If you turn in your Bibles to
Mark chapter 12, we are now just three days before the Lord is
to be crucified. And so as Psalm 22 says, the
strong bulls of Bashar have gathered around Him, And in the parable
we looked at a couple of weeks ago, the Lord Jesus had spoken
to these people who were the husbandmen of Israel and showed
them in their understanding that they were the people who should
have been the ones who brought honour and glory to God and cared
for His people. But in fact, they were unworthy
of it, and here they are the people who reject the stone. But he has become the chief cornerstone,
and it was the Lord's doing And it was marvellous in our eyes. And so here we have marvellous
activities of our great God. And we've got to keep remembering
that He is the One who is controlling all of these circumstances. He's
the One who marched triumphantly into Jerusalem, claiming to be
the King, David's King, the King that all the other kings pointed
towards. He's the One who marched into
the temple and said, this is my temple, this is my father's
house, I determine what happens in this temple. He's the one
who had cursed the fig tree. He's the one who had told these
parables. The Lord Jesus is absolutely
sovereign in all of these activities. And we need to remember as much
as we are horrified by the activities of these men who stood opposed
to someone who had done nothing but good for all these three
years, that as this Passover was approaching rapidly now,
they were making sure that their lambs were examined and they
were spotless lambs to be sacrificed. In the examination of our Lord
Jesus we need to be thankful. Once again we have these people
coming and on our behalf in a sense they examine our Saviour so closely. in Mark 12, 13, then they sent
to him some of the Pharisees and the Herodians to catch him
in his word. And so the Sanhedrin had been
dealt with just in that previous passage that we looked at two
weeks ago. And Luke says in that very same
hour, and so these events flow one after the other with great
rapidity. And so having been thwarted by
the Saviour, they now continue their plotting. And we need to
remember that in Mark chapter 3, closer to the beginning of
Jesus' ministry, these Pharisees and these Herodians had gathered
together to plot how they might kill the Lord Jesus. And so these
questions that they raise are questions that they had been
planning for a long time. They had been planning to catch
Him in His words. In fact, they came deceitfully. To catch him, in his words, implies
that they came to entangle him. They came to hunt him, like someone
would hunt an animal. They came to set a snare to trap
him. They could find no fault in his
morality, his personal morality. They could find no fault in his
amazing miracles, but now they try something completely different. And we must remember again and
again, this is God's sovereign activities. These are God's promises
about the Messiah being fulfilled. Psalm 140 verse 5 is one of many,
many places in the Old Testament where it promises what these
people are going to do at this time. The proud have hidden a
snare for me and cords. They have spread a net by the
wayside. They have set traps for me."
And so we see these self-righteous men compromising truth. The Pharisees and the Herodians
were not friends by nature. The Pharisees thought anything
to do with Rome was treasonable against nation Israel. But here they are joined together,
natural enemies joined together, because the common enemy is a
greater danger to them than they were to each other. And these
two men were sent. The Jewish records indicate the
names of these two men and the fact that they came with great
politeness to the Lord Jesus and were dealt with with great
politeness by Him. But there's a warning here, isn't
there? These men were followers and these men were sent. They were sent by the chief priests,
the scribes and the Pharisees. The question that lies before
us always is, who are we following? Who is leading you? I pray that out of this pulpit
out of this church will come the clear sound of the Gospel
again and again, where we point people to the Lord Jesus and
not to men. I don't want people following
men. I don't want you following men.
I don't want you putting your trust in men. We follow the Saviour. We call on people to follow the
Saviour. These men came deceitfully. because they were led by people
who operated deceitfully. They didn't have the courage
to go to the Lord Jesus themselves, because he had just shown them
what they were and they understood it. They couldn't cope with God
revealing himself as God to them. Men hate divine sovereignty. This is the Lord's doing, Jesus
had told them, and it's marvellous in our eyes, but it was offensive
to them because it offends man's pride. We keep proclaiming the
doctrine of total depravity because it declares man to be basically
evil, not good, and that offends man's righteousness. We keep
preaching unconditional election. This is marvellous in God's,
in our eyes, and it's the Lord's doing that it makes salvation
to be a matter wholly determined by God's will, an unchangeable
God's will. And that offends man's most treasured
possession, his will. limited atonement, particular
redemption, makes salvation to be entirely based on the work
of the Lord Jesus, merited by His work, secured by His work,
unchangeable because it's His work. And that takes away men's
esteem of His own works. And we keep proclaiming irresistible
grace, that God the Holy Spirit will bring new birth, will bring
godly repentance, will bring faith to God's children, because
they are God's gifts to His children, won and merited by a sovereign
God and by the Lord Jesus. And that offends man's sense
of power, his sense of personal divinity. And we proclaim that
God's saints will persevere, not because of their perseverance,
but because of God's work. And again, man's self-righteousness
and the worth of his works is taken from him. And so when men
are confronted with those things, they either bow in adoration
of a sovereign God, or they must concoct schemes, as Simon said,
to ensnare and to entrap people, because at the heart of the issue,
God exposes what they really are. The Gospel exposes people
to what they really are. And so these people come deceitfully,
and they come as several had come to the Lord Jesus with flattery. You are true. We know. They boasted in their knowledge
of Him. We know that you are truthful. We know that you care about no
one. But you do not defer to anyone. You are the servant of no man. You are here as the servant of
God. For, because you do not regard
the person of men, you do not look at the face of man. All through the scriptures, God's
servants, like Ezekiel and others, were encouraged not to look at
things through human eyes. These men looked to all the world
as sincere, zealous men, seeking to know the truth, seeking to
have a difficult problem solved for them. And they came looking
as if they were seeking to honour God with their lives. And so
it has been throughout the world, throughout history, and it will
be until the Lord returns. Many, many people will appear
to us to be sincere, to be godly, to be zealous for good works,
to be passionate about law-keeping obedience as a way of honoring
God. They'll know their Bibles very
well. They'll be passionate about evangelism,
passionate about missionary work, passionate about working in and
working for the church. Just read, when you go home today,
read Matthew chapter 23, where the Lord describes hypocrites. Their external activities are
commendable. A couple of years ago we had
a man who appeared very flash come to us and he appeared with
great flattery. He came to inspect us, to examine
us about joining the Church and everything went reasonably well. We had a bit of an issue when
we challenged him about following the traditions of men and following
the creeds of men. But when we proclaim the Gospel
to this man, that the salvation of the Lord Jesus takes his people
out from under the bondage of the law, and that we are saved
and sanctified by free grace, this man rose up. in the most
extraordinary way. You would not have believed that
the man who walked in with his coat and tie on and the Bible
under his arm and told us this is a wonderful gathering, I've
heard the Gospel here today, would turn upon us in such viciousness
within an hour. And eventually he said something
which was just shocking. He said, you don't want to honour
Jesus as King because you don't want to put people back under
the law and you won't live under the law yourself. And he was
vicious. And he deceived some and he promised
that he'd come back and he'd talk to us some more. But the
Gospel had offended him. The Gospel had taken away from
him the one thing that he was clinging to, his righteousness. But he came, as these men came,
with great flattery. He wanted to boast about himself
by boasting about us. And God keeps saying, 1 John 4, we are not to look at
men except through the eyes of the Scriptures. We are to take
this book and take this Gospel and we are to assess people on
the basis of what this book says about them regarding what they
say about the Gospel of the Lord Jesus. Are they proclaiming the
same Lord Jesus? Are they worshipping the same
Lord Jesus? These men came honouring, it
seemed, Jesus. They came flattering Jesus. But in their hearts, in their
hearts was murder. They came on a mission to trap
him and take him to either Pilate or to the crowds and have him
killed. Lord Jesus taught the way of
God according to the truth. So the devil is never so dangerous,
says our brother Don, as when he appears to be our friend. The world is never so dangerous
to our souls as when it smiles and flatters, for they are such. not serve our Lord Jesus Christ,
but their own belly, and by good works and fair speeches deceive
the hearts of the simple." So it says, Romans 16, 18. And they speak vanity, every
one with his neighbour. With flattering lips and a double
heart they speak. And the question seemed like
a legitimate one, a question no doubt that for some generations
the Jews had asked, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Shall we pay or shall we not
pay? The question seemed like a very
good and legitimate one. But he saw through their question. See, their question was a trap.
If he said, no, you don't have to pay taxes to Caesar, they
would have had him down to their enemy, Pilate, in a matter of
minutes. And they would have said, this
man is preaching people and proclaiming that people should dishonor Rome. You must deal with him as someone
who is an enemy of Rome. And if he had said, you do have
to pay taxes to Caesar, you have to honour Caesar, then they would
have said, this man is not a true Jew. This man's heart is not
passionate about nation Israel. And so they would have killed
him in a sense in the eyes of the people who had proclaimed
Him as Messiah just a few days beforehand. You see, Jesus' knowledge
is infinite. Not only did He know their thoughts,
but He knew what was going on in their hearts. That's one of
the great traps we fall for, isn't it? It's one of the great
things that leads people into hypocrisy, is that we actually
think that there are things in our lives that we can hide from
God. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
As much as we proclaim God's infinite wisdom, God's infinite
knowledge, we still so often live thinking that I can do this
and God won't see. He sees everything. No wonder
David cried out, cleanse me from secret faults. purged me with
hyssop in Psalm 51, and I shall be clean. You wash me, God. You wash me, my Saviour, and
I'll be whiter than snow." So these people come, claiming that
they know about God. Really, what they've come to
and who they've come to is the one who knew much, much more
about them than they could possibly imagine. And so his answer, why
do you test me? Why do you test me? Bring me
a denarius that I may see it. It's an extraordinary thing,
isn't it? These men came according to God to test God. How many, many people come to
God seeking to test Him. Today they want to test Him.
Having not met Him, and having not known who He is, and having
not been given a fear of Him, a reverential awe of Him and
His character, they'll test Him. So many people I've heard say,
when I get to meet God, I'm actually going to say this, this, this
and this to God. Why didn't you do it this way?
Why didn't you do it that way? Cardinal Pell, that blasphemer
was on television last week and he said, was asked about suffering
and he said, well that's one question that I'm going to take
up with God when I meet him. Cardinal Pell will be very, very
silent when he meets God. These people continually tested
him. They tested him wanting a sign from heaven. But in Acts,
after the resurrection, people who test God have a very, very
serious problem. Ananias and Sapphira, according
to God the Holy Spirit, put God to the test. How is it that you
have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord. Immediately, she fell down dead
and breathed her last, just like her husband. In Acts 15, when
people were wanting to put others back under the law of Moses,
denying the perfection of the finished work of the Lord Jesus,
God says, Now therefore, why do you test God? You churches around the place
that are putting people back under the law and saying the
law is the means for sanctification, you people that entrap and entice
other people, why do you test God? Another translation of that
word, to test, is why do you tempt God? Tempt God to send
you to hell, tempt God to judge you. One of the reasons we are
separate from the religious world around us is because of the gospel
we proclaim, the gospel that frees people from a bondage to
the law. And I challenge you, if you don't
think it's the case, go to every church in this town and ask them
what they think about believers' obligation to the law. I don't
know of one, and we have tested them. There is not one that I
know of that doesn't say that believers are obligated to go
back under the law. The law is there as a means for
sanctification. You have to go back to the law,
because if you don't give people law, then Christians will live
wickedly, and they need rules to keep them under control. As one man sat at my table at
home having a long discussion about that, and he had gone on and on and
on about how we must obey the law, we must obey the law. And
I finally said to him when he drew breath, I said, you have
left someone out of the equation. You have left a person out of
this equation. Do you not think that God, the
Holy Spirit, is able, as He has promised, to sanctify God's children? Do you think that He who is holy
is able to bring holiness into the lives of His people? And
just like so many of the religious people around the place, He was
dumbstruck. Like these people in this story,
he knew that this had been spoken against him. And yet, not one
hint of thinking that that's an issue that he needs to go
away and think about. He's just taken others with him
down that road of testing God, tempting God. May God protect us from doing
that. May God cause us to honour our
Saviour by just proclaiming His Gospel and trust its power to
change His people. But we need to look just briefly
at this whole issue of hypocrisy. Jesus knew their hypocrisy. Here are those two men sent by
this band of wicked men plotting Jesus' death, coming there looking
as if they had an innocent question. Hypocrisy means to wear a mask,
to pretend to be something that you are not. And it's a great
charge against Christians in this world. So often you will
hear people say that they are just hypocrites. And the sad
reality is that the world's view is so often right. And the sad reality is that when
we see sins in others around us, we need to own it in our
own lives as well. Sins out there are there that
we might be humbled before our God and see that sins are in
us. Who makes you to differ? What
have you received? What do you have that you have
not received? Why do you boast then? God's
children don't try to pretend to live as if they are righteous
in themselves. God's children know that in this
body of flesh they face struggles every day, every hour, with their
own sins, the sins of others, living in this world, tempted
by Satan, God's children don't blame others or try to live behind
a mask of supposed righteousness. They have come into the glorious
freedom of the Gospel. One of the greatest freedoms
of the Gospel. There are so many freedoms in
the Gospel. Jesus came to give sight to the
blind and to release the prisoners. But one of the greatest freedoms
of the Gospel is that standing before you is someone who has
absolutely no righteousness. I have no righteousness to defend. I'll defend the Lord Jesus' righteousness
if He gives me the grace to do so. But I have a freedom from
trying to establish my own. Jesus is our all in all. Sin for Christians is a horrible
thing because it's seen in the light of who the Lord Jesus is.
It's not based on human standards. It's seen by God's standards. And we know, God's children know,
something of what it is for God the Father to take these sins
that these hands have committed, these sins that these eyes have
committed, these sins that this mind has thought, and God the
Father laid them on His Son. And as we read in that psalm,
the Lord Jesus said 2,000 years ago, they were His. and God punished his son. He punished him with the sword
of strict, holy, inflexible justice until hell's fury is stilled. And God says, enough. It is paid for. They are done. They are gone. They are never
to be remembered by God himself. And God's children are not in
the business of raising up the sins of their brothers and sisters. That's not our business. Our
business is to keep pointing our brothers and sisters to a
Saviour, not to themselves. We don't put them back under
law to look at themselves for their righteousness. we point
them to a saviour. So to be a hypocrite is to wear
a mask, to pretend to be something that you're not. And the particular
and the worst hypocrisy in all the world is the hypocrisy of
religious hypocrisy. As we see from these scriptures,
It's esteemed amongst men. This mask is esteemed amongst
men. How did they get to this position
of power when their hearts were so wicked? When they read the
scriptures but their hearts hated God? It's got to be successful
in the eyes of other people. It's got to be successful in
people's own eyes. They really, really believe. Such is the state of their calloused
hearts. They really, really believe that
they are righteous in themselves. And in the providence of God,
it remains unmasked for a long time. And to most people, it
seems like the genuine article. Also it's always based on external
activities which are claimed to be the things that bring righteousness. Its source is the heart of man,
a heart that is deceitful and beyond cure. Its source is in
when men fear other men, just like the Sanhedrin couldn't come
and see Jesus himself, but they feared the multitude, so they
went away and plotted and schemed and sent these other men. Its prevalence is such that God
says it grows like yeast in dough. Once it has begun, it grows and
grows and grows. This is, according to the Lord
Jesus, the yeast of the Pharisees and the scribes. It's hypocrisy. It's wearing a mask. It's so dangerous. The Lord speaks
against it so much. It makes people self-righteous
and it makes people critical because it's based on them looking
at others because of things that they have done and achieved. They see themselves as righteous. Therefore they can look down
on others and critically put others back under some bondage. And worst of all, in the hearts
of people who are allowed to continue in it, it just produces
calloused consciences. These men are a great warning
to us, aren't they? Three years they had the Lord
Jesus in their midst. Three years of amazing teaching. Three years of remarkable miracles. Three years they had God standing
before them. One day, God will come and strip
away the cloak that people wear, unless that cloak is the cloak
of the Lord Jesus. There's a verse that's been heavy
on my heart and so relevant to this in John 15, 22, Jesus said,
if I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin,
but now they have no excuse for their sin. What Jesus is saying,
but now they do not have a cloak. around their sin, their cloak
of self-righteousness has been taken away from them. Because
when the Gospel comes, it exposes people. When Jesus comes, he
exposes people for what they really, really are. How many do we meet? who wear
a cloak of their own weaving, a cloak of righteousness of their
own. And it bears the name of Jesus,
but it's really woven with the thread of man's work, man's will,
and man's worth. And it looks good to the human
eye, and especially looks good to zealous people. But underneath,
as Jesus says, it's really dead men's bones covered with the
white wash of works. As Paul says of them, having
been one of them, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness
and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted
to the righteousness of God. And there's one final part of
this story that we need to remember. He says to them, bring me a denarius. And so they brought the denarius.
And he says to them, whose image and inscription is on this? They
said to him, Caesar's. And Jesus answered and said to
them, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God
the things that are God's. The Gospel of God's free grace
does not lead to licentiousness. God's children honour the laws
of the land, because as Romans 13 says, ultimately they come
from God. God's children pray for the leaders
of the nation. They pay their taxes. and they obey the rules of the
government, as long as the rules of the government, as much as
they are abominable in our land. We must remember that the New
Testament was written when Nero was in power, far, far worse
than the wickedness we see around us here. But we obey God's law. We obey the laws of this land.
because we are people who come from another land. We are passing
through this land. We don't belong here. In the
book of Acts, when Peter and John were told not to preach
anymore in Jesus' name, they answered, ought we to obey God
rather than men? When men stop us from proclaiming
the gospel, we have reason to stand opposed to them. But when
the government asks something of us, then God's children just
obey, knowing that we have another king, a king who's sovereign,
just like this king was sovereign before us. and we don't lead
others into licentiousness. And the final words of these
men, I trust, are the words that we might take away with us, and
they marvel at him. They came to track him. They
came to kill him. They went away, these two men,
marveling at him. They were totally amazed, they
were greatly astonished. So they ought to be, and so we
ought to be, as we see our great King marching in triumph to His
cross, His place of glory. Amen.