Earlier this week I read an article,
an old article by Brother Henry Mahan. I've been keeping his
bulletins for years, but this one I picked up off one of the
webpages. It has to do with the believer
being dead to the world. Now the scriptures declare and
emphasize the fact that you and I, if we truly know Christ, if
we follow him, if we believe him, are crucified with him. Now, there are two aspects to
that. One is we were crucified to the
law and justice of God, and by the law and justice of God when
Christ died for us to put away our sins. And we are continually
crucified to the world, and the world to us by the cross of Christ,
so that we must and shall, if we are be dead to this world. The article related a story of
a young Bible student who asked his teacher, how is the believer
dead to the world when he lives in the world, works a regular
job, raises a family, and owns property in the world? And the
teacher answered by giving him something to do. He said, go
out to the and look up a friend, he gave him his name. He said,
now when you find him, I want you to criticize him and harass
him, and I want you to speak evil of him. And then after you've
done that, praise him excessively, extol him, honor him, just speak
adulation concerning him. And the student did, and he came
back, and the teacher asked him, he said, criticized my friend,
what did he do? And the boy said, nothing. He said, when you praised him,
what did he do? The boy said, nothing, he's dead. And Peter said, that's exactly
what it means to be dead to the world. It's applause means nothing. It's hatred means nothing. We
neither admire the people of the world, nor fear them. We do not court their favor,
nor do we care about their frail. The riches of this world are
just the fancy of fools, and the honor of the world means
little or nothing. For we are the children of God,
and that's the highest possible calling. The religious traditions
and ceremonies of the world have no attraction and no meaning
when Christ truly is all. Now that which was once important
to us, that for which we live, that for which we constantly
were concerned and careful, now we consider lost for the excellency
of the knowledge of Christ our Lord. Now this spiritual life
in Christ cannot be explained until you experience it. It just can't. No way to make
me understand that except by experience, and yet that's exactly
the way it is. No one so thoroughly exemplified
this deadness to the world as did our Lord Jesus Christ, who
came here on assignment to do the will of his and always did
those things which pleased his father. Now, in order to do that,
in order to do the will of God, you listen to this, in order
to do the will of God, we must be dead to this world. We must
be. Our Lord exemplifies that in
our text this evening in Mark chapter 12, verses 13 through
17. I want you to turn there with
me and follow along. Be sure to follow along. And they send, verse 13, they
send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians. Now you ought to mark that at
least in your mind and not in your Bible. That's a strange
mixture. You just would not expect these two fellows to be together.
They send certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, now here's
the purpose, to catch him, to catch him in his words. And when
they were come, they say unto him, Master, so sweet, so nigh,
Master, we know, we know that thou art true. and careth for
no man. For thou regardest not the person
of men, but teachest the way of God in truth." Those lying
scoundrels, just lie through their teeth. But preacher, these
are the leaders of the Jewish world. These are folks who are
somebody, they are lying through their teeth. They ask the question,
is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not? Now, here's
the significance of that question. If the Lord Jesus had responded
by saying, yes, sir, you pay tribute to Caesar, then they
would say that he is telling us we're in bondage to Caesar,
we're bondmen to Rome, and therefore he's to be put away. If he should
say, no, no, sir, don't pay tribute to Caesar. Then they go to Pilate
and say this man is insurrection against Caesar and Rome. So they have to catch him with
this phrase. Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?
Shall we give or shall we not give? But he knowing their hypocrisy. He knows because he's the omniscient
God. But if you read this text, it's
not too hard to spot it just if you look at it. knowing their
hypocrisy, said unto them, why tempt ye me? Bring me a penny,
reach in your pocket, you use Caesar's money, bring me a piece,
that I may see it. And they brought it, and he saith
unto them, whose is the image in superscription? And they said
unto him, Caesar's. And Jesus answering said unto
them, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God
the things that are God's. And that's the end of it. and
they marvel at him. I want to show you five very
important spiritual lessons from this passage. May God the Holy
Spirit be our teacher. May he be pleased to graciously
and effectually apply this portion of scripture personally to each
of our hearts. Number one, lost men and women
who despise each other, lost many women who despise each other,
will always unite in opposition to Christ and his gospel, always. I had a fellow some time back,
this has been a couple of years ago, I was preaching out in California
and he attended church while I was preaching and he had on
one of these t-shirts, he had been into some anti-abortion
rally, been marching and carrying his Banners, you know, and he
got talking to me about this stuff and now please understand
I'd be real happy if they quit abortion right now everywhere
in the world. Stop it flat cold turkey done.
That's all But you're not going to catch me on your life marching
little fellow That's what I told him. Well Shocking nothing shocking
about it if I went down there and and lined those fellows up
on one side of the street who were opposed to abortion. All
the preachers and the religious folks and all the church-going
folks and then I got all these liberal folks who were fighting
for abortion and lined them up on the other side of the street
and I stood before them and preached the gospel of God's free grace.
They'd all get together in one circle around me. That's exactly
what I told the man. Lost religious men and women
will always unite in opposition to Christ and the gospel of his
grace. The Pharisees were the most religious
fundamentalist you can imagine. Superstitious, ceremonialist,
self-righteous moralist. That's what these men were. Religion
was their life. They went to Bible studies every
day. They lived to go to church. They lived to do religious stuff.
The Herodians on the other hand, well they were just mere worldly.
They had no, no use whatsoever for any religion. They cared
no more for the honor of God, his name, his will, and his glory
than for the life of a maggot. And yet when the Lord Jesus came
preaching the gospel, when he came declaring that I and I alone
am the way, the truth, and the life, When he came declaring
that you, you, you must have life in me and by me and from
me or you have no life. You, you must stand before God
washed in my blood, robed in my righteousness or you cannot
stand before God. You must be saved by my grace
or you cannot be saved. Well, these Pharisees and Herodians
were as united and tight-knit, close together as blood can.
They came together with a common cause. We ain't got a reason
to put aside our differences. We got a reason to put aside
all of those things that split us apart and now we will fight
to oppose this thing because everybody knows he's wrong. Both
the religious crowd and the worldly crowd despise the gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace in Christ as Christ himself preached it
and personified it. That's the way it's always been
and that's the way it is now. And that's the way it's always
going to be as long as time shall stand, until our God makes all
things new. You mean pasture? There's no
way we can ever get along with the religious people of this
world? No way. Not only religious grounds. Now,
we can sit down and have coffee, we can work with them, and we
can It would be nice to them and be as friendly and kind as
possible, but I don't care whether it's your mama, your daddy, your
brother, your sister, your son or your daughter, the lost religionists
and the lost worldlings of this world, there's absolutely no
way we who believe the gospel of God's grace can have any terms
of agreement with them. Can't be done. You see, the cross
of Christ, the apostle tells us in Galatians 5.11, is an offense. Always has been, always will
be. The preaching of Jesus Christ
and him crucified offends the pride and arrogance of man. The
preaching of Christ and him crucified causes men all to be put on one
level as sinners with nothing to offer God, nothing to distinguish
themselves with no hope except Christ's blood and righteousness.
Look in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Hold your hands here in Mark
12 and Look with me at 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Let's begin at verse 17. The Apostle Paul is writing to
the Corinthians, this man who had been such an influential
Jew and who had tried with great earnest care to get the gospel
into the Jewish community. He now writes to these Gentiles
at Corinth. And he says, Christ sent me not
to baptize. Now that doesn't mean Christ
would not have me baptized. Some fools get hold of this passage,
you know, these ultra-hyper-dispensationalists say, well, no such thing as baptism.
Paul said, Christ sent me not to baptize. If that was the case,
why did he baptize anybody? What Paul is saying is baptism,
in comparison with the business of preaching, is nothing. What
he's saying is baptism is not the primary thing. Baptism is
not first and foremost. But Christ sent me to preach
the gospel. The means of grace is not baptism,
the means of grace is the gospel. Not with the wisdom of words. This man was brilliant. He was
brilliant. Paul was not some preacher from
eastern Kentucky. or from West Eastern North Carolina.
He wasn't. The Apostle Paul was brilliant.
He was brilliant. And this fellow says, I come
to preach the gospel by divine commission, not with wisdom of
words. I didn't come to you with philosophy
and metaphysics and logic. I didn't come to you with historical
data and come to you with this thing and that. I didn't come
with this argument and that. I came just declaring God's truth
as plain as a nose on your face. lest the cross of Christ should
be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness." Folks, look at the preaching
of the gospel. That's all y'all need. That's nothing to that. But unto us what you say is the
power of God. For it is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise. God holds the wisdom of this
world in utter contempt. And I will bring to nothing the
understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? Not only does God hold the wisdom of the world in contempt,
he holds the religion of the world in contempt. Read on. Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom
of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching. Not foolishness, not foolish
preaching, but that which the world considers foolishness.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. Now if you can't bear for a long
time, and probably ought to sometimes, in this generation you know we
have, they call it dialogue preaching. The preacher stands up here,
one of them he takes this side, and then another one comes on
he takes this side, and y'all decide which one's right. And
I call that, you know, we don't want to be too dogmatic. Or that
folks have the idea that we're going to, what we need to do
is sit down and we'll study the scriptures and we'll just discuss
this. Or the popular phrase now is, I want to share with you. I'm not here to share anything.
I'm not here to discuss anything. I'm not here to offer you an
opinion. I'm here, Rex Bartlett, to give you God's word. And I'm
telling you, you'll either bow to God's word or you'll perish
in your sin. God has chosen the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. The Jews say, give us
a sign. The Gentiles say, give us something
wise. But we preach Christ crucified. That is Christ Jesus, our Savior,
who by his blood has accomplished redemption. Unto the Jews is
a stumbling block. Unto the Greeks is foolishness.
But we're not going to change our message. for unto them which
are called, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and
the wisdom of God. All lost men hate the gospel
of Christ and despise those things plainly revealed in it. Secondly,
back here in Mark chapter 12 again, these Pharisees and Herodians
stand before us in this text as a as glaring examples of the
brazen boldness of hypocrisy. Sitting there looking over this
message just a little bit ago, I contemplated whether this is
too strong a statement, but I think this text of scripture will bear
it out. All who are confronted with the
claims of Christ in the gospel and choose to deny it. All who
hear but despise the word of God are hypocrites and deceivers. Don't you think they're sincere?
Not a sincere bone in them. No sir. Don't you think they
mean well? No sir. I think they mean for
themselves and only for themselves. No one is more confident than
that person who is an utter hypocrite. He never openly shows his true
colors. Never, never does he just openly
show you exactly what he thinks and what he believes. In order
to cover his hypocrisy, however, he has a bold, brazen, outward
pretense of sincerity. You can certainly see this in
their text. They came to catch Jesus in his words and they said, We know. Now, you know, we're
here, we're here because we're just as sincere as we can be
and what we want to do is we want to see if there's not some
common ground for us to get along. The whole world out there, you
know, they need to hear a unified voice from us. We know that you're
true. We know that you don't care for
any man. You're not one who regards the
person of men, but you teach the way of God in truth. Now
this is what they did. When they could find nothing
against our Savior's doctrine or conduct for which they could
lawfully kill him or have him killed. These proud hypocrites
thought they could outsmart the Son of God and trick him into
saying something with which to accuse him. They began by flattering
him. They said, now we know you're
a man who is true, sincere, faithful, and honest. Boy, that's good
to hear. We know that you're a man who
is unmoved, unimpressed, and uninfluenced by power. Boy, I
love to hear folks say that to me, don't you? You're a man's
man. We know that you're a man beyond
the reach of bribery and intimidation. Thou regardest not the person
of man. And we know that you're faithful
and true. You teach the way of God in truth. Now there wasn't
a sincere word in that. Not one. Not one. The Lord Jesus,
however, was much more than a mere man and is. He is and was the
omniscient God before whom all things are naked and open and
he knew their hypocrisy and caught them in their own trap. And you
can see that clearly in verses 15, 16, and 17. Our Lord said,
you got a penny? If you want to know, is it lawful
to give tribute to Caesar or not? Should we give or should
we not give? You got a penny in your pocket? You're standing
here in Caesar's domain, using Caesar's money, living under
Caesar's law, and you want to know if it's lawful to pay tribute
to Caesar or not? Give me a penny out of your pocket.
And thus he demonstrates to them, though you would deny it, though
you say otherwise, you live here under Caesar's government, surrender
to Caesar the things of the Caesars, and to God the things of God.
No one in this world is more subtle and deceiving than a religious
man or woman who hates God. I'm not looking for something
to say, I want that to sink in. No one in this world is more subtle
and deceitful than a religious man or woman who hates God. You'll be smart, you'll be smart
to get that etched away somewhere in your memory. Thirdly, there
is no greater, more effective snare by which both God's people
and his servants are apt to be ensnared than over much concern
about the cares and controversies and affairs of life in this world,
particularly of civil government. Our Lord would not allow himself
to be drawn into the trap of political wrangling about worldly
strife. Now we can't be too careful about
these things. Turn to Psalm 37 for a moment. Psalm 37. This time of the year everybody's
got their political billboards up and you know everybody's trying
to get your vote to do this or that. And let us be careful that we
exercise our responsibility as citizens in this country. But be even more careful that
we exercise our responsibility as citizens of another. Fret
not thyself because of evildoing, neither be thou envious against
the workers of iniquity." You read the newspaper and you read
about the shenanigans going on in Washington, and they're bad,
but they're not any worse than they've always been. It's more
open, but it's not any worse than it's always been. It's always
been a cesspool up there, and will continue to be. For they
shall soon be cut down like grass. They're not going to last too
long. And they shall wither like the green earth. Well, preacher,
what are we to do? We want to preserve this nation
for our children and our grandchildren. There ain't much left to preserve.
I'm just being honest with you. There just isn't. Oh, but you
know, we're the greatest society in the world. That's not saying
much. That does not say much. Our concern
as believers in this world is not as much for this nation as
it is for that holy nation that belongs to God. Read on. This
is what we're to do. Trust in the Lord and do good. That's what we're to do. Trust
in the Lord and do good. So shalt thou dwell in the land
and verily thou shalt be fed. delight thyself also in the Lord,
and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way
to the Lord, trust in him, and he shall bring it to pass. Now
this is what I'm saying. I wish I had the ear of every
preacher, particularly in this world. I'm talking about every
true gospel preacher. I don't have their ear right
now, but I do have yours. And this I can and must say to
you and to me. We must not allow ourselves to
be overly concerned about the things of this world. We must
not. Preachers above anybody else
dare not meddle in the politics of this world. I don't think there's any doubt
in any of your minds about how conservative my political views
about things are. I'm just, I'm the kind of conservative
I wrote one time to William F. Buckley, and a teacher asked
me one time when I was taking classes at Morris Harvard University,
or Charleston University, Charleston, West Virginia, he said, why did
you write to him? I said, because he's too blooming
liberal. So you know something about my conservative thoughts
about that. But when all's said and done,
I wouldn't be found five minutes trying to defend Republicans
over Democrats, or Democrats over Republicans. I'm just telling
you the truth. The politics of this world are not my concern.
Don't let yourself be overly concerned with the pleasures
of this world. That's even greater danger. Or
the riches of this world. Or even the opinions of this
world. I'm crucified with Christ. I
hope you are. Let us then be dead to this world. So good. But what about the cares
and all the responsibilities we have in this world? It is
my prayer that God will crucify me to the world and the world
to me continually. Yet, and here's the fourth thing,
faith in Christ and obedience to him is never a justification
for any of us neglecting our God-given responsibilities in
this world. Our Lord Jesus commands us to
render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the
things that are God's. Now this is what that means.
It is the responsibility of all men in this world, both to worship
God and to be responsible, productive citizens in the land where they
live, in the place where God put them. There's a little verse
over in 1 Corinthians 7, it's verse 20, where the Apostle Paul
says, let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called. And if you read the context,
that's not hard to understand. Paul says, if you're a servant,
doesn't matter if you're a servant to the Lord If you're a master,
it doesn't matter if you're a master, you're the Lord's servant. So
let every man abide in the calling wherewith he's called. He said,
I'm going to apply it. Rex is a cabinet maker, and God saves
him by his grace. And Rex said, well, I'm going
to quit making cabinets. I saw that sign in the clouds.
PC, preach the gospel. Or PGRM, preach the gospel. He
said, I'm going to go sell it all and go preach. Don't you
dare. Don't you dare. Well, don't you
think the Lord will follow his calling? God called you as a
cabinet maker, you stay right there, he knows where you are.
And do the best job there is to do it. The best there is.
He got an employee, the Lord called me to preach. If he called
you to preach, you wouldn't be making cabinets. You'd be preaching. You understand that? God's servants
are men who have been placed in a position where they preach
the gospel given that responsibility by God. But this fellow says,
rest, the Lord called me to preach. Whenever somebody calls me to
preach, I won't be here Monday. You mean you're going to shut down
the shop? Because you're going to go preach? That's not serving
Christ. That's exactly what 1 Corinthians
7.20 is talking about. You and I in this world, are
to be the most productive, responsible citizens possible in all our
responsibilities. Render to Caesar the things that
are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. One last
thing. Many marvel at Christ and his
doctrine, who never believe him. You see that last sentence? And
they marvel That's all the Lord's in his time. And they were astonished. These
fellows who came to treat them, they marveled at him. The same thing often happens
today. Frequently men and women are impressed with a system of
doctrine, the abilities of a preacher, a particular church or a group
of people, and they're attached and fell to us. I like the way
y'all do things down at Grace Cadbury Church. I like the way
Brother Fortner preaches. I like those other preachers
in there. Y'all so warm and friendly and so kind. Now, be warm and
friendly. Do that. By all means, be warm
and friendly. But folks say, well, I'll attach
myself to them. It'll do you no good to attach
yourself to us. You got to be attached to Christ.
Marveling at Christ is nothing. Many are now in hell. to marvel at his doctrine, love
the system, love this particular creed, love this denomination,
love this doctrine. It'll do you no good to marvel
at him until you believe in him. Life eternal is knowing Christ. Life eternal is believing God. Life eternal is trusting Christ
the Lord. Until you trust him, until you
know him, it'll do you no good being impressed with him. Without
Christ, you're without life, without forgiveness, without
righteousness, without God, and without hope. I pray that God will give you
a heart goes beyond marveling at him and comes to custody of
him. God give you grace now to believe
on his dear son for the glory of his name. Amen.