Immense Fools (Part B)

Unbelievers attend churches from time to time, and they are very moved and impressed with the sermon, but they stay unbelievers nonetheless.

They don't convert. These men were impressed. So what?

There's a lesson there. To tell an unbeliever as you're sharing them to Christ. They're nodding their head in agreement. They say, this is wonderful. Tell me more. And you can say to them, I am going to tell you more if you will let me.

But the question is, what do you do? The question is, will you convert to Christ from the world? Or are you just going to be impressed? My prayer in my latter years here of ministry are, Lord, help me to love your people the way you love them. Because without you helping me to love them, I won't love them. I'll resent. I'll become jaded. Any pastor will love you. Because without you helping me to love them, I won't love them. I'll resent.

I'll become jaded. Any pastor will make that prayer. If I cannot love the flock, you know what God says, if I do not love, I am nothing.

Well, I don't want to be that. So I will pursue love, the love of Christ. And Paul writes to Titus again, and this is the same apostle that wrote of love, he says, holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able by sound teaching both to exhort and convict those who contradict.

Contradict what? Scripture. Which these men were doing with Jesus. So I hope what I'm accomplishing here is showing you that, in light of the song of Don Francisco, he was talking to the hypocrites and Pharisees and everybody else but me. Of course, it's being sarcastic. We're not just reading about these men coming to Christ back then and it has nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with us. It is very relevant to right here, right now.

It's not expired. I better read these words and say, Lord, is it I? Am I doing these things? Verse 14, when they had come, they said to him, teacher, we know that you are true and care about no one, for you do not regard the person of men but teach the way of God and truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? So they came to him lying. They're lying to him. These things are true. He does not care enough about what people say to turn back on what his father says, what the scripture says.

That is true. He is not going to play favorites. Well, God is his favorite. He is, of course, God the Son. But they're trying to flatter him as they set him up.

We know you're going to give us an honest answer because you're such a godly man. And they're trying to exploit that. These are insults woven into otherwise noble words. These men were intellectually and emotionally committed to wrong things. They enjoyed it. They liked the way they lived. They found nothing wrong with themselves. The scripture they had reduced to this chart that goes along with their religion. They enjoyed opposing him.

They relished the thought of discrediting him, of being done with him. They say here, and you care about no one. Well, that's not true, not true at all. The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which is lost and bring the truth of God to the people. But the truth of God came before opinions and feelings. And again, that's what many folks don't want to hear. They want Christ to agree with the way they want to do it. And if he does not agree, they'll find a way to get away from him or to try to leaven the lump. And so it is not true. He has compassion.

Just because he leaves things on us does not mean he does not care. And some still try to equate standing firm against their beliefs with hatred. They think you hate them if you don't agree with them. That's a shameful thing to, a place to be in one's life. I have every right to disagree with anyone at any time and not hate them at the same time.

I can do that. I do not have to show malice to someone because I disagree with them. And what if they don't like it? Well, they'll either have to live with it or they're going to attack you. Well, they're attacking him. They did not say, well, you know, that's Christ's opinion.

No, they are trying to destroy him. And so they ask, is it lawful? Now, this is referring to the Roman law, yes, but also to the Hebrew scripture, mainly that at this point. They're saying, is it lawful according to the law of scripture for us to pay taxes to Caesar? Because does this not conflict with the sovereignty of God? By paying the Romans money, are we not demonstrating our servitude? He could have said, yeah, because this is the punishment on you for forsaking the Lord with your many idols whom the prophets constantly warned you not to do, but you did it anyway. And so they say, is it lawful? Now, Caesar here that they reference here in verse 14 refers, of course, to that Roman emperor. Tiberius was the present Caesar at this time. Verse 15, shall we pay or shall we not pay? But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, why do you test me?

Bring me a denarius that I may see it. So he's fully aware of what these guys were up to. And the question is, is it a crime to pay taxes to Caesar being God's people? Now, the Herodians were present, and they were pro-Roman. Therefore, had Jesus said anything against paying taxes to Rome, they would prosecute, and that would be just what this coalition was after.

Had Jesus said, no, we can pay these taxes, then the Jewish people would have come against him. They knew that when they were asking this question. They thought they had him trapped.

How can he get out of this one? It's not right. This is a lose-lose situation for the Christ, they thought, although they would not have thought of him as the Christ.

It says here in verse 15, but he, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, why do you test me? Because we don't like you. That's why. We don't like what you have to teach.

We don't like what you say about the way we live. That's why. Now, this denarius was a silver coin about a day's pay for a laborer. He says, bring me a denarius that I may see it. He did not carry cash, is what it boils down to, and so we just briefly review this. At his birth, when his parents went to, well, Mary and Joseph went to the temple to make their offering for him, they offered the poor man's offering, turtle doves.

That's all they could afford. And here, in his life, as he grew up and he was challenged on paying taxes, he had to send to the sea to get a coin because he didn't have it and he paid taxes for himself and Peter. When he entered Jerusalem, he had to borrow someone's donkey. And to make his point here, of course, he borrows a coin.

And at his death, at his death, he had to borrow a tomb for the weekend. Every beast of the forest, his mind says, God, the cattle on a thousand hills, they belong to him. And yet, when he walked the earth, material wealth was not something he was interested in. So who do you think you are if you are one of those who claims that God wants you rich in this life with money and wealth to flaunt? You know who you are. If you follow the so-called prosperity teaching, which is no spiritual prosperity whatsoever, then you've followed a deception from hell. Your life is to serve Christ and not yourself.

And we could beat on that all day long, but will the guilty listen? Verse 16, so they brought it, the coin, and he said to them, whose image and inscription is this? And they said, Caesar's. He wanted to hear him say it out loud. He knew whose inscription was on the coin.

He wanted them to say it loud so that the witnesses could hear the answers out loud. Tiberius Caesar, the august son of divine Augustus, that's the inscription around the image on that coin. These coins are available today. You can buy them for about $1500.

At least I checked online. If you would like to buy one for me, just give me the cash and let me do what I want to do with it. I don't want a gift card.

I want cash. But anyway, whose image is engraved? Who's carved? Whose image is carved on this? What is the inscription on this coin? Which means, whose image is carved into you?

What is inscribed upon me? Is it Christ or is it Caesar? He was asking them, is it the image of Caesar or is it the image of God that you're interested in? Where's the question coming from?

Of course they have no answer when he gives the answer. Colossians 3 again, put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him. We are created in God's image.

And yes, the fall occurred and marred that image. And being born again involves having that image restored to us here as a deposit. But finally, of course, when we get to heaven, Spurgeon says, Our Lord Jesus by his death did not purchase a right to a part of us only, but to the entire man.

All of us. We belong to him. And that's where the fight is. And when Paul writes to the Colossians, incidentally, he likely never visited that church. Epaphroditus comes to him, who was the pastor of that church, and he says we have a big problem. The Gnostics are mixing in their teachings. They're coming to that church and as they come through the doors, they're bringing their invisible sacred cows with them and they are mixing and leavening their teaching into the congregation. How do we get them out? Paul writes the letter to the Colossians and that letter is about you have Christ. Stop doing this stuff. You have the image of Christ on you.

You don't need these things that are being brought in by those who are trying to salvage something of their paganism. Verse 17, Jesus answered and said to them, render to Caesar the things which are Caesar's and to God the things which are God's. And they marveled at him. They didn't see that coming. They thought this was a conundrum. He'll never be able to answer this one. His teaching makes it clear that if you're going to follow God, then you're not going to be caught up with the things of Caesar.

At least if you do, you're going to resist them. And so Jesus said, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. And they marveled at him. In the Greek, it means they were impressed. They admired his answer. What else could they say?

They were so ready for him to be stuck. Even if he said, I don't know, he would have been answering as they answered him when he said, you know, the question that he asked him about John the Baptist, I don't know. Well, that wasn't the way he handled this. The sad thing is, well, first off, some bystander noticed this on their faces. Some bystander, part of this event, saw that they were blown away by his answer. The problem that comes out of this, a lesson, is that one can be very impressed with Jesus Christ and still not submit to him. Unbelievers attend churches from time to time and they are very moved and impressed with the sermon, but they stay unbelievers nonetheless. They don't convert. These men were impressed.

So what? There's a lesson there to tell an unbeliever as you're sharing them Christ. They're nodding their head in agreement.

This is wonderful. Tell me more and you can say to them, I am going to tell you more if you will let me. But the question is, will you convert to Christ from the world or are you just going to be impressed and go to hell marveling? Verse 18, then some Sadducees who say there is no resurrection came to him and they asked him, saying, now here's the next wave of the coalition. Remember Luke said they plotted against him, how to bring him down, and these magnificent fools that they are were quite proud of their skepticism and their unbelief. It tells us right out that they denied the resurrection. They did not really have any use for life after death. They also did not believe in spirits and angels, miracles in general. And yet they claim, they claimed to believe and uphold the first five books of the Bible, and only those first five books. They had no interest in Joshua and Isaiah and the prophets. It's just the books of Moses. That's why Christ is going to answer them from the book of Moses and not from Daniel and Job, and we'll cover some of Daniel and Job. So they claim to uphold the authority of the written law.

Is that not odd? No, not for the religiously faithless, and there are many that are religious. They like religion, they love ritual, they liked all the things that go with religion, except obedience, except conforming and submission to God's word, the revelation of God. And true obedience has little value in their lives. We see it when the high priest, Caiaphas, is conspiring to hire people to come against Christ, even if they're lying, he doesn't care.

And that speaks much to us. Matthew, at this point in his account, a parallel account of this event, says that Jesus said to them out loud that they were hypocrites. In other words, he was accusing them of living their lives on a stage, that the way they lived was not, what you saw as far as how they lived was not real. It was rehearsed. Now there are some that can live on a platform and they can be real. Incidentally, where I am standing on this elevated platform, it is not a stage, it is a platform.

It could be called a chancel if you want to be fancy, but it is not a stage where there is no acting going on. Some attempts at humor have been attempted from here, and sometimes successful. Anyway, verse 19, teacher. Now here they are, they're getting their religious face on. Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies and leaves his wife behind and leaves no children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Well, this is part of the Mosaic law. The brother is not obligated, though there's some social shame that accompanies it, if he denies. Deuteronomy 25 is where they're drawing this from. And the idea is that if your brother marries someone, and you could be married also, and your brother dies, how is she going to survive? And to keep it in the family, your brother's possessions and his name, and even it connects to the line of Messiah, because the two events we have in this scripture from Genesis and Ruth have to do with Judah and the messianic line. But other than that, just in the social benefits to this, what was she supposed to do?

There was no welfare program. She could not always go back to her home where her father was. They were trying to survive themselves. They married her off.

Okay, we have one less mouth to feed. And so this law existed. The firstborn that she would have if she remarried to one of the brothers was to take the deceased brother's name, and this of course would preserve his name in Israel. His property would transfer to his son, and it would not be lost on someone else. So there were great merits to this in that economy.

We can't look back from how we live now and sneer at them. This system goes back even before Moses. As I mentioned, it was found with one of the sons of Jacob and Judah and Tamar. And so the story of Ruth is based on this law.

And so they're trying to bring this law up to him, and we have much to say about how they're doing it. Verse 20. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife and dying. He left no offspring. Verse 21. And the second took her, and he died, and nor did he leave any offspring. And the third likewise. So seven had her and left no offspring.

Last of all, the woman died. Leave it to these miscreants to come up with such a distasteful conundrum. I mean, this is just, this never happens. But they created it anyway, and you're supposed to answer things, you know, hypothetical questions. Well, I can answer them hypothetically, but he's going to take them to the scripture. But wouldn't there be an ominous regularity going on with this? That would arouse suspicion and say, you know what? How many of my brothers have died marrying you?

Yeah. That's why this would never happen. Their twisted story.

It would take courage to be husband number three. Half a dozen of them die. I think the townspeople need to investigate. So, I do not believe for a moment that this is based on a true story. One or two husbands, maybe, in the family. But, you know, that just, you start moving down. The guy is saying, I'm not marrying her.

No way. This is a black widow kind of a thing. Verse 23, so here comes their punchline. Therefore, in the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be?

For all seven had her as wife. What a low view of women. And cynicism towards the resurrection. Life after this life. That is what is coming out in this. And it's seated in their disdain for accountability to God. Unbelievers have a reason for rejecting the truth.

And these men are no different. Do people really think that the resurrection means life continues where it left off after you die? I mean, do you think there's going to be a Chinatown in heaven? Or Little Italy? I mean, there'll be nice restaurants. I mean, do you really think that? It's insane.

Like, maybe I'll come visit you in your neighborhood. It's going to be something so glorious. Paul said it would be a crime to try to describe these things to you.

I caught a glimpse of it, Paul said. It's just amazing. And that's it.

I can't say anymore. So, verse 24, Jesus answered and said to them, Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God? He's not impressed with their grotesque scenario.

He's not like, whoa, that's a hard one. It marked their insensitive way of thinking. We see this in some other religions, you know. You'll get 70 virgins when you die if you blow yourself up killing other people. What kind of twisted, sick stuff is that?

That should be twisted and sick to anybody, not just Christians. Just saying, would you like that to happen to you? Would you like that to happen to your daughter? To be stuck with somebody who blows himself up when he gets up to the next line? The whole thing is madness.

But they'll blow you up for saying that. Anyway, this insensitive thinking of theirs out in the open before them, and the Lord must have, this hard part of it must have broken, and another part was just like this. This is so ridiculous, it doesn't happen, and you know it. But the dunce committee, they have to be answered.

And that's how it is in life. You just can't always ignore the dunce committee, and they thought this successfully disproved the resurrection. You ever talk to an unbeliever and they smugly think they've got you, and then you shoot that down? But they don't repent still.

They go back to the drawing board like Wile E. Coyote, blueprints under their armpits, and try to figure out another gadget, instead of just saying, you know, maybe I better dress like a rabbit, and just change sides. Anyway, the sick things human beings will believe once they reject the truth of Christ. He says, are you not therefore mistaken? So he has a question for them.

You know, what is going through their little heads? Who cares, pretty much. He says, because you don't know the Bible. Are you not wrong because you don't know the scripture?

If you knew the Bible, you wouldn't be wrong like this, but you don't know the Bible, and you consider yourselves custodians of the Bible. And so his reply is biblical. It would be like saying to Einstein, is that your theory?

And you call yourself a scientist? Pretty dim-witted. It's right in their faces.

It's pretty heavy stuff to say to this group. They had no excuse for their ignorance. They were what we call today liberal theologians. They picked and choose what to believe from the Bible.

And we have them today. They're in universities, they're in seminaries, they're in churches, they're in pulpits, and they tell you, well, that part of the Bible is not true, but this part is. Well, how did they become the way, the truth, and the life?

How did they become the Holy Spirit? Whatever you don't like in the Bible, just edit it out. We have them trying with this with homosexuality. Well, Jesus never came out. Yeah, he did, when he said, don't think I came to destroy the law and the prophets, but to uphold them. And the prophets and the law, they condemned that kind of behavior as they did many other kinds of behaviors.

But yet they, of course, they are drunk with their brand of religion. 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 here on Cross-Reference Radio.