What an insight we have here into the hollowness and worthlessness of man's Sabbath-keeping! Those religious guides would rather let the disciples starve than have _their_ Sabbath interfered with; they would allow the man to carry his withered hand to the grave rather than have him healed on _their_ Sabbath. Alas! alas! it was indeed their Sabbath, and not God's. His rest could never comport with hunger and withered hands. They had never read aright the record of David's act in eating the show-bread. They did not understand that legal institutions must give way in the presence of divine grace meeting human need. Grace rises, in its magnificence, above all legal barriers, and faith rejoices in its lustre; but mere religiousness is offended by the activities of grace and the boldness of faith. The Pharisees did not see that the man with the withered hand was a striking commentary upon the nation's moral condition, a living proof of the fact that they were far away from God. If they were as they ought to be, there would have been no withered hands to heal; but they were not, and hence their Sabbath was an empty formality--a powerless, worthless ordinance--a hideous anomaly, hateful to God, and utterly inconsistent with the condition of man. Take another instance, in Luke xiii.--"And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath." (Assuredly, the Sabbath was no day of rest to Him.) "And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him, and said unto her, 'Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.' And He laid His hands on her, and _immediately she was made straight, and glorified God_." Beautiful illustration of the work of grace in the soul, and the practical result, in every case. All on whom Christ lays His blessed hands are "immediately made straight," and enabled to glorify God. But man's Sabbath was touched. "The ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day." He was indignant at the gracious work of healing, though quite indifferent as to the humiliating case of infirmity; and he "said unto the people, 'There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.'" How little this poor hollow religionist knew that he was in the very presence of the Lord of the true Sabbath! How utterly insensible he was to the moral inconsistency of attempting to keep a Sabbath while man's condition called aloud for divine work! "The Lord then answered him, and said, 'Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?'"