Good morning. If you care to
open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 22. Matthew chapter 22. Before we begin, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, how thankful we are
that this is the day appointed that we can meet together with
our brethren to worship you. to open your word, to read it,
and study it. Father, how thankful we are for
such a blessed privilege that you've given us this place where
your word is preached, where the gospel is preached, where
Christ is exalted and worshiped, and where we can meet together
in peace and unity with one heartfelt desire to hear the gospel and
to worship our Lord and Savior. And Father, I beg of you that
you would enable us to do that this morning, to worship you
in spirit and in truth, to exalt the name of Christ our Savior,
and to be enabled by the eye and ear of faith to see him,
hear him, and have your word applied to our hearts that we
might not just be hearers, but doers, believers, those who believe,
rest and find our hope and peace and comfort in Christ our Savior.
and who he is and nothing about us, nothing that we do or don't
do, but holy in our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, bless us as we
attempt to worship. We pray that you'd be with our
children's classes. We pray that you'd be with your
people who meet all around the world today. Father, cause your
gospel to run well, to your glory for the good and edification,
salvation and growth of your people. Father, we pray for our
world at this time, that you would give us peace, that you
would, we know that the hearts of those rulers, wherever they
might be, are in thy hand. We pray that you would turn their
hearts towards peace and wisdom that they do not have. Father,
we pray for the sick and the hurting of our number, those
that we know of and those we don't. Father, we pray you'd
be with them. in a special way that you'd heal and comfort and
deliver according to thy divine power and will. All these things
we ask in that name which is above every name. It's in his
name and for his glory, the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, we
pray. Amen. All right, I've titled our lesson
this morning, The Politics of True Religion. Our lesson begins
Matthew 22, verse 15. Then went the Pharisees and took
counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. And they sent
out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master,
we know that thou art true and teach us the way of God in truth.
Neither carest thou for any man, for thou regardest not the person
of men. Tell us, therefore, what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to
give tribute unto Caesar or not? Now by way of introduction, I
want to You know, as I tell you all the time, I want to take
these scriptures and these true stories of something that happened
in the scripture and apply them to us. So by way of introduction,
I want to tell you to beware of people who are always wanting
to argue and debate and point out how everybody else is wrong
about everything. You know, that's what the Pharisees
were constantly doing with our Lord, weren't they? They're constantly
trying to come and trap him in his words and show people how
wrong he was, you know. And don't think that that's changed.
People still do the same thing today. They want to argue and
debate about all kinds of issues. But you'll notice there are issues,
those things that they are so passionate about, that they want
to argue and debate, they're willing to divide over. There
are never issues that are central to redemption in Christ. It's
always some weird thing, you know. These things that are so
plain in scripture, there can't be any argument, there can't
be any debate, there can't be any misunderstanding that salvation
is all in the Lord Jesus Christ. They don't want to debate those
things. It's all this other stuff, you know. And you just remember
when somebody comes to you this way, wanting to argue and debate,
you just remember this. Christ is to be preached. The
gospel is to be declared. It's not to be argued. We're
not going to argue against the word of God. We declare Christ.
We declare the word of God. That's not up for debate. It's
not up for argument. It's not to be debated by human
minds. The gospel is to be believed
in the heart and debating and arguing and fussing and looking
for reasons to divide. That is not the nature of the
new man. It's not the nature of the new man. So you beware
of these debaters. There's something wrong when
a person is like that. And they still come today, much like they
came to the Lord in his day. First, they come to debate. They
want to trip you up in your word. So they can say, I gotcha. I
gotcha. You know, they're not concerned with the truth. They're
not concerned with Christ's glory. They're concerned with, I gotcha.
I trapped you. And second, They often come in
groups and they often send their evil toadies to do their dirty
work for them. You know, the Pharisees didn't
come themselves. They sent their disciples, their
evil toadies, you know, come and, and that way the, the Pharisees
would have plausible deniability. So, you know, they said that
I didn't, I don't know what they're doing. They do exactly what they're
doing. They came on the, on the orders
of the Pharisees. And third, they're hypocrites.
They're hypocrites. They often come with a smile
on their face, and this all shucks, you know, manner, you know. Say,
oh, we're all just friends. They flatter. They'll flatter
you with their words. They flatter with a smile on
their face. But buddy, there's malice in
their hearts. I want you to look at a couple
of scriptures. Psalm 55. Psalm 55. This attitude didn't
even originate with the Pharisees. David tells us about it. Psalm
55. Verse 20. He hath put forth his
hands against such as be at peace with him, and he's broken his
covenant. The words of his mouth are smoother
than butter, but war is in his heart. His words are softer than
oil, yet were they drawn swords. These guys come, their words
sound smooth and religious, but there's war in their hearts.
There's a sword behind it. And what's our only defense against
these kind of people? Verse 22. Cast thy burden upon
the Lord. He shall sustain thee. He shall
never suffer the righteous to be moved. You're never going
to get rid of these people. Here's what you do. Cast your
burden on the Lord. Cast yourself on Him. Look over
at Proverbs 26. Solomon talks about this. Proverbs 26. Verse 23. Burning lips and a wicked heart
are like a pot shirt covered with silver dross. He that hateth
dissembleth with his lips and layeth up deceit within him.
When he speaketh fair, he speaketh these fair, you know, kind, gracious
sounding words. Believe him not for there are
seven abominations in his heart whose hatred is covered by deceit. His wickedness shall be shrewd
before the whole congregation. Isn't that the way these, these
fellows came to the Lord? this wickedness in their heart,
but they're speaking fair and calling him master and saying,
oh, we know how you teach. If they knew what he taught was
true, how come they weren't believing him? It was just a lie. They're
just using these fair speeches. And I'll show you verse 27, what's
going to happen to these fellows. Whoso diggeth the pit shall fall
therein. And he that rolleth a stone,
it shall return upon him. Now, by the time we get to the
end of this chapter, we'll see all these traps these fellows
are setting for the Lord. they're going to fall into in
their own cells. But right now we're just looking at this is
the way that they came to the Lord with with deceit, deceit,
fair speeches, but with deceit in their art, they called him
master with their lips. But we already know what's going
on in their hearts. We already know what's going
on. They're playing us. They're calling master and Lord with
their lips. But their goal is to accuse him as the worst malfactor
in society. That's their goal. And you beware
now people like this. Satan is never more dangerous
than when he pretends friendship. Remember Judas. Judas betrayed
the Lord with a kiss. Everybody just wants to snuggle
up to you and kiss you, not your friend. Joab. Joab was David's general. Abner was Saul's general. And after Saul was killed, Abner
came and he made peace with David. He made peace with David. Joab
didn't like that, and Joab got him off to the side, and he pretended
friendship with Abner. He put his arm around him and
said, let's go over here and talk and be friends. And while he's hugging
him, you know what he did? He stuck a knife under his fifth
rib and killed him. Everybody hugging up to you is not your
friend. You just remember that. The disciples of the Pharisees
and the Herodians were sent to trap the Lord with his words. Now, who are the Herodians? The
Herodians were Jews and by their name, Herodians, we know they
agreed with Herod. And you know what the Herodians
were constantly trying to do? They're trying to reconcile the
Jews and the Romans. They're trying to get them together
and say, you know, now we're all saying the same thing. You
know, we all think the same thing. We all got the same goal. And
I tell you what we should do. We should just ignore all the
Roman atrocities and just, you know, let's just have fellowship.
And I have no doubt about this. I haven't read this, but I just
have no doubt about this because of human nature being what it
is. You know why they were trying to make that reconciliation happen?
Because they were going to gain somehow from it. I mean, I can
just promise you that that had to be true. And that's why they
bring this question about taxes to the Lord. You see, this is
what really mattered to Herod and to the Rhodians. We got to
get this tax base built up. And the Pharisees knew this is
their issue. And the Pharisees, now they disagreed
with the Herodians very strongly, but they could get together and
agree on this matter of this man Jesus has got to go. This
man Jesus has got to go. So the Pharisees got in on it.
And they thought when they bring this question of taxes to the
Lord, he's gonna be trapped no matter what he said. Because
they thought if he says, you know you're right, you ought
to pay your taxes to the Romans, then the Jews are gonna be mad
at him and the Jews won't listen to him anymore. But if he said,
nope, you ought not pay taxes to Caesar, then Rome's going
to be mad at him. Maybe Rome will kill him. Maybe
Rome will get rid of this problem for him, you know? So this is,
they thought, they thought, I mean, how many times do you read of
this? They think they got the Lord cornered and it's just,
you know, there's no way out for him, you know, because we're
so smart. We've devised this trap for him. Well, look at the Lord's
answer. Verse 18. But Jesus perceived
their wickedness. He said, why tempt ye me, ye
hypocrites? Show me the tribute money. And they brought unto
him a penny. And he saith unto them, whose
is this image and superscription? And they say unto him, Caesar's.
Then saith he unto them, render therefore unto Caesar the things
which are Caesar's and unto God, the things that are God's. And
when they heard these words, they marveled. They marveled
at the Lord's wisdom in this. And they left him and went their
way. Now the Lord gives us in this short answer, he gives us
two important lessons. And if we'll learn them, they'll
be for our happiness and for our spiritual wellbeing. Number
one is this, don't ever mix religion and politics. The two are two
totally separate kingdoms. There are kingdoms of this world
and there's Lord's kingdom, which is not of this world. There's
the kingdoms of this world, which are physical, natural, earthly
kingdoms. And there's the Lord's kingdom,
which is spiritual. And the two don't mix. The two
just don't mix. The Pharisees, they defined themselves
as being children of God. Since they were children of Abraham,
they described themselves as children of God. They thought
of themselves as being part of God's kingdom. And this is what
they said, well, since I'm part of God's kingdom, I don't owe
allegiance to any earthly kingdom. I don't have to obey any earthly
kingdom that I might happen to live in. And that especially
applied to taxes. Buddy, don't ever hit me where
it hurts. Don't hit me in the wallet now.
I mean, we can agree on lots of things, but don't hit me in
the wallet. That was a big issue to them. Now the Lord teaches
them and us that believers are to obey political rulers and
civil authority. You know, the only thing, the
one and only thing the gospel has to say about earthly authority
and earthly governments is this. It's the only thing I say about
them. Obey them. Unless they tell us
what to preach, Obey them. Now, they can't dictate our message.
That's another issue, but otherwise, this is what the scripture teaches,
where to obey them. Let me show you that, Romans
chapter 13. Romans 13, verse one. Let every soul be subject unto
the higher powers, for there's no power but of God. The powers
that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisted
the power resisted the ordinance of God. And they that resist
shall receive to themselves damnation. Now you know what that's saying.
To resist civil authority means you're resisting God. And no
believer wants to do that. We don't want to resist our God.
That's not something for a believer to do. Read on, verse three. 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's a minister of God to
thee for good, for the good of society, to hold society together,
to run society. But if thou do that which is
evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain, for he's
the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that
doeth evil." Now, God put civil authority in place for our well-being,
for the good of society. I mean, if there were not police
and courts and laws and these... I mean, it'd be anarchy. I mean,
it'd just be, you know, blood in the streets. Now, do you want
to live at peace? Obey authority. I mean, do you
want to live at peace? Do you want to not be afraid
of the authority? Obey the law. It's pretty simple. Obey them. Say, yes, sir. And
no, sir. It'd be a mighty good idea not
to run from the police. Just don't cause trouble. Verse five. Now we're getting
right down to the nitty gritty of it for a believer. Wherefore,
ye must these be subject, not only for wrath, but also for
conscience sake. I'm telling you, obey the civil
authority. And all of us are to be good
citizens. We're to be good citizens, good neighbors, good, honest
people for conscience sake, so that we don't bring reproach
upon the gospel. I have an example. Something
happened to me just recently. There was a man come over doing
work at my house. And we were talking. And he said,
what do you do for a living? I said, well, I'm a pastor at
Hurricane Road Grace Church. And we got talking about that.
And come to find out, he and I, know some of the same people. He named several of you by name.
I said, oh, yeah, I know them. I've known them a long time.
And he said, you got some good folks over there. I said, yes,
we do. By God's grace, yes, we do. Now,
you never knew that was going to happen, did you? But I'm telling
you, it's worth doing whatever it takes. to be a good citizen,
to be a good, honest, upright neighbor, and so forth, so that
you adorn the doctrines of grace that we believe, and you don't
bring reproach upon the gospel. Now, I don't know if that man
will ever come hear me preach or not. But I can tell you this
from talking to him. If he doesn't come, it's not
because he thinks we're a bunch of angry rebels. I don't want
to be around them people. That won't be the reason that
he doesn't come hear me preach. And I'm thankful. I'm thankful.
And that's what Paul's saying here, for conscience sake, just
do what God tells you. And verse six, for this cause,
pay ye tribute also. Pay your taxes for they're God's
ministers attending continually upon this very thing. Now just,
you know, I mean, the scripture's so plain on that. Obey authority,
pay your taxes, just be a good citizen. Now somebody's gonna
say, especially in this day where we're so, you know, divided,
People will say, you know, I'm only going to obey the government
when I think that they're right. I'm just, you know, I'm not going
to obey him if I think that they're corrupt or I just don't, I don't
have to obey him if they do that. Really? Really? Is that what the Lord's teaching
us here? Is that what scripture teaches? Is that what Paul meant
when he told Timothy, Timothy, pray for our leaders. Is that
what he meant? Now I'll grant you, There are
a lot of corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle. I
don't know that you can rise very high in politics without
being corrupt. But you know what? There's a lot of corrupt preachers
and a lot of corrupt church members. A lot of corrupt people come
sit in pews too, you know. This is what scripture said.
It doesn't matter. Obey them as long as they don't
tell us what to preach. Think of this tax, whatever tax
it is that the Lord's talking about here. Everybody knows the
history of the Romans. You imagine that there were any
corrupt politicians getting these taxes put in place? Do you reckon
that there were any corrupt Herodians, any corrupt publicans collecting
these taxes and skimming off the top and cheating people and
overcharging them and stuff? Do you imagine that this tax
that they're talking about here is always fair? Was it too high? Was it unjust? Was it unfair?
Was it taxation without representation? Of course it was. Of course it
was. But our Lord, our Savior, our
Master said, pay it anyway. Just pay it anyway. Now let's
just be good citizens and quit spending so much time complaining
and rebelling about the authority that's over us. We'll be happier
if we quit that now. I'm telling you, we'll be happier.
Be a good American, vote them out, do whatever. I mean, you
know, but let's not get carried away with this thing. Let's quit
it. Let's just quit it so we can
get on to something that will bless our soul. Because here's
the second thing. Here's the second thing the Lord's
teaching us. There's blessing for our soul found in God's spiritual
kingdom. This political, this is the second
point. The political system in God's kingdom is a monarchy. God's king. He's the sovereign. And our relationship with God,
our king, is we're his subjects, we bow and we obey him. We worship
him. We're to render unto Caesar the
things that are Caesar's. Render unto the government the
things that are them. render unto God the things that
are God's. I thought about that. What does
that mean? What is it that we're to render to God? Well, I thought
of five things. Number one is this. This is,
this is the way we conduct ourselves, the way we live in God's kingdom.
We're to render to God the obedience of faith. The commandment of
God's word is trust Christ. That's the commandment. It's
not the Ten Commandments. It's not to obey the laws. This
is the commandment. The whole purpose of Scripture
is to show us Christ. Now you bow to Him. You obey
Him and you believe Him. Our Lord said, you want to do
the work of God? Here it is. Believe on His Son that He's
sinned. That's the work of God. And we're to trust Christ completely. To trust Him for it all. What a gracious commandment.
What a gracious commandment. Don't do one thing. Just trust
Christ. Just let him do it all. Earthly
speaking, if the government said, you don't have to worry about
it. I'll take care of it. Yeah, great. But not spiritually,
not spiritually. What a gracious commandment from
our God. Leave your works at home and
trust Christ. Trust Christ. Look at Psalm 116.
Don't trust all your religious and moral works. Trust Christ. Trust him to be everything that
it takes to save you. That's rendering to God the obedience
of faith. Psalm 116, verse 12. What shall I render unto the
Lord for all his benefits toward me? I'll take the cup of salvation
and call upon the name of the Lord. Now, faith claims the only
hope of salvation that I have is the cup of salvation. Faith
reaches out and lays hold on that cup of salvation. What's
David talking about there? He's talking about the blood
sacrifice, the cup of salvation. We have that cup in the Lord's
table. That cup of wine is a picture of the cup of salvation. And we take that, we serve the
Lord's table and you take that wine and you drink it, this is
what you're saying. The only hope I have that my
sin is cleansed is the blood of Christ. That's rendering unto
God the obedience of faith. All right, second, look back
at Psalm 56. Here's the second thing. We're to render praise
to God. Psalm 56, verse 12. Thy vows are upon me, O Lord.
I will render praises unto thee. Now you know what praise is?
It's giving God the glory for everything, physically and spiritually. You know, if you do something
noteworthy, something you get public recognition for, you know,
don't say, yeah, I'm so wonderful. I did that. I, you know, look,
Here's a way I'll say it. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate
you noticing that. I'm thankful. I'm thankful. I'm thankful the Lord put me
in that position. I'm thankful the Lord gave me
the ability. Don't be like he's. It's gotten to be a catchphrase
with athletes. You see him after the Super Bowl,
after a big game, the guy throws 500 yards, five touchdowns. And
first thing he says is, all praise to God. And then he talks about
everything. Say it and mean it. I'm thankful. I'm thankful the Lord put me
in this position. I'm thankful. And spiritually,
give praise to God. Don't ever give the impression
that I did something good to get God to save me. Don't ever
give the impression, oh, you know why God's blessing me? Well,
it's because I do this and I'm so orthodox, I'm so straight.
That's why God's blessing me. God's blessed me because God's
gracious, not because I deserve it. That's praising God. That's giving him the praise,
giving him the credit for everything, because he did it all. He ought
to get the credit, shouldn't he? All right, now look at 1 Thessalonians
3. Here's the third thing, and it
goes very closely with this rendering praise to God. We're to render
thanks to God. 1 Thessalonians 3, verse 9. For what thanks can we render
to God again for you? For all the joy wherewith we
joy for your sakes before our God. How can we ever say thank
you to God? How can we ever render him thanks
that's sufficient for everything he's done for us? Physically. Jan and I sit down to eat at
night, I think, I don't want to just pray the same thing,
you know, every day. But I tell you, how can our prayer,
when you sit down to eat, how can you, the first thing you
say, Lord, thank you. Thank you for giving us this
food. Thank you. Everything we have has come from God's hand.
Thank you for giving this to me. Thank you for, we didn't
earn it. Come on. We didn't earn it. God
just gave it to us. And you think, well, I mean,
I work hard. Absolutely you do. Who gave you that work ethic?
This man that told me, oh, these people, I know they're fine people.
Who gave you that? Who gave you that attitude? Who
gave you that work ethic? Who gave you the job? You can
be as educated and skilled as you want. Have you ever looked
for a job? That's one of the hardest things there is, sitting there
to find a job. Who gave you that job? God did. God did. Who gave you the strength to
go to the grocery store? Me and champ might starve, it's
up to me to go to the grocery store. I'm glad he gave you the
strength and the gumption to go fight through that and go
to the grocery store. God gave us everything. And spiritually,
how can the believer not live in a constant state of thanksgiving? God's so merciful to me. Oh my
goodness, I think about myself. I just can't imagine why God
would be merciful to me. Why He keeps being merciful to
me. Oh, I mean, I just got nothing
to say but thank You, Lord. Thank You. Thank You for Your
mercy. Thank You for Your grace. Thank You for saving me. Thank
You for keeping me, not casting me off. Thank You for feeding
me with Your Word and instructing me. I haven't earned the least
of Your mercies. You give it all to me free. Thank
You, Lord. Thank You, Lord. Fourthly, we're to render worship
to the Lord. Now, God's the only object of
worship, but anything else, worship, anything besides God's worship,
isn't an idol. God deserves to be worshiped. And I'm not talking
about for what he's given us now. That's part of thanksgiving.
I'm talking about worship. God's to be worshiped for who
he is. He's God Almighty. He's God over us. We're in his
hand. He does with us as he pleases. He's to be worshipped. One of
the best definitions of worship I can find in scripture is that
leper that came to our Lord and said, Lord, if you will, you
can make me whole. He worshipped him. He didn't
know if the Lord was going to do anything for him or not. But
worship has taken our place before God as a helpless, dependent
beggar. Freely acknowledging I'm dependent
on God for everything. See, worship is not in the right
form. It's not in all the right ceremonies. That's why Solomon said, son,
give me your heart. It's from the heart. And then
here's the last thing. Look at Psalm 96. Psalm 96. And this ties into the question
that the Pharisees and the Herodians sent to ask our Lord about paying
your taxes. Here's the fifth thing I thought
of rendering to our God. Render unto him an offering. Psalm 96 verse eight. Give unto the Lord the glory
due unto his name. Bring an offering and come to
his courts. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness. Fear before him all the earth. Now this, the word render means
to give something back or to give something that's due. But
it also means to give something back. And that's what an offering
is. It's give something back. When
we bring an offering, we give back a portion of what the Lord's
given us. He gave it to us freely. We give
back a portion to Him freely. It's not a tax. It's not a tax. It's not a tithe. I hope nobody
here gives 10%. Give $1 more, $1 less. Don't
give 10%. Don't do that, because it's not
a tax. It's not a tax. It's an offering. It's from a willing heart. And
here we're talking about these two governments, earthly government.
Earthly governments have to force you to pay taxes, don't they?
It's building up to be tax time. And I always get my taxes, all
the stuff I've got to have, down to the accountant early to get
this stuff done right. And I wouldn't do that if I wasn't
forced to. I can think of things I'd rather
do, but they force me to. We're here talking about an offering.
God's government is, bring an offering. Do it willingly. Nobody's forcing you to. The
IRS ain't chasing you. Do it willingly. Do it willingly. I heard a story recently about
this poor woman who's in the hospital, very, very ill in the
hospital. And this false prophet, her pastor,
comes into the room. And as he's leaving, he tells
the family, he said, now I know, you know, paying her tithe is
very, I won't say anything to her now, but I brought these
envelopes so she can mail or tithe in. No, sir. That's a tax. That's a tax. This is an offering. An offering
to the Lord. It's a way that God's worshipped.
It's thanksgiving to God. Bring an offering. Bring an offering
of your money, but also a willing offering of our time. of our
talents, of our praise, of our thanksgiving, a willing offering
of our worship. Ain't that the kingdom you want
to live in? Ain't that the king, the monarch you want to obey,
that you want to bow to? I do. I do. I'm thankful for
it, aren't you? All right. Lord bless you.