As a child, I used to go fishing with my Grandfather. Sometimes, we’d fish from his canoe. Most of the time, we fished on shore. I still have my tackle box and quite a collection of lures. Each lure for a specific weather condition and target fish. I caught a few fish with those lures with my Granddad. But I caught more and bigger fish with a plain old hook and worms. Bait is key. Those fish sure did like a juicy, tasty worm. Ick. Someone else would always have to bait my hook. Ick. But those fish always fell for that bait! When have you been baited – and fallen for – a trap? Have you ever been asked a trick question on a test? Have you ever set a trap for someone else?
Today, we’re going to see the Pharisees and Sadducees try
to trap Jesus with words – not worms.
And we’re going to talk about righteous judgment. Jesus is righteous and compassionate and
desires repentance from and relationship with all people. Jesus is the only righteous Judge.
We’ve got two divisions today:
1.Jesus astonishes with His answers to Pharisees’ and
Sadducees’ “trap” questions (Mt 22:15-46)
2.Jesus teaches the crowd and disciples about the teachers
of the law and Pharisees, and declare woes against them (Mt 23:1-39)
Let’s begin. Last
week, Jesus told the parable of the Wedding Banquet, alluding to the Wedding
Supper of the Lamb recorded in Revelation 19:7-10. This week, we begin with Matthew 22:15, which
says, “Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap Him in His words.” Conviction does strange things to
people. Good and bad. It can be painful or sting. But conviction can bring repentance and a new
level of relationship with God and others.
It can clean out festering wounds and restore and bring healing. OR… It
can place a wedge between people. It can
create obstacles in our relationship with God.
It can slide us backward in our walk with Jesus. It can flare up our pride and cause us to
withdraw. In this case, it caused the
Pharisees to hatch a plan to lay a trap for Jesus.
Read Matthew 22:16.
First, I want us to see that the Pharisees were hatching
the plan, but they sent their disciples with the Herodians to do the dirty
work. The Herodians were Hellenistic
Jews who supported Herod and opposed Jesus.
So, they aligned with the Pharisees and Sadducees fairly easily. Anyway, they start buttering Jesus up. “You are a man of integrity.” The why are they trying to trap Him? “You teach the way of God in accordance with
the truth.” Then why didn’t they believe
Him? “You aren’t swayed by others,
because you pay no attention to who they are.”
Jesus was resolved in His purpose, but He did pay attention to who
people were and dealt with each one accordingly. This was the bait.
Now here comes the hook.
The trap. It’s a political
question. Matthew 22:17 reads: “Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar
or not?” They ask for Jesus’
opinion. If Jesus said, “no,” He might
incite the people to rebel against the Roman authority. If He said, “yes,” He might anger the people
who hated Roman rule. Notice how
brilliantly He answers.
Read Matthew
22:18-22.
I challenge you to pray that you will give humble,
brilliant answers like Jesus does. What
an amazing teaching. Give to Caesar what
has his stamp on it – the coin. And give
to God what has His stamp on it – their hearts, their souls. How are you giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s
and to God what is God’s? The Pharisees’
disciples and the Herodians were amazed and left. What else could they do? It’s difficult to argue with truth. Scripture says the Sadducees cam to ask a
question the same day.
Read Matthew 22:23-28.
Before we look at Jesus’ response, I just want to point
something out. In verse 23, it states
that the Sadducees say there is no resurrection. Yet in verse 28, they ask whose wife this
woman will be at the resurrection.
But they don’t even believe in the resurrection. Sounds fishy to me. Let’s see how Jesus addresses this.
Read Matthew
22:29-33.
Jesus doesn’t call them hypocrites. He calls out their error. Tells them why they are in error. And He speaks truth about the resurrection,
which is a true thing, a Scriptural thing.
The crowds heard the response and were amazed and surprised. The word astonished even implies that they
felt admiration. Do you consult the
Scriptures for wisdom and knowledge? Do
you know the Scriptures and the power of God?
Do you search the Scriptures daily for the truth? Do you test all teaching against the Word of
God? If you’ve never done that, I
challenge you to start right now. With
this teaching. Let’s keep going.
Read Matthew 22:34.
The Pharisees got together after hearing that Jesus
silenced the Sadducees. They posed a
theological question.
Read Matthew
22:35-36.
An expert in the law calls Jesus “Teacher” – there’s a
bit of bait. He asks what the greatest
commandment is. Shouldn’t an expert in
the law know the answer to that question?
Read Matthew
22:37-40.
Isn’t Jesus’ answer amazing? He covers all the ten commandments in
two: love God covers the first four
commandments and love your neighbor covers the last six. Check it out.
Exodus 20:2-17. Jesus said,
"All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Isn’t it funny how the Jews took the ten commandments
and turned them into 613 laws in the Talmud.
Impossible for anyone to live out.
But Jesus, Who lived out the ten commandments perfectly, boiled them
down to just two!
How are you loving God with all your heart, all your soul
and all your mind? What does loving God
look like in your life? What does loving
your neighbor as yourself look like? How
do you love yourself differently than your neighbor? What needs to change in your heart to make
your love for your neighbor look like your love for yourself?
Let’s look at the last few verses of chapter 22.
Read Matthew
22:41-46.
Now Jesus poses a question to the Pharisees. He flat-out brings up the Messiah! No punches pulled here. He asks an easy question, to which they
answer: the Messiah is the son of David.
Ding, ding, ding. They got that
one right! Then it gets a little
tricky. “How is it then that David,
speaking by the Spirit, calls him Lord?”
Jesus is referring to Psalm 110.
David honors his descendant by calling him “Lord.” The king of Israel honored with the moniker “man
after God’s own heart” acknowledged the superiority of his Messianic offspring. The Messiah is Lord God. The Pharisees should have known the prophecies
and seen the signs and made the connections that Jesus is the Messiah. But “No one could say a word in reply…”
That leads us to our first Principle: Jesus
always has the right(eous) answer.
Jesus is the smartest person to ever walk the face of the
earth! His wisdom is available to His
people. Believers have the mind of
Christ. We can do all things through
Him. Are you praying to receive His wisdom? Are you training your mind to think like
Jesus by dwelling on the Philippians 4:8 things that are true, noble, right
pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy? Will you let the Holy Spirit give you righteous
answers to non-believers’ questions?
Let’s look at Matthew 23.
Read Matthew 23:1-12.
Jesus begins with a warning to the crowds and disciples
to do what the Pharisees say and not what they do. Because they don't practice what they preach. Do you?
They burden others and they don’t help carry the burden. They do what
they do for show. They want honor and
power and prestige and affluence. They
want the credit rather than pointing to God.
In this passage, Jesus is calling the listeners to be humble. He is saying we have one God who is the
ultimate Rabbi, the ultimate Teacher, the ultimate Father, the ultimate
Instructor. We may be rabbis or teachers
or fathers or instructors, but we cannot unseat God as the “be-all, end-all” in
any of those roles! The greatest will be
the servant. God’s economy is not the
world’s economy. Are you asking God to
empower your service? Are you putting
forth the effort to prepare to serve and still relying on Him for the strength
and ability to carry out His call upon your life? Are you humbling yourself before the Lord and
allowing Him to lift you up?
There are woes for those who do not heed Jesus’ warnings. Thankfully, we have seven woes recorded in
the next few verses to use as a litmus test against our own hearts. For which woes might you benefit from God’s
performing open heart surgery?
Read Matthew 23:13.
Jesus repeats some words in these “Woe to you…”
statements. He is speaking to the
teachers of the las and the Pharisees.
He calls them hypocrites. He says
they will not enter the kingdom of heaven and they are keeping people from
entering as well! Ouch. How can we keep
Jesus from saying the same about us?
Read Matthew 23:14.
If your Bible is like mine, there is no verse 14. There’s a footnote stating that some texts
have similar wording to Mark 12:40 or Luke 20:47. Both of those verses read: “They devour
widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.” Technically, there is no “woe” statement, but
there is definitely an undesirable behavior we should avoid. Apparently, they were taking advantage of
people and praying for show.
Read Matthew 23:15.
So Jesus is saying the teachers of the law and Pharisees
go to great lengths to recruit and train up converts to be just as corrupt - twice as corrupt - as they are.
Read Matthew
23:16-22.
With regard to the swearing of oaths, the teachers of the
law and Pharisees diminish the importance of the truly sacred. Remember back in Matthew 5:34-35 when Jesus
said not to swear oaths at all?
Read Matthew
23:23-24.
Tithing is good.
But we should also pursue justice, mercy and faithfulness. Paying attention to details is important, but
we shouldn’t ignore the big, deal-breaker stuff!
Read Matthew 23:25-28.
The message of these two woes is the same, so I am
including both here. Are you more
concerned with how you appear on the outside than how you really are on the
inside?
Read Matthew
23:29-32.
They killed the prophets and would continue to do so,
while claiming that they would not participate in the shedding of their blood like
their ancestors had done.
Read Matthew
23:33-36.
Jesus asks a frightening question here: “How will you
escape being condemned to hell?” Then He
states that He will continue to send prophets and sages and teachers. He also says the teachers of the law and
Pharisees would continue to kill, beat and pursue them. The blood of the righteous would be upon
them.
Read Matthew
23:37-39.
In the final verses of this chapter, you can hear the longing
and compassion of Jesus Christ. You can
almost taste the sadness.
That leads us to our second Principle: Jesus desires people to repent and avoid the
judgment to come.
Where will you spend eternity? Have you placed your faith in Christ for
salvation? Do you think you can get into
heaven by your own works? Jesus said, “I
am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.” This is truth. Not bait.
Not a trap. The trap is believing
the lie and missing out on salvation and eternity with the King of kings and Lord
of lords. Accept Jesus as your Savior
today. Don’t delay. No one knows how much longer they will have
to make that most important of decisions.
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