the propane tank. And I confirmed with Eric that it's actually not in use, it's a vestigial structure, right? But let's say it were an operating propane tank and highly dangerous, okay? And so the adults say, we're gonna put a fence around that propane tank to protect the children. Good, we're gonna do that. Now, just to be extra sure, afterwards a decision is made to put an extra fence which surrounds the most central fence, just to be extra sure. And then sometime later, there's a decision to put in an extra, extra fence to surround the extra fence so that they can be extra, extra sure. Pretty soon, there's hardly any room left on the playground. And that's what the rabbinical tradition had done. Probably many of them had been well-meaning through the centuries. God's word puts a fence around this, just to be sure, let's put up another fence. And eventually you go from a day that God has given for rest and enjoyment to a burdensome day with more commands than we can all possibly remember and not even the authorities agree on what they are. The Jewish tradition had so multiplied the requirements and restrictions for keeping the Sabbath that the burden had become intolerable. And the Sabbath, which had been given for man's physical and spiritual benefit, had become a bunch of man-made rules and a burden. And so Jesus cuts across this and reemphasizes God's given purpose of the Sabbath, a day intended for spiritual, mental, and physical restoration. The divine intention was in no way infringed upon by the disciples plucking heads of grain. And Jesus affirms the true intention of the Sabbath and he exposes the error of a human system for fencing the law with additional restrictions. Now verse 28, Jesus continues on. Consequently, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. You know what word comes to my mind after I read that verse? Probably just about every time is boom! When I was in seminary, I'm embarrassed to admit, some Jehovah's false witnesses came by my apartment, and I thought, hey, I'll share with them, try to minister to them, show them the truth, whatever, and then they started having me read some material. You know, they don't believe that Jesus is divine. They don't believe there's a Trinity, right? They believe Jesus was the first thing God created. So they had me reading this stuff, and I got a little, I can't say I got confused. I held with the Trinity, but I had to do some homework to beef up why I could be fully persuaded the Trinity is biblical, and it is, right? But when you have a statement like this, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath? You think, you go back to Mark chapter one, Jesus has authority to command unclean spirits. Mark chapter one, Jesus has the power to heal the sick. The beginning of Mark chapter two, Jesus says, son, your sins are forgiven. And then here at the end of chapter two, he says, the son of man has authority over the Sabbath. Well, Exodus chapter 20, Deuteronomy chapter five makes clear that the Sabbath is something that God practiced and that he gave to man. It is his doing. I'm surprised they didn't pick up stones right then and there to stone Jesus when he said that. If the Sabbath was made for man's good and not vice versa, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath and he can correctly interpret its regulations. Okay, now I got five applications I want to go over with y'all from what we just studied. The first one is this. Dear friends, be generous with the property that God has entrusted to you. Yes, the Bible upholds private property rights. God commended the Jews not to harvest to the corners of their property, to leave some for people in need. And dear friends, I would say to you, don't reap to the corners of your field. Dear friend, do you reap to the corner of your property, gleaning for yourself, squeezing out for yourself everything that God has given you, or do you leave enough to share with others? God commanded that Jews allow a neighbor or sojourner or a poor person crossing the property to eat, not to still buckets full, but to eat. And we need to be people who are generous with the property that God has entrusted to us. That's the first application. The second application is this. Remember that God gives good gifts. Don't create an image of God in your mind that is not commensurate with the teaching of scripture. James 1.17, every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. Dear friends, He's given us the cycle of work and of rest. He's given us family, both natural and Christian. From Yahweh comes a prudent wife. From Yahweh, children are a heritage. They are friends who are closer than a brother. Yahweh gives the Holy Spirit in particular. the manifestation, the spiritual gifts for what is profitable for the church as he determines. God gave his son to save the world. God gives us the kingdom. Come, you are blessed by my father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. And he gives to us an answer to our prayers, 1 John 5, 15. And we know that if he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have requests which we have asked from him. Remember that God gives good gifts. Third application is this. Guard against additional fences. Guard against adding fences. Now, personally, there may be areas of sin or temptation. We kind of read about some of that tonight in the Westminster Confession of Faith. There may be areas where you need to build an extra safety measure in place for you personally because of this particular area where you may have a weakness or whatever. But what I'm talking about is guard against building additional offenses that are to be applied to everyone, intending, even if the intent is good, I wanna protect the law of God, the law of God can handle itself. And rightly or wrongly, I'm a little sympathetic to the Pharisees. I see how they got there. But they went beyond scripture and they made things intolerable. And I think this guard against building additional fences is worthy for any portion of the body of Christ, but including our portion. And there's no other portion of the Christian body I'd rather be in than reform position. If I were on a deserted island, I'd like to have my Bible, my Westminster Confession and catechisms, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the thick copy of Louis Burkhoff's systematic theology. But we and all Christians need to be careful in our diligent application of the word that we don't go too far and create a command or make binding something that scripture does not command or make binding. And again, perhaps a good bit of the Mishnah was conceived by those who wanted to be faithful to the Lord, but in their zeal, they departed at least in some degree from the intent of God's law. Fourth application is this. Dear friends in Christ, enjoy a physical Sabbath rest. Verne Poythress was one of my professors at Westminster Seminary, and he said this to me one time. He said, we are made in the image of God, right? As God did, working six days and resting one, he commanded his people to do. It seems that in working six days and in resting one, they were and we are imaging God. And please notice that the greatest emphasis on it is it being a day of rest from labor. Sometimes we can make Sundays an Ironman contest, and we need to make sure that rest, physical rest, is part of our exercising this gift from God. And notice also, too, that rest in the Old Testament Sabbath was accompanied by reflection of what God had done for them. In Deuteronomy chapter five, where you have the fourth commandment, it says, you shall remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out there by a mighty hand and outstretched arm. And so for us, we reflect on that we were slaves, we were slaves to sin, right? And Jesus set us free from that. And I'm persuaded that many will not rest unless they get this. that many will not rest unless they have clear in their hearts that God will provide for them in their rest." Now imagine the Jews coming out of Egypt and they're told, you get to rest one day a week. They're like, what? You're kidding me. We've been slaves laboring in Egypt. We get to rest a day a week? Now they weren't obedient much of the time regarding that Sabbath rest. But God provided twice the amount of manna the day before the Sabbath. And dear friends, we need to trust God in His promises to meet our needs. And if we think, no, I've got to work seven days a week to make it happen, then we're saying it all depends upon me. It doesn't depend upon God. And it's like saying to the Lord, you will not keep your promise to provide. And let me say this about the church generally too. Just as we had in the passages regarding grain fields and vineyards, that those who were poor should not go hungry because their neighbors were given instructions to share their bounty. That is also a New Testament principle as well. And if there's anyone or any family within this church presently where there's been a blight on your harvest, where there's been a hailstorm on your harvest, there are others in this church to whom God has given bounty and given us the privilege and the command to share with you. And so no one here should have too little. But if you're in that circumstance, I wanna encourage you to tell somebody in the church, go to the deacons, go to the elders, go to the pastor, and let them know so the church can exercise what God's called them to do. Okay, fifth and final application is this. Enjoy a spiritual rest. This is particularly broad out of Hebrews chapter four. I'll read a few verses from that. We who have believed enter into rest. Consequently, a Sabbath rest remains for the people of God. For the one who has entered into his rest has also himself rested from his works, just as God did from his own. The point is this, through faith in Christ, we rest from the works of our own hands. The works of Jesus are the only works that are sufficient to earn our favor before God. And by faith in him, we enter into that eternal rest. We receive the gift of eternal life. We receive the sure promise of entering the true promised land, the place of eternal rest. And I want to close by reading from Revelation chapter seven, where it points us towards, sets our sights towards that eternal rest. Then one of the elders asked me, These in white robes, who are they? And where did they come from? I answered, Sir, you know. And he said, These are they who have come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, They are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will spread His tent over them. Never again will they hunger. Never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd. He will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Let us pray.