I invite you to turn with me
to Mark chapter 12. Mark chapter 12. And beginning in verse 12, let
me read for you, or 13 I mean, verse 13. through 27. And they sent unto him certain
of the Pharisees and of the Herodians to catch him in his words. And when they were come, they
say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true and carest
for no man, for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest
the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to give tribute
to Caesar or not? Shall we give or shall we not
give? But he knowing their hypocrisy
said unto them, why tempt ye me? Bring me a penny that I may
see it. And they brought it, and he saith
unto them, whose is this image and superscription? And they
said unto him, Caesar's. And Jesus answering said unto
them, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and
to God the things that are God's. And they marveled at him. Then
come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection,
And they asked him, saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us, if a man's
brother die and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children,
that his brother should take his wife and raise up seed unto
his brother. Now there were seven brethren,
and the first took a wife, and dying, left no seed, and the
second took her, and died, neither left he any seed, and the third
likewise, and the seven had her, and left no seed. Last of all,
the woman died also. In the resurrection, therefore,
when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? For the
seven had her to wife. And Jesus answering said unto
them, Do you not therefore err because you know not the Scriptures,
neither the power of God? For when they shall rise from
the dead, they shall neither marry nor are given in marriage,
but are as the angels which are in heaven. And as touching the
dead that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses
how in the bush God said unto him, saying, I am the God of
Abraham? and the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead,
but the God of the living. Ye therefore do greatly err. Now this morning I want us to
look at these verses and understanding that our Lord just before he
said these things, had spoken a parable. He told a story, and
the story was symbolic of some things. And he told this parable,
describing his enemies and exposing them for what they were, and
they left him. They were angry. They knew that
he spoke this parable against them. And no doubt, they were
red in the face and they wanted to just stomp him. They wanted
to just take him out and beat him up and get rid of him, but
they couldn't because the people loved him. The people gathered
there to hear him and believed on him. And so for fear of the
people, they went their way. But they went angry. And they
went determined more than ever to get rid of Jesus of Nazareth. got to wherever they were going,
no doubt in Jerusalem, and then they had them a little business
meeting, and they said, what are we gonna do? And they said,
well, we need to get somebody that's sharp, somebody that's
cunning, somebody that knows the scriptures inside out, somebody
that can say something to him and catch him in his words. And so they decided to get certain
ones, is what the verse says that I just read to you. They
got certain of the Sadducees and certain of the Pharisees. They picked from among them the
most savvy, the sharpest, the brightest. And these men, no
doubt, had a reputation for being fast thinkers, wise in matters
of the law and the prophets. And they were religious men.
These weren't thugs, these were religious men. Well-educated,
held in high regard among all in Israel as able teachers. And
no one in that crowd, nobody in that crowd, had any doubt
as to the qualification of these men as ministers. They all looked
upon them as ministers. And they no doubt had on the
proper clothing so that they were easily identified. And these were not your average
troublemakers. They were not common thugs. These
were men highly esteemed. But their mission was anything
but godly. They were chosen to go and perform something criminal, not godly. They had no interest,
even if they believed that Jesus of Nazareth was not the Christ
and that he was wrong in his doctrine. They didn't go there
to correct him. They didn't go there to reconcile
him. They went there to expose him
as a fraud. That's why they went. They were
specifically sent to expose our Lord as an imposter. And to them, the logical way
to do this was to bait him with a trick question. We're gonna
give him a trick question, and then when he attempts to answer
it, we're gonna slam the door on him. Now here's what I want you to
see in all this. There are two types of people
who come to the Lord. Two types. There are genuine
sinners. They're real. They're real sinners. Sinners convicted by the Holy
Spirit of their sin, convinced by God, the Holy Ghost, that
they're sinners. And what that sin is, something
of the depth of it, something of the power of it, something
of the influence of it. They're sinners. And they're
convinced also that Jesus Christ is sin of God to reconcile sinners. Isn't that what he said? He came into this world to save
sinners. He told those Pharisees who approached
him one time, he said, the well need not a physician, the hole
don't need a physician, it's the sick. Now you go learn what
this means. I'll have mercy and not sacrifice.
For I'm not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. So there's genuine sinners and
they come to Christ. They come with a need. That's
what they bring. They don't bring anything else
with them but their need. That's it. They had no other
qualifications. That leper come to Christ, he
was forbidden to come to anybody. He was forbidden to approach
anybody, but he came to Christ. What did he bring with him? His
leprosy. That's all he had. He didn't have any righteousness. He didn't have any goodwill.
He didn't have any anything. He was a leper and he came to
Christ. And here's what he told him.
He didn't say, I have the right. He said, if you will, you can
make me clean. If you will. And Christ said,
I will. I will. And then secondly, we're
talking about two types of people that come to Christ. That's what's
going on here. He had some in that crowd that
believed, worshiped him, that's why those first Pharisees didn't
say anything against him. But secondly, there are hypocrites. Both in the verses that I just
read to you and also in Matthew's account of our lesson, it says,
the Lord perceived their wickedness and said unto them, why tempt
ye me, ye hypocrites? In another place, He refers to
them as hypocrites and blind. Now a hypocrite in the Greek,
which is what the New Testament is written in, a hypocrite in
the Greek means to act out a part. It's to be an actor. It's to
assume the character of another, to pretend that you're something
that you're not. And these were men playing a
religious role, but had criminal intent. So there's two kinds
of people, sincere and genuine, and hypocrite and blind. And the first come, as the disciples
came, shut up to their ignorance. They knew that Jesus Christ was
wise. Whether or not they knew the
extent of his wisdom, I don't know. But they knew he had the
answers. He was the only one anywhere
around them who had spiritual wisdom. He knew what these masters
of theology had not a clue of. He knew. And they knew that. And they knew full well that
Christ was the truth. You say, well, how do you know
that? Because they say it over in the book of John. He said,
will you go also? And they said, to whom shall
we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. You're the only
wisdom we know anything about. Where are we going to go? And then the second, they come
believing they know it all. They come with credentials such
as diplomas, They had diplomas. I was of this
one, I was of that one. I went to Gamaliel School. See his name here on my diploma? They come with credentials. Letters
from churches and denominations and recommendations from the
school. Our Lord came to the wise men
at Corinth and he said, I don't need any papers. You're my papers. You're my papers. You're the
witness. God done a work in you, and he
did it through me. And now you're my papers. You're
my recommendations. Written not with ink, but in
tables of the heart. They come with credentials. They
come with recommendations from the schools. And they come pretending
to be what they're not, teachers, servants of God, ambassadors
of God. But in reality, what they're
really there to do is to divide and to cause harm. Now let's
look at some things here and see if we can learn something
about discerning men. First of all, let's look at these
men that these Pharisees picked out and sent. They were ungodly
men. What do you think of when I say
ungodly? When you read in the scriptures
and it says something about ungodly, what's the picture that comes
up in your mind? What's the first thing you think
about? You think about that old redneck sitting out there with
a bottle of bourbon in his hand and a beer chaser and he's sitting
out on the riverbank and he's cussing everything that's coming
and going. Is that what you think about
ungodly? An ungodly man is a man whose
heart and head is not in tune with God. He's ungodly. Our Lord used that word more
in association with religious folks than he did with drunkards. These men, an ungodly man, is
filled with facts and he has men to back him up and he can
quote his school textbooks and some writers and famous men. He's smart. He's intelligent. Did you know Jacobus Arminius
was a well-known Dutch theologian? So much so that his name becomes
synonymous with false religion. And when we talk about false
religion, you'll hear me use that word Arminian. How did that
word come to be? Jacobus Arminius. But he, as the Pharisees was,
was not in tune with God. He had multitudes to confirm
that he had the truth. He had multitudes that believed
in him. Hard, long-established religion
that backed him up. But he didn't know God. And he
had no truth. His mind and heart was not in
tune with God. He didn't know God. He didn't
understand the scriptures. He was not enabled of God to
do either one. But a man, an ungodly man, he
can think that he knows God. And he can, by deception, be
convinced he knows God. My dad was. He had a, I hesitate to call
it a supernatural experience, but he had a very serious, overwhelming
experience and he'd fall back on that and he just knew by that,
that was evidence enough for him that he was called of God.
He was convinced of it. He was convinced also by what
he'd learned in religion and by how men treated him in the
world. And you might even be convinced
by the company you keep. Somebody said birds of a feather
flock together. You go down here to one of these
churches, and if you'll state the things that they believe,
half that congregation will be out there going, amen, amen,
amen. And then another thing, you'll
hear men say sometime, we're looking for a church to go to.
What they're really saying is that they're looking for a church
that agrees with their deception. That's what they're saying. Somebody
that agrees with them. Somebody that they, now we're
on the same page. And then the world. Billy Graham had millions that
idolized him, but it was no confirmation that God had called him. It says in Hebrews 10, 16, this
is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith
the Lord. I'll put my laws into their hearts,
and in their minds will I write them. They're gonna be taught
of God. They're not ignorant. any of these things. And when
God does a work in man, he uses the truth to bring it to pass.
That seed by which he is born is not corruptible seed, but
incorruptible by the word of God. That's what he says in 1
Peter 1.23. There was a man, years ago, came
to a faithful pastor and he brought a message and he was saying something
similar to what I'm teaching you this morning from this passage.
And he called the pastor aside after the meeting and he was
going to straighten him out on these other religions. He was
going to straighten him out on them and why they, what they
said might not agree with him, but it was still godly and they
were still teaching good things. And so he said, Pastor, he said,
salvation's like a large gray elephant. And he said, and we're
all blind. And he said, one of us has a
hold of his tail. And we're running our hands up
and down that tail, and we're describing exactly what we're
feeling. And he said, the other one's
got a hold of his leg, this big old fat leg on this elephant.
And he's describing what he's feeling. And then another one
has a hold of his trunk. And he's describing that. And
they're all saying something different, but they're all talking
about the same thing. Well, said the pastor, he said,
I've got two things wrong with what you just said. He said,
first of all, salvation got nothing in common with a large gray elephant.
And secondly, God's preachers are not blind. God's people are
not blind. Blessed are your eyes, he said,
for they see. Our Lord said to the Sadducees,
who didn't believe in the resurrection, he said, you do err not knowing
the scriptures. Well, they could quote scriptures.
I heard scriptures quoted back when I was in religion, and here's
some of the scriptures, here's what they said. They said, God's
not willing for any to perish. Not God's will for a man to perish. I said, well, why does he perish?
Scripture said, it's the Lord who killeth. Huh? Why does he perish? Well, we
looked that passage up and here's what it says. The Lord is long-suffering
to usward. not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance, talking about his people. They
knew the scriptures, and they quoted the scriptures, but they
quoted parts of scriptures, and they misquoted scriptures, and
they misapplied scriptures. And that's what they were trying
to do with the Lord. And he said, you do err not knowing
the scriptures, nor the power of God. An untold multitudes
of men are willing to debate with those who believe and those
who preach the gospel, but not from the word of God. There was
a young man who came to church down at the old building, and
he wanted to debate about these things, and I said, well, I'll
sit down and talk with you, but I said, we're not using anything
except this book. Well, he said, I don't wanna
talk then. I said, fine with me. Opinions
are like noses, everybody got one. We can sit and argue back
and forth on opinions all day long, it doesn't amount to nothing. Paul said, let every man, huh? Let God be true and every man
a liar. He said, now that's how you approach
this book. Ignorant of the word of God,
ignorant of the types and parables, ignorant of the message, ignorant
of the prophecies of Christ, ignorant of who it is they're
describing. Religion knew where the Christ
would be born. You can read about it in the
book of Luke and I think in the book of Matthew. They knew where
he was gonna be born. When the old King Herod wanted
to find out where Christ was, he went to him and said, where
is he supposed to be born? And they told him. They knew
where he was to be born. They knew what tribe he would
come from. And they knew he would be a king,
but they didn't know anything at all about the nature of his
kingdom or the scope of his power. They didn't know anything at
all about why he had to be born of a virgin. And our Lord plainly tells us
in 1 Corinthians 2, 9, that it is written, I have not seen or
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, mankind,
the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God
hath revealed them unto us by spirit. They erred, not knowing the scriptures
nor the power of God. You know, it says in John's Gospel,
chapter one, verses 12 and 13, he said, as many as received
him, the world wouldn't receive him, his own wouldn't receive
him. That is, the Jewish nation wouldn't receive him. But some
did. And as many as received him,
to them gave he power. That's why they received him. To them gave he power to become
the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor
of the will of man, but of God. God gave them power. Well, what's
that word power mean? It means ability. It means permission,
the right, the privilege. Paul tells us in Philippians
1.6 that he had this competence that he which had begun a good
work in you would perform it under the day of Jesus Christ. That's ability. In Colossians
1.12, Paul thanks the Father which has made us meet to be
partakers of the inheritance of enlightened saints. That's
ability. In Ephesians 1a it said, wherein, that is referring back
to our election, our predestination, our acceptance through Christ
and his blood and his accomplished redemption, wherein he hath abounded
toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the
mystery of his will according to his good pleasure. That's
permission. That's permission. He chose us
from the beginning through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth, whereunto he called us by his gospel. That's permission. These men were not called of
God. They were yet in their sins, had neither ability or permission.
But they were hypocrites. And I don't know if you know
it, you could be here this morning and not know it. You might be
hearing this for the very first time, but this thing is not in
your hands the way the world thinks it is. What they were trying to do was
preserve their traditions. They were trying to defend what
they believed was right. That's what this world does.
And they believe that this is in their hands to do. But salvation's
of the Lord, it ain't of man. By grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. It's not in our hands the way
this world believes it is. But you have to be given the
right and the privilege to become sons of God, and you have to
be given the ability. Psalm 2, it says you'll kiss
the sun or perish in your rebellion when his wrath is kindled but
a little. That's the first crowd. That's
how they come. That's the way they think. That's
the way it is. It's that way today. It hasn't
changed at all. But also in this crowd were believers. What did they do? They heard
the same thing that Christ heard. They heard the little trick questions
that these ignorant men brought before the Lord. They heard that
whole thing. How'd they react? What did they
say? What can we learn from what they
did? They didn't say anything. They
didn't say a word. They were satisfied and confident
in their Lord to shut these men down. And they sat there in silence. He told them basically that here's
this coin and they were gonna get him because Israel looked
at the Romans as monsters. Everything that the Romans believed
in was totally opposite of what they thought was right. They
lived in open immorality. They were a harsh and, what's
the word I'm hunting for, barbaric people. And the Jews looked at
them and Why would the Lord tell anybody to render to that monster
anything? Now, that's what they were going
to do. And they were going to trap him, and if he said, go
ahead and pay that tribute, then they'd put a notch on their gun. He told them basically that Caesar
was to get his taxes. Why? This Roman government was
a corrupt government. Why would the Lord tell them
to render anything to that monster? Because government is not put
in place by God to minister spiritual things to you. That's why. It's put in place, you can read
about this over in Romans 13 after a while. There's no power
except that of God. And he tells you in Romans 13,
pay them their tribute, pay them their tribute. Why? Because they're
ministers of God to thee for good. How did that Roman government
minister to them from God? They had laws, judges, courts,
and policemen. And they kept them, they kept
foreign nations from coming in there and taking them off captive.
They protected them. They protected them. That's what
government's for. It's a restraining arm of God
to keep men from being as evil as they could be. That's what
it's for. It's not there for your spiritual
welfare. You listen to all this political
rhetoric that goes on during elections and they're all talking
about this man is a moral man, he's a good man, he's there,
he's gonna do the things of God. No, he's not. No, he's not. He's not there for that reason.
Our government's not there for that reason. The church is here
for that reason. The government's here simply
to protect you. That's all. And he said, it's
not a terror to those who, a good law-abiding citizen, government's
not a terror to them. It's a terror to the murderer
and to the thief. Then the Sadducees asked a stupid
question about marriage in heaven, of which they didn't even believe.
They didn't even believe in a resurrection. Why would they care whose wife
who was in heaven? They didn't believe in heaven.
But he did, and they knew it, and they're gonna trick him. But Christ said there's no, heaven's
not a continuation of this life. Boy, all you gotta do is go to
a few funerals, and you'll see what I'm talking about. This
world thinks heaven is a continuation of this life on a higher level. No, it ain't. They're not gonna
be any marrying or giving in marriage in heaven. God's church
is his bride, and ungodly men are ignorant of the scriptures,
and they're ignorant of the power of God. Believers, their minds
and hearts are in tune with God, and they're willing to let Christ,
he's the one who's gonna convince men, he's the one who's gonna
set this, he is the truth. He is, he's our wisdom. All right,
thank you.