Let's read our text in Luke 20
and then pray together Luke chapter 20 verse 20 Luke 20 20 they watched him and
sent forth spies which should feign themselves just men and
that they might take hold of his words, that so they might
deliver him unto the power and authority of the governor. And
they asked him, saying, Master, we know that thou sayest and
teachest rightly. Neither acceptest thou the person
of any, but teachest the way of God truly. Is it lawful for
us to give tribute unto Caesar or no? But he perceived their
craftiness and said unto them, why tempt ye me? Show me a penny. Whose image and superscription
hath it? And they answered and said, Caesar's.
And he said unto them, render therefore unto Caesar the things
which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's. And
they could not take hold of his words before the people, and
they marveled at his answer and held their peace. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for
your word again. I pray that you'd open our hearts,
Lord, and cause us to receive your word as you did Lydia. When
she heard the gospel, her heart was opened by you and she received
the truth of Christ and believed. Grant us that this morning, teach
us and open our heart and our ears that we might believe on
the Son of God and trust Him and put our trust in Him and have life according to Your promise. In His precious name, Amen. Remember
that our Lord had just told these Jews a parable verse 19 it says
that that the chief priests inscribed the same hour sought to lay hands
on him and They feared the people for they perceived that he had
spoken this parable against them And they perceived right because
he was he was most certainly talking to them they perceived
correctly verse 19 there So what he had said to them in
the parable he was He spoke it against them and here's what
he said. He said you're gonna kill me That's he that's what
he said. You're gonna kill me And then
he said this my father is gonna destroy you for killing me And then so what was their reaction
to that they said about to kill him and They did exactly what
he said they were going to do. But they intended to do it in
such a way that they wouldn't be destroyed for it. They wouldn't
be held accountable for it. They tried to get him, they feared
the people, but they tried to get him to say something that
they could accuse him of before law. Something that's interesting
and since it's pretty much the whole message of this passage
of scripture. I want to see it right at the
outset We'll see this all through this,
but I believe that when we're going through these passages
as we do that We go through just a word or
a phrase at a time and we see what the Lord has taught us thus
far But we should start out knowing where we're going and And here
is the message of this whole thing. When our Lord tells them
the parable, he did, he was perfectly honest. He was just telling them
the truth. It wasn't what they wanted to
hear, but he said, you're gonna kill me. My father sent his son
into this world saying, surely they will reverence my son, not
that God's naive, but he's to be had in reverence of all them
that are about him, David wrote. God knew what would happen, but
it says that in the parable because he's worthy of all reverence.
And yet they took him with wicked hands. They said, this is the
error. We kill him, we'll get what belongs to him. Glory, that's
what man's been after from the start. We want all the glory.
The reason people want money and gain and prosperity and even
popularity and things like that, it's glory. It's me, me, me. It's build me up. It's promote
me. It's increase me. And so they killed him. We killed
him. And that's what he said. He was
perfectly honest and straightforward with them as he always was. They,
on the other hand, they come to him flattering him in verse
21. We know that everything you say
is right. We know that. But they're not honest in that.
In other words, God God the Son is true and every man's a liar. That's what we're seeing play
out here. Listen to Romans 3.3. For what
if some did not believe? These didn't. Shall their unbelief
make the faithfulness of God without effect? God forbid. Yea,
let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that
thou might be justified in thy sayings and might overcome when
thou art judged. They were liars. He told them
the truth and they were liars. They were conniving, scheming,
deceiving liars. And God is gonna be justified
when he destroys them. That was the parable. What's
he gonna do to those wicked servants that killed his son? He's gonna
destroy them, that's what he's gonna do. And he's gonna be right
to do it. That's what Paul said in Romans
3. This is the natural state of
things with men and God today. This is what happened in the
garden. God tells the truth, and he speaks in various different
ways, doesn't he? He tells the truth, like in the
parable in Archonta, and man lies. Satan lies and man believes
it. Which is just, you're lying too.
You're going along with it. God speaks and man perverts it
and twists it and manipulates it and connives. We learned it
from the father of lies himself in the garden. We learned how
to do it. And we learned it well. And as the Lord said of these
religious Jews in John 8, 48, you're of your father the devil.
What do you mean by that? The lusts of your father you
will do. You're just like him. You were born. Children of the
devil and you're gonna do like him He was a murderer from the
beginning and abode not in the truth. Is that in our text? You're
gonna murder me. You're gonna kill me because
you want what belongs to me All the glory And and abode not in the truth
There they are twisting the truth manipulating the truth in order
to murdering and You see the double evil here? There's no truth in him, and
so there's none in you. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh
of his own, for he is a liar, and he's the father of it, and
you're just like him. Your daddy is the father of lies, and you're
just like him. And notice something else. They
had to feign righteousness. They had to feign that they were
just men. You see that in our text? It
doesn't say that they were just men. That word, if you look it
up, it means righteous. They had to fake it that they
were righteous men. It means to impersonate or pretend. The word that's translated just
men there means righteous or innocent. They had to pretend
to be righteous. And our Lord, on the other hand,
he just was. He just was righteous. He is righteous. And that's what
we need to understand. That's what he's teaching here.
His truth. We're liars. So what do we need? We need to hear Him. He's righteous. We're not so what do we need
to do? We need about with submit to the righteousness of God in
him Romans 10 3 I believe it is Submit to his righteousness
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness And this is the first thing I
believe that we need to know in order to be saved I He's holy and we're not. I believe
that's the first thing the Lord will teach you. Pretty sure. Job said, I've finally seen you
for myself. I've heard of you all these years
and now I've finally seen you and I hate myself. I've seen
that you're holy and I know now that I'm wretched. I repent. I'm sorry for what I am. Now here's two things. Here are
the two things. God's word is true and nothing
we think or say is. It's just not. If you know anything
that's the truth, you got it from him. All right. And the second thing is that
God is just and we're not. We just looked at a verse in
Romans chapter three and these two things and the conclusion
of them is what that whole chapter Romans three deals with. Turn
over there with me again and we'll do this. I know I look
at Romans chapter 3 a lot. Different pastures, you've probably
noticed, tend to gravitate to different passages of Scripture
that the Lord has revealed something to them in those things. It makes
it clear to them. And so, in order to make it clear
to you, it's got to be clear to them. And the Lord just uses
different passages. The whole Word of God is the
same message. But this chapter 3 of Romans
now, You talk about plain, just clear. The Lord's revealed, I
think, this to me to some degree. Think about the two things we've
been talking about. Look at verse four. For God forbid,
yea, let God be true in every man a liar, that he might be
justified. He's gonna destroy us and he's gonna be right to
do it. But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of
God, What shall we say? Is God unrighteous that taketh
vengeance? No, of course. God forbid. How is he going to judge the
world? He's right and we're not. That's why he's the judge. And
we're the ones on the stand. I mean, we're the ones being
judged. All right, now look at verse
10 of Romans 3. As it is written, there is none righteous, no,
not one. Now he just said that God is
true and you're not in verse four. Now what does God say then? It is written, verse 10, it's
written. What he wrote is the truth, God's
true. And you know what he says about us? You're evil. Okay, so what about the second
thing that we see in our text in Luke? Look at verse 19 of
Romans 3. Now, we know that what things
soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law,
that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become
guilty before God. Now, we know what things, let's
see, I just read that, so verse 20. Therefore, by the deeds of
the law, there shall no flesh be justified. That's the word
in our text. Same word there in, Here, it's
in Romans, here it's the verb form of it, justified. There's nobody justified. There's
nobody, the law doesn't do that. The verb is an action word. The
law can't perform that action upon you. It cannot justify you.
And so you can't stand just before God by the law. It doesn't happen
that way in the, In our text, in Luke, it's the adjective form.
Describes them as just men, but they were pretending. They weren't
just men, they were just trying to act like it. And so, no flesh
can be justified in God's sight. Now a lot of other people might
have been fooled by it, but they're dealing with God's Son now. For
by the law is the knowledge of sin. God is true and God is holy. And we are liars and we are evil. That's what's being established.
That's what he taught in the parable. That's what he's teaching
in our passage this morning. Now what to do about that? Because
as that stands, we go to hell. In our text, what the religious
Jews did about that was to pretend to be righteous. I don't recommend
that. And listen, I know that's dealing
with a specific incident there, but when they did that, they're
representing what all sinners do by nature when they go about
to establish their own righteousness before God. In Romans 10, chapter
three, they go on about to establish their own righteousness before
God. They're just pretending to be righteous. That's what
you're doing when you do that. You're pretending. You're putting on
a show. You may get away with that with
other sinners now doing the same thing, but God's not mocked.
He's not deceived. You're an imposter and God's
not fooled. That's what a hypocrite is, by
the way. You remember how the Lord called them? Scribes and
Pharisees, you hypocrites. It's to pretend to be something
that you're not. Woe unto you Pharisees, hypocrites.
You clean the outside of the cup. You pretend to be just men,
but on the inside you're full of corruption and uncleanness.
You pretend to be righteous. You feign that you are just men,
but you're not. And you're gonna kill the only
one who is. And you're gonna go to hell for it, and rightly
so. You see, that's the clear message
of this passage. So what do we do? We see their
error, we see the problem. You can't pretend to be righteous
before God. So what are we gonna do? The
religious Jews, they despised the righteous son of God, and
he told them, John 8, 21, you're gonna die in your sins because
you believe not on me. You're gonna die unjust, pretending
to be just. I don't want that. So what do
I do? Look again at Romans three, if
you're still there, I hope, verse 20. Therefore, by the deeds of
the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for
by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now, now the gospel
comes. Now the righteousness of God
without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. Even the righteousness of God,
which is by, you look up that word faith there, it means faithfulness. It means by somebody did do righteous,
somebody was faithful, somebody did do right. And it's Jesus Christ unto all
and upon all them that believe, for there's not any difference,
it doesn't matter. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And if you're justified, you're
justified freely by His grace through the redemption that's
in Christ Jesus. Now God can do whatever He wants.
Well, can He? Can He lie? Can He compromise
His own holiness? Can He do evil? He can justify freely It's got to be through redemption.
Got to be. You're going to have to be redeemed
by the precious blood of Christ if God's going to say you're
not guilty. You're going to have to wash your sins away. You see
that? Justified freely by His grace. His grace is sovereign. He bestows it on who He will.
But I tell you this, whoever He bestows it on has been redeemed
by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. The precious blood
of his son, and that's what he's fixing to go do in our text.
Somebody said it was on Tuesday that he said this, and on Friday
he's going to be crucified. This is where we are in the narrative
of scripture. You're gonna kill me, and you're
fixing to do it. You're gearing up for it right now, and God's
gonna destroy you for it, and here's why. Because you're liars
and I'm the truth and when I testify the truth unto you, you have
no cloak for your sin now. The fact that you hate me and
my father is gonna come out now. You have no cloak for your sin. God is holy and just and right
and you're evil and wicked and you're gonna murder me. And here's the thing now, whom
God, verse 25, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation, a
sin offering, through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness
for the remission of sins that are passed. Your keeping of the law is not
righteousness. If he's gonna declare righteousness
at all, he's gonna have to declare his righteousness, because that's
the only righteousness there is. For the remission of your sins
that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at
this time, his righteousness, that God might be just. You see, without that word redemption
in this narrative, God would not be just to justify you. The
only way God can be just and deal with a sinner is by putting
that sinner straight in hell. Except there is the word redemption
here and there was on Calvary, perfect redemption made for his
sheep. And so God can be just in justifying
you because of that precious blood. That he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth. Jesus Now this is the two things taught
in our text and what to do about them both God is true and we're liars What
to do believe God that's what believe God The second thing God is holy
and we're sinful pretenders what to do Believe in his blood You
see that through faith in his blood. Believe on Christ crucified. Believe that the only hope for
a sinner, the only righteousness, the only sin offering that God
will accept for me, purge me with hyssop, and I'll be clean, is the Lord Jesus Christ and
what he did, what he accomplished at Calvary. Submit to his righteousness. as your righteousness. Submit
to Him as your righteousness. Because if Christ is not your
righteousness, if Christ is not all your righteousness, if Christ
is not your only righteousness, then you don't have any. You're
just faking it. You're just pretending. And that's
not going to end well. So the solution in both cases,
that we're liars and we're unholy, is Christ. Believe Him and trust
Him. I hope that's clear. Believe
him because he's the truth. And trust him because he's the
redeemer. Trust him as your sin offering,
your righteousness before God. Remember what the Lord said in
the context of our passage this morning. In verse 17 of Luke
20, he beheld them and said, what is this then that is written?
The stone which the builders rejected, the same has become
the head of the corner. And whoever falls on that stone
shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him
to powder. Christ rejected the stone which
the builders refused. Christ rejected, Christ crucified
is the foundation of God. He said on that rock, on this
rock will I build my church. Believe God concerning his son
and what he did for sinners, and he's my righteousness before
God And so as they asked the Lord
this stupid question in verse 22 Here's the thing now they
knew it was unpopular with the Jews you think about this the
Romans Had vanquished the nation of Israel the Jews and not in
a pleasant way. I And these men knew that the Jew
didn't want to pay taxes. Would you pay tribute to somebody
that conquered you, killed a bunch of you, killed people you knew,
probably, and were tyrannical, oppressive government over you? They knew that no Jew wanted
to pay taxes, and there's a bunch of them standing around here.
And so they just assumed the Lord wasn't going to say that. Because of the language there,
it says what they wanted to do was take him to the governor,
the Roman governor, and accuse him. And you know, the only way
that would happen is if he said, no, we shouldn't pay taxes to
them. They're evil. The evil empire
of Rome, we're not going to pay them taxes. Oh, we're going to
have to take you to the governor. Sounds like you're Dodging taxes, you know, so they're
gonna do that but no matter what he said he's Either way, it hurts
him doesn't it? If he says of course, we're supposed
to pay our taxes. The Jews are gonna be mad these
Romans They're much evil tyrants Either way, they thought that
they would hurt him but look at verse 23, but he perceived
their craftiness and said unto them Why? tempt ye me Mmm, let's don't miss that don't
miss that the Lord didn't answer them right away. He asked them
a question Again, he's not accountable to me. We're accountable to him.
We're gonna have to answer to him It ain't the other way around
and he said this first. Why do you tempt me? This is
just like what he said in the garden when he said Adam, where
are you? Think about what you're doing. Think about where you
are Think about the consequences think about why you're here.
I Why tempt ye me? If they were
to answer this question honestly, why are you tempting me right
now? It would refer them to everything we've said already this morning
about man being a liar and God being true and God being holy
and man being wretched and sinful. Why are you tempting me? Because
you're a deceptive bunch of crooks. You're liars. Why are you tempting
me? because you hate God who is holy
and you hate the light because your deeds are evil. It would refer them, they'd have
to think about everything we've said already this morning if
they were to honestly answer this question, why are you tempting
me? They're tempting him because
he's true and they're liars. That's why they're doing it.
You don't have to connive and scheme, connive and scheme when
you're true. Do you? And they were doing, they found
themselves in the terrible place of pretending to be righteous. And you don't have to pretend
to be righteous if you are. Why tempt ye me? You see the
weight of that question? Why are you pretending to be
something you're not? Boy, what a question. If Christ
is your righteousness, you don't need to pretend. And then he answered them. Listen
to that. He said, show me a penny. Whose
image and superscription hath it? And he said unto them, they said,
Caesar's. And he said unto them, render
therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God
the things which be God's. Now here's how to understand
what our Lord said, is to understand this. He's not talking about
two different things. He's talking about two ways of
honoring God. He's not talking about honor
Caesar with what Caesar's and honor God with. He's saying there's
two ways to honor God. You might say, well, paying taxes
to a godless oppressor is not honoring God. Who put Caesar
on the throne of Rome? Who did that? Who made him the
most powerful man in the world at that time? And if you look
at comparisons of, you take into account the differences then
and now, probably the most powerful man that ever lived, Caesar. How many now you say well Trump's
the most powerful man in the world. That's probably true now
But he can't just tell people to kill somebody and they'll
do it That's not gonna happen Caesar could He could have ordered
an entire nation destroyed and he did and they were And that was because of God Now
you may not see how that serves God's purpose But that serves
God's purpose and we know it does, whether we can see it or
not. Faith is the evidence of things
not seen. Listen to this, Colossians 3.22, servants obey in all things
your masters according to the flesh. And that's, you know,
servants and masters. That sounds like, you know, a
slave owner with slaves. That's just anybody that's in
authority and those that are under them ought to obey them.
Because God gave them that authority. Listen to it. And don't do it
just with eye service as men pleasers. Don't just serve them
when they're looking. or just get away with what you
can get away with, but with singleness of heart, fearing God. Fearing God. And whatsoever you do, do it
heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. That's what he's
talking about with paying the taxes here. You pay the taxes
because under God's providence, that's the right thing to do
by law and so you do it because you know who's really on the
throne and it ain't Caesar. That's why you do it. Fearing
God and do it heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men, knowing
that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance.
The Lord is the one who we're accountable to and the Lord is
the one that blesses us. He gives us what we need. For you serve the lord christ
That's who we serve And part of doing that is obeying your
master Listen to romans 13 Turn there with me romans 13 1 through
7. This is not unclear in the scripture
now We may not like it And I tell you this there's a whole lot
that makes me mad about paying taxes. There's a whole lot about
it They take that money that we send up there, and they do
horrible things with it. They do some horrible things
with it. Less so now than at other times, but I tell you this,
that doesn't sit well with me, but I'm gonna do, by God's grace,
I'm gonna do what God says do. Romans 13, one. Revelation 13 1 does not say
the same thing as Romans 13 1 So let me get back over here 13
1 This is pretty clear. I believe Let every soul be subject
unto the higher powers For there is no power, but of God It didn't
say most of it does it it didn't say well. You know I don't know
if God has anything to do with that There's no power, but of
God The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth
the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist
shall receive to themselves damnation. Now that's not, you're going
to hell. That's not what puts people in
hell. But it's talking about you're
gonna be condemned. You're gonna be condemned by the law. For
rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt
thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good,
and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he is the minister
of God to thee for good. Now, of course, there's exceptions
to this. You can think, for example, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
The higher power said to them, you bow to our idol. And they
said, we're not doing it. But they were willing to suffer
the consequences for it, weren't they? They said, go ahead and
kill us. And our God will deliver us,
and if he don't, we're still not bound to your God. Now that
was an exception, wasn't it? But I don't think that's gonna
come up in our lives, you reckon? But if you do that which is evil,
be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is
the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that
doeth evil. Wherefore, you must needs be
subject, not only for wrath, not just because you'll be punished
if you're not, but for conscience sake. It's the right thing to
do. For this cause pay you tribute also. This gets pretty specific,
doesn't it? For they are God's ministers.
attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore
to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to
whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. So he's
not saying, you know, give some glory to Caesar and give some
glory to God too, you know, they both deserve a little something.
No, both are honoring God. You do what Caesar says out of
fear unto God because you're serving God and not men. You see that? This is two ways
of honoring Him. This is God's way. And when it
says, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what
is God's, understand that Caesar is God's. So this is to honor God in two
ways, by being honest and lawful and upright in earthly matters
and also The things which are God's directly and exclusively,
there are some things which belong unto God that ain't got nothing
to do with Caesar. Now let's talk about those for
a minute. These things belong unto God
directly and exclusively. Don't you give any of this to
anybody else but him. Faith. Service, worship, glory, everything
that we're called upon in His Word to render unto God. Render
it with all of your heart exclusively to Him. Now service in the things
of this world is one thing, but service unto God, God's given
us one thing to do. Go and preach. Be ye my witnesses,
testify unto me. And that's what this is now.
This is what we're doing this morning. This is why we're here.
Render unto God. He says in John 6, 29, Jesus
answered and said unto them, this is the work of God. They
said, what should we do that we might work the works of God? We want to do something for God.
This is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he hath
sent. There's a couple of ways to read
that too in there and both of them are true This is the work
of God. This is what God has given us to do But it's also
the work of God in that he's got to do it in you or you're
not going to do it He worketh in us both the will and to do
of his good pleasure That you believe on his son and Render
unto God the things that are God's. Well, we know we ought
to serve him. Listen to 2 Corinthians 5.14,
for the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that
if one died for all, then all were dead. That's why the Lord
Jesus Christ had to die, because we were dead. He had to enter
into death and bring us out of it. Here's why he did it, and here's
our response, that he died for all that they which live should
not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them
and rose again. That verse is familiar, too.
I quote that one a lot, too. I like that. That applies to
every moment of every day of our lives. Render that unto God. He's to be worshipped. Philippians 3.3, Paul said, we
are the circumcision, that is, we are the covenant people of
God. Circumcision was the sign of the covenant in the flesh,
but it spoke of a circumcision of the heart. But, which worship God in the
spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence
in the flesh. Those four things that define
who we are, one of them is this, we worship God. We don't worship
people. We don't worship things. We don't
worship ourselves. We worship God. Render unto God
the things that are God's. When our Lord said what he did,
certainly glory is included in that. Render glory unto him.
Glorify God, whether you eat, therefore, or drink, or whatsoever
you do, do all to the glory of God. Boy, that's due unto Him, isn't
it? First Chronicles 16, 29, give unto the Lord the glory
due unto His name. Bring an offering and come before
Him. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Give Him
the glory that's due, that He deserves, Do you know how God is glorified? It's by His Son. It's by Christ. His Gospel. His worship. He that honoreth not the Father
honoreth not the Son. If you don't glorify Christ,
you're not glorifying God. You know what else is due unto
God? Love. The love of our hearts. Paul said, if any man love not
the Lord Jesus Christ, he ought to go to hell. That's just the
truth, isn't it? He ought to. Now listen for just a couple minutes
more here. He does not say, render unto
him what is his, because he thinks we're able to do that by nature.
We can't render anything unto God. He doesn't say that. That's not
why he's saying that. When he told that rich young
ruler to sell everything and follow him, the Lord knew he
couldn't do that. He knew he wasn't going to do
that. But you know what he said? I'll tell you that. The Lord wasn't
lying to him, was he? If you're going to have eternal
life, you're going to have to do that. You're going to have to honor
Christ above all else. You have to love Him more than
you and your stuff. It's impossible for man. That's
what He said with men. Man's not going to do that. Nobody's
going to do that. You're sitting there telling
people to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that are never going
to do that. But He didn't just say it's impossible.
He said with men it's impossible. But with God all things are possible. He demands it. He demands it
now, but then he must give the faith and the ability to do what
he said do. We know that. Lazarus can't come
forth, but he's coming forth, isn't he? That's the two things
I know about that situation. I know he can't do it, and I
know that he's fixing to do it because of him who spoke. That's how it is with us. Render
unto God the things which are God's. How are you going to do
that? He said to old Thomas, be not faithless but believing.
Think of all the outward advantage that Thomas had had. He had walked
with the Lord all that time now. He had seen his miracles. He
had heard the word of God from God. And you know what the culmination
of all that was? I will not believe. And then the Lord said, be not
faithless, but believing my Lord and my God. There's the difference
now. And that's what it takes. That's
what it takes. You're not going to serve him.
You're not going to do it. Christ said, without me, you
can do nothing. But I'm glad he didn't just say, you can do
nothing. He said, without me, you can do nothing. The Apostle
Paul said, I can do all things through Christ which strengthens
me. Without Him, we can do nothing. You know what? I don't want to
do anything without Him anyway. Do you? But with Him, through
Him, we can do all things. So may God give us grace to be
doers of the gospel. and not hearers only, and render
unto God the things that exclusively belong unto God. The one may be distasteful to
render unto Caesar. Them Jews didn't want to do that. They didn't much want to do that,
did they? But in God's providence, Caesar was their ruler. It is
the way it is. And here we are in the middle
of tax season. I don't much want to do that
either. And it wouldn't be a problem if everything was above board,
would it? It's not above board. Governments are corrupt. So rendering
unto Caesar that which is Caesar, that may be very distasteful.
But by the grace of God, to render unto God that which belongs to
God. That commandment's not grievous, is it? No, not if we're His. Not if we know who He is. May He give us grace in that. Thank you, Lord,