Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Centuries ago the Danes decided to invade Scotland.

They very cleverly moved their great army in the night so they could creep up on the Scottish forces and take them by surprise.

In order to make this advance as noiseless as possible they came barefooted.

As they neared the sleeping Scots, one unfortunate Dane brought his foot down on a bristling thistle.

He let out with a roar of pain that was like a trumpet blast which rang through the sleeping camp.

The Scots were alerted, and quickly grabbed their weapons, and the Danes were driven back.

One could say that they came within one foot of victory, but one foot led to their defeat.

The thistle from that time on was adopted as the national emblem of Scotland.

Feet are vital for the onward march, but they can also be your foe and lead you to defeat because of their weakness.

Not all have the feet of the Kentucky backwoods farmer who never wore shoes.

One day he came into the cabin and stood by the fireplace with his callused feet.

His wife said, "You'd better move your feet a mite, you're standin on a live coal."

He replied, "Which foot?"

Unfortunately, most foot soldiers do not have feet that tough.

Even Achilles, the great Greek warrior, had one weak spot, and that was the heel of his foot.

It was by means of an arrow in his heel that he was brought to defeat.

Our feet determine whether we stand or fall in more ways than one.

The statue, or government, or organization, with feet of clay is easily toppled.

When we want somebody to become independent, we tell them to stand on their own two feet, and to get both feet on the ground.

The unstable position and shaky argument puts a man where we say he doesn't have a leg to stand on.

All of the many texts about the Christian walk and the Christian stand make clear that feet are essential equipment for the Christian life, for you cannot stand or walk without feet.

The feet can bring you to defeat, or they can march you to victory.

Either way the feet play a major role in every life, and that includes the life of our Lord.

There are 27 references to the feet of Jesus in the New Testament.

That is likely a greater focus on feet than you will find in the biography of any other man.

Biblical times were times of far greater foot consciousness.

There are 4 Hebrew and 2 Greek words for feet.

There are 162 references to feet in the Old Testament, and 75 in the New Testament.

Feet were just more conspicuous in that world where walking, marching, and cleaning of feet, and sitting at the feet of others, were daily events.

The feet of Jesus were exposed, and so more people beheld the feet of Christ than other great men of history.

The feet of Jesus were the center of so much of His activity.

In Matt.

15:30 we read, "Great crowds came to Him, bringing the lame, blind, the crippled, the dumb and many others, and laid them at His feet, and He healed them."

Mary became famous for sitting at the feet of Jesus and soaking in the wisdom of His teaching.

Many were laid at His feet unable to walk, and Jesus lifted them up and stood them on their own two feet again, and enabled them to walk and be restored to the world of folks with feet that would function again.

Only those who have lost the ability to walk can appreciate how beautiful it must have been to be laid at the feet of one, who because He created feet could fix them, and make them work again.

"I cried because I had no shoes till I saw a man who had no feet," is a popular saying, but here were crowds who wept for joy, for those with no feet walked away from the feet of Jesus having been made whole.

Walking is being revived in our day for health and exercise, but in the day of Christ walking was a necessity, and that is why one of the most frequent miracles of the New Testament was that of making the lame walk.

To be put back on your feet was to be given new life.

We take our feet for granted, and do not often consider that they are one of the wonders of creation.

Leonardo da Vinci called the feet, "A masterpiece of engineering and a work of art."

There are 26 bones in each foot or 52 in both, and that is one forth of the bones in our body.

By means of these instruments the average person by the age of 55 has walked 70,000 miles, or 2 and one half times around the world.

Gilette Burgess may sound silly, but he was rightly amazed when he wrote-

My feet, they haul me round the house,

And hoist me up the stairs.

I only have to steer them, and

They ride me everywheres.

Another poet wrote some lines that became more well known.

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And departing leave behind us

Footprints in the sands of time.

Jesus did so more than any other who has ever lived, and we want to sit at His feet and focus on them, for His footprints have changed the course of history.

Every place the feet of Jesus touched have become places of deep interest, study, and research.

We cannot look at all 27 references, and so we will only get a foot in the door of this lowly yet lofty subject.

We will focus on the feet of Jesus from the point of view of them being instruments of sovereignty, suffering, and of service.

First lets look at His feet as-

I. INSTRUMENTS OF SOVEREIGNTY.

Many ancient monuments picture the kings with their feet on the necks of the vanquished to show they are sovereign and victorious.

They have the enemy in complete subjection.

The feet are symbols of power.

We see this very thing in Joshua 10:24 where we read, "When they had brought the kings to Joshua, he summoned all the men of Israel and said to the army commanders who had come with him, 'come here and put your feet on the necks of these kings.'

So they came forward and placed their feet on their necks."

This was to encourage the commanders and give them assurance of victory over the enemy.

We see Paul doing the same thing on a spiritual level for the soldiers of the cross.

He writes in Romans 16:20, "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet."

The image of the song Onward Christian Soldiers is very biblical, for Christians are to march forward like an army of foot soldiers conquering territory that is under the power of Satan, and liberating those he holds captive.

Our feet are weapons of warfare, and by means of our feet we are to gain victory and sovereignty over Satan.

In Epb. 6 where Paul describes the whole armor of God that we are to put on, he does not neglect the feet, but urges us to have our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel.

The point is that foot power was, is, and will ever be, a primary power, for the feet of our Lord will forever be a place where we worship His majesty and glory.

Paul in I Cor.

15;25 says of Jesus, "For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet."

The last enemy to be destroyed is death, and when this final foe is fully vanquished the whole universe will be under the sovereign feet of Christ.

This is the plan of God that Paul explains in Eph. 1.

He says that this is why God raised Jesus and exalted Him to His own right hand, "..far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church."

He who has the most powerful feet is the head.

When the Apostle John was caught up to see a vision of the ascended Christ he was very conscious of his Lord's feet.

In Rev. 1:15 he says, "His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace."

And in verse 17 he says, "When I saw Him I fell at His feet as though dead."

One day all who loved Jesus will experience the wonder and joy of falling before His sovereign feet.

Lo, at His feet with awful joy

The adoring armies fall!

With joy they shrink to nothing there

Before the eternal all.

Whenever you fall at the feet of Jesus you have arrived at a high point in your spiritual life.

William Cowper wrote,

Tis joy enough, my all in all,

At thy dear feet to lie;

Thou wilt not let me lower fall,

And none can higher fly.

We may never in time walk where Jesus walked, but all who submit to His Lordship will walk with Him in white, and our feet will walk with His on golden streets, and all over a redeemed and perfected earth.

Following the footsteps of Jesus will be forever, for His feet will be our guide for all eternity.

We will sit at His feet; worship at His feet, and serve at His feet with joy forever and ever.

"Footprints of Jesus that make the pathway glow.

We will follow the steps of Jesus wherever they go."

When Jesus comes again He will come, not with the feet of the lowly carpenter, but with the feet of a sovereign Lord.

His feet will then be instruments of sovereignty as all will bow before His feet and acknowledge Him as sovereign.