The Key to Understanding — Paris Reidhead

The Two Great Commandments as the Key to Understanding

Let us turn to Matthew chapter 22. You'll find there our text, or at least the first part of the text of the evening. I'm going to do a bit of weaving tonight with the Scripture, and I really think that this is the warp.

We'll come to the wolf in just a little while, but I want you to see these deep, important strands of truth, and on them we'll seek to lay the fabric of God's mind and will for us tonight. And so it is from verse 34 that I would begin reading,.

But when the Pharisees had heard that our Lord Jesus had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together, and one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. This is a very unusual statement. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. I don't like to use that word, key, lightly.

But I do think that in one sense this is a key, a key to understanding the law and the prophets. Let's look at it closely, if it's that important. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. This is a commandment given by God through Moses to Israel.

Undoubtedly, the Pharisees thought that Christ would have selected one of the ten commandments and brought that out. At least that's what they were intending to have him do so that they could then accuse him of having slighted the others.

But he, knowing what was in men, came to the very root of the matter. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. Now, this is a commandment, and God made us, and he knows all about us. And he knows that we do not have direct control over our emotions.

And this is, in essence, a, an emotional word. Thou shalt love. Normally we, we think of this word as, as having to do with emotions. But it's most important for us to understand tonight that as the word love is used in the scripture, it does not primarily refer to sensibilities or feelings or emotions.

It's a good Anglo-Saxon word, actually. We don't use it in its original form. Oh, it does occur. For instance, did you know that the word love actually is, has its roots in the Anglo-Saxon word lifon, which means together.

The only way lif has survived is in the word belief, which means to live or act or exist together with. And the way that it changed its form was the word luth. Two old men in King James, England, sitting on a stone fence, watching the young people go by, would say, I, your John and my Mary, I see their luth.

Well, what's that mean? That means they're together. They enjoy being together. And finally they announce they're just going to stay together and build a home together. And that idea of being together is the root idea of love.

And so to believe literally meant to live, act, have your being together. To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, as it was used by the King James translators, meant to link yourself with him. He used an expression, take my yoke upon you and learn of me.

Link yourself and go together with me. To oxen in the same yoke, all was usually went in the same direction, or else you had an upset wagon or you had an accident. And so it is that to believe on Christ is to live together with him.

And to take the word love then, as it was used by the King James translators, is quite a distance from the common use of the word love as we hear it in secular music and find it being used secularly. I think very often when we read, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, we're really talking or thinking about having a warm feeling about God.

You know, a kind of a happy, warm glow. It's not what it's talking about at all. Not what it's talking about at all. To love God with all your mind and with all of your heart and with all of your soul means that you've brought all the powers and faculties of your personality into focus together with God.

With God's purpose and God's plan and your purpose is joined his purpose. To love God therefore means that you have committed all of the powers of your entire being to the end of pleasing God, fulfilling his plan for you, satisfying his heart in regard to you, seeking to glorify him, doing everything you can to ensure his blessedness, his satisfaction with you, and his happiness.

In other words, you as a person have now united your purpose with God's purpose and you are, if you please, yoked with him, committed to him. But translate that into the next phrase. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

Loving Your Neighbor as Evidence of Love for God

Now what does this mean? Feel warm and soft and sort of kindly glowing about your neighbor? No. It means that if you want food and clothing for yourself, you want food and clothing for your neighbor. If you want peace and security for yourself, you want peace and security for your neighbor.

Whatever you think is right, intrinsically right for you, is equally right for your neighbor, and you therefore have an obligation to seek the blessedness, the happiness, the highest good and fulfillment, both of yourself and of your neighbor.

Well, that's coming pretty close to giving us a definition of God's use of the idea or the word of sin, because sin has to be the very opposite of this. We've defined sin, theologians have, as being selfishness, an inordinate and improper self-love, a desire for one to be at the expense of others, to have satisfaction and to have possessions or to have position, without due and proper regard for the rights and the interests of others.

That's sin. If we understand that, then we would see why our Lord would say, on these two commandments hang all the law. Well, why? What is God's law? God's law is an expression of his mind, an unveiling of his purpose to ensure the greatest good and happiness and blessedness of everybody.

Thou shalt not steal. Why? Well, that's to protect the works of your hands and the reward of your service. And it's also to protect others from you. But God, you see, wants to have you enjoy the fruit of your labor, and he wants others to enjoy the fruit of their labor.

And so God's law is the expression of his mind, the revelation of his intention, that everyone should have an opportunity to experience the highest good and blessedness and fulfillment of all of their possibilities.

A sinner is a moral gangster. He's part of the spiritual mafia. He's a person that said, My pleasure, my satisfaction, the gratification of my appetite, the indulgence of my whims, is so important that I don't care what it does to God or what it does to others.

I am God and I will please me at whatever expense it may be to others. And God has said, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. Why? Because it's run amuck in a moral universe. A sinner is a person who's committed himself to the purpose and the practice of pleasing himself without due and proper regard for the interest of God and the rights of others.

And that's why God has said, The soul that sinneth, it shall surely, surely die. And therefore, as Christ said, Except you repent, you'll perish. Well, why? Because the attitude of the sinner is, I'll do what I want to do, I'll get what I want to have, I'll be what I want to be, and I won't let anyone stand in my way.

I'll please me. Now, he may not. He may not do that with the acrimony and the spirit in which I've done it. He may be perfectly gracious and sweet and smiling and pleasant and yet be as tough as a sharp steel in his ambition to achieve his own ends without regard for the interests of others or the purpose of God.

And therefore, God has made it clear in his word that until there's a change of mind from something to something, one will perish. Except you repent, you'll perish, said Christ. In the mind of the sinner, I'll do what I want to do, I'll get what I want to have, I'll take, I'll be.

As to give way to another attitude, it's complete change from my will to thy will. It's that simple. Now, on the basis of that changed direction and changed attitude and changed purpose, there's the possibility of forgiveness.

Paul said he was night and day from house to house teaching repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. So by definition, if you have been converted, if you are a child of God through faith in Christ, you have repented.

If you haven't repented, you aren't a Christian. It's that simple. And if you have repented, then you have fixed and formed an entirely new purpose, which is to please God, to gratify God, to seek his highest interest and his blessedness and his happiness, which is synonymous with thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and mind and soul.

This is the expression of it. But, you see, the evidence that you have changed in your attitude toward God is seen in the fact that you've changed in your relationship toward people. For one to say that they've repented toward God and yet they can remain ruthless and cruel and selfish in respect to people means that they've lost all meaning of word.

The whole thing has been a confusing jumble of nonsense because if you've been born of God, you've partaken of the divine nature, you have a new heart, a new nature, a new life, a new spirit. And this is the issue that we find, and now I'm going to put a little bit of the, put the shuttle through and try to put a little whoop onto this.

Matthew 25 and the Evidence of Repentance

This is what you find over in Matthew chapter 25. If you will turn to it, you will see that the Lord is explicit. Here he's told the Pharisees and his disciples beside him the nature of repentance and faith and the evidence of this new life that you have truly repented and you have truly believed on God and love him in this sense.

The evidence is going to be seen in your relationship to people. Now isn't it gracious of our Lord to give us a preview of judgment? Aren't you glad that he isn't going to spring something on us then that he didn't advise us of in advance?

Therefore, it is possible for you to have a preview of that meeting and that's what he's given here. Oh, I know that in this 34th verse it would seem, just looking at it casually, that he's dealing with nations.

But nations are made up of people and he's dealing with people. He said in Matthew 7, many will say unto me in that day and I will say unto them. And so here he's talking about individuals who comprise nations.

Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungered and you gave me meat. I was thirsty and you gave me drink.

I was a stranger and you took me in. Naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him saying, Lord, when saw we thee and hungered and fed thee or thirsty and gave thee drink?

When saw we thee a stranger and took thee in or naked and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick or in prison and came unto thee? And the king shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.

And then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungered and you gave me no meat. I was thirsty and you gave me no drink.

I was a stranger and you took me not in. Naked and you clothed me. Sick and in prison and you visited me not. Then shall they also answer him saying, Lord, when saw we thee and hungered or a thirst or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these you did it not to me and thee shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal.

Now he's not talking about salvation by works here at all. He is talking about a salvation that works. There's a lot of difference. Because the scripture is quite clear in stating that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

And sin is selfishness. Sin is self-love. Sin is that disposition, that committal of the will to the principle and the practice of pleasing oneself without regard for the will of God or the right, the interest of others.

And so what does he say? Well, in effect he is saying unto that one group, you repented and you believed. And there was evidence of repentance and faith by a transformed life. You were new creation, new creatures.

That's what he's talking about and to the others whom I think were equally religious. I do, I believe with all my heart that this other company were religious. I think the illustration of it is given in that parable of the Good Samaritan.

Who was it that went by and saw the wounded man in the ditch? It was the rabbi. Who was it that went by? It was the Levi. Why didn't they have time? Well, they were so busy with their religious duties they didn't have time for a Samaritan in the ditch.

But who was it that came? Well, it was a man who had absolutely no obligation but he had something else. He had concern. And I believe that our Lord indicated in that that this company of people and they know that he is Lord and they said, When saw we thee hungry, thirsty, naked, blind and did not minister to thee?

Because they were a religious people. Just as in Matthew 7 to which I've referred many will say unto me in that day Lord, we prophesied in your name. We cast out devils in your name. We did miracles in your name.

They knew the right places to be. The right things to say. The right things to do. And yet he said, I will send you away with you. I never knew you. Why? Well, I think it's here. He's simply saying those who have received the gift of eternal life are changed.

Well, why? I think it isn't difficult to understand. If you, for instance, were to study carefully 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 5 you would find that the apostle writing to that church said, Examine yourself whether you be in the faith.

Prove your own self. Know you not your own self how that Christ be in you except you be reprobate. You see, salvation is not a decision. It's not a scheme. It's not a plan. It's not a scripture verse.

It's not an it. It's not even an extension of your existence for eternity. Salvation is a person. Jesus Christ. Now, David knew that. In the 27th Psalm he said, Jehovah is my life and my salvation. He is my salvation.

In the New Testament it's clear. When Christ who is our life not when Christ who has given us eternal life when Christ who is our life shall appear he that hath the Son hath life of what? Because Christ is life.

And so what is he saying here? In that day that he's described as the day of judgment what's he saying? Simply this. I am always myself. This is what the Son of God is saying. There's only one Christ.

Christ Indwelling the Believer and Producing a Changed Life

And if you have repented of your sin if you have pledged yourself thereby in repentance and faith to please God in everything to seek his greatest happiness and blessedness and satisfaction then Jesus Christ has come into you and the evidence that Jesus Christ has come into you is that you have been changed.

And you begin to feel the same way Christ felt. And you begin to act the same way Christ acted. And you respond the same way he responded. And the evidence of salvation therefore is in a changed life.

Again you go back to John. John is in his first letter describes a people saying if you see your brother have need and you say be fed be warm be clothed and you don't do anything to help him how? How does the love of God dwell in that man?

What's he saying? Why he's saying if Jesus Christ has come into you if you've been made partaker of the divine nature there is only one Christ and he is always consistent with himself. Well let me illustrate it.

Many years ago two missionary friends of mine went into I knew them one of them was here back this year Gordon Beecham who's over at Sebring, Florida retired missionary to Danteria Mission North African Mission and John Hall who is with the Lord.

These two young men then in 1915 went into the Tonga. If a person died of leprosy the body was taken to a cliff and thrown down where there were known to be dens of hyenas and consumed by the beasts otherwise for any other purpose of death body was taken by the blood relatives to the sacred grove there put into a large clay cooking pot.

The flesh was cooked and the family ate at that pot till the flesh was gone. The bones were taken from the pot stripped of all remaining flesh and put under a cairn of stones to which the family would then return with sacrifices every year.

Now it was into this tribe that John Hall and Gordon Beecham came. The second man in the tribe that was one to Christ was a tall, strong stalwart warrior by the name of Karga. Karga's father had been killed by the neighboring Beleri people and in the presence of the elders of the Tongali tribe Karga had taken a blood oath that he would not cease his warfare against the Beleri people until he had killed one hundred warriors in reprisal for the death of his father because his father they felt had been unfairly ambushed and so he was well on the way to carrying out his blood oath.

When he met John Hall and Gordon Beecham the gospel of Jesus Christ penetrated his heart and he opened his heart to receive Christ. He came to work at the station there he helped them as an informant with the language while he learned more about Christ.

One night alone in his hut he said Jesus spoke to him he said Karga when the Beleri people want their children to go be quiet. They say shh be quiet or Karga will hear you. They frighten their children with your name and Karga you're my boy.

Now you're a Jesus boy and you're not going to kill the Beleri. I want you to go to the Beleri tomorrow and tell them about me. So the next morning instead of coming to work Karga came with his bow and arrows and spears and calling his dog or his dog on the leash and the missionary saw him and he said where are you going.

And he said I go to the Beleri. And they raised their hands and said oh Karga you're a Christian you can't go to the Beleri now and continue your blood oath. Oh that you don't understand. Jesus spoke to me last night and he said I must go and tell the Beleri about him.

And then you know what they said. Oh Karga you can't go to the Beleri they'll kill you. He said I go to the Beleri. He started down the path. They never expected to see him again but he walked right into the village and the people were so astounded they let him come and he went right up to the hut of the family that had killed his father and he said I've come to you with the Jesus talk from the white people.

And he sat down and they listened as he told them what Jesus Christ had done in dying for them and how he wanted them to learn about Christ and they needn't be afraid of him anymore. And he wasn't afraid of them.

And he came back and every afternoon after that he'd do his work and about two o 'clock he'd put on his clothes and he'd take his little just beginning primer a few verses and he'd walk down to the Beleri people.

After a year he came with a family that had killed his father and he presented them for baptism and they said we need a pastor to teach us. Can't Karga be our pastor. So here Atongali became a pastor of the Beleri church.

And at one time he had over 2 ,500 people meeting in that church on Sunday morning that he personally most of whom he'd won to Christ and almost all of whom he'd baptized. They didn't have that many Sunday nights there were only about half that many about 1 ,200 of them went all through the area to different tribes having little meetings in huts giving the message at night that he'd given them in the morning and that's why the attendance was smaller on Sunday night.

But what was it? It was the power of the gospel. God had changed a life from hatred and fear and anger to one that was concerned that these who'd been his mortal enemies whom he'd sought to kill might come to know and love Jesus Christ.

Now that's what you have here. You and I had been committed to selfishness. Oh you see it in your grandchildren. You knew it in your children. You know in your grandchildren you have your daughter brings her little boy over and your son brings his little girl over and you put him down on the floor.

And the first thing you know your grandson picks up the truck and hits your granddaughter over the head with it. Well why? Because she wanted it and it's hit and apples don't fall too far from the tree.

You know you were doing the same thing a time ago. Now that makes me wonder sometimes when I find people in churches after they've been members for 30 years still sitting in the pew scratching and pulling hair and biting at one another.

It's alright for babies I guess. But you don't think of it as becoming conduct for Christians. And yet think of the churches that have been ruined because professing Christians have been biting and pulling hair and scratching and gouging.

You wonder if they've ever partaken of the divine nature. If they've ever passed from death to life. You wonder if they are children of God. Now the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace long-suffering, gentleness, goodness meekness, faith, self-control.

And so our Lord Jesus said here when I was hungry since I had given you a new heart and you repented of your sins and received me. And I had come in when I was hungry. But Lord when did we see you hungry.

Oh I identified myself with everyone that was hungry. I identified myself with everyone that was thirsty. I identified myself with everyone who didn't have adequate clothing. That's why the rest of the world you know laughs at America we're a Christian nation.

Christian Mission, Human Need, and the Witness of the Gospel

We send 23 ,000 foreign missionaries. We give 200 million dollars just to keep those evangelical missionaries on the field all together. There are 33 ,000 missionaries but that includes all groups, cults and others.

And 300 million plus. But 200 million and 23 ,000 are the evangelical community. And yet have you ever stopped to realize that 50 of the world's raw material is processed by American owned companies.

In other words it takes the processing of 50 of the world's raw material to provide enough income to keep us living in the standard to which we've become accustomed. 6 of the world's people receive the reward for processing 50 of the world's raw material.

And that's why the communists are so successful in saying imperialist not colonial, not political economic imperialist. And this is why it's so difficult. Our missionaries go and say thou shalt love the Lord thy God.

And the people say what is that? 50 of the world's raw material processed by 6 of the world's people. Can it be? Can it be? Well there has to come a time when we begin to recognize that if we're going to be internationalists if we're going to send 23 ,000 foreign representatives if we're going to send all of these people we've got to realize that that people are thirsty and they're naked and they're hungry.

And they're concerned. And if you have been born of God when I tell you about the church in Central America and the church in Africa and the church in India where elders sit there and look into the faces of their dying children with kwashiorkor a malnutritional disease.

The brain is enlarged the head is enlarged and the belly is swollen the limbs like rubber or plastic and from the hips down covered with horrible ulcers. All because they didn't have enough protein. All because they didn't have the food they needed.

And here sits this father and he's a Christian and he loves Christ. Missionaries up there on the hill he's fat and in fair flesh has a car to drive and a radio. But the people down below somebody comes in and sits down on the other side of the fire.

You know why. What's the matter with your baby. Oh it has the hunger sickness. What's going to happen to your baby. It's going to die. Have you had others have the sickness yet the only baby I have living is that one over there.

The rest of them have died. Well you know who did it. Why we don't have any food. You know why you don't have any food. No I don't know why. It just doesn't grow or isn't enough. There's too many people.

And then they point up they're the ones. And they point to the missionary or they point to the governor they're the ones. You follow us and we'll give you the food. We'll help you get the food. And who is he.

He's a communist. Isn't it amazing that in the three countries where we've had the greatest success as missionaries we've lost them to communism. We've had the greatest success in any country in China.

Honestly great churches schools printing plants seminaries. Oh we had it all. And we did something right. But whatever it was we didn't do. We can't do it any longer. There we're out of it. Did you ever know that every single one of the leaders of communism that took over China had been trained in Christian schools.

Everyone including Mao himself. Why? Because they didn't see any possibility of getting food and clothing for their people from the east or from the west. And the only place their human need could be met was with the promises out of Russia.

And the second country where we had even a greater percentage harvest for Christ was Korea was the purest church we've ever had on the face of the earth. In my estimation no one could be a member of the Korean church unless he brought somebody that he personally led to Christ.

And yet with that tremendous success 450 ,000 believers were killed in 90 days. And Vietnam. In all of Indochina the greatest harvest for Christ we ever had was in North Vietnam. Whatever we did right church was established.

But every single one of the leaders that took over North Vietnam and established communism had been trained in Christian schools. And they saw no possibility of the human need of the people being met from Christianity or from the west.

Oh I don't know just why. I think I know something. I think that somehow or other we lost sight of the fact that the Lord Jesus had identified himself with people that were hungry and naked and thirsty and imprisoned by their hopelessness and their despair.

And somewhere or other we got the idea that it was wrong to care about the human needs of people. And the aspirations and the hopes of people but the Lord Jesus Christ.

Said in that day in that day I am going to know my own.

Because those into whom I come act just like I did when I saw people hungry I said give me them to eat. When I saw people sick I wanted to see them healed. When I saw people bondage I wanted to see them set at liberty and I'll know my own.

Because all of those into whom I come feel the way I feel react the way I react because I'm always true to myself and I will be myself in them now. This is not a social gospel this is nothing less than the insight into the nature of the Son of God and the concern and the burden that the Lord Jesus Christ had the people in the totality of their needs.

Seeing the Whole Person and Serving Through Christ

Now my ancestor my great grandfather came with his mother and his wife and three little children Albert and Alma and I don't know the name of the little girl and they came from Wisconsin and moved over toward Willmar, Minnesota to go out to a homestead back in the early 1850's and when they adjusted to the dusk they were in the ox cart going up just a little ways, a couple of miles to a homesteader's cabin to spend the night and Chief Little Crow a Sioux Indian had sent his son and twelve brave out on the war path into Chippewa country against the white people and they had come all this distance from Dakota off their own area and the first ones they came onto were the Dustin family and the arrows began to fly, the oxen broke away, an arrow went through the breast of my great grandmother, my great grandfather had an arrow through his heart, was instantly killed, was scalped.

My great grandmother was scalped while still alive, they found the little baby, dashed its head out against the wheel of the ox cart and Alma and Albert huddled down in the things and didn't cry, one of them four and the other six, the next day when the oxen had gone back to Wilmer, the settlers came out and found the two little little children and the only part of the dust that the Indians wanted were their scalps.

Sometimes I think the only part of people that we want are their souls sometimes my concerns their fears, their yearnings their longings.

Nothing can meet the need of a human heart but God.

The only way to God is in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. And he said, when I come into you, when I live in you you're gonna find the love of God will be shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost and you're gonna feel the same way the same way that I felt we still have opportunity in this country we still have opportunity in many parts of the world, we still send our missionaries but they're sent by you sent by your churches sent by your gifts.

In some way, somehow we who know and love Jesus Christ have got to reveal again the fact that the Son of God is concerned about people, oh yes we want them to know in the forgiveness of sins, we want them to know them with the gift of eternal life.

But we've also got to be concerned about them. You can't say to that church in Indochina and to that church in Central America and to that church in Africa you can't say that look what else we've done as a means of a hand made as a tool of our evangelism.

We've set up our dispensaries and so we sent our nurses and our doctors and I've seen the letters that came back from my missionary friends and they said when we came here nine years ago, nine out of ten children died before they were one year of age.

But praise God we've been here, we've had our clinic classes. We've gone into the villages and now in the area we serve in just nine years only one out of ten of the children die in the first year. Nine out of ten live.

What happened? Well you see that was a hand made of evangelism. But what we didn't realize that we were doing was to change the balance between population and food supply. And so in just two or three generations what's happened?

We've outstripped the food supply. So now what do you find? Oh nine out of ten children live the first year but four out of the nine die by the time they are six of malnutrition. And of the five that survive three of them are permanently damaged by inadequate protein from the time they're weaned until they're six.

So what's happened? We've thrown the whole balance between population and food out of control and yet don't seem to feel responsible. We're international, we evangelical we live with the world before us.

Your children grow up reading and praying for missionaries. Oh how imperative it is that we understand the Lord Jesus Christ. We have to understand that to love God means that we want to please him and gratify him and satisfy him.

But the only way in the world you can ever prove that you love God is that you love people.

You can't take a dollar out here and blow it.

To God, he doesn't need it. He pays the streets of heaven with it the only place that'll help, the only way you can ever evidence to anyone that you love God. And so he said the first commandment is to seek the blessedness the happiness, the satisfaction to be together with God and his purpose.

And the second is like unto it thou shalt seek the same blessedness and happiness and fulfillment and satisfaction for others which you want for yourself. You want food and you've got to want them to want food, do you want dignity and they've got to have a right to dignity.

Do you want respect as a human being with security for your person, then they must have security against their old age with provision for your needs. Then so must they that whatever it is right and proper for you to want you should want.

But what you want for you you must want,. Why are the young people in our colleges turning away from the church. Why is it that men like Stokely Carmichael say Christianity. No Jesus Christ. Because what they read in the Bible isn't what they see around them.