Let's take our Bibles now and
turn to the book of Mark, the gospel according to Mark. We'll be looking at chapter 12
and hopefully I can work my way through the end of the chapter.
We'll be looking at verses 35 through 44, Mark chapter 12. So far in this chapter, our Lord
has dealt with a cross-section of the religion of his day. I know that there were many other
types of religion, maybe that's not the best word to use. There
was all kind of idolatrous, heathen religion. But I'm talking about religion
that professes an interest in Christ and religion that at least
has some interest or claims an interest in the living God and
shows some interest in the word of God. That limits religion
down to what we call today Christianity. Christianity. And within this cross section,
there were three factions, many more today, many, many. I don't even know if you can
count them all. But at that time, there was three
factions that made up this cross section of religion, the Pharisees,
and the Sadducees, and the Scribes. The Pharisees were Jews that
were self-righteous legalists. We have those today. We have
all kinds of churches today that are legalistic. That is, those
who believe they could gain favor with God and even bring about
His blessings on them, blessings of heaven and blessings in this
life and blessings of prosperity, by their keeping of the law,
adhering to the law. And then there were the Sadducees
who were also legalists, but these Sadducees differed from
the Pharisees in that they didn't believe in an afterlife. They
believed when man died, it's just like an animal. He died
and there was nothing after that. His life, whatever it consisted
of, was in this world. They didn't believe in any kind
of a resurrection or any kind of an afterlife. And then there
were the scribes who were professional transcribers, hand transcribed
the scriptures. These men knew wherever comma
went. They knew how to punctuate all
the sentences correctly. They were professionals at transcribing
the scriptures. They'd sit down with a pen And
I'm told that at the end of the day, when they transcribed the
scriptures, this is how legalistic they were, they would throw away
that pen and get a new pen the next day. They wouldn't use a
used pen transcribing the scriptures. But at any rate, they were professional
transcribers of the word of God and they knew the scriptures.
very well, and they knew even down to the very details and
punctuations. And all of these men, the Pharisees,
the Sadducees, and the Scribes, all of these men believed in
a coming Messiah. They believed in the promised
Redeemer and Deliverer. They didn't worship like the
heathen, birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. but
they worshiped their concept of God. And they mixed what they
learned from the scriptures with their own evil, carnal imaginations. They mixed God's testimony with
their own intellect and the result was their God and their Messiah.
That is exactly the old Israel, the old nation of Israel as it
went through the Old Testament. It's a picture of the church,
but it's also a picture of this world and this world's religion. And for all practical purposes,
they were considered by the world, they were accepted by the world,
even under Roman dominion. They were given the right to
practice their religion, they maintained a priesthood, they
maintained the elders, they maintained their discipline, they maintained
everything just as it was, and they were considered the foremost
authorities on the God of the Bible, the God which these prophets
set forth. Let me give you a reference for
that. When old Herod, Herod wanted to kill Christ before he even
got to be of age. And when he wanted to know how
to find the Christ, who did he go to? He went to the scribes
and the elders. And he said, where's Christ gonna
be born? And so they told him. They told him. They were schooled
specifically to this end and they confirmed and declared and
they were ready and qualified by those who taught them. And
if anybody questioned their qualification, they had papers in their possessions.
Does this read like yesterday's newspaper, or am I just off the
wall? You go into any Baptist church
office, into the pastor's office, and immediately you're going
to see a diploma from such and such seminary, If you question
him at all, he's going to get out his papers and he's going
to show you all the elders of the church that signed it. He'll
give you their phone numbers if you want them and you can
call and they'll give you their personal recommendation of this
man. That's these men. That's what
this was. To me, today's religion is just
like Somebody visited the old world
and packed a suitcase full of all their stuff and brought it
into this world. That's exactly what it's like. But the problem is, it's not
men who set apart preachers, teachers, evangelists, and apostles. God does. God does. Paul said he was an apostle by
the will of God. To the Galatians he wrote, Paul,
an apostle not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ. And if a man is called of God,
he doesn't need your papers. He doesn't need your approval.
He doesn't need anything if he's called of God. If he's called
of God, he'll go into the ministry and that ministry will be sufficient. That ministry will be, it will
accomplish what God called him to do. Everything will work out. And I know these young boys that
are getting called into the ministry, they call me from time to time
and they say, you know, we've been sitting here trying to figure
out This is what the church is able to pay us, and how am I
going to live, and can my wife work? And they're trying to add
all this stuff up, and I'm just telling them this. If God called
you, go. Because you can't sit down and
figure out how it's going to work. Because I don't know how
he's going to work. I just know that he does. I came
here, I didn't have one lick of health insurance, not any.
And my wife was diagnosed with brain cancer. Well, lo and behold,
there comes along an insurance policy for people that have already
been, already have cancer, already have heart trouble, already have
the pre-diagnosed insurances. You reckon God would just do
that for one man? I guarantee he would. Guarantee
he would. Man's called to God, he doesn't
need anybody's papers. He told the Corinthians, he said,
I don't need papers from you or to you. You're my papers. How do you think you got to know
what you know? Who'd you hear this from? If a man's called to God, he's
there by the providence, power, and purpose of God, and the spirit
of the living God will confirm him in the hearts of them to
whom he's sent. Now here's the picture. These
men had all come to Christ for a wicked purpose, to catch him
in his words, to expose him as a fraud. And the Lord had exposed
them instead. They didn't get anywhere with
him. If they did anything with him before the people, it was
to show the people that he was God's wisdom, and they weren't.
They tried to expose him as the fraud, and they exposed themselves. Now he's gonna show the people
their error from the word of God. So look with me here at
Mark chapter 12, verse 35. Jesus answered and said while
he taught in the temple, how say the scribes that Christ is
the son of God? Now I don't want to confuse you
this morning, but the scriptures do say that Christ is the son
of David. The scriptures say that. but
not the way these men perceived it or taught it or stated it
in their writings. Jesus Christ is the son of David
in lineage. In lineage. Luke chapter three,
verses 23 through 31. And then in Matthew's genealogy,
he takes it from Abraham to the birth of Christ, which was 14
generations showing that Christ was the promised son of David
to Israel, beginning at Abraham and coming to here. In Luke's
genealogy, he goes all the way back to Adam. He's the son of David as the
promised Messiah, the Christ and Redeemer of Israel. And in
both Matthew's and Luke's genealogy, he's shown to be both the representatives
of true Israel, and a representative of his elect from the beginning
of the world to date. And both of these are plainly
declared in Revelation chapter seven. The 144,000 that John
saw of every tribe of Israel and the number that no man could
number out of every kindred, tribe, nation, and tongue under
heaven, these are the same people. They're the same people. And this is exactly why no natural
man can understand the scriptures by natural reasoning and intellect.
You see, the Jews and all of their factions believed in the
natural-born relative, the seed of David, a literal son by his
own seed. And like David himself or Moses
or Joshua or any of the other leaders of Israel, rising up
through their ranks to become a literal king. In this case, a prophet, priest,
and king. And all Israel behind them, they
would overturn their captors and bring Israel back to their
former state of glory. Now that's what they believe
concerning the Messiah. And I've said all that to say
this. Our Lord is about to expose them through the word of God
by which they had failed miserably to expose him. And he says this
in verse 36. For David himself said by the
Holy Ghost, and this is important here, this is another reference
that all scripture is given by inspiration of God. I'm correct
if I tell you in Romans, Paul said, but I'm just as correct
if I tell you the Holy Ghost said. because Paul didn't write
anything that wasn't inspired by the Holy Spirit. All scripture,
he said, is given by inspiration of God. So David himself said
by the Holy Ghost, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my
right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool. David
therefore himself calleth him Lord, and whence is he then his
son? And the common people heard him
gladly. Made sense to them. They saw
in the inspired word of God how the Jesus of Nazareth, in perfect
harmony with the testimony of God, was or could be the Christ. They were saying it was an impossibility
for him to be the Christ. He's saying, oh no, it's not. And by this he exposed their
ignorance of the Scriptures and drew a question mark on all their
spiritual claims. All right, secondly, he's going
to go a step further. He will now expose their ungodly
demeanor. He said unto them in his doctrine,
this is the Lord teaching and preaching to the people, and
this was part of his message to them, part of what he said.
He said unto them in his doctrine, beware of the scribes which love
to go in long clothing and love salutations in the marketplaces,
that is, greetings in the marketplaces. Doctor, reverend, master, father,
Cardinal, whatever his title might be. What could be more
contrary to a humble servant than to dress up in something
that nobody else was allowed to wear, nobody else would wear,
and go down to the marketplaces in these big long robes with
broad phylacteries and all these things, and they go down to the
marketplace and just kind of walk through, you know? Good morning, Reverend. You've
heard it, I've heard it. Go to the hospitals. Doctor, father, on and on and
on it goes. Matthew described their gowns
as robes having broad phylacteries and these were little leather
pouches and they The scriptures weren't in a book back then,
they were in scrolls, and they'd copy portions of the Hebrew text
that they thought they would be addressed or asked questions
with, perhaps even challenged, and they'd roll them up and they'd
put them in those leather pouches and they made theirs broad. Had
lots of papers in it, you know, big, and they'd be sure you could
see them, you know. They have to be recognized and
wear such things so that they're seen and then greeted with a
special honor. And how different these men were
from those who were the apostles. Paul said, I am less than the
least of all saints. He wouldn't let you greet him
as a reverend. He said, I'm not worthy of my
title and I'm not worthy of my station. I'm the chief of sinners. And
then how different from our Lord, here was a man worthy of recognition. If any man was ever worthy of
recognition, it was Christ. On one occasion, he said, you
call me master and you do well. He was worthy of recognition,
worthy of title, worthy of station, yet he did not dress nor did
he require anybody to address him with a special name. He didn't require anything from
men but to hear. Now they called him master because
they believed he deserved it, and he did. They called him lord
because they were right. But they didn't call him Lord
because he demanded it. These men love salutations in
the marketplace. Look at verse 39. And the chief
seats in the synagogues and the uppermost rooms at feast, they
like to sit up high so everybody could see them. You walk in,
you look up there in the balcony, and there they are. They're all
lined up. And they like to, these upper rooms in this these chief
seats in the synagogue so they could look down and they could
say, hey Joe, see him, see her, and make their comments to one
another. Their demeanor was sinful, ungodly, and it was contrary
to the scriptures. But that's not enough. The Lord's
exposed them through the word of God. He's exposed them through
their contrary demeanor, and now he's gonna go even deeper.
He's gonna expose their hearts. Listen to this in verse 40. They
devour widows' houses. How'd they do that? For unpaid tithing. Unpaid tithing. Just like taxes that come down.
You owe whatever, just what you owe. Pay up or we're going to
take your house. And they did it in the name of
religion. They did it in the name of righteousness. They did it in the name of God.
Take away a widow's house for old tithing. Church I grew up
in used to call your house if you didn't pay your tithes on
time and done you. for your tithes. They couldn't
force you to pay them, but they would sure embarrass the life
out of you if you didn't. And these men would put these
poor widows on the street in the name of religion. And then what he said about prayer
is frightening. For a pretense, they make long
prayers. And this thing about public prayer
scares me to death. Because there's sin in us. Every
one of us. There's sin in us. And when I
look at this, I see this in my own prayers. And it scares me
to death. It scares me to death. They make long prayers so everybody
will know how spiritual they are. Now let me tell you something. You know if you're thankful,
don't you? You know if you're thankful or
not. You know if you truly need something
or not. Or if you truly love God. and
truly worship him or reverence the God that we're praying to.
You know that. So I'm not talking about a perfect
heart, we don't have one, but I'm talking about pretending
to have something we don't have at all. Paul said if there be any compassion
in you, any love, he knew that you weren't full of it, He knew
that you didn't have perfect love. He wrote to those Philippians,
he said, if you have any compassion, if you have any, then let this
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. These men, he said, shall receive
the greater damnation. You know, we don't, I don't know
if we really believe that. Do you believe that preacher
down there at the First Baptist Church is going to receive a
greater damnation than Charles Manson? Well, he will. He will. That's what he's telling you
right here. These men who pretend to be something they're not,
who are phony, they're false prophets, they're just there
for the money, They make merchandise of your souls. They devour widows'
houses. They, for a pretense, make long
prayers. They dress in a religious dress
so everybody will recognize them and their station. How they despise men and women
of ill repute. That woman, she was a prostitute,
and she came in there and had this ointment and she's gonna
wash the Lord's feet with her hair and her tears and anoint
with that ointment. She's anointing him for his burial
is what she does. And those Pharisees stood there
and they said if he knew what she was, you reckon he didn't
know what she was? He knew it and she knew that
he knew it. They despise men and women of
ill refute, but they justify themselves. Phony religion is the bottom
of the barrel. That's what our Lord's telling
his disciples. It's the bottom of the barrel.
And then very quickly, let me give you an example of true religion,
true motives and no pretense. Verse 41, and Jesus said over
against the treasury, And he beheld how the people cast money
into the treasury, and many that were rich cast in much. And there come a certain poor
widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he
called unto him his disciples, and he said unto them, Verily
I say unto you, this poor widow hath cast more in than all which
have cashed into the treasury. For all they did cast in of their
abundance, but she of her wont cast in all that she had, even
her living. Almost every one of us, no, I'm
not gonna say every one of us, without exception, is guilty
of this. Every one of us. We give what
we're comfortable with, don't we? Here's my bills. Here's this. Here's that. Got a little bit
of cushion here. I got to put that away. And I
get all this down. And then I'm wanting to go out
and eat two or three times this week. So I got that money. So
I said, I know what I got left. All right. Now we'll give some
of that. We'll give to it. Lord said, that's poor woman.
This woman's gonna go hungry for what she put in that thing.
She's gonna do without. This was all her living. Too
much. She put it all in. She gave all of her want, of her need, and in so doing,
gave more than all. Our Lord gave all, didn't he? Yet he didn't want for anything.
Ain't that something? He gave himself, but he didn't
want for anything. He said, boxes have holes, the
birds of the air have nests, but the Son of God hath nowhere
to lay his head. But he never wanted for a place
to lay his head, never. He didn't own a spoonful of dirt
in this world, but he owned the world. Isn't that something? We have the greatest examples.
We have a cloud of witnesses, it says in Hebrews 11, showing
us what faith is, true faith is. We have the Son of God, the
prime example to show us what faith is, and we sit down and
try to figure it out ourselves. How foolish we are. May the Lord
give us such a spirit as this woman, for Christ's sake.