The Eyes of Christ (Part B)

For Yahweh does not see as man sees. Where man looks at the outward appearance, Yahweh looks at the heart. God is looking at what's on the inside, not what's up on your wall.

These guys, since they couldn't bring the wall to the people at the marketplace, they brought their robes. You see, I've got the certificate hanging over my desk, which is fine in other professions. Not here.

You cannot arrive. Whatever you receive from God in preaching belongs to Him, and you dare not say it's mine. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Mark.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick will share Part 2 of his study called The Eyes of Christ as he teaches through Mark Chapter 12. Christ is saying that the Messiah is going to be the Son of David.

He's going to be that Lord, that Adonai. And David's been dead a thousand years at the time these events are taking place. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 3, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. That's John the Baptist. Prepare the way of who? Who is John preparing the way for?

Well, the Hebrew in that verse of Isaiah 40, which is quoted in the New Testament, Mark picks it up right away. Yahweh. Prepare the way of Yahweh. But I thought it was Jesus coming. Well, Jesus is Yahweh. That's the point.

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Now, you can spend your time trying to hem and haw. Well, it really doesn't mean that. It means, no, it means that. Proverbs chapter 30. Here, he personifies, speaking of God, he says, who has ascended into heaven or descended?

Question mark. Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has bound the waters in his garment?

Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name? Well, any Jew would say, that's Yahweh. That's Jehovah. Then the question is asked by, what is his name and what is his son's name?

If you know. Is that not profound? He's playing it right out. God has a son that is on his level. And that is the verse that modern Jews will say, well, he's talking about the nation Israel because we're sons of God and that's not the point.

The definite articles here don't allow that. You're being dishonest because you do not want to cave in against your false notions and admit that Jesus is the only one that could fulfill. How can Messiah come now and be linked to Bethlehem when the records are lost?

The window has closed. That's really an easy conversation demonstrating that Jesus is the Messiah of the Old Testament and that he is equal with God in the Old Testament. It's really a precedent for him showing up as the angel of the Lord, as precedents for him coming in human form. This has happened before. There really is no excuse for these things, but you should hear them out anyway because some of you may question, well, how do the Jews explain these verses?

And they explain them away. Verse 37, therefore, now he's saying, because of what I just said about this, we'll go back up to verse 36. For David himself said by the Holy Spirit, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your footstool. Therefore, Christ is now giving the exposition. David himself calls him Lord.

How is he then his son? And the common people heard him gladly. So the people didn't have these hangups. They were sitting on the edge of their seats.

Teach us. The Pharisees and the Sadducees, they weren't common in their own eyes. They were above these people.

And they did not hear him gladly. But he's got everybody's attention, that's for sure, at this moment. He himself, David's son and Israel's Messiah, recently he had just entered the city proclaiming this by the shouts of Hosanna, save us now, O Lord. The temple records, as I mentioned, his teachings, his miracles, all of it unprecedented, all wrapped up in one person, all the verses pointing to him. God showed David through the Holy Spirit that his descendant would be master, would be Lord, would be related to him according to the humanity of Christ. In those days when David wrote and when they read here in the days of Christ, being a son or a descendant of someone indicated a hierarchy.

The son was subordinate to the father. Christ asked then if the Lord is David's son, how can David be subordinate to the son unless there's something about this son that is different from all the rest. That's the point of Psalm 110. That is the point of what the Lord is saying. This is different. And again, Psalm 110, he just used the first verse, you take the whole Psalm together, it just amplifies. He says he's coming as McKeldedek. He's not only going to be royal, he's going to be priestly.

You can't make these things up, you can't write this down like a book and have these kind of connections. He is the exception because from David's line came Messiah, Messiah is divine, they did not want to hear it coming from the mouth of Jesus and to this day the Jews point at Jesus and said if he was Messiah he would have taken over the world. They leave out the part about he was first taking our sins from us, bruised for our transgressions, chastisement for our peace upon him.

And this is blindness. This is what Paul said, my people are blind. They have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge. He writes that in Romans.

They want God but they want God to conform to their theology instead of having their theology submit to God and be received from God. How could Messiah be both inferior to David as a son and superior to David as Lord? They didn't want to answer unless he was the son and he is divine and he is Messiah. So Jesus concludes that he is the second figure here. He is the second Lord in our English, Yahweh. He is the Adonai, superior at the right hand of Yahweh, superior to David, an exclusive son incidentally.

And so he says let them answer the question. Was David mistaken? Is the scripture false? Was the Holy Spirit not on David? Because if you say that then you've got no more Bible. They could not say that.

He won't even wait for their answer because he knows it's not going to be honest. The son of David was merely a human descendant, the son of man. And we accept that and Jesus spoke of himself as the son of man, speaking of his lineage to David and his humanity, making himself a servant for us. Paul talks about it in Philippians chapter 2. They were supposed to figure this out. This was not calculus.

This was not something deep, you know, I can't get this. Nathaniel figured it out when he first met Jesus. John chapter 1 verse 49, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel. You can't say, he couldn't say this about David with the same meaning. You could say David was a son of God, David was a king of Israel. But Nathaniel, using the definite articles, he says, Rabbi, you are the son of God, you are the king of Israel. Peter said you are the Christ, the son of the living God. These are not casual statements. This is not something you could say about anybody else. They are exclusive.

They didn't figure it out. Mark 2, 10, Mark writes of Jesus speaking, but that you may know that the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins and don't we love it? We come here and we sing about him forgiving us for our sins because our sins are many and his mercy and forgiveness is profound. What if God would display our sins up on the screen? Oh, man. I'd come to see yours.

I'd try to stop you from seeing mine. The thoughts that we may have about others, you know, the sin, the crossing of the line, the trespasses and the mercy just wipes it all away. The common people heard him gladly and they still do, but the self-impressed and the self-righteous, they struggle with this regardless of what they call themselves. They can call themselves Christians if they want, but they're not subject to his lordship.

There's a very serious concern. Verse 38, then he said to them in his teaching, beware of the scribes who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplace. So the eyes of Christ is teaching. He picks up on the scribes and he singles them out. How come the scribes say and then he lays it all out?

They're speechless. And then he continues with his teaching. Then he said to them in his teaching, beware of the scribes because he saw their dirt who desired to go around in long robes.

He's singling them out. In contrast to the common people of verse 37, beware of the scribes who crave celebrity status. Beware of pastors who crave celebrity status. Beware of musicians, especially those who use Jesus' name for celebrity status.

Find you want to sing songs, you have this gift, do it. Bless the people. Don't start craving their applause when they see you in public. Those who the people spiritually depended upon, those who were entrusted with tending the sheep, upholding civility as given by Moses in the laws that concern civil rights of people, they did not do. As a class, the scribes, the lawyers, the Pharisees, Sadducees, now the priests, even the Herodians, as a class, broken was their sense of principle. They lost their way and they were very comfortable being lost. When someone came along and showed them the way, most of them were not interested.

Some of them were, but most were not. They were immersed in self-serving pride. They were out of harmony with God and so Christ says here in verse 38, who desired to go around in long robes. Well, in those days, these long robes that he is referring to that were around him as he was teaching was a sign that you were one of the learned. That was a status symbol. You know, I'm smarter than you, I'm better than you, I'm closer to God than you, I've got more authority than you, I can influence the courts over you. You better respect me when you see me walking down the street.

That's what he is addressing here. To this day, some denominations have their clergy wear, on their robes, stripes on the sleeves. One stripe means I have a bachelor's degree in theology. Two stripes means I have a master's degree and then there is the coveted three striper. I have a PhD in theology. Is it not? Notice me?

I am the smarter one. And I wonder, how do they do this and have this in their Bibles? How do you get a PhD in theology knowing what it says about the scribes and kind of dismiss it and assume the same guilt as they did in this subject? And some of the good men I've seen, otherwise good men, have done it because the people that they preach to demand that they have these credentials. I suggest they stop preaching to those people and go find people who don't demand such credentials.

Have they ever considered this? Some suppose I'm wrong for pointing this out. This is not sour grapes. This is just scripture. Credentials, when it comes to preaching God's Word, are similar to the circumcision that Paul had to deal with with the Judaizes as he was sharing the Gospels with Gentiles.

1 Corinthians 7 verse 19, circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. They wanted to kill him for saying that. They tried, too. They did persecute him. They did hurt him physically. They hurt his ministry. They went in back of him and tried to undo everything he did so he writes to the Galatians. Are you so foolish, having begun in the flesh and now being made perfect in the Spirit? What is your problem?

Who has bewitched you? Well, it was those people that don't like hearing you say these things to them because they want to feel special. Paul continues, he says, circumcision is nothing, uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters, end quote. And that's what Christ was trying to say to all these other Pharisees, Sadducees. Keeping the commandments of God is what matters. Certain professions, of course, must have credentials and be regulated.

I do not want a Wal-Mart shopper to operate on me. I want it to be someone who has the credentials, who's gone to school, who knows what they're talking about, but when it comes to preaching the truth, the rule book is the scripture. That is the authority.

That's what meant by sola scriptura. Scripture alone is our authority for life. I am not comfortable with calling a man his eminence. I would yell at the person who called me the right honorable reverend.

He gets out of hand, but then those that do it and find out they love it. Well, we have it, his eminence is the pastor of Alflach. Samuel was told something by God that was so important that he wrote it down. So important to God that it was preserved. You know this verse. For Yahweh does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart. God is looking at what's on the inside, not what's up on your wall.

These guys, since they couldn't bring the wall to the people at the marketplace, they brought their robes. You see, I've got the certificate hanging over my desk, which is fine in other professions. Not here.

You cannot arrive. Whatever you receive from God in preaching belongs to him. And you dare not say it's mine. I figured it out.

I didn't need the Holy Spirit. I just, you know, I'm really a smart guy. That would be blasphemous. He says they loved greetings in the marketplace, yearning for attention. They had become celebrities. In their minds, they were the somebodies and deserved to be treated as superiors by the common people. And woe to you if you did not do it.

How do we know that? Well, they killed Christ for not doing it. They hated him for daring to dismiss them. This kind of thinking is alive and well in any prideful environment. Credentials are meaningless if the heart is wrong.

Second Corinthians chapter 10 verse 12. For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. In other words, they're fools. We're going around acting like, if I say I'm smarter than you, I got a 90 on the test, you got a 45.

I don't mean pistol, I mean score. And therefore I'm smarter than you. You're comparing yourself with them. I mean, the people do this who aren't Christian. They say, well, I'm a good person. Well, not next to Christ, you're not. And if you compare yourself with other human beings, you're not wise.

Standard is God. And that in Christ Jesus and the apostles of Jesus Christ did not commend themselves or esteem themselves in their position. But if anybody had the right to say, I am an apostle, it would be the hand-picked men of Christ. There were 13, only 13 chosen by Christ that we know of in our scripture.

One was disqualified and that leaves 12. Twelve men could stand and say, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. Because God assigned that title to them. In fact, in Revelation, when Christ is talking to the churches, he says, I know you can't tolerate those who say they are apostles and they are not.

And then he went on to say, but I got some trouble with you, too. Verse 39, the best seats in the synagogue and the best places at feasts. They wanted a public display.

It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to nod at them and smile at them and say, oh, a rabbi's so-and-so in the marketplace to have a rabbi's siding. When you had an event, you had to make room for them. They had to have the best seats. This is self-importance and it had to be paraded and celebrated. And again, these guys carried a big punch.

I don't mean punch bowl. I mean they carried a lot of power and they could make your life miserable and that's Christ. We're going to get to that in a minute in verse 40, but before we do, they wanted to be paraded around Paul Wright's sister, the Corinthians. Love does not parade itself. Love is not puffed up.

He probably didn't even have these guys in mind because he's so busy dealing with other guys who are doing the same thing. There are many Christians that read these verses and put them on their, you know, bumper stickers or whatever. They post them and then trample them. It should make us all shiver a little bit. In verse 40, now Christ is going to point out, this is why I'm saying the things I'm saying to you. And they knew it.

The audience knew it. He says, who devour widows, houses. Are you kidding me? Food, shelter, clothing.

They're going to steal that? And for pretense, make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation. So here's why he's singling them out. In the midst of whatever he was teaching, he singles them out.

It's like he caught a glance at one and it just got him going or something. Just very real, the way it is presented and how it happened. Before I became a Christian, I thought the Bible was just a bunch of like poems or something about what people thought God was. I didn't understand how genuine the experience inside the Bible, how genuine they are, how relative they are for every generation. No matter what little changes here and there the people may go through, sin is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

It will damn you to a hell that you can't get out of forever. So it had to be said to these men, why is that? Again, they were entrusted with tending the people. They had bullied, they had beaten, and they had bruised the people. And they still wanted to be applauded and be treated as though they were innocent and the only one that could really get in their face did it. They corrupted their own court system. For personal gain, you could not get justice with these guys. Not if the other side had something better to offer.

They'd take a bribe very quickly. Luke writes in chapter 7, but the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves. They were above the law. They held people to the law and just not themselves.

C.S. Lewis writes this, he says, of all bad men, religious men are the worse. When religious people are bad, they are super bad.

They feel so justified, they're lying about, it's just a bundle of tragedy. What a witness for hell. Long prayers. Long prayers are hard enough to listen to. When they're pretending on top of it, oh man, you know, those preachy prayers that are going to correct you. Can't you just wait for the Holy Spirit to say something to you or don't say anything? It's okay, it's okay if you just agree because he's saying something to me.

He's telling you that you should start thinking. No, I'm kidding. I'm having a little fun with that. Listen, I've been in a lot of prayers for decades and I still get flashbacks of some bad ones from long ago. That was really tough. I had to intercept that one. Anyway, it's not fun to grab somebody after a prayer and say, listen, I don't know where you got that from, but that's not biblical. And then watch them try to defend it.

It's not fun at all. Anyway, we come back to, we're still in verse 40 and we don't object to him singling them out as impersonators and silencing them. Jesus Christ, the man, the son of God, don't be offended by that description of his humanity. First Timothy 2, for there is one God and one mediator between God and Mary ain't her. No offense to Mary. We got to be careful.

We love her. She is one of the dynamos of scripture and we will not, because others abuse her, we will not abuse her too. But we do want to make it clear that you might as well pray to the goddess Tammuz as well because you're not supposed to talk to the dead. You're not supposed to talk to anybody but God if they're not in this life anymore. It is a sin. And if you say, well, I don't like hearing that, then you should go to the church that preaches it's okay to pray to her because you ain't going to get a church that upholds the word because there is one mediator.

It would have been a good opportunity to say there's two of them, but there's not. And why it's important is because people go to hell over this kind of stuff. You want a pastor to sweep that under the rug and pretend it's not going on because it might offend somebody? Hell's going to be a lot more offensive to you than what I could ever say to you.

I'm not saying it as though I'm puffed up. I have to sound loving when I say these things and not try to tone down the passion some, but I'm not going to say it any other way than reading the scripture. For there is one mediator, for there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And that is Paul saying he has been here.

He was born of a virgin. He walked among us. John said, we saw him. We touched him. We were with him.

And you're going to try to come here and tell us that he was a phantom? That's what all 1 John is about. Telling the Gnostics that what they believe in is man-made well comes out of hell, but the men were on the assembly line. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark, right here on Cross Reference Radio.