By Lukas, with stick 13. Lukas with stick 13. We're going to stand still at 10 to 17. If we read from Luke 13, we'll start at verse 6, but we'll focus on verses 10-17 of Luke 13. And I keep the word of the Lord for us. And he was busy, or rather, verse 6. And he pronounced this parable. A man had a fir tree that was planted in his finger. And he came and searched for fruit on it and got nothing. Then he said to the Timur, Look, I've been coming for three years to look for fruit on this fir tree and get nothing. Cut it out. Why do you make the ground still fertile? But he answered and said to him, sir, let him stand this year until I have spitted and thrown up on him. If he behaves well, but not like that, then you can kick him out the next year. And he was busy. to teach on the Sabbath in one of the synagogues. And there was a woman who had had an illness for eighteen years. And she was pulled together and was barely able to stand up straight. And when Jesus saw her, he called her and said, Woman, you are healed of your illness. And he laid his hands on her and immediately she stood up straight and glorified God. But the elders of the synagogue which was necessary for Jesus to have been healed on the Sabbath, answered and said to Iscariot, There are six days where a man should work. Come on that day and let them be healed, and not on the Sabbath. Then the Lord answered and said, Your enemies, Doesn't every one of you on the Sabbath let go of Jesus from the manger and lead him away to let him drink? But this woman who is the daughter of Abraham, whom Satan thinks of, has been bound for 18 years. Doesn't she have to be released from this bond on the Sabbath? And when he said this, all his opponents were ashamed, and the whole crowd was happy about all the glorious things that had happened through him. This is the word of the Lord. In this passage we will read about the Lord's generosity. We will clearly hear that our God, who is the Creator of heaven and earth, that He is a generous God. And humility, we will see, is certainly the best tool to see if we really have a wrong heart, if we really follow Jesus. There are many of the laws, if we read them, we can say we follow it externally. And we can really be happy and come forward on the right, if we maybe trust ourselves against the laws of the Lord. But one thing that explains if we are really Jesus' people is if we have dignity for people and if we have compassion for people. And that is specifically a part of the fourth commandment. Maybe you haven't heard it yet, but the fourth commandment is the commandment in which compassion is incorporated. It is part of the fourth commandment. In this passage, or in the passage before Luke 13, verse 10, Jesus wants to point out that someone who does not bear fruits, fruits of repentance, that this person must be beheaded. We read about this in verse 9. If he does not bear the fruits, good, but if not, you can behead him another year. So if he bears fruits, He will inherit the eternal life. If you don't bear fruit, you will be cut off. In verse 5, even earlier, it says, But if you do not repent, you will all be treated the same way. And it finally showed that if someone does not repent to Jesus and then bears fruit from that repentance, from that faith, then the person will remain under the judgment of the Father, because that person is not truly repentant. So our company, which is doing good work for us this morning, is, among other things, Barre Maartigheid. In this part, we have a woman with a disease. She has been suffering from this disease for 18 years. She has been pulled together. Think about it. This woman who is getting heavy. She can't even get up straight. The title of our part in the Bible says, healing of a lame woman. It could have been that the woman was lying on the floor and could move smoothly. But it seems as if this woman was so pulled together that she could maybe still move, but she couldn't get up straight. She was bent 90 degrees. She was in terrible pain. In hellish pain. She suffered for 18 years. But she was a believer. She was a believer. She was drawn by Satan. She was taken off by the devil. How do we know she was a believer? Verse 16 says that for us she was a daughter of Abraham. She was a daughter of Abraham. But Satan bound her for 18 years. It's almost like in the case of Job. Job, who was tempted by Satan, by the temptation of the Lord. But this woman, as a wonderful example of a believer who had faith in the Lord, and who had found her high position in the Lord, is a believer who attended the service in her illness. She came to the synagogue where Jesus was teaching and she wanted to listen to him. She wanted to go to the service and she embarrassed us. We think how many times in our healthy state and the energy we have, we make all kinds of excuses not to attend the service. This woman, 2000 years after this happened, is a wonderful example for us. But she is also a wonderful example for us of Jesus' mercy. It is Jesus who sees her illness and suffering. He sees her problems and he shows mercy to her. And Jesus does it on the Sabbath. And specifically on the Sabbath. Because he knows that there are a lot of Pharisees and scribes and other people there that he would have been very happy with. But Jesus specifically pointed out that the Sabbath is about barrenness. And that He is about barrenness. That He is barren. That people come to be redeemed from the eternal torrent. Because this woman's healing ultimately shows that there is this eternal redemption in Jesus. that breaks the bonds of Satan in a very visible way. And it shows that this breaking of Satan's power is actually about sin, about people, about people without sin. It's Jesus, and not Jesus who can come for free. So think about that. Think about Jesus coming to free people without sin. When the woman is healed, she glorifies the Lord. She is a believer. She realizes what is going on here. She realizes that it is Jesus who can destroy Satan. And she glorifies the Lord. It is Deuteronomy 13. She stood upright. She is healed and glorified God. She was happy about what the Lord did. She was happy that Jesus revealed Himself to her. But in contrast to this happiness, this glorification of the woman, we see the Pharisees here. The hard-hearted. But the rest of the synagogues, says verse 14, who was desperate that Jesus would be healed on the Sabbath. Jesus, the High Priest, and it may seem strange to us, that this High Priest, a man who was not happy with the miracle that Jesus performed. People can't even imagine it. And it's not just that he was despised in his heart, no. He made it clear. He was angry, he was irritated, and he was bitter about Jesus. That Jesus dared to heal someone on the Sabbath. To make someone healthy on the Sabbath. This superior, which was actually a role model in society, He was the one who was despised about Jesus and what he did. He had this emotionless attitude. He didn't feel anything for the woman. Instead of praising God, he tried to find fault with God. Now part of the problem with which this Pharisee sat, and people should recognize this, is that he had his own set of rules according to which people had to live in order to obey the Lord. He had his own rules about the Sabbath and what it meant. And one of his rules was that you cannot heal a person on the Sabbath. Now this man, I can only say that he wasn't educated enough. He hadn't studied the scriptures enough. But what Jesus wants to point out, and Jesus says it clearly a week later in verse 15, is that this person is not a saint. Jesus goes to his heart and says to this man, the reason why you came to us on this Sabbath is because you have a hard heart. And then you use these human rules, these Pharisees' rules, these power rules, to justify your life and your sinning over the Sabbath. And to justify that Jesus did wrong, to find fault with Jesus. This man was not even Manly enough to confront Jesus directly. Maybe he knew that he would lose this debate. So he doesn't confront Jesus directly, he talks to the people there. He is cowardly. He says to the people there, verse 14, And then he says to the Scars, come then, on this day, on the other day, and let them be healed and not on the Sabbath day. What he basically says is, the people who are weak, the disabled, the sick, the lame, the disabled, they have to wait. They can be made healthy on a weekday. According to him, this woman should have come the next day to be made healthy. And what is he trying to say there? He is trying to say that he will heal the woman the next day. It's so hard. Jesus is there for us. Jesus can heal. This woman thinks about what she has been through for 18 years with this disease, this pain. He said, come tomorrow and maybe you can be healed. Today is not the time. But Jesus was there and he was ready to make her healthy after 18 years of hell. This superior had a hard heart. He did not give up for people. He did not carry the fruit. He had to be cut out. Yes. He had a theological argument, not to do blasphemy on the Sabbath. He thought that to make people healthy on the Sabbath was against the law of God. And it counted as work on the Sabbath. That was his argument. He was educated. But his problem was not a logical problem. It was not a teaching problem. It was a problem of the heart. Because he did not know Jesus. He did not know Jesus' mercy. That is why Jesus, in verse 15, gives him a very clear commandment. Then the Lord answers him and says, Your enemies, your enemies, your enemies, Make not each one of you on the Sabbath his ox or his donkey from the manger loose, and lead him away to let him drink." Pay attention. This is an argument. He says, but you show mercy towards the animals. It's not your own animals. No, he will show mercy towards people. Remember, it's the devil who wants to kill people from the start. It's the devil who wants to destroy people from the start. He wants to destroy their lives. And he will still do it today. Through various remedies. Through various means. He will even use the so-called science to destroy people's lives. This superior does not want to save his human soul from the Sabbath. Because then he would be confronted with his own sin. He would be confronted with Jesus and his need for Jesus. And he does not want to do that. Notice that Jesus does not say that the Sabbath does not exist anymore, or that the Sabbath does not continue. Jesus says, the Sabbath is right, and you can take care of your ox or your donkey. It is right, you can take care of your animals, it is beautiful. You have to do it, because the Spirit is for them. That is what the Sabbath requires. Jesus didn't come to abolish the Sabbath. He came to restore the Sabbath. He came to rectify the wrongful sinning of the Sabbath. He came to say, what is the purpose of the Sabbath? What is the heart behind the Sabbath? And what Jesus shows you is that the original purpose was that the Sabbath is a day of mercy. It is a day of mercy. When Luke talks about Jesus, what this man answers, I don't know if you noticed, but it says there, then the Lord answers him and says, the Lord answered this person. Not Jesus answered him, or he answered him, and it says, and the Lord answered him. What it says there, it is the Lord Jesus who is also Lord over the Sabbath. Jesus is the Lord over the Sabbath. What is the meaning of that? Jesus is the origin of the Sabbath. He is the author of the Sabbath. He is the goal of the Sabbath. The Sabbath goes over Him. He is the Creator who set up the Sabbath. It is Jesus who created it in the beginning. It was on the first day that the Lord looked back at everything He had created, and it was good. A lot of things mean a lot of good. But at least it means... And this is important. When the Lord created him, he created the work of redemption that would come in Jesus. Before the creation... In Ephesians 1, verse 4 it says, He chose His people for the foundation of the world. For the foundation of the world, before it was created, He chose His people. So what does he do? He creates a beginning. He creates his work of redemption, his message of redemption. Colossians 1 verse 16 says, Because in him, in Jesus, all things are created, which are in heaven and on earth, which are visible and invisible. Thrones, as well as dominions, and dominions, and powers. All things are created by him and for him. Created for him. Think about that verse. When the Lord said, there must be light, salvation had already been planned. When He created creation, Did He create the sheep so that sinners could learn how Jesus, the good Lord, is? Did He create the birds to teach His people not to be fearful? Did He create camels so that He could teach people who lack faith how difficult it is to enter heaven? Did He create water so that He could teach people how to cleanse and purify people from their sins? So Jesus comes and He heals the woman to show her what is the purpose of the Sabbath. He claims the Sabbath as the purpose of salvation. The Sabbath... It finally pointed to the eternal rest that is found in Christ's redeeming work. Because Sabbath means rest for us. He established rest. And in sin, we are not in that eternal rest. We need Jesus. And the Lord then precisely When he designed the Sabbath, he represented mercy and that we pray to him so that we can see his purpose of salvation. When we pray to the Lord on this day, we see God's mercy because we hear it in the Word. We hear, there is forgiveness of sins. What shows in our generosity, even to people, to other people, then we must be busy in a way to show the Lord's generosity. What is a sample of the great generosity that the Lord shows. Yes, Jesus brought eternal rest. When Jesus rose on the third day, He overcame death. He kept the victory. He could now deliver people from eternal punishment. And so, when He had completed His deliverance work, He ascended the Sabbath to the first day of the week. It's an ascension that took place. Think about the 7th commandment. The 7th commandment that says you cannot commit adultery. Before Moses, that commandment was given to Sinai, when brother and sister married. The 7th commandment says only one man, one woman. That is what the 7th commandment says. But before Sinai, brothers and sisters could marry each other. Abraham married his half-sister. Abraham married his wife. After the Sinai law, when Moses was given the commandment, you couldn't marry your brothers and sisters anymore. The seventh commandment remained, but the form of it changed. And it's the same with the fourth commandment. The Jews skipped the fourth commandment. From the 7th day to the 1st day. Because it is the 1st day that the Lord Jesus fulfilled his redeeming work and can take us into the eternal rest. But against this barbarity, this redemption, The Pharisees gave their own interpretation and rules of the Sabbath. And so they set themselves up as lords of the Sabbath. They wrote Jesus down as Lord of the Sabbath. But Jesus himself is Lord of the Sabbath. But the Pharisees said, no, we will be Lord of the Sabbath. And they made their own rules. And they would do it, and they would want to change your Sabbath completely. People don't understand it right, because it came from hard hearts. So then this Sabbath becomes hard and cold, and that's what happened. They forgot, even though they knew the scriptures, that the Lord out of mercy Every day, and also on the Sabbath, through His Providence, He maintains the creation. And that is why He also maintains His work of redemption. Think about it, the Pharisees said, no, you cannot work on that day. But they forgot that the Father works until now, according to John 5, verse 17. The Father is working from the creation, to maintain His creation, but also to maintain the work of redemption. He is trying to save people, and He is still doing it. He is redeeming people. The Pharisees have confessed that the Lord alone can save people for eternity out of mercy. Yes, the Pharisee saw that animals still have to be taken care of on the Sabbath, but he did not see that people have to be taken care of. Although the chief of the Son of Man did well that the animals were taken care of on the Sabbath, he did not allow that the people did not receive the rejoicing call of Jesus. But if the Sabbath was good for animals, couldn't it have been better for people? No. The problem he had with the upper class was spiritual. He thought that his own rules, his own traditions, were more important than to keep people who suffer. So what is the lesson here? is the hierarchy for us, now the day of honor, the day on which Jesus rose, which is now the Christian Sabbath. A day that can bring us barrenness. Not just can do it, but must do it. And I think that's where the important understanding of this text is. Jesus teaches us to be merciful. It's part of the commandment. Of course, we can't be merciful everywhere. But where we are called to, where we can, We have to do the piety there. Piety is not just allowed by this commandment. It is required. That's a big difference. Because this commandment is grounded in piety. And part of this Sabbath prayer is that we share our needs with people. That we also have wisdom. Because it is precisely part of the Sabbath prayer that the Lord has shown us that He is merciful to His people. So in this part, we address our own indifference and cruelty. How easy it is to make a mistake, to help people in need, even on the Sabbath. We can say, it's not my gift, I don't have the authority to help. It's not my priority now. If I helped here, I wouldn't be able to help anywhere else. What can I say? She doesn't deserve this either. She is in this situation because of her own choices. This is a heart research that we have to do. Are we people of compassion because we realize the Lord's compassion for us? Now, it is true that many times, if you're going to help someone, you're actually going to be uncompassionate. So you need a lot of wisdom to help people in their need. But in many cases, it can be uncompassionate to help people. So Jesus calls us to have fellowship with people who are in need. Verse 16, but this woman who is the daughter of Abraham, whom Satan thinks of, who has been bound for 18 years, didn't she have to be released from this bond on the Sabbath day? Jesus says she had to be healed of her sickness on the Sabbath. It's part of the Sabbath, it's part of the mercy. This woman who was bound by Satan for 18 years, and Jesus healed her and made her healthy. And it is Jesus who now breaks the power of Satan. He heals her. And because of that, he showed that he has the power to heal people of their greatest need. The day of honor. is to comfort people who are in pain, to care for children and elderly people, to visit the sick, to heal the people who are alone in their loneliness, those who have a lack of food and shelter. We can't make people healthy like Jesus did. But we can give people a snack. We can give people a taste of the healing hand of the Lord. To save people's souls. This is what the Lord does. And as He saves their souls, He makes them part of the eternal kingdom where death is destroyed, where the devil is defeated, and where there will be no more lack or heartache. And this seeing of the Sabbath, when the Lord gives that mercy in our hearts, when we see that the Lord in Jesus can show that mercy to so many people, then we can't do anything else than to praise the Lord like this woman, and like this scar, also to be happy in the Lord. The end of verse 17 says, But at the beginning of verse 17 it says, Jesus is an example of the animals that you can take care of on the Sabbath, and that you have to take care of on the Sabbath. These elders, and those who had the same longing as him, made them ashamed. He made their faces red. Because they realized that they were actually loveless towards people. And Jesus bled their hearts. When Jesus healed this woman on the Sabbath, was the sign of things that would come. Time and time again, Jesus glorified his Father, leaving his enemies ashamed. He did it again when he humiliated Satan by his victory at the cross. He did it again when he resisted the power of hell and rose from the dead. He does it through the church, as we reach out to people in need, and the Word and Spirit release people from their sinful slavery. The Sabbath shows the Lord's mercy. Praise Him for that. And it shows that the sending of the Sabbath is a good sign for the state of our souls. Our heart of purity and mercy is being tested by the Sabbath. A miraculous opportunity that the Lord has given us. One day a week, not to continue with our normal work this week, but one day where we can come together to pray for the Lord. And also specifically look at where we can be merciful. Where can we reach out to people? Even people who arrive here at the municipality, strangers. We are trying to show mercy to them. To not maybe... Not to just leave them alone, but to really drive them out. And to show them that we don't care about them and where they come from. Because that is just an external way in which we show the barbarity. The barbarity that is shown to us by Jesus. There are different ways. But it is an assignment of the Sabbath. It is the assignment of the fourth commandment. Praise the Lord that he has shown us this righteousness, so that we can now show it to others. May we seek you righteously, and see what the Lord will use us for, to show this righteousness. Let us pray together.