Mark No.20 Three rounds and a knockout

Now, June Kenny is going to come and read the Scriptures to us. And it's rather a sad occasion because we're going to be saying goodbye to our good friend. She's been with us in the church now for some years, and she feels that she should go to her relatives, her sons.

And June, we're going to miss you. Your input here to the tab has been ginormous, especially your time of support at our prayer meetings. Is there anything you'd like to say to the people as you go? Tell us, where are you going? I'm going to a place called Easton, which is just outside Norwich.

This was initiated really by my son, who lives there, and my daughter-in-law. I have a daughter and three grandchildren in Darlington, and I think he thought that it would be sort of halfway up to Ingrid, as well as being nearer to him. And have you got a church fellowship that you'll be attending yet? I haven't actually decided on one, but there are several possibilities, and I'm leaving it for the Lord to guide me to the right one.

You've always been very faithful in our prayer meetings. Why is that? Why is that such a burden to you? It's not a burden, it's a joy. The Lord has been very faithful to me all through my life, and when my husband died I was left with two young children.

I always had the words, trust me, in my heart, and I knew that the Lord would never let me down, he never has done. And the least I can do is come and worship him and share fellowship with his people, which is a great joy to me. I'd like to commit you to the Lord right now, and then if you'd read Scripture for us.

Father, we do thank you for June and for her input at the tab, the years that she's been attending. We thank you for her tremendous encouragement to us and the sensitivities that you've granted her. We ask that as she moves away from us she may go in the fullness of your blessing, that you'll lead her to a church fellowship where she can similarly relate and make contribution and find also from you a blessing Sunday by Sunday and indeed midweek.

Be with her and bless her family. We thank you for her, commend her to you and to your grace. In the matchless name of Jesus our Saviour, amen.

Would you like to turn with me to Mark's Gospel, chapter 12, beginning at verse 13. Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. They came to him and said, Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity.

You aren't swayed by men because you pay no attention to who they are, but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn't we? But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. Why are you trying to trap me, he asked.

Bring me a denarius and let me look at it. They brought the coin and he asked them, Whose portrait is this and whose inscription? Caesar's, they replied. Then Jesus said to them, Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.

And they were amazed at him. Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. Teacher, they said, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother.

Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow and he also died, leaving no child.

It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too.

At the resurrection, whose wife will she be? Since the seven were married to her. Jesus replied, Are you not in error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. They will be like the angels in heaven.

Now about the dead rising, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead but of the living. You are badly mistaken.

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, Of all the commandments, which is the most important? The most important one, answered Jesus, is this, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.

The second is this, Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. Well said, teacher, the man replied.

You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, You are not far from the kingdom of God.

And from then on, no one dared ask him any more questions. While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. David himself calls him Lord.

How then can he be his son? The large crowd listened to him with delight. This is the word of God. And our Father God, we do acknowledge your greatness.

We thank you that you have the whole world in your hands. So much need, so much strife, so much heartache. We bring to you again the cauldron of the Middle East with all its potential, potential for danger and for strife.

We bring to you the thousands of Rwanda who still suffer, the uncertainties of Bosnia, the fragility of the settlement in Northern Ireland. Lord, we bring humanity and its needs to you. We bring to you your church and ask, O Lord, that you'll breathe your Holy Spirit's power upon her again.

We ask for this church here for the outpouring of the Spirit of God. We thank you for every indication that you're with us, for every time you meet with individuals and with all of us collectively. And we ask that you'll continue to help us to see you more clearly, to love you more dearly, and to follow you more nearly throughout our short and certain earthly life and pilgrimage.

Amen. Let's have our Bibles open at the passage to which June directed our attention. It's a sizable chunk of Scripture, and it's not perhaps the easiest to handle because the information that is contained is fairly diverse.

But the Holy Spirit sets the agenda when we come consistently around the Word of God, so it's our prayer that he will enable us to follow and to respond to all that we find within this passage. You will find that our beloved Lord Jesus is actually still in the temple area. You really pick up the scenario, the scene, from the 27th verse of the 11th chapter.

And our Lord is engaged in typical rabbinical type of ministry. It's a sort of, to use a word and then explain it, a peripatetic ministry. That means he's moving around.

The temple area is a huge place, and there is one part that was known as Solomon's colonnade with many, many pillars. And between these pillars, meandering around would be the rabbis with their entourage of disciples. It was a place of conversation.

It was a place of learning. And our Lord went there. And there are those silent witnesses.

Well, not always silent, but on this case it was so. In his audience, namely the disciples, they're watching him. They're listening to what he has to say.

And then there are those who are very much opposed to him. His enemies, they're hostile. One of the reasons for their hostility is, well, he's cleansed the temple, he's turned over the money changers' tables, and the whole racket of what was in effect an unsophisticated Jewish stock exchange has been turned upside down by our beloved Lord.

And that's won him many enemies. They didn't appreciate what he did. Look at the 18th verse of that 11th chapter.

And so you've got these people also in his company, those who are against him. They keep sending representatives to attack him, as we'll see in a moment. And then, because, as I say, it's a public area.

It's not a controlled situation at all. They were the ordinary people, the average person for whom Jesus had come into this world. I love that hymn, don't you? What a friend we have in Jesus.

Well, he is the sinner's friend. Thou art the sinner's friend, so I thy friendship claim. And if there was ever a time in Jerusalem in that year when ordinary people needed someone to speak to them, it was at this juncture when our Lord is going around Solomon's colonnade and teaching.

And what he has to say, and the way that he says it, and the way that he directs his ministry to those unimportant ordinary people should be a balm to your own soul, because he is still the same Savior. You don't need to go to Jerusalem. You don't need to turn the clock back 2,000 years.

By the miracle of inspiration, what he said then applies now. And the interests he had then are interests that he sustains today. He comes to seek and to save those that are lost.

I sometimes feel that when you read of our beloved Lord's ministry in this 11th and 12th chapter of Mark's Gospel, you almost can see a replay of the Queen of Sheba who comes to Solomon, and you remember she plies him with hard questions. Well, this area is a place where questions are put. Questions are asked and answers are given.

And our Lord, who is greater than Solomon, he is regaled with questions, and he has the answers to the questions. And it is true to say today that if you have a genuine question, you can bring it to the Lord Jesus. He is there to meet you, to speak with you, to minister to you in your need.

So, in the latter part of this 11th chapter, you find his enemies putting questions towards him, and then Jesus puts up a question to them in the 29th verse. He asks them about the authority of John the Baptist. Did he get this authority from heaven or from men? And they don't want to answer the question that Jesus puts up.

And then sort of finishing the whole of this passage, when you move into the 35th verse of the 12th chapter, you find that Jesus once again interrogates those who are sending their questions to him, and he puts up some question in regard to himself, in regard to the son of David, and asks who he is. They can't answer, but by implication he can. And as a result, the ordinary people are delighted with what Jesus has to say.

Tim, in addressing or in entitling this particular series and this special address, he suggests that what you have here in this 12th chapter is almost to be seen in terms of a boxing match, three rounds and a knockout. Three times subsequent questions are put to Jesus by those who are against him. And Jesus, as he responds to what his questioners have to say, invariably receives the applause of the ordinary people who are fairly disenchanted with the ones who are aggressive towards our Lord Jesus, the latter being the professional clergy, the men who so often engage in teaching.

So let's look more specifically then at the trap questions that are put to Jesus on this occasion. Look at this 13th verse of the 12th chapter through to the 17th, and here you will come across what I've called a question of sinister intent. A question of sinister intent.

Jesus will always take your questions, but you have no right to come to him in a subtle and conniving fashion as these men did on this occasion. And then following that from the 18th to the 27th verses is what I've called a question of flippant content. They ask him about marriage and who belongs to who in heaven.

And then the third question, perhaps put a little more softly, without so much cynicism, I've called it the question of legal judgment, and you find that from the 29th verse through to the 34th. And I remind you still that we're in the 12th chapter. So here is this question of sinister intent.

Later, look at verse 13, later they, that is those who are enemies of Jesus, sent some of the Pharisees and the Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his works. If you read Luke's Gospel, you'll discover that these particular representatives are called spies who pretend to be honest men, and they offer Jesus some flattery by way of bait. We know, we know that you are a man of integrity.

How insulting to come to Jesus in less than a sincere fashion. Jesus will always reward sincerity. Jesus will never turn aside the man, the woman who is troubled and who has got something to ask him.

But your motive is important. You know when the devil slid alongside Jesus in the temptations at the beginning of his ministry, there was flattery then, wasn't there? You know, you're the son of God. If you're the son of God.

Here it's the same hiss of the serpent, but he can use not only a serpent as a literal animal, he can use persons, personalities. Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity. You aren't swayed by men because you pay no attention to who you are, but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.

And it was all right, but it was also cynical, and it was also false. All that they said of him was correct, but the way they said it made the question impudent. They think that they've got Jesus on the horns of a dilemma.

You see, they're going to put a question to him which is almost as illogical or as trapping, if you like, as the question that sometimes is put by cynical people, have you stopped beating your wife? I mean, how do you answer a question like that? I mean, whatever you say, you've got it wrong, haven't you? It's not a viable, it's not an acceptable question. It's a question that is designed out of cunning, a third-rate music hall type of inquiry. But this, a little bit more sophisticated, but however Jesus answers, he's going to seemingly be placed on the horns of a dilemma.

Jesus, you're interested in clean money, shades of what he's done in the temple, you see. Now, Jesus, congratulations for your integrity. Clean money, Jesus? Well, look, the tax, the tax that we pay as Jewish citizens to Rome, should we or should we not continue to make contribution? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn't we? And you can hear the mirth behind the question.

We've got him. Whatever way he answers, he's in difficulty. Say yes, and the ordinary people will, in indignation, leave him.

Say no, and we've got lever on him to report what he says to the authorities, and that way we will silence him. It wasn't a valid question. It wasn't a sincere question.

But Jesus can smell hypocrisy a mile away. Why are you trying to track me? Interesting, isn't it, that he doesn't even have a coin. Bring me a denarius.

Let me look at it. So they bring the coin, and they hold it in front of Jesus, and Jesus puts up the question, whose portrait is it? Whose inscription? And as they get the response, Caesar's, Jesus replies, and in so doing, sets down a philosophy of life. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's.

And to God, what is God's? That's a brilliant answer, because actually, it's the second part of the question that, in one sense, of the response, which in one sense subsumes what's in the first part. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's. Caesar's image is on the coin.

Acknowledge, because this is going to be the developed teaching of the New Testament, acknowledge the authority of civil powers, where those civil powers are not in conflict with the higher law of God. For there are two thrones, the throne of Caesar, and the throne of God's. You want the whole thing on packaging so you understand him more.

Well, here's the beloved Christ a few days later, and he's before Pilate, and he doesn't cringe and plead like many a prisoner has done. And Pilate says, don't you know I have authority to release you, or to have you done to death? And Jesus said, you would have no authority whatsoever unless it had been given you by my Father who is above. In other words, the authority of Caesar is subsumed into the overarching authority of God.

Yes, you can render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, for the image is on the coin, and it is Caesar's image, but render unto God what is God's, and the image of God, though fragmented, is in your personality, is stamped on every man. Of the two, the more important is the latter, and when you fulfill the latter, you will also fulfill the former. And our beloved Lord, with brilliant insight, addresses the hypocrisy of these men, exposes it, and in the same way helps the church in years to come to realize that there is an authority that is a secondary authority that civil governments represent and is to be acknowledged and obeyed, but there is a greater, overarching, superior authority, and when the former is in conflict with the latter, God's rights are the ones to which we should pay complete attention.

Now, the people are amazed. I mean, this is round one, and Jesus gets the applause. Round two.

The question of sinister intent is followed by the question of flippant content. Look at verse 18. It's not the Pharisees and the Herodians who've come together in a sort of unhealthy alliance to talk over clause four.

It's the Sadducees now. They put their particular oar in, the smart alecks of theology. Their problem is marriage, not marriage this side of eternity, which brings its own challenge, but marriage the other side.

It's flippant. The scenario, as Campbell Morgan says, well, the grotesqueness of their illustration constitutes its brutality. They say, Master, Moses taught in the law that a man who was living with his brother and he, the older man, has married.

He dies. The brother is unmarried. She is to take his wife, according to the Deuteronomy law, but in this case there were seven brothers.

And, you know, it's rather unfortunate. Each one of them died. The first one married and died without leaving any children.

The second one married the widow, but he also died and so on and so forth. Deja vu. In fact, none of them left any children, Jesus.

They're going to be in a ripe pickle when they get into heaven. You can ask the Lord Jesus questions from the depths of your heart, but I tell you, he will never respond. And minister to your needs when you come to him in this sort of sarcastic fashion, this question of flippant content.

And it's just due to the amazing patience of our Lord, I think, that he's even prepared to continue in discussion with these theological smart alecks. But he tells them that they're deficient in two areas of their theological reasoning. One is they don't know the word of God, and two is they don't know the power of God.

You see, the fact of the matter is that the Pharisees did not, the Sadducees did not acknowledge the inspiration of the whole Old Testament. They just acknowledged the first five books, the Pentateuch. So Jesus, knowing their particular premise, he subtly brings to bear a verse from Exodus in chapter three.

The incident is Moses at the burning bush. How does God refer to himself on that remarkable occasion, Sadducees? He says, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. The Sadducees, you see, did not believe in a resurrection.

They did not believe in immortality. And because they were wrong in their understanding of Scripture, their whole case in terms of this hypothetical illustration just will not hold water because they cannot apply the logic of Scripture because their theology is inadequate. Jesus teaches the Sadducees that God is the God of the living.

God, who went into covenantal promise with Abraham, did not let Abraham lie a-mouldering in the grave. Abraham's death was not the cessation of his being. He was gathered to his people as was Isaac, as was Jacob.

Jesus here is postulating this whole business of immortality, the afterlife. There will be more that the disciples will understand after the death and the resurrection of our Lord, but here it is in embryo. And when a man or a woman passes from this scene into eternity, the reason for development of the human race on this side of eternity no longer exists, for you go on forever.

Therefore, in terms of procreation, there is no need. In what is beyond, says our Lord to the Sadducees, you are badly mistaken. And if you go to Luke's Gospel in chapter 20 where you get the parallel statement, description of all that is happening here, again there's applause.

Round two, home set and match, Jesus is the winner. For you see, the Pharisees, they also are in attendance with what Jesus has to say, and they can't stand the Sadducees. Here is a greater than Solomon in David's greater city, dealing with his protagonists in a brilliant fashion.

The question of sinister intent, the questions of flippant content, that's followed by what I call the question of legal judgment. And here it seems as though our Lord deals more softly with the particular inquiry because there is a measure of sincerity now that comes out in the heart of the man who puts the question. Verse 28, one of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating.

And he has been given silent applause to what Jesus has said. And so he comes and he says, Lord, of all the commandments, which is the most important? Now the Jews were very good with commandments. The professionals had developed the Decalogue, the ten commandments, and they got at least 600.

And some of them, when they were trying really hard, could have elongated that into 2,000. But along with this idea in the rabbinical school was the other idea, not the magnifying glass, the microscope. In fact, there was one Jewish teacher by the name of Hillel, and he was once asked by a proselyte to instruct him in the whole law while he stood on one leg.

And Hillel said, what thou hatest for thyself, do not do to thy neighbor. David the Psalmist reduced the 613 commandments down to 11 in Psalm 15. You can check that later if you can.

I've run out of time to turn you to it now. Micah, he reduces it to three. Habakkuk to one.

For Habakkuk says in chapter 2 and verse 4 of his prophecy, the just shall live by faith. Micah's three prescriptions are in chapter 6 and verse 8. But Jesus here, in response to this man's question, reduces the law to two commandments. And he is unusual, our Savior, in fact, not just unusual, he's unique, because our Savior puts both these commandments alongside, or if you like, they are the flip side of the same coin, or different sides of the same coin.

Jesus says there are two commandments which are of vital importance. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And there our Savior is commenting from Deuteronomy, from what was known as the Shema, the Jewish law.

Hear, O Israel, chapter 6 and verse 4 of Deuteronomy. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

But then to that our Savior adds another, which is found in Leviticus chapter 19 and verse 18, where it says, Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. And now the Jews were very concerned about the Shema.

In fact, they would write the summary of the law on little parchments, on little scrolls, and they would put them in a box and they would wear them around their forehead or around their wrists as they prayed. In fact, some of the Jews, some of the Orthodox Jews, they would take these fragments of the law and they would wrap them around the outside door of their homes and also the inside doors within the several rooms so that they would believe that in their coming in and in their going out they would know the blessing of God. And Jesus says, The heart of the law is this.

Love the Lord your God with all your faculties and your neighbor as yourself. And when Jesus is teaching on the neighborliness that we should attend to, He's not thinking just in terms of Jew, but also in terms of Gentile. And it is in this respect that our Lord adapts and enlarges the teaching.

Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor, Jew, Samaritan, and Gentile, as yourself. This is the greatest commandment and there is none that is its rival. And Jesus gets the applause again, doesn't He? Look at verse 32.

Isn't it wonderful that whenever our Lord Jesus is tested, even though connivance and subtlety and treachery may be the motivation, He can cope. He has an authority which is quite astonishing. Now remember, the disciples, as I say, are sort of silent listeners.

He's taking them through a three-year theological education course, but it's practical and they just watch Him in various instances, how He copes. But it's not just the opponents of the Lord Jesus, nor just the disciples that are spectators on this scene. It is the ordinary people, and you can almost hear them saying, Go for it, Jesus! The large crowd listen to Him with delight, round after round, question after question.

He's a master of debate, and He can spot the hypocrisy. He can spot the cynicism, and nonetheless, He still deals with the issues. Though in no way does He excuse cynicism, nor hypocrisy.

Now look, the knockout is this, from the 35th verse. You see, here is our Lord, and as I say, He's been like a greater than Solomon. He's taken on all contenders.

He is equal to every situation. This whole bout of questioning, virtually, He started. Not quite, but He did bring up the business about John the Baptist, whose authority did John represent, or who was behind John.

Well, now our Lord finishes this whole period of taking and answering questions by putting up one concerning Himself. Now look, you teachers of the law, you say that when the Messiah comes, that He will be the son of David. No, you're quite right, because that's what David says in the psalm.

The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. Now, says Jesus, you know so much, you try answering this one. If Messiah is the son of David, and He came after David, then how can David, the greatest king that Israel ever knew, refer to Messiah as my Lord? Give Him, by implication, greater authority? David himself calls Him Lord, how then can He be His son? Now, interestingly, and perhaps amusingly, Jesus doesn't answer the question.

The disciples will cut on to the answer in a little while. But Jesus does this to silence His opponents by having answered their questions, putting up a question that they themselves cannot resolve. But let's unpackage this just for a moment or two.

Why does Jesus make reference to Himself as the son of David? Well, you remember, it's not that long ago when the kids have been welcoming Jesus as He's come on His donkey and entered into Jerusalem, you know, Hosanna to the son of David. You see, Jerusalem is rife with the idea that Jesus and the son of David, well, they're the same. Now, what is Jesus here teaching? He's starting to teach the disciples, these silent spectators on this scene, more and more about His authority.

Jesus is the son of David, and David can call Jesus Lord because as the disciples will come to realize, not only is Jesus Christ the shoot from off the stem of David, He is also the root from which David came. Before David was, I am. Before Abraham was, I am.

Jesus, the son of man, is born in Bethlehem. But Jesus, as the son of God, was before all time. Jesus, the son of David, is able to teach with such authority because He represents the authority of God being God Himself.

So, yes, in Solomon's colonnade, moving around those large pillars with the entourage of His disciples and the ordinary people milling around and little invective comments sent from His adversaries, Jesus, the greater than Solomon, Jesus, the son of David, Jesus, the son of God, in His dominical power and authority responds to the questions that are put His way. And the punchline is this. Do you respond to the teaching of Jesus by accepting what He has to say for yourself? The coin, whose image does it bear? Caesar's.

Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Your life, what image does it bear? The image of God. Render to God the things that are God's.

Jesus, speaking as a son of David, as a son of man, as a son of God, is answering a question and giving you a directive. Render to God the things that are God's. What is going to happen after death? You don't move into the cessation of being a state of annihilation.

You go into the presence of God. God, who engaged in covenant with Abraham and Jacob and Isaac, has engaged in the covenant with men and women as a result of the death of Jesus Christ and His resurrection. And when you confess your sins, He cleanses you of your sins and He prepares you for eternity.

And as to the driving force of your life, what should it be? Seeking first earthly splendor, ensuring that your business is well, ensuring that your education is such that you've got all the qualifications that you need. All these are secondary. All these are the tinsel toys of time.

In a context they may have some value. But if these are placed over against the overriding necessity of seeking first the kingdom of God, of loving the Lord with all your heart and with all your mind, if these are put before loving your neighbor as yourself, then you are living your life as a failure. So here is Alon.

Three rounds he fights and then he delivers the knockout. I answer your questions. Now I'll tell you who I am.

So respond to what I've had to say. Not because of what I've said, but because of who I am. For it's that that gives the credibility to what I've said.

Let's pray. Lord, we just marvel at your grace, your wisdom, the patience with which you took on the hypocrites. And because the ordinary people were listening and your disciples were in attendance, you didn't dispatch the hypocrites into an eternal punishment.

You patiently examined the substance of what they had to say. And you showed the way ahead for sensitive people. We thank you, Lord, that you're still the same Jesus, the friend of sinners, ever prepared to take the question of sincere hearts, to respond to the needs of ordinary folk.

Lord, we offer ourselves to you. Take our lives and use us in your service. Forgive us our sins.

And help us to realize that in your wisdom, there is the stuff of life. And when we partake of it, we're fortified and able to cope with all that comes along, day by day, week by week, and month by month. Blessed Christ, accept our love.

Blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus, accept our praise. Holy Spirit, continue to illuminate our minds and get from us the obedience which is your due. And the people of God said, Amen.