Please open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 28. Matthew chapter 28. We are concluding our study in Matthew this morning, Lord willing. Sometimes when I prepare these things, I wonder whether I should have broken this into two messages, but with the Lord's help, we will look at Emmanuel, God with us this morning. Let us hear the word of the Lord. We'll read all of Matthew chapter 28. In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him, the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. The angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen, as he said, Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead. And behold, he goeth before you into Galilee. There shall ye see him, lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy, and did run to bring his disciples word. And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. They came and beheld him, and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid. Go, tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me. Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and showed unto the chief priests all the things that were done. And when they were assembled with the elders and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers saying, say ye, his disciples came by night and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor's ears, we will persuade him and secure you. So they took the money and did as they were taught. And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day. Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Let us pray. Gracious and loving Heavenly Father, we come into Thy presence and we thank Thee for Thy Word. We thank Thee especially for this Gospel of Matthew which we have enjoyed over these past Sabbaths. We ask Lord that Thou wouldst bless us as we bring this study to a conclusion. We pray once again that the Lord Jesus Our precious Savior would be exalted and revealed to us in all of His glory and in His fullness. We pray, Lord, that we may be humbled as we receive a blessing from Him and as we behold Thee in our midst. We pray, Lord, that Thou wouldst do great things within our needy hearts and grant, O Lord, that we may be drawn into Thy presence this day. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Beloved congregation, we saw at the very beginning of Matthew's gospel the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, passages that are very, very familiar to us. And when the Lord Jesus was first conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, and Joseph saw the potential for scandal. He said, I need to put my wife away. And the Lord said, no, no, everything is fine. You need to take her to be your wife because all of this is in fulfillment of the prophecy that we read earlier from Isaiah chapter seven. The prophecy, behold a virgin, in Matthew 1 verse 23, the Lord says to him in the dream, behold, a virgin shall conceive, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son and shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. So this is the fulfillment of the prophecy. His name shall be called Emmanuel. And so I've entitled this concluding sermon, Emmanuel, because at the very end of the book, the Lord says, lo, I am with you. So the book begins with Emmanuel and ends with Emmanuel. All of Matthew is bracketed by these promises, God with us. Through Matthew, we saw that God was especially with his people. We saw also in a very plain way that he was opposed to the enemies of the gospel, and generally we call, we summarize those or group those enemies under the scribes and the Pharisees, but he took such sweet and gentle care of his own people. So we want to look at these closing verses. We want to see here three points, and I've managed to alliterate them. We want to begin with group confusion, then move on to the great commission, and then conclude with a grand comfort. So the group confusion is an interesting aspect to the closing of this gospel. Note that Matthew says that there were 11 disciples in verse 16, then the 11 disciples went away into Galilee. And it's a grim reminder that Judas had gone to his own place. and also by the decree of God, though God is not the author of sin, but Judas was no longer with them. And very interesting that just about a few days ago, 10 days ago or so, Pope Francis said that he wasn't really sure where that was, his own place. The Pope said, how did Judas end? I don't know. And he quotes the scriptures, woe to that man from whom the son of man is betrayed, better for that man if he had never been born. He goes on to say, does this mean that Judas is in hell? I don't know. I look at the gospel and he calls him friend and he kisses him. So there's just a great deal of confusion here about, and not in the Roman Catholic Church. If you look at the Council of Trent, the Council of Trent even says that Judas is in hell. So here's the leader of that or the head of that church saying, I'm not really sure about that. But it's not a pleasant thing to say. It's not a pleasant thing. But it's a thing which must be believed because the Bible is very clear. The Bible calls him the son of perdition, same name that Paul gives to the Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians 2. He's the son of perdition, the son of evil. So here there are only 11 disciples and they meet Jesus at an appointed location in an appointed mountain. But here's the confusion, some worshiped, immediately they saw the Lord Jesus Christ, they loved and adored their risen Savior, but Matthew says some doubted. And they were hesitant still. And remember we know about doubting Thomas in the upper room, but still after, we don't know exactly how many days this could be just before his ascension, But it's been some time already and still some of the 11 that are here, Matthew says some of them doubted or the word really is hesitated. And perhaps they weren't really sure who this was still. They may have been uncertain how to process all of the information that they had not only seen but experienced in the last number of days. What do we do with all this? Of course, some of them just immediately worshiped him because here was the Savior who had conquered death. Of course, we're going to bow down at his feet. Of course, we're going to worship him. And so here, it's interesting, again, how the Lord, sorry, how, yeah, the Lord, through Matthew, then expresses this when he says that, when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted, and Jesus came and spake unto them. So here, again, we have something of this idea of Emmanuel, God is with them. Some commentators say, you know, maybe there was a bit of, because Christ was at a distance, and they saw him, And they weren't sure who he was. Maybe it became more plain. But here, God certainly made himself, the Lord Jesus made himself apparent who he was. He came to them. He approached, the word is, he drew near. So there is, again, God with us. And we have to say, really, that any doubting or hesitancy on our part is sinful. But the Lord also addresses that, doesn't he, by revealing himself to us, right? We live in a sinful world, we still have sinful hearts, we do experience doubts and hesitations with regard to the things of the Lord. And how gracious is the Lord Jesus to bring you to the place where those hesitancies, those doubts are resolved. where you're given assurance again. Isn't it delightful to be delivered from those hesitancies, to be delivered from the doubtings, and to be brought into that confidence, this is Christ whom I must worship. So it's a reminder that we're not all alike in the amount of faith that we have or even in the times at which you exercise that faith. Sorry. you may be experiencing great confidence and just casting yourself fully at the Lord, resting in his provision, acknowledging that he has and is forgiving all your sins. And maybe you have a brother or a sister nearby who is working through some of those issues and not quite as confident, not quite as sure because maybe things aren't going so well for them. And often when things aren't going well for us, we do look at where or wonder where God is, wonder whether we are His. Do I really belong to the Lord? Is Christ my Savior? And those are times, beloved, when you may be called upon to help the faith of others, to encourage them, to remind them Yes, Christ has risen from the dead. Christ is your only hope. Where else will you look? Where else will you go? So a reminder not to be hard or judgmental on those who have less faith than you, maybe just experientially for a time. So the key here is, and we're going to look at this again this evening a little bit, The question is whether there is faith. If there's faith, beloved, you should always encourage the growth of that faith, right? If there's something there, direct them to the Lord Jesus. And there should be a good response to that. If there's an antagonistic response, then that may reveal that the person doesn't want to hear about Christ, reveal what's in their heart. But always take, like the Lord Jesus, who said that he would not break the bruised reed, would not extinguish the smoldering flax. So there's faith to be encouraged. So there's the group confusion but is resolved when Christ is with his people. Christ is with his disciples. So secondly then we have the Great Commission that we call here the Great Commission. So we have first of all Christ's claim He says, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. And the word for power, you may know, is the word for authority. All authority is given me in heaven and in earth. So here's Christ. Is there any time when he's not been sovereign? Is there any time when he hasn't had command of all the universe? No, there isn't. But there is something here which he has demonstrably performed in his life that guarantees victory over death for his church, for his people, and a reminder that he is absolutely, entirely, sovereignly in control of all of the events. So he was raised from the dead and he's going to judge all men. These are the things that pertain to the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ. All authority is given unto him. He receives that authority by virtue of the resurrection. Peter talks about this on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 verse 32. This Jesus, he says, hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear. So he's been exalted, God has raised him up and he has exalted him above every name. So this is the authority we proclaim as part of the gospel. Jesus has authority over all the nations, over all the individuals of the world to call them to salvation and to bring them into salvation. Paul expresses this in Philippians 2 verse 9, wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name. And that's why we worship him on the Lord's day, right? We worship the Lord who is highly exalted. Hebrews 2 verse 9 says he is crowned with glory and honor. Even now he is crowned with glory and honor. So that's the claim of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, I have all authority has been given me in heaven and on earth. Then he gives commands. And the first of these commands is to go, to go forward. And we monthly remember the work of missions. We're not able to all go overseas, but the, the expanse or the breadth of the Great Commission is to go to all the nations, to go to all the kingdoms. But it's also to go as we're enabled in our own sphere, in our own city, in our own community, in our own land, in our own family, go. And the second command then is to teach all nations. So there's substance to the gospel. It's not just believing, but believing in something. So the gospel involves instruction, teaching all nations, teaching them about their sinfulness, teaching them why their conscience troubles them, teaching them that they have rebelled against a holy God. teaching them that they need God's grace and his mercy, and then teaching them that it's found in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that, of course, is what's called the good news, the evangel, the good news of Christ saving sinners, Christ bringing his flock into his fold. So we're to teach all nations. So the gospel has substance. It's based on facts. It's not just do you believe, yes, and then move on. It involves very much teaching, expressing the gospel. And making disciples then is literally the word, making disciples. And Paul expresses this, we're to go to the Jew first and also to the Gentile or the heathen or the non-Jew. So to all the world the gospel is to go forth. So we're to go, we're to teach, and we're to baptize. And that is crucial part of the gospel. So when he talks about baptizing, he's not talking about how much water to use or the methodology to use there. He just says baptize, baptizing them. But what is important? Of course, water is very important. That's the crucial element in baptism. What else? baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. So that Trinitarian formula is very important to our understanding of the baptism that takes place. What does baptism do? It brings a soul into the visible church. It's a visible sacrament. It's sensible. We feel the water. When you're baptized, you feel the water coming on you. And it is visible. And it's to be done in the congregation. It's to be observed by others in that congregation. We're brought into. the congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the visible church, and we trust the invisible church, that this is an evidence that the Lord has worked something in your heart. Now, we don't believe that the two are essentially connected, so that if you're baptized, you're regenerated, but we do believe the other way around, that if you're regenerated, you normally are baptized. That's what a regenerate person does. He's brought into the visible church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we view that visible church rather sadly these days. It's visibly weakened when she's unable to meet as regularly we can. You may have seen pictures of some pastors that have dealt with this by putting the pictures of their congregants on the backs of the pews. And some of them have said, that just makes it harder. It just makes it even harder to see that they're not actually there. One pastor I heard about started naming, you know, so-and-so sits here and so-and-so. And apparently, people who are watching at home just broke down because they couldn't be there. They wanted to be there, but they couldn't. But so these are extraordinary times. This is one of the ways in which we view. We don't view the church differently. We just recognize that it's meeting differently. We're meeting for worship. And really, some people are joining us online. And there are some people. not present, who would normally be present or who would like to be present, that's the tragedy of the case before us. And we trust that people aren't comfortable watching a service in their home, but waiting and longing for the day when we can assemble ordinarily or normally, again, we trust that we'll pray that we will return to normal. And it's a little disturbing when people talk about the new normal and people talk about changes that are not going to be reverting to other ways. So we have to be conscious that The assembly of the Lord's people is the normal, the old normal and the new normal. There's gonna be no new normal because it hasn't changed. So we're to teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. So there's the fourth command is to teach And this is a different word. The first one is to make disciples. The second one is to instruct. Of course, in the context here, I think it's important to note that we need to teach concerning the Trinitarian God. And some people want to shy back from that doctrine of the Trinity because it's complex. It's hard to understand. It's difficult to grasp. And should we make light of that? Or is it true? It's absolutely true. That should not be the reason why we don't teach regarding the Trinity. It's very difficult. It's impossible for human minds to grasp the idea of the Trinity. We just can't get our heads around that. But we know that it's true simply by reading God's word. Right, the word of God has been given us to teach God by the word of God. God teaches us what we are to believe concerning God. We're to believe that he's Trinitarian. Is God the Father who sent Christ the Son to die for our sins? The work of Christ's atonement on the cross is applied to hearts by the Holy Spirit. And these three we'll see in our catechism question in a couple of weeks. How can that be? Do we worship three gods? No, we don't. We worship one God who exists in three persons. It's a crucial distinction. And it's one that, at one point, you just have to stand back and stand amazed and wonder that this is who God is. And that's what draws your heart, beloved, to worship, is the fact that you can't explain these things. You know them to be true. You know that they're so, but it's with wonder and amazement that we enter into the presence of God and just are amazed at how wonderful this complexity is, how wonderful and amazing it is that all of this works out in ways that we can't even understand. So that is just a part of this. Of course, the gospel is involved, the doctrine of justification, very crucial. Again, we shouldn't draw back from large words, we should know them, be able to explain them and instruct others by them. So these are the things which the Lord brings to us. And then he says that teach them to observe all things. The word here has to do with studying, with watching attentively, to observe all things. Be diligent, not just to read the scriptures, but to study them, take time. to notice things, perceive things, notice connections in the Word. One of the benefits of reading through the Word of God every year is that the more you do that, the more you'll see connections in the Word of God. You'll see things happening in Genesis that pertain to Matthew chapter 27. You'll see things in Isaiah that bring out the gospel in Matthew. All of these things are precious to the souls of the people. You see that this word that's written by so many different authors is really written by one author, the Holy Spirit. And it's a unified whole. And the more you read it, the more unified it becomes. That's very wonderful. That's just by observing all things whatsoever I have commanded you. So these commandments are summarized in the 10 commandments, right? All of God's commandments. What does Jesus say? If you love me, keep my commandments. Which commandments are those? The 10 commandments that he summarized in love for your neighbor and love for God. So these are the commandments. If you love me, this is how you express your love for him, not your obedience in the sense of claiming your obedience as the ground of your salvation. If you love me, if you love God, it's because he has loved you first. If you love me, keep my commandments. He wants you to obey, he wants you to follow. And you can't follow without knowing what his commandments are. So the 10 commandments are a summary and then they're kind of multiplied through the other instruction that God gives in his word. And then the other thing that I've alluded to already is the new birth. You can't really understand or appreciate or love God's word unless you've been born again, unless you've been indwelled by the Holy Spirit, unless God has been merciful to you to deliver you from your sins and make you a new creature in the Lord Jesus Christ. So these are, the gospel is all tied up here in this Great Commission. Go, go, but you're going with a message. You're going with a message of God's word. You're going with a message that points to Christ who saves sinners and redeems them from their sin. So I want to close this morning then as we've looked at group confusion and the Great Commission. Let's look at the grand comfort. What a precious word the Lord Jesus leaves with us. Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. There is Christ's comfort. God with us. From the beginning of Matthew to the end, God says, I'm gonna be with you. Do you find the Great Commission challenging? Christ says, I'm with you. Do you find it intimidating? Christ says, I'm with you. Do you find it just a very difficult thing to know what to do, or how to do, or when to do it, or how to be involved? Christ says, lo, I am with you. You make a feeble attempt and regret that attempt, the Lord says, lo, I am with you. There's a promise, beloved, to claim. And we ought to feel our weakness, beloved. We ought to feel that. reading the biography of John Brown of Haddington and a man who was just mightily, powerfully used of the Lord. He wrote a self-interpreting Bible. It's like a commentary that was attached to the scriptures. He wrote a Bible dictionary. He wrote Lives of Saints biographies. He wrote books for student ministers, books for pastors. He wrote books that weren't published, that were found after he died. And at the end of his life, he looks back and he says, what a misery. It was in terms of his service for the king. He did almost nothing. He wasted so much time. He did so little that seemed to be profitable. And 200 years later, we say, you blessed the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the man did more in a month than I've done in 30 years of ministry. And you feel embarrassed or ashamed or so unworthy. But you can only cling, I can only cling to that promise. Lo, I am with you. Lo, I am with you. It's not what's happened in the past. It's what's happening right now. Lo, I am with you. And that's the promise, beloved, that we need to claim. The Lord is with His church. We don't know what He's doing. We don't know the prevailing times. We don't know the direction. We don't know what tomorrow holds or next week or next year holds. And aren't we in this day of crisis? We're in a day of crisis or a perceived crisis. There's no shortage of prophets. There's no shortage of people who are telling us what's going to come out of this, what's going to happen. And no one knows. No one knows except God. And God isn't telling us. God hasn't told us. He just says, stay with me, be faithful, and I will be faithful to you. I will honor them that honor me. And he gives this comfort for all time, even unto the end of the world. So I've already alluded to this, not only for the 11 disciples, not only for the Church of Acts, today, in this day, lo, I am with you. We can say this is present tense. There are some things that are not present tense in the scriptures, but this one is. This applies to his people today. So how is Emmanuel God with us? He's with us to reconcile sinners. He sent the church with a great commission, and we read in Matthew 121, he shall save his people from their sin. God with us. God is present in the world to bring sinners to a saving faith in Christ. So he's present to reconcile sinners. He's present to comfort his people. And we can think of Psalm 46 here. It was the great, it's called Luther's psalm, right? Did you know that? Psalm 46 is Luther's psalm. It's really the psalm on which a mighty fortress is our God is based. And Luther just found such comfort. And here was a man sorely, sorely tried in all of his life, attacked and opposed in so many different ways. But we read in Psalm 46, verse one, God is a very present help in trouble. Verses 7 and 11, the Lord of hosts is with us. So what a precious thing to remember in these uncertain times, changing times. And we have no idea what changes are going to be brought about tomorrow. We have our province bringing us daily medical updates. It's information. And in some ways, changing the way that we respond. We saw at the beginning of this that they started to reduce gathering size. And I'm grateful that our provincial government has kept a larger gathering size than most provinces. I think that's a blessing. It's not what we'd prefer, but it's a blessing, I think. And the House of Commons meeting tomorrow. What's the Lord going to do there? What's going to happen? We need to pray that the Lord is going to give them wisdom to do what's right, and he's going to take their heart that he has in all of their hands, not just the king's hand, and direct them so that they will pass the right legislation, so that they'll figure out how to meet with these distancing requirements. So there's a comfort to us. The Lord is with his people particularly. And so we appeal to God to take care of these other things as well. And then there's a future hope as well, to bring his people to glory. So we have God with us. In Revelation 21 verse three, John hears a great voice out of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them. and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God. So there's just a multiplying of phrases about God being with his people in the last days. Perhaps we're in those last days, beloved. We should be thinking about that. We should always be ready, of course. We should be thinking, are we in those last days? And remember, we're gonna come to that as we read through Revelation in our services, But think about the destruction of Babylon the Great. Babylon the Great has fallen, has fallen. And how delicious were all of her ways, and how luxurious all of her, everything that she had. And the description there just multiplies the wealth And not just the wealth, but the glory and the grandeur of Babylon, the ways of the world that have exalted themselves against Christ. But the church is not involved with them. They say, and behold Christ, the land that sits on the throne. They haven't been swept up in all of that hype to look at the glory of Babylon. It's a visible glory. It's an external glory. But it's not the true glory that belongs to Christ alone, the glory that we need to be delivered from that sin of idolatry. Furthermore, beloved, here is this promise. Isn't that interesting? Revelation 22 verse 4, and they shall see his face. His name shall be in their foreheads. Often we think about the number of the beasts in the foreheads or on the hand or whatever. God promises the saints they shall see his face and his name shall be in their foreheads. What a tremendous promise for the Lord's people to bear the name of Christ visibly, apparently. And we ought to have that apparent indwelling of the Holy Spirit where they'll know that we are Christians by the love that we have one for another. but to be able to see the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. What anticipation there ought to be on the part of the church. So here we are in the midst of plague and discouragement. What great encouragement you have, beloved, as you continue to look into God's word. as you continue to walk with Christ, walk in his spirit, and trust by faith that all of this is in God's hand, and that he's going to resolve it precisely as is declared to us in the book of Revelation. Fear not, little flock, for it is God's good pleasure to give you his kingdom. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, we come unto thee And we pray that those deliver us from fear and from loneliness. We pray, Lord, that we may be strengthened as we look into thy word, as we read of the glory of Christ our Savior, our great King of kings, our great Lord of lords. We pray, Lord, that we may look upon the events that surround us through the eyes of thy word, through the eyes of the Holy Spirit, of God the Son and of Thee, our Heavenly Father. Give us understanding and wisdom, Lord. Guide us through these days. And we ask, Lord, that we may receive Thy comfort and be assured that Thou art with us through Jesus Christ, Thine only begotten Son, and the power of Thy Holy Spirit. And we do pray this for Jesus' sake. Amen.