Sermons
Vander Kam on Matthew 10:34
Sermons
Vander Kam on Matthew 10:34Matthew 10:34 – "'Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.'" (New American Standard Bible)
Beloved in the Lord: one of the things that is always striking as soon as we open the New Testament is this, that there are so many, what we call, paradoxes; that is, seeming contradictions. That he who is going to lose his life is going to gain it, that the first shall be last, and the last first; and this is the way it goes on and on throughout the New Testament concerning all of these paradoxes. And it seems as though these are the contradictions that come time and again, and so it is also even again concerning our Lord.
Because we have also learned to know Him, have we not, and that already from the Old Testament prophecies, that He was going to come and was to be the Prince of Peace. And in a couple months we are also again going to see that and hear it all around about us that the Prince of Peace has come, and He has been a total failure because of the fact that there is war all over this world and therefore there is no Prince of Peace.
Well, the Christ has then also not only given us this message that He is indeed the Prince of Peace, because that must never be let loose of; but that we may also see that He is not come to being peace upon the earth, but that He has come to bring the sword. And that He has come to bring the sword beloved, is something that has not been recognized, not by the world about us nor even in the church, because that is the kind of a word that we do not like to hear. Karl Barth has also spoken a great deal about the paradox, in fact that is at the center of his theology. But he means something entirely different by the paradox than what we mean here or what the Scriptures mean. By him it means this, that these are the two that are not to be brought in conjunction with each other, but here it is this, that both sides are to stand. That though they are contradictions in our eyes that they are seeming contradictions, and as a result of that, both sides are to stand.
This makes it far more difficult of course, but nevertheless you are to recognize Him, that He is the Prince of Peace, and that He came to bring the sword. That is one and the same one. That is the Christ, that is the Savior, that is the One of whom Matthew 10:34 speaks.
We speak to you tonight on, Christ, The Disturber of Peace. And then notice in the first place, its history; secondly, the manner; and finally, the purpose.
Now when you look upon that history beloved, that it is something that is found throughout the Scriptures, and that it is also found throughout the history of the world. Because of the fact that the Scriptures have set their stamp upon the history of the world in such a way so that it has shown what that history is going to be. And that it has become evident already from the very beginning that He is not the one who has brought peace. Nah, that He brings more there where there was no war before, where there is no war created by anybody else. A son against his father, a mother against her daughter, a man's foes shall be they of his own household. Now, that is not even done in Haiti, that is not even done in Rwanda. No, this in only that which the Christ does; He is the one who brings the sword in such a way as no one else has ever brought it before.
And He brings that in such a way beloved, so that it also becomes clear throughout the history of the world that wherever He is come, there has been revolution. It has been revolution from beginning to end and then we can speak of this, that they are anti-revolutionaries, yah, yah! And they ought to be, over against the French Revolution. But nevertheless, wherever the Gospel of Jesus Christ comes, there it comes to a certain crisis, there it comes to a certain revolution, and you cannot get away from it. It is that which disturbs. He is the disturber of peace; par excellence.
This is the One who has disturbed the peace so deeply that it is found in the inmost heart. This is the One who has disturbed the peace so desperately so that it is among those who belong together. This is the One who disturbs the peace and as we will also see later on, nevertheless remains Prince of Peace, the greatest, the greatest Prince that the world has ever seen, of peace, and that is also the One who has disturbed the peace greatly.
Now wherever the Gospel has come in former years beloved, they were at peace, and when the Gospel comes, there is no peace left. That disturbs it violently, disturbs it in such a way so that there is never anymore any kind of a semblance of the kind of a society they had before. This is something that you find already in Scripture, that the stone that is cut without hands, in Daniel 2, begins to roll. And as it rolls, it rolls over the various institutions and over the various kingdoms, and it destroys them, it destroys everything in its path. That is the coming of the Christ of God. That is Jesus Christ of Nazareth. That is our Savior, that is the One who does this.
So that when that stone of Daniel 2 begins to roll beloved, the world has never seen anything like it, and there is no power on earth to withstand it. It is utterly futile for puny man to stand up and to defy the Christ of God, as so many are still doing. Defy Him, and He will crush you. This is the One that no one is afraid of because of the way in which He has been proclaimed. So that a Hitler for example, had only despised Him because He was the One who turned the other cheek. He was the One who forgave. This is the One who did not do battle, and had never heard of Matthew 10:34.
But now these are the things that you and I must recognize because there is that paradox in Scripture, that He is indeed pictured as the Prince of Peace who gives the greatest peace that has ever been found, peace of heart, peace of mind, peace of soul; in the hour of crisis. And now He says to His disciples, "Think not that I am come to bring peace, but a sword."
And again, when you look at that history, then you also see for example, in Revelation 6. And these four horsemen of the apocalypse have been spoken of so many a time and they have also usually been totally dissociated from all that which has gone before, and even that which chapter 6 of the Book of Revelation contains. Christ is the One on the white horse; that is the first one that goes out, and wherever He comes, there follow the others. And that is that red horse of war, that black horse of famine, and that pale horse of death. They follow the Christ on the white horse of victory – He is victorious – but they all follow Him and they form destruction.
"Think not that I am come to bring peace; I came not to bring that, but instead the sword." Now this has been the time when they were not disturbed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Never were they more at rest than when they were in the arms, in the hands of Satan. When they were lying there in sin; that's when they had peace.
And then comes that disturber of peace, and He disturbs that peace violently, overturns it, in order that a different kind of peace may come. Now again, we may also look for example, at certain items in the history of the world, where it has also become very evident. A Luther for example, is very much satisfied in the Church of Rome, until finally that Gospel begins to speak, until it begins to speak to him in such a way as it had never done before, and then he is no longer able to find any peace at all.
And where does it lead him to! To become the off scouring of society, to become the haunted, to become the hunted; that is the thing that he has experienced when he comes face to face with Jesus Christ. You have something very similar with Calvin. Not to the same extent of course, because of the fact that his life is of an entirely different nature. But there is also a man at peace in his studies. Was there going to be the calm scholar who would sit in his study for the rest of his days, and there muse upon the things that others had done and that he himself would add to.
And now comes the Christ, and He has disturbed him so violently that that man goes to Geneva where he was persecuted, where he was hunted. Where they called the dogs' names after him. And those were the kind of persecutions that were suffered, because they had come face to face with the disturber of peace.
Now this is something that has not happened in very small places, but this is something that has happened throughout the earth. Throughout the world, throughout its history, this has been the case, that wherever the Gospel of Jesus Christ has come, there has been revolution, there has been torture, there has been oppression, there has been persecution; all these things have followed in His train. Upon the white horse followed the red, and the black, and the pale horse, in order that they may wreak their destruction. "Think not that I am come to send peace!"
Now that is the thing that we always thought though, that He has come to send peace and that is the reason also. And read ever so many of these fundamentalistic papers of the present day, and they all speak of that. And they came to Jesus and, well now, everything is light and beautiful. And they have never tasted of this, that He also comes in an entirely different way. And if you would hear that, if they would read this, they would quickly turn over, because that can't be true. It's Scripture; it's the Word of God. This is the way in which He is pictured to us, this is the way in which He is revealed; not only revealed in such a way that He is the Lord, the Savior, who has come to give His life, but that He is also the One who disturbs the peace of all men.
They will never be the same after they come in contact with Jesus Christ of Nazareth. If there are any here that don't know Him, you will know that you will never be the same after tonight. That's the way the Gospel works, because He has His demands, and He makes His demands and He will follow through until He receives all that is coming to Him. That is somewhat of the history of this disturber of peace, Christ, the disturber of peace. He has disturbed it in the past; He is still disturbing it. There are ever so many people, in ever so many churches, who have fallen totally asleep. They don't know it, and they love it, and they say, "Isn't Jesus nice!" And then they must hear this, "I came to bring the sword." And that says the man at variance with his father and mother, "anyone who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." "Shame," is what all sociologists say today. "Shame." That he would even enter into that kind of a holy place, in that family circle, and there set the one over against the other. If need be, then everyone is to be set over against the other, for my sake, and for the Gospel's sake. "Because think not that I have come to bring peace, I came not to bring that, but the sword."
Secondly, notice also, the manner. Now when we speak of the manner beloved, in which He does this, that we would first of all conclude that He doesn't do it at all. Because of the fact that He also Himself teaches as for example, in the Sermon on the Mount, and that is the thing that is also quoted more than anything else. And that is, that in the Sermon on the Mount you are to go the second mile, you are to turn your cheek, you are to be the off-scouring of society and you are to let every man walk over you; that is the calling that the believer has, according to ever so many. So that it doesn't make any difference what they do, let them do it and let them do some more. That they hit me on the one cheek and I say to them, "I've got one more; hit it!" That is Jesus of Nazareth. So that he hasn't come to disturb the peace at all, has He? He has come to bring peace in such a way so that it has never been found before that He goes to the very heart of the matter, and if there is to be this matter of forgiveness, forgiveness even to the extreme. And He says, "Be also ready to give in to the one who has something against you so that he won't bring it to the courts.
So that you may have peace at all costs. That's the way it sounds, and that's the way He is pictured, in the great majority of all Gospel centers. He is pictured in that way, that He is the one who demands peace at all costs, that we are not to do those things that they did in the Old Testament. That their people today are so glad that Jesus has come, so that we have an antidote to that which they had in the Old Testament, where it was so severe, where it was law, and now it is Gospel. Aw, it is so beautiful.
And then He comes, and destroys everything with the words of my text tonight, and He says, "Think not that I am come to bring peace, but a sword." Is that the way He does it? Is that the way He is going to overturn it? Yah, that is precisely it! He is going to disturb the peace in the way in which He brings peace. He is going to disturb the peace by being peaceful. That is the way in which He always operates. He does not come with a sword as Islam; Islam is come with a sword and they have also called people to repentance, and they have called them to their own religion by means of the sword. They have conquered ever so many lands with the sword. They came out of Turkey and there came with the sword in order that they might kill, that they might destroy, and they brought them to the face of Islam, where hatred was to a large extent at the bottom of their religion. And with Christ it is love. So that it is not that kind of a sword; He also says to Peter that night in which He was betrayed, when he takes the sword, or he says, "Master, here are two swords." He said, "Put your sword in your scabbard, because he that uses the sword is going to die by the sword."
Now what must you make of one like this? What must you make of one who says, "I'm going to disturb the peace, and I'm going to do it in a very peaceful way." That is the way in which He always operates. That's the way in which He performs His work, that is the way in which His kingdom comes. Because, as He Himself has also said in various places and as it has also been attested in other places in Scripture; that His is like a leaven, His doctrine is like a leaven, and that leaven works very slowly but it also works inexorably; there's nothing to stop it, regardless what you have to put on it, nothing can hold it; that leaven is going to break it up. But it works in such a way so that you can't even hear it. It works in such a way so that it is silent; it is very peaceful. That's the way He destroys the peace.
No one has destroyed the peace the way Jesus Christ has. None of the conquerors of this world. You have the histories of an Alexander the Great, you have the histories of a Caesar Augustus, you have the histories of a Napoleon and many others. And they have conquered kingdoms, and they have done great things; none of them could stand in the shadow of Jesus Christ. And He did it so peacefully; He did it so easily. None of them have been so successful either, no.
An Alexander the Great at age 33 begins to cry when he knows that there are no more worlds to conquer. Christ never does that, because He conquers every one. And he does it in such a way so that – I made mention of it a few weeks ago – only three hundred years after He was crucified, when it looked like there was nothing left, and there's that pitiful little group of eleven men standing there on Mount Olivet, when He ascends; and He says to them in fact, "Go out and turn the world upside down." And the people in Asia Minor say only a few years later of Paul and his helpers, "They have come here to turn the world upside down." And three hundred years there's a Christian on the throne of Rome, yeh!
The white horse moves, and He goes forth conquering and to conquer; nobody ever did it this way. But He conquers the heart. And you may speak to cause men to obey with the sword; He does it from inside, from the heart. So that the Psalmist says in Psalm 110 "they are all volunteers, volunteers." They gladly go out in His army; they're all volunteers. That's the way He works, that's the way He operates.
"It is therefore not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit," saith the Lord. That is the way in which He always operates, and though He is going to come to bring the sword, He does not do it as the others have. No, He despises that, He condemns that, He causes that to cease; "Put thy sword in thy scabbard, and that has no place here, but preach the Word." And the preaching of that Word is something that is so powerful that it turns hearts to Him, turns men to Him, turns nations to Him, and He is acknowledged as Lord, and Master. "Think not that I am come to bring peace, no, I came to bring the sword." And this is the way I brought it, and it works like a leaven which a person puts in a lump and it leavens the whole lump, and finally nothing can hold it anymore, it has such power within it. It bulges out of everything. And so it has been with the kingdom of our Lord, and so it will continue.
He will win! He always does! There's nobody that's going to rebel against Him, and rebel against Him successfully; No! There are ever so many who know better, who have rebelled against the Christ; they will not succeed. Finally, it is going to be that Nazarene who is sitting upon the throne, and He calls them before Him and He will judge a righteous judgment, and they will stand there and shake. And therefore, while it is yet day, let us turn our hearts unto Him, "For I am not come to bring peace on earth; I came not to bring peace, but a sword." He has not even brought peace in the church; He has there often brought the sword, in order to sharpen the peace, in order to make the peace real.
Then notice finally also, the purpose. The purpose that He has in mind beloved, and we are able to sing of that for example, in Psalm 2 or Psalm 72 and various other Psalms, where He has made it very clear that His wide dominion is going to extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. There is nothing that is not going to be under His sway; all things shall come before Him and bow the knee before Him. He is Christ, He is Lord, He is God. Nothing shall stand before Him, but at the same time, He is going to proclaim it in this way, that it is peaceful. That He comes very peacefully, and that is in order that peace may be established. That's the purpose.
See, the peace that this world knows is no good. The kind of a peace, even politicians talk about it at times and they say; it is the kind of peace that you wonder, wonder when the cover is going to fly off. This is the kind of a peace that they had in Europe many years, and it was just a matter of time until finally it would explode. This is the kind of peace that has been found in the history of the world in ever so many places, that there seemingly it was peace, but it was the peace of the graveyard. And there also there is no revolution of course; there there is also peace. But it is a peace that is utterly dead, and the kind of a peace that does no one any good. And that is not the kind of a peace that He has come to establish. He is Prince of Peace; remember that the paradox, both feet of the paradox stand. He is the Prince of Peace and He is the disturber of peace. A Karl Barth can't get those together, but He does. And it is this way; He says that He is going to come to disturb the peace in order that peace may be established.
Now these things are very difficult for some peo`le to understand apparently, but nevertheless it is also very easy. You see it for example – if I may use an example for this – of a summer day, when it is very sultry, very humid, very hot. And you find that it is peaceful, yes peaceful to such an extent nobody is stirring anymore because of the heat. But it is peace; no one can say that this is a revolutionary state of affairs. But then there comes the thunder shower, a thunder storm, and the thunder and lightning show themselves, and torrential rain; and then when that is past, the sun shines and men go about their work, and even dogs go out to play again, and you find this, that there is peace.
But that is quite a different peace than that of a few hours before when nothing could move. Now there is a peace in which they can work, a peace in which they can labor, a peace in which they can live. While the peace formerly was not that. That was the kind of a peace that could not endure, the kind of a peace that you wonder all the time when is the lid going to fly off. "And I am not come to bring the kind of a peace like this world knows; No! I am come to bring peace in order that peace may be established."
The peace that He has established beloved, is of a different nature, and it is of this nature that it is going to last. That it is of this nature that it is going to be real, it is of this nature that it is not going to be outward but that it is going to be inward as well. A peace of heart, a peace of mind, a peace of soul, so that there are ever so many for example, whom they are now finding in eastern Europe, who through all these years of Communism could not come to the fore, but now say that they had peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ all these years. That's something that the regime did not know.
That was also something which the regime could not cut out, but it was something that Jesus Christ had established. It is that kind of a peace of which the apostle speaks when he says that "we have peace of heart in our Lord Jesus Christ." That there is now peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, that we have a peace that is complete, because He has disturbed it. He disturbed Paul's peace in such a way as it is found in very few. When that man comes to conversion, I tell you, his peace was really violated. He had peace, this scholar among the Jews, the one who was very, very zealous for the cause of his God, and who would also seek to stamp out all that which was heretical. And now Christ Jesus comes and touches him, and well, the man is touched blind for three days; good thing, he couldn't see anyway.
And now, now we have being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the kind of peace we never had before. Not the kind of peace that he knows, whatever happens, all is well. Whatever happens, no matter how great the storms, all is well. My Lord, my Savior is in control; in control of my life and also of everything else, so that I have peace with God. And that is the peace that He has come to establish, and for that He disturbs the peace, so that it may be established and otherwise we would never have had it. But He disturbs it violently, and that's not so pleasant many times, when He disturbs it. There are those who go through the throes, through the difficulties, but from it emerges that kind of a peace. He says to His disciples when He is about to leave them, "My peace I give to you, not as the world giveth it, give I it unto you." No, not at all, the world also talks of peace and they don't know what they're talking about. Because any moment can end in war, when He gives peace, you have peace, forever. Not only outwardly, but in the heart, in the soul, where it counts. Amen.
We thank Thee heavenly Father, for the Word wherein Thou hast spoken to us, wherein Thou dost reveal Jesus Christ to us, in all of His splendor. Thou dost reveal Him as the One who has come indeed to be the Prince of Peace, but who disturbs the peace in order that it may be established. Father, apply Thou this Word unto our every heart. Grant us Thy blessing further; that Thy grace may be given us, Thy lovingkindness may overshadow us, and that we may walk uprightly before Thee. Forgive our sins and keep us from sin and evil, in Jesus' Name we pray. Amen.
Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
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