The gospel of Mark. Mark for Beginners, lesson number seven.
Title of this lesson is, Final Confrontations, chapter 11.
If you're following in the Bible, open them up to chapter 11.
So last time we discussed the idea that Mark is describing Jesus's ministry on three levels.
One, His public ministry, teaching and miracles, we get that that is going on all the time.
Two, His confrontation and refutation of the Jewish leaders, that's happening as well.
And then three, His private ministry to the apostles and to the disciples.
And if you understand those three strands of the story,
then it makes it - it enables you to keep in context what's going on all the time.
Now in our last lesson we saw Jesus involved in the private ministry to His disciples.
He's teaching them on a variety of subjects.
He's warning them of things to come. He's revealing more perfectly His nature: who He is, why He has come,
the mission. And, of course, we notice,
it's not easy for them to accept all of this. So now we get to chapters 11 and 12 and Jesus, once again, is
going to face the leaders in what will prove to be His final confrontation with them before He's
arrested and crucified. In these chapters, we see that
He's going to drive them like over the edge, this time with His words and in our actions. So in the lesson
today, three scenes: one, the entry, His entry into Jerusalem; second scene, the fig tree,
He curses the fig tree; and then the third scene, the cleansing of the temple and what that meant.
We'll compare. The cursing of the fig tree, has an application here.
There's a reason He did that. And we'll take a look at that.
Alright, so chapter 11.
Until now Jesus has not announced publicly that He's the Messiah.
He would always use the cryptic
term, the son of man, for example, or He would instruct His apostles
to tell no one of their acknowledgment. They acknowledged, we believe, you're the Son of God.
Then He'd say to them,
okay, but don't you tell anybody else that; because if they start saying that, it'll cause a riot.
I mean, he won't be able to get within two feet of
Jerusalem. So now He's ready to actually reveal this to the masses,
including the Jewish religious leaders. He's going to talk to them about His true identity and
He's going to do it in a dynamic way.
Setting up the scene for the entry into Jerusalem.
We need to understand that in the Old Testament, in the prophet Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9,
there was a prophecy concerning the coming of the Messiah and how He would arrive. It said he would
bring peace and bring salvation to the people and this particular savior would come into Jerusalem
riding on a colt, a young donkey that had never been ridden. That was the prophecy in Zechariah.
So Jesus is going to reenact this
prophecy and lay claim to it before all the people. It wasn't just, He came in on a donkey.
He was doing something that was very significant to the Jews, who understood the significance of what He was doing.
He wasn't just coming in on an animal, He was fulfilling a prophecy about how the messiah would actually enter
Jerusalem.
We go to Chapter 11, verses one to six, let's start there.
It says, "As they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of
His disciples, and said to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it,
you will find a colt tied there, on which no one yet has ever sat;
untie it and bring it here.
If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' you say, 'The Lord has need of it'; and immediately
He will send it back here.'
So they went away and found a colt tied at the door, outside the street;
and they untied it. Some of the bystanders were saying to them,
'What are you doing, untying the colt?' They spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, and they gave them
permission."
So Jesus has either prepared for the use of this colt or He uses His power to determine
where a colt is and how the animal will be,
how the animal will be found. Continue the story verse seven,
"They brought the colt to Jesus and put their coats on it, and He sat on it and
many spread their coats in the road and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields."
They're laying down of cloaks, as a
saddle, and leaves for the animal to walk on, all of this depicts a certain way to honor Jesus.
They're honoring Him by doing this thing.
Verse nine, it says, "Those who went in front and those who followed were shouting, "Hosanna! Blessed
Is He who comes in the name of the Lord, blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David.
Hosanna in the highest!"
Now the term Hosanna means "save now, save us now", from Psalm 118:25.
The people had rightly
discerned that the kingdom they waited for would be ushered in by a king, and so Jesus is addressed as a
king. The people who are seeing Him, his disciples, they're kind of confirming
what Zechariah had said, the king, the Messiah, will come in on a colt.
They're giving Him honor and respect and they're shouting out,
"Hosanna!" and "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord and blessed is the coming
kingdom of our father David", because they understood that the messiah would be descended from the line of
David. They're zeroing in and they're saying to Jesus and to the people around Him, this is the Messiah.
This is the one. Now, whether they understood His true nature, the fact that He was divine,
whether they understood that, whether they understood what His mission was - the cross -
maybe they didn't get that part;
but they were correct in addressing Him as the anointed one, the one who was to come.
And, of course, Jesus shows His humble nature by riding in on a donkey and not a horse.
Because a king, someone who came as a king, would not be caught dead riding in on a donkey.
He would have been coming in on a horse.
If a Roman came in, you can be sure that the Roman governor Pontius Pilate was not riding any donkey.
He was riding a horse, or a chariot, or he was being driven. Let's put it that way.
Also, Matthew, in Chapter 21, verse 1-4 mentions that there were two donkeys, a little confusion there,
probably the mother of the young colt
came along to steady the young animal. Remember, no one had ever ridden this animal and so the mother is brought along
to steady the colt,
to enable Jesus to ride it.
And, of course, the animal had never ridden in a parade before, people yelling.
And I think, as most of you know, there's a children's book that I've written
about Arion, Arion the Little Donkey, well that's what this is about.
It's about this particular animal and, kind of, a little backstory.
So if you're interested in that, go to Bibletalkbooks.com, little plug for Bibletalkbooks.com.
So verse 11, let's keep going in our story,
it says, "Jesus entered Jerusalem and came into the temple and after looking around at everything He left for
Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late."
Now one of the things missing here, in the triumphal entry,
is that He's not been met by any delegation of priests or leaders.
They are conspicuously absent from the action. Remember, there's not just a
dozen people here, there are thousands of people that are surrounding Him and shouting in the excitement.
And He's going in, and none of the priests show up, none of the scribes show up, none of the Pharisees show up.
There's no delegation, nothing. They're ignoring Him completely.
So the people recognize Jesus and they acknowledge Him, but the leaders
purposefully ignore and reject Him. They're thinking, hey
if we don't even show up to welcome this guy, if we don't even
bother to argue with Him, let him have His day,
let Him ride in on a colt. So what. If the people see that we, the leaders, are not respecting Him,
He'll go the way of all the other messiahs that came in the past. He'll have His moment in the sun
and it'll be over and that'll be the end of that.
It seems that way at the moment, because Jesus, it says, He examines the
situation, and what does He do? He doesn't say a word, He just leaves. He goes back to Bethany where
Mary and Martha and Lazarus lived, that's where they stayed,
because it was too late to do anything on that day. Of course, this scene carefully sets up and explains
what is about to happen in the next scene. So the next scene is the fig tree, the cursing of the fig tree,
verses 12 and 13 and 14.
So we continue the story, "On the next day, when they had left Bethany, He became hungry.
Seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf,
He went to see if perhaps He would find anything on it.
And when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.
He said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again. And His disciples were listening."
So Jesus and the disciples spend the night at Bethany and leaving early to return to Jerusalem.
Jesus sees a fig tree, and it said, and Matthew says, "The fig trees by the road." And that's important. It's
important because the tree didn't belong to anybody, it wasn't anybody's fig tree. It was on public property.
So the story says that Jesus sees that it has leaves, which means it must have figs.
So He goes to get some, only to find nothing. So He curses the tree,
not to ever produce figs again. That seems a little harsh, sometimes, when people read that. Now, the next day,
they return and the tree is withered.
Jesus gives them a teaching about faith because of that.
There's some disturbing aspects of the story about Jesus's action and why
destroying this little tree. Some people - aww poor little tree. Jesus, wow, big, bad, Jesus curses the tree.
Why He did that?
Well, what Jesus saw was a fig tree in full foliage. It says it was in leaf.
Now, fig trees normally produce, in this
geographical setting, fig trees normally produced three crops: one in June; one in August;
one in December.
They also produced the fruit first and then the leaves to announce that the crop is in.
So this event took place in March, in the spring.
It was long before the first crop was due, like June.
However, the foliage suggested that there might still be some fruit left over from December.
So the other trees did not have foliage at this time because it was too early for the first crop, and the
final December crop may have already been disposed of.
Now the point here is, that this tree advertised something that it didn't have.
That's the point to remember.
That Jesus destroyed somebody's property is
not true, since the tree was on public property, it was by the road. It didn't belong to anybody.
Also, because it produced a full foliage without any fruit meant it would continue to be fruitless.
So it was actually worthless, as a fig tree.
When we read about the cleansing of the temple, which we're going to read about pretty soon,
We're going to see that the fig-less tree will be
used as an illustration of the nation of Israel and its reaction to Jesus.
So the reason for the story of the fig tree,
is to highlight, in a kind of living parable, what was going on with
Jerusalem, the condition of Jerusalem, the condition of the Jewish nation at that time.
The Jewish nation, they had full foliage, in the sense that they had great religious history. They had
ceremonies, they had a beautiful temple. The problem was there was no fruit.
No faith, no obedience. No good works. And most especially,
they did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
So in a sense, the fig tree, the real little fig tree, was a metaphor
for the Jewish nation. They put out a lot of leaves,
but there were no figs.
There was no fruit. There was nothing there when Jesus arrived. He shows up as the Messiah,
He's ready to be recognized. I'm here. This is it. And they don't recognize Him. No fruit.
So the fig tree, the nation, they're a mirror image of each other.
So when the Messiah comes to His place, to His temple, to seek the fruit, He finds none there.
It's only a pretense. It's only a promise. And so, God is going to destroy it,
because of this;
however, when the apostles ask about the fig tree and its destruction,
Jesus teaches them a lesson about faith.
Peter asks Jesus,
how is it possible that the tree was completely destroyed so quickly. That's his question the next day.
He hears Jesus curse the tree and then the next day the tree is done,
it's withered. And he's saying, wow, how did you do that?
That is his question, how'd you do that? He wasn't getting it.
Jesus uses his lack of faith. In other words,
he doubted that at Jesus's word the tree would actually wither so quickly.
He uses Peter's lack of faith to teach Peter and the others that, unlike the lack of faith represented by the tree,
they have to have faith. They have that fruit, they need to believe.
The apostles
would need great faith because the obstacles that they would face in the future would seem like mountains.
That's where he says, "If you have faith,
you'll say to this mountain be tossed into the sea and it'll happen." This is the
passage where Jesus is saying that, talking about faith.
So He says, if they asked in faith and continued in love
demonstrated by forgiving their brothers, then God would grant their prayers,
according to His will. So where's the parallel we're the mountain into the sea
if you have faith
like the mustard seed, you can tell this mountain, go into the sea. Is He actually saying, you can take a
mountain and say, God throw the mountain into the sea? He's making a comparison.
In the future, 12 uneducated men, mostly fishermen - Matthew may have some education -
these 12 will be tasked with going to preach the Gospel to
the whole world, in one generation. Are you kidding me? They have no money. They have no power.
They have no prestige.
They have no resources. I mean physical type and yet,
through the power of faith,
they accomplished it.
They accomplished the task.
The mountain was the obstacle that they faced in fulfilling
Jesus's great command,
and they did it. It would have seemed
impossible to the person of no faith, that these 12 would turn the world upside down for Christ in one generation,
but they did.
It was amazing. And so that was the lesson of the fig tree: if you just have small faith,
you'll be able to do great things in the name of Christ.
Especially when considering the events to come. Oh, it's the same thing. What is it?
They faced certain obstacles, we face obstacles. We have stuff.
We have illness, we have children that we want to do one thing, they do another. You know what I'm saying.
We all have stuff.
We have our own bodies and wills. We want to do one thing, it wants to do something else.
We have obstacles too. Sometimes the obstacles in our life seem like a mountain,
but Jesus says, if you have faith, you can move those mountains.
Alright, so let's go to the next.
We've seen the entry into Jerusalem. We've seen the fig tree and the lessons there.
Now, the cleansing of the temple. So let's read
beginning in verse 15 it says, "Then they came to Jerusalem, and he entered the
temple and began to drive
out those who were buying and selling in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and the
seats of those who were selling doves, and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple.
And He began to teach and say to them, "Is it not written, 'my house shall be called a house of prayer, for all the nations.'?
But you have made it a robbers' den."
The Chief priests and the scribes heard this and began seeking how to destroy Him for they were afraid of Him,
for the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching."
So the Old Testament prophets described the Messiah as one who would cleanse the temple,
Malachi chapter three, verses one to three. So Jesus fulfills this prophecy in this particular passage.
The Jews were defiling the temple area in various ways. In this little schematic of the
Temple, I want you to notice here, in the middle, all the group of buildings and the highest building in the group
of buildings, that was the holy place and the holy of holies and where the
sacrifices were made. Notice, on the exterior parts, you notice on the left-hand side it says,
the court of the gentiles. Rather large court.
Well, the way it worked in the temple is that an individual, if he was a
gentile, could only go through one of the doors and stay in the court of the gentiles.
Was not allowed to pass the wall
to go into the area where the Jews could go.
Then, if you were a Jewish man, you could go in. If you were a Jewish woman,
you could go further. There was the part for the Jewish man, part for the Jewish women.
And then you could get closer if you were a priest you could go in a levite you could do work,
and then if you were a high priest,
then you could go inside the holy of holies;
but just once a year.
The whole temple was demonstrated to show how people were separated from God.
So that was - you have to kind of understand that, to understand the cleansing of the temple.
Now, another thing that took place is,
of course, they were sacrificing animals and they were paying the temple tax.
In order to do this,
there were a lot of merchants there who sold sacrificial animals, and they would change currency for those
pilgrims that came from other nations,
who came to the temple to offer sacrifice. You wouldn't drag your animal 200, 300 miles.
A lot easier to go to the temple,
exchange your money, buy an animal, bring it to the priest for sacrifice.
These merchants were offering a legitimate service,
but they started by being on the outside of the walls of the temple, that's where they originally had set up.
What took place is, after a time, the merchants began to set up on the inside of the temple walls, in the area of
the court of the gentiles. Those were individuals who were not Jews by birth, but were converted to Judaism.
Gentiles. And they were allowed to worship,
but they couldn't get very close.
So all of a sudden these merchants are setting up their booths or money changing tables, their animals, pigeons, sheep, calfs
braying, making of noise, the dirt that it causes. And this was the place where the
gentiles were supposed to have a spot to worship. And so, by doing this, they were
desecrating the temple, itself.
Jesus goes in, and what does He do? Well, that's what He does. He turns these tables,
He kicks these people out, get out of here. He says, you are desecrating the temple.
Even if you're in the area of the gentiles, this is still part of the temple. And He
sends them away. He says,
the house of prayer, notice, for all nations.
For all nations. Not Jews. All nations.
Jesus's suggestion is not only have they impeded the gentiles' worship,
they've defiled the temple, but they've also practiced dishonest business practice.
Not a fair money exchange.
Selling animals that were spotted or crippled. So not only were they
selling and buying inside the temple area, they were also doing dishonest things inside the temple area.
This direct rebuke of these people and throwing them out was actually a rebuke of the priests'
management of the temple; and of course this was the last straw. I mean, now He was pointing out the very leaders,
themselves. He was now a marked man. For the people, however,
it says in this passage, this arrival, this zealous act,
astonished them, as to its power and courage. Mark mentions that after this scene,
they leave to return the next day. Let's review what's happened. Jesus enters
triumphantly, goes back out, comes back the next day to cleanse the temple, now
He's directly challenged the leaders. So now we get to the challenges that come. Now that He's done this,
different leaders are going to challenge Him. The first challenge comes from the priests, themselves.
Chapter 11:27 to 12:12, we don't have time to read that, but I'm just going to summarize it.
So the next day the priests confront Him with righteous indignation, how dare you do this.
Who has given you the right? Who has given you the authority to do such a thing in our temple?
Jesus, He could have done a miracle right then and there to show His authority,
but instead, He forces them to choose what side they're on.
No use doing a miracle, these guys wouldn't believe anyways. I mean, He raised Lazarus from the dead,
they still didn't believe. And so, He asks them about John's baptism.
Meaning, John's preaching, and John's call, and John pointing to Jesus as the lamb of God.
He asks the priests, all of this, was this from God or is this from man?
And so they're stuck. If they say, it's from God well, then, they're hypocrites, because they're not obeying God,
they're not receiving Him. If they say, it's from men,
then they'll lose the influence with the people; because the people, they believe that John was speaking about
Jesus. So they cop out, they become agnostic. They say, we don't know.
And so Jesus says, well, I don't know, either.
And He doesn't answer their challenge.
This neutralizes their moral authority in the eyes of the people. It shows their lack of faith in God. It defeats their
attack on Jesus, who doesn't even dignify their question with an answer. So having silenced them, Jesus then
proceeds to tell them a parable, which described their attitude and their eventual punishment.
So it's not enough that He shuts them up, now He's going to give a parable about them.
And the parable is about the vineyard owner who leaves it in the hands of certain individuals
and he goes away.
He comes back to get profits from the vineyard, and the parable goes on,
the renter's of the vineyard, they beat up one guy, then they kill another guy, and then the owner sends his son
figuring, they're going to listen to my son, and they end up killing him. Well, obviously,
the vineyard is God's people.
The renter is the caretaker, these are the priests, these are the leaders.
He's the son. And they see it.
They see it and they're angry.
Of course, the parallel between the story and the priests is obvious,
and they are so incensed that they wanted to actually seize Him.
The Bible says, they wanted to get Him right away.
But they didn't, because they were afraid of the crowd, so that's the priests' confrontation.
So next scene you have the pharisees, they decide to challenge Him. We'll reads this, a shorter passage.
It says, "Then they sent", they is the priests. They say,
we don't know what to do with this guy, okay, you guys, you go and see what - it's like wrestling. It's like
Wrestle Mania. It's like tag team. Send the other guy in.
Now they send the pharisees in, verse 13 says, "Then they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians."
I'll tell you about them in a minute. "to Him, in order to trap Him in a statement.
They came and said to Him, 'Teacher, we know that you were truthful, and defer to no one for you are not partial
to any, but teach the way of God in truth.
Is it lawful to pay poll tax to Caesar or not? Shall we pay or shall we not pay?'
But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them,
'Why are you testing Me? Bring me a denarius to look at.'
They brought one and He said to them, 'Whose likeness and inscription is this?' And they said to Him, 'Caesar's'.
And Jesus said to them, 'Render unto Caesar what is
Caesars and to God the things that are God's.'
And they were amazed at Him." It says. So what's their objective?
Well, the Bible says their objective was to trap Him and try to build a case
against Him, by accusing Him to the Roman government and discrediting
Him with the people. The Herodians, by the way,
they were supporters. there was a political party,
they were supporters of Herod's rule. And they were afraid that Jesus,
His actions, would cause trouble. And if there's trouble, than Herod loses his power
and his favor with the Roman authorities. So those were Herodians.
So this is a no-win question, of course. If He says, yes,
we should pay, than they're going to denounced Him as being a sympathizer to a cruel pagan ruler. If he says, no,
we shouldn't pay. Then they're going to accuse Him to the Romans as a rebel and a tax evader.
It's a no-win kind of a question. So Jesus puts the question into the right perspective: in the hierarchy of
responsibility, taxes are within man's responsibility.
God gives governments the right to rule and collect taxes and man receives taxes.
God, on the other hand, He receives worship. Beautiful answer. So simple.
Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.
So Mark says that now even the Pharisees are amazed at Him,
not being able to trap Him. And also receiving a deep teaching that they had not considered before. Even
lifting the burden of guilt, for paying taxes, off of their shoulders. Imagine.
The pharisees, they couldn't answer that question theologically. That's why they asked Him.
So He solves the problem for them. Imagine His kindness. All right, next group to come in, the Sadducees.
Verses 18 to 27, again, I'm not going to read that, too long.
The Pharisees, you see, the difference between Pharisees and Sadducees, the Pharisees believed that
heaven was much like Earth, just better.
The Sadducees
scorned this idea. They wanted to pit Jesus against them, because the Sadducees, they didn't believe in the
afterlife. They used the story of a woman married to seven brothers, of course, we know the
levirate law said, if a man marries a woman and he dies,
then the nearest kin, his brother or nearest kin, is to take her as his wife,
produce a son so that the lineage can continue.
This was how things work in a Jewish society. So they come up with this story,
There's a man, there are seven brothers,
she marries the first one, he dies, and then the second one, and he dies, no children. The idea is
they end up, she ends up marrying all seven of them, have no children.
And then they asked Him, so when they all get to heaven, whose wife will she be?
One of those, how many angels on the head of a pin?
This is one of those type of questions, okay?
So their question, actually, was meant to humiliate the Pharisees.
And at the same time they wanted Jesus to either agree with them,
deny the resurrection of man, or try to explain the foolish ideas of the pharisees.
Jesus replies that both they and the Pharisees,
they're both wrong, because of their ignorance of the scripture, and trust me,
this was the height of insult to them, because they considered themselves
the be-all and end-all of teachers of the law. Are you - it's like, are you kidding me?
You non-educated rabbi from nowhere, up in Nazareth, you dare
tell us that we're incorrect, because we've incorrectly taught and understood the scripture.
They were really insulted, let's put it that way. So in the passage, He shows that the scripture says that God is
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He quotes a passage in the Old Testament.
God is the God of - so He says, "is", that's
present tense, meaning, if He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that means those people are alive,
because they're present before Him and
He is now their God. It means that they are alive now, which means that, according to scripture,
scripture that they believed and studied, that scripture said that there is life after death.
So He proves it to them using expository methods. In other words, let's go look at the passage.
Let's look at the grammar. Let's look at the context. And He teaches them based on their own terms, okay?
With the crowds He uses parables, stories,
pictures stories that they could understand, because they were not educated. With the Pharisees and the Sadducees, He uses proper
teaching techniques that they could understand at their level.
Jesus also demonstrates, here's the killer though,
He goes beyond this, not only am I explaining to you scripture that you ought to understand,
He goes beyond this, He points out that
by divine knowledge, He tells them that people who are in heaven are like angels,
they don't have to marry. Well, that's not expository preaching.
That's not figuring out the meaning of a passage.
That knowledge only comes through revelation. Only someone who's been in Heaven can tell you what Heaven is like.
So He goes even beyond just teaching them, He gives them a revelation.
He points out their ignorance and then He demonstrates His own divinity by revealing only what a
person who comes from Heaven could reveal
what being in heaven is really like. Not just putting them down, but teaching them and
witnessing to them. Again, He lifts the burdens off the Pharisees.
They don't even realize. He teaches the priests and the Pharisees things that they should have rejoiced at
knowing, but they were so angry,
they hated Him so much, they were so afraid of losing their power, that they didn't even see the gift
that He was giving them. And then we go to verse 28 to 34,
the greatest commandment, one more scribe comes up.
It says, "One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them
well, asked Him, 'What commandment is the foremost of all?'
Jesus answered, 'The foremost is, 'Hear O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord;
and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart; and with all your soul, with all your mind,
and with all your strength.'
The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
There is no other commandment greater than these."
The scribe said to Him, 'Right teacher; You have truly
stated that He is One, and there is no one else besides Him; and to love Him with all the heart and with all the
understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as himself,
is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently,
He said to him, 'You're not far from the kingdom of God.' After that no one would venture to ask Him any more questions."
So far, Jesus has had confrontations with the politicians, those are the Pharisees and the Herodians.
He's had confrontation with the aristocrats, those are the priests, and now He deals with the
intellectuals, those are the scribes. You need to understand when He asks Him,
what is the greatest commandment, you need to understand where the scribe is coming from.
According to the scribes, there were 613 laws. There were 248 positive laws, 365 negative commands, rather.
These were outlined by the scribes in their writing and
much of their teaching and debates were based on the relative merits of these.
Imagine, 613 commands of all kinds, covering Jewish life.
And what would they do, they debate each other over the value and how to apply each one of these
613 commands. So if you understand that, you understand what's going on here. The scribe comes up,
says, which is the greatest of these 613?
So Jesus quotes the Shema, which was from a combination of Deuteronomy 6:4-5
and Leviticus, to, kind of, synthesize the true meaning of the Old Testament law.
Jesus's answer summarizes all of the commands without diminishing any of the commands.
The scribe, if you notice, is so grateful that he repeats it to impress it on his own mind.
Like when you ask a hard question in class, or something like that, and the person
gives you such a great answer, that you repeat his answer just to make sure you got it right.
And this is what this scribe is doing. The scribe believed and he probably tried to obey all of these rules.
Jesus said, you're close,
but you're not in the kingdom. You see, in order to be in the kingdom,
he had to realize that he couldn't keep all these laws or
God's law. And had to seek salvation, not by trying to obey 600 commands,
but by having faith in God.
And this faith in God was to be expressed as faith in obedience to the person who was right in front of him.
He said, you're not far. Meaning, look I'm right here. I'm right in front of you. Listen to what I'm saying to you.
And then this part is over, the confrontations are over. Now Jesus turns to His apostles
and He gives them a warning against the scribes.
He's dealt with
one learned and very sincere scribe, who was at least respectful, if not yet believing,
but he rebukes the scribes in general who used God's word as a way to
control the people and exalt themselves. What religious leaders have done throughout history, right?
Always trying to control the people that they teach, the people that they lead, for their own benefit.
So first He shows that they, like the priests and the pharisees, were mistaken about their understanding of God's word.
The scribes taught that the Messiah would simply be a human descendant of David.
Jesus shows, in this passage, that David himself wrote that the Messiah would be divine,
referring to Him as Lord, in the passage where he says, "The Lord,"
meaning, God, "said to my Lord, the Messiah." So he corrects now the scribes, not in front of the guy who was
there, but to His own disciples.
And then He reveals their hypocrisy in acting religious and desiring honor for their piety, but in reality
cheating the elderly out of their money and homes under the pretext of ministering to them.
Jesus tells the people that their condemnation and their punishment, not the people,
the scribes, the Pharisees, the Herodites, all these people here, their punishment would be
severe, because they carry out their evil pride and greed, under the guise of sincere religion.
And that is a serious sin. When you see some of these characters, what they do on TV, and you're thinking,
how can people believe these guys. It's amazing. How do they get away with it?
Well, they may be getting away with it for a while, but Jesus says, boy their comeuppances is going to come.
Using religion and the love of God as a
pretext for greed is a very serious sin.
Let me just finish up here, three more verses to go, he says in 41 to 44, he says,
"And He sat down opposite the treasury,
and He began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury, and many rich people were
putting in large sums. A poor widow
came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent.
Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them,
'Truly, I say to you, this poor widow put in more, than all
contributors, to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus,
but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on."
So the apostles have witnessed all these confrontations,
this teaching, this condemnation of every segment of the Jewish leadership, and so this final episode
tries to summarize what they should have learned.
So the court of the women, remember, I told you the different courts.
The court of the women had 13 trumpet,
they were like trumpet shaped,
13 trumpet-shaped offering receptacles around its walls where people could put money in.
So Jesus noted the rich who, kind of, paraded in with fanfare.
Always first in line. The ones who had the most biggest gift, they were first in line to give, then
down to the smallest and the poorest. So it says, in the original here, language, the widow gave two leptons,
equal to one-eighth of a penny.
Today one-eighth of a penny, which was the smallest coin in circulation. She gave two of these.
What Jesus saw, however, was not the coins.
He saw the heart. The rich gave a portion to demonstrate their piety,
but their giving did not affect their lifestyle. It's sacrificial - giving when it actually affects your lifestyle.
I could do a whole lesson on that. When there are things you can no longer do because of your giving,
that's sacrificial.
It isn't sacrificial if you can live exactly the way you can live and give what you give.
Exactly. When you can eat what you want,
go where you want to, spend what you want, do what you want,
do everything if you want, have all the freedom that you want, and give. Well, that's giving and that's okay,
but that's not sacrificial giving. Sacrificial giving is when you give and it hurts.
So this is what He saw. The widow gave all she had from faith, and it increased her suffering.
Jesus shows by this, that her attitude was acceptable before God, while the others were rejected.
The apostles were face to
face with the very same people in the future. That's the point. All of these people here,
you're going to have to face. You're going to be harassed by them in the future.
So Jesus reveals their hypocrisy.
And He demonstrates, through the widow, that He searches for sincere and faithful followers.
Not like - it's funny, at the end of the story, all the characters we've seen, who's the last character we see?
The widow and the two mites, as the last character.
And He said, you see all these guys, this one over here,
this is the one you need to be like.
All right, so we're going to stop there. Next week,
judgment on the nation, the beginning of the end. We've got, I think, two lessons left in this particular series.
So thank you for hanging in there. Appreciate it.