March 14, 2024 • 42 mins
Welcome to an engaging episode of 'Current Events and Christian Expectations' where we explore the narrative of the modern-day Pharisees.
Discover the life-altering grace of Jesus through the story of Saul, later known as Paul - a Pharisee turned into a powerful ally of God. Learn about the blindness of human rules and the enlightened path of God's word, and explore the enriching gospel teachings for a deeper understanding of Sabbath and Christ's message of mercy.
This episode is a call to action, prompting listeners to live a life yoked to Jesus, becoming a beacon of God's mercy and love in a world sadly entrenched in rules and judgement.
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Episode Transcript
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Music.
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Good day to you, brothers, sisters, friends, and new faces, and welcome to Current
Events and Christian Expectations.
And today in this podcast, we're going to be talking about the modern-day Pharisees.
We'll start off with Matthew 23, verses 1 through 4, and we'll have several
other scriptures that we reference and read today, and we'll put those in the overview.
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But with the rules for thee, but not for me, as the centerpiece today, let's just dig right in.
Right. Thank you, Randy. Brief history of the Pharisees.
They seem to have organized and originated around 150, 160 BC,
coming out of the problem with Antiochus Epiphanes IV and his desecrating of
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the temple and then the Maccabean revolt of that and so forth.
And they wanted, the original intentions were good to make sure people now followed
the law and they began to use rules and made-up rules to help people follow the law.
Well, not only that, we had the Ten Commandments, and then they had the 316
sub-commandments, right? Yes, yes.
To keep you from breaking the Ten Commandments. Right, right.
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So, it appears that they had good intentions in the beginning,
but it spiraled out of control.
And the rules that were supposedly there to help you do the commandments ended
up actually keeping you from doing the commandments.
That's the problem. them. It's roughly guessed probably around 10% of the population
at any time would be constituted of the Pharisees.
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So they went from good to bad to making an idol of their rules.
The Babylonian captivity supposedly
cured them of idolatry, of the kind making that with your hands.
But now they got into a more sophisticated kind with their rules.
So 10% ran the culture by by running people into the ground.
In all societies, keep this in mind, this is why we're doing the podcast,
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in all societies, ancient and current, it is a minority who run the narrative,
and they're usually Pharisees.
Well, and the Pharisees, they wanted to also legislate morality,
and we have a podcast on that too, right?
Yes, we did. Absolutely, yes.
So let's take a look at Matthew 23, the first four verses, to see how Jesus
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sums this up very neatly. Thank you for watching.
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, The scribes and the Pharisees
sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you,
but not the works they do.
For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens,
hard to bear, and lay them on the people's shoulders, but they themselves are
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not willing to move them with their finger.
That is the very nature and the heart of what Phariseeism is all about. out.
He says, when they sit in Moses' seat, meaning when they are teaching as they
should be, truthfully, following the authority of Moses, so that that is an
authoritative teaching, follow it. It's Scripture.
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Do what they tell you when it's connected to Scripture.
But don't do what they do. Don't do it because what they do is then begin to
add their rules to everything, and disciples are forbidden from doing that.
And notice that these Pharisees tie tie up heavy cumbersome loads,
and they put them on everybody's shoulders, all these rules and regulations,
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but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
That's also characteristic of being a Pharisee.
Well, he also said in another scripture, too, that they make their followers
twice the son of hell than they were.
Yes. When they would bring someone, convert them, so to speak,
into their group, then the ones they convert become worse than the original
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people. It's just, it's a spiraling downward into darkness.
Well, rules for thee and not for me. That's the way they work.
Here's a couple of current examples. Bear with me, we'll read a few things here.
There's been in our country for some time, complaints about a two-tiered system of justice.
In this country. And we're going to give you a couple of examples of the present,
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administration, but then we're going to move from the government into just personal
life where we also have Pharisees.
And keep in mind, we here at Current Events and Christian Expectations,
we're not promoting Democrats, Republicans.
We have no claim, no investment. No, we think they're both equally worthless. Yeah.
Yeah. For years, I would tell people as a minister, you know,
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the Democrats have no no conscience, and the Republicans have no backbone.
And that's why we're in the shape we're in.
But every administration has its corruptions. If we were back in the 80s,
maybe we could do something on the Iran-Contra affair when Mr. Reagan was president.
This is from vigilantnews.com from February 28th of this year, and it's citing Dr.
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Phil. Now, everybody probably knows who I'm talking about. Of course they do. Dr.
Phil has an interview with, now, everybody may not know this guy, Charlemagne Tha God.
Don't know that one. Okay. Yeah. This is a fella. That's his title.
And he's interesting. He's on the left, but he's also sort of like Joe Rogan.
He's interested in things, and we'll look into them and take a look-see.
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Previously, Dr. Phil had, in fact, been interviewed by Joe Rogan about the border
problem in our country and the problem with the COVID-19 and what it did to schools.
Dr. Phil says this about the current U.S. government on this particular interview
quoted quoted by Vigilant News in an interview with Charlemagne, the God.
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Phil says, we got people in charge of solving problems that don't really want
to solve them because their job depends on having that problem.
They need that problem to justify their existence.
They need that problem to maintain this huge bureaucracy, to maintain this big
budget, this big agency.
They need that problem to exist.
I think we got problem in charge of solving problems that are not problem solvers.
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Now, we just, end of quote, apply that to the Pharisees. Their power,
as we see in the New Testament, is dependent on keeping people in check by their
rules so the Pharisees can rule over them.
And they're not going to solve the people's problems that they produced.
They're not willing because that would change the balance of power. And power is important.
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Why? Because if it's not power, it's money.
If it's not money, it's power. And both are equal in terms of greed.
So, when those in charge of the narrative run for their own aggrandizement,
those who need help fall through the cracks.
Such people in charge always present themselves as superior in virtue.
Listen to Luke 20, 46 and 47. 7.
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Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and love greetings
in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor
at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers.
They will receive the greater condemnation. How can Jesus say they devour widows'
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houses? Aren't they law-abiding people?
That's in the Old Testament. Sometimes on every other page, you take care of
the widows and the orphans. And here we're told the Pharisees,
what little they have left to them, which is their house, they take that away from them.
And then they cover it with long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.
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Now, as to money, listen to this from Luke 16, 13 and 14.
No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the
other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and money.
The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him.
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Yes, another way to spot a Pharisee. He'll be a lover of money And he has a
rule about how he uses it And it won't include you or me Yeah So then we have
And now we turn to a real current event Still going on as of yesterday.
Special exemptions Pharisees believe they
have special exemptions That others don't get to make This is from ABC News
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February 8th of this year Special counsel Robert Herr Herr said he will not
recommend charges against President Joe Biden for his handling of classified
documents while out of office,
despite finding evidence that Biden willfully retained materials.
Nonetheless, throughout the 388-page report, Herr painted a dim picture of the
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president, one that his political opponents at once seized on.
As an elderly man with memory issues who could not remember when he finished
his term as vice president, or when his son, Beau, died, we have also considered that at trial, Mr.
Biden would likely, this is her speaking, and he says in quotes,
we have also considered that at trial, Mr.
Biden would likely present himself to a jury as he did during our interview
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of him as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.
He goes on to say, Mr. Biden's memory was significantly limited,
significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with a ghostwriter
in 2017 and his interview with our office in 2023.
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And yet a few days later, when he was taking physical, they said he needs no cognitive test.
He rules for thee, but not for me. Then just this week, this is from March this month of the 11th.
And this is from Jonathan Turley.
And for those who don't know Mr. Turley, he is a well-versed lawyer.
He's a classical liberal.
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He's not on the right. But what I like about him, having read him over the years,
is he knows what he's talking about.
And when he sees a problem, left or right, he brings it out.
So here's what he says. The transcripts are now released. President Biden claimed
no knowledge of any of the classified documents in his home and open in his garage.
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And that is 40 years of memory lapse in the face of open violations of federal law.
In other words, Biden had documents move between his office and his various
homes without his knowledge or involvement.
Unnamed staffers just elected to store the documents wherever he was working or living.
And then responding to a question from Representative Jim Jordan from Ohio about
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whether or not the White House tried to interfere with his investigation and this transcript,
Robert Herr stated that there was pressure from the White House to change the report.
Rules for thee, but not for me.
Such rules become pervasive when Pharisees are in charge, and they can infect anyone.
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Listen to this from Matthew 16, 5-6, and then verse 12.
When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread.
Jesus said to them, Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread,
but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. So Sadducees are infected too.
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They actually teach these things. They go along with the Pharisees.
You always have the enablers of Pharisees.
And that's what Sadducees seem to be. Even though they disagreed on basic doctrine of truth.
Is there a resurrection? Is there life after death?
Are there spirits? They disagreed totally on those subjects,
which are of great import.
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Now, could one successfully refute their teaching? Well, the answer to that is yes and no.
In John chapter 9, Jesus heals a man who's been born blind.
The man born blind gets hauled by some people who know him into the Pharisees
because it's a Sabbath day, and how dare he get healed on a Sabbath day?
Jesus disappears, and then he focuses on this man who's now been healed,
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and he's interrogated, given a third degree by the Pharisees,
and it reaches a point where finally the man born blind realized what's going
on, and sarcastically, he just simply says, is, I see you want to be followers
of him too. You're asking all these questions.
And they are just indignant at that kind of comment coming from him.
And here's the response that we find from them in John 9, 34.
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They answered him, you were born in utter sin, and would you teach us? And they cast him out.
Yes. They are the teachers. We are not. They are pure.
He is not. Those who.
They don't see what the Pharisees are getting at. They're obviously born in sin.
And of course, the Pharisees, they're exempted from true criticism.
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He has criticized them correctly as to what they are.
But of course, they are exempted because they have the power to put you out
of the loop, cut you off, out of the narrative, offend them, and they cast you out.
And in Jesus' case, they plot to kill him, which is the ultimate casting out.
But they are righteous. Oh, they're righteous. Luke 18, 11-14 The Pharisee,
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standing by himself, prayed thus, God, I thank you that I'm not like the other
men, extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to
heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me,
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a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other one.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
Yes. God, I thank you. I'm not like other men because I have made myself what I am.
And not from your grace or your mercy, God. I've done this.
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Besides, I'm not that bad. I'm not that bad. And this tax collector, he's- Even worse.
He's a bottom feeder. Yes. I'm not extortioner, adulterer. I'm not even like
this tax collector. I fast twice a week.
I give tithes of all that I get.
Here's a quote. This is from Adrian Rogers, good old Southern Baptist fellow, died some years back.
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Have you ever wondered what a church full of Pharisees would be like?
One, they would all attend every service. Two, they would all tithe.
Three, they would all work in the church. Four, they'd all go to hell.
And that's about the sum of it. I like Tim. Yeah.
The commands of God are not burdensome. 1 John 5, 3, that's what John says.
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The commands of God are not burdensome.
But people, what Pharisees try to put on you, that's very burdensome. They're unbearable.
That's very unbearable. So
here's what Jesus says in response to that kind of approach toward life.
This is from Matthew 11, 28 and 30.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Gentle and humble in heart, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Yoke means, of course, two oxen would get into the yoke, one on one side and
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one on the other, and they'd be harnessed together.
Jesus would be the lead, and he's easy to follow. He's not jerking you around.
Pharisees jerk you around.
Jesus says, when you get to my yoke, we'll be in coordination,
we'll be in harmony, me because I'm not that way.
My burden is light. It's a burden, but it's light. And see, there's no middle ground.
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And there are Pharisees everywhere, wherever there's an organization.
And I can give you lots of examples in my experience in the world of education,
which is filled with Pharisees. In a teacher's organization? Yeah, believe it or not.
But here's an example I think which points out a little more clearly about what we're talking about.
Back in the 1960s, I was out of the Air Force looking to finish college and
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working my way along with the help from my parents.
Making money in the summertime by working on the C&O Railroad,
which both my father and grandfather had worked, so it wasn't hard to get a
job there with their recommendation.
And I was with a bunch of other young guys my age, and we were doing the hard
work on taking out bad ties and putting new ones in, filling up the ballast
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under the rails. You were a tandy dancer.
Yeah, I was a tandy dancer. That's the word used from the old guys on the job.
And during the summer, you can imagine, Imagine it was a hot job on those steel
rails, out in that gravel, the ballast, the creosote-soaked ties.
So one day, my shoestring was untied, and I'd been down, stooped down,
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actually sort of sitting down on the ground to tie it. Maybe I was a little tired.
And the foreman, whose name was Dutch, got after me. He said, that's a union rule.
You cannot do that. You get up. You get up. I said, get up for what?
He said, you cannot do that and tie your shoestring that way.
And of course, I'm young and a little full of myself, but I said,
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well, that's a stupid rule.
And he said, you're fired. So I thought, okay, I'm fired.
So I just got up, I tied my shoe and began to walk off to go to wherever my car was parked.
I reckon, of course, the rest of the guys, and we had a good camaraderie now, they cheered me.
But here's how that worked out.
I was hired back immediately by the next day because people a little higher up who had.
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More sense than our foreman, realized he didn't handle that well.
And so we had a little speech from the higher-ups, and we all got to get along.
Of course, the rest of the summer, we still had him as a foreman,
and I didn't do it, but the guys would play pranks on him, get after him,
because he was that kind of a guy.
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The next summer, different foreman.
Okay, that was great. And he was a grandfatherly type, and he must have loved
us guys. he had the same rule book, but it's different, you know,
how you look at a rule, whether you have a sense of mercy or you're a Pharisee.
And he gave us the breaks we needed. When it was hot over 90 degrees, you got to drink water.
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You got out of the heat of the rails and the ballast and the ties,
and you went over in a shade tree until you get yourself cooled off,
then you could come back.
Sometimes when you saw the storm coming down the Ohio River,
you'd say, well, it's going to rain. We can't do anything more.
It's already three o'clock.
Well, you say, let's just put the the truck, our tools, and go home.
Well, he saw the rules were there to protect versus control. Exactly. Exactly.
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A rule book will always have to be interpreted by the specific situation to which you apply it.
And you can be merciful or you can be a Pharisee.
Listen to this from James chapter two. And this is one of my favorite verses.
And James, I think right now, it's my my favorite. James 2, 12 and 13.
So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.
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For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.
Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Judgment is without mercy to anyone who's not shown mercy.
That's withering. Mercy triumphs over judgment. In other words,
if you got to interpret something, you have two choices. Jesus, lean into mercy.
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That's the teaching. If you're going to err, better to err on the side of mercy every time. Yes, yes.
So, what happens when rules become an idol? Well, if you're Jesus, you are defiant.
There was a film years ago called The Defiant Ones.
Jesus, when it comes to Pharisees, is the defiant one.
Listen to this from Mark 3, the first six verses.
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Again, he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand.
And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath,
so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, Come here.
And he said to them, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm,
to save life or to kill? But they were silent.
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And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart,
and said to the man, Stretch out your hand.
He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
The Pharisees went out and immediately
held counsel with the Herodians against him how to destroy him.
Right. Right. How to destroy, how to kill Jesus. And we have basically three
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participants here, the Pharisees, Jesus, and the man with the withered hand.
First of all, let's look at the Pharisees. They're already fed up with Jesus.
And Mark chapter one and two, especially chapter two, the preceding chapter, Jesus has been healing.
He heals the man who comes down through the roof, but then forgives him of his sins.
Pharisees have a real issue with that. And then later, Later,
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the Pharisees, because now they're watching him, he's eating with sinners,
the tax collectors and the prostitutes and things like that.
And they raise a fuss about that.
Then they find out that he doesn't fast and his disciples don't.
And they have an issue with that because, as we heard earlier,
a true Pharisee will say, I fast twice a week.
And then they caught the disciples going through the grain fields and taking
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their hands and picking off some of the grains and eating them like we would
for snacks and they got a hold of Jesus and said, why do they do that?
That's a violation of the Sabbath.
Doing that. And Jesus makes this great statement to him. The Sabbath was made
for man, not man, for the Sabbath.
And we're going to come to a conclusion with an incident that shows exactly
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what Jesus means by that statement.
So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.
The Sabbath, in other words, is an act of mercy, as we shall see.
So how dare he heal on the Sabbath? In other In other words,
he'd done all those other things, but now it comes, and the Sabbath rule was
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like the rule of rules for them. And that's why it's so important here.
How dare he heal on the Sabbath? So they are there when Mark 3 starts out.
They're there to see if he's going to do something, if he's going to heal,
because the man with the withered hand is there.
And a lot of attention is on the man with the withered hand.
And then back to Jesus and the Pharisees are there. I picture them lining the
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walls like vultures, just waiting to attack in some way.
Now, in other dialogues with the Pharisees, Jesus has called them that they
have a father named Satan.
So Jesus can be very pointed and to the point of being blunt and he's defiant
when it comes to Pharisees.
He says, you belong to your father, the devil in John 8 44.
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And Jesus is not like current approach.
Tell me your story. Tell me your journey, Pharisee, so I can understand you.
Because if I understood you, then he's not interested in that.
Because they are wrong and they're violating the word of God with their rules all the time.
And teaching people wrong things and putting loads on them that are just spiritually
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killing them. So he is defiant.
In Matthew 15, once again, the disciples err. They forgot to wash their hands ritually.
There's a ritual you go through. where you wash one hand one way,
then you go up to your elbow, then you go up to your elbow, and then you go forearm.
And they didn't do any of that. They just sat down, got their stuff out of their bag, and began eating.
And the Pharisee says, well, that's a violation of the rules,
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of the tradition of the elders.
And Jesus often does, responds to them by pointing out their problem.
He says, well, you guys are really something, because with your rules and regulations,
you violate the law of God.
We've got a commandment that says, honor your father and mother.
And the rules you set up that you can donate money aside for some spiritual
reason and not have to use it when your parents get old and need help,
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and therefore you don't honor your father and mother.
You have many such rules and regulations whereby you violate the very law of God.
So he really pours it onto him. Then listen to this after that scene with the
Pharisees, Matthew 15, 10 through 14. And he called the people to him and said
to them, Hear and understand.
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It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out
of the mouth. This defiles a person.
Then the disciples came and said to him, Do you know that the Pharisees were
offended when they heard this saying?
He answered, Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone.
They are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into
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a pit. it. Well, let's take Jesus' words to heart.
But first, let's understand, these are His disciples, and they're enablers.
They're upset that the Pharisees were offended.
Jesus has hurt their feelings, and they're upset about that.
That shows you what a grip Jesus,
the Pharisees had on disciples who already had been spending at least a year
or longer in the ministry of Jesus.
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Lord, don't you know that you offended them when you said that?
You don't have to be that way, do you?
And of course, his response is, if they're not planted by God the Father,
it doesn't matter because let them alone, they're blind guides.
And if the blind lead the blind, and meaning if you want to be blind,
you're going to fall into a ditch.
And so the disciples are defender of the Pharisees. And once again,
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Jesus has to take them and say, no.
Here's a good quote from Craig Groeschel. If you are not offending some Pharisees,
you are not being effective.
Ooh, that's interesting. Yeah, that's a good quote.
In other words, if a person is a Pharisee and you're not offending them,
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you're a disciple enabling them because you don't want to hurt their feelings
because they're in control and And they got the rules.
There's a quote from Don Quixote.
He says, I know we are moving, Pedro, because I can hear the dogs barking.
Yeah. That the minute you're moving and doing something, the dogs are going to bark at you.
You're not doing it right. You're not doing it fast enough. You're not doing it our way.
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But you're the one doing it. And so you've attracted all the ire. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, the man with a shriveled, withered hand is now the center of attention. It's interesting.
Apparently, he was the only one in the synagogue at that day who had a need to be healed.
His hand, which in those days would have made it very hard for him to work for
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a living. A palsy of some kind.
Palsy or whatever, but it's shriveled up. It's convoluted. It doesn't work.
Fork, how conspicuous is he?
Well, first of all, he knows the Pharisees. He knows how they are.
And how would, put yourself in his shoes.
You know Jesus heals. There's no knowledge yet that he does it on the Sabbath.
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And you know what the Pharisees think of the Sabbath.
Will he heal on the Sabbath or will he follow the rules of the Pharisees? He wants to be healed.
But at the same time, I'm sure he's not expecting what Jesus does.
What does Jesus do? Well, before we get to what Jesus does with the man with the withered hand.
Let's pick up Matthew 12, 9 through 10, because this shows something that happened
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that caused Jesus to ask the question he did that we just heard Randy read from Mark 3.
So we need to put harmony of the gospels, need to put these two together.
It's the same incident, same synagogue, same day, but Matthew 12, 9, 10.
He went on from there and entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a
withered hand, and they asked him, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath,
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so that they might accuse him? Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?
Now, we come back to Jesus' response, which he often does, a question with a question of his own.
They ask, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? In Mark 3, verse 4,
Jesus then asked them, which is lawful on the Sabbath? In other words,
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glad you brought up the subject.
Let's discuss it. Which is lawful? You tell me.
Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil? to save life or to kill
life, but they remain silent, says Mark.
Well, they can't deny the good because obviously you can't say,
well, no, you can't do good on the Sabbath. That would put them in an odd situation.
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And then to save life or kill, clearly they would want to save life in extremis.
They did have a out on one of the rules where if you were going down for the
third time, something like that.
You might go ahead on the Sabbath day and save somebody.
But there's all kinds of ways to save a life. And that's what Jesus is saying.
This man's going to have his hand saved.
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If your arm or hand doesn't work and it's been that way for a long time,
wouldn't you want on any given day, if somebody says, I can fix that for you?
To let them do it. Yeah. You want it done.
So Jesus comes right back at them.
And their problem is healing is a good thing. They know it, but they don't want it on the Sabbath.
Their rules are more important than giving relief to a man when there's all
(29:16):
the kinds of power right there in the person of Jesus and his ministry to get it done.
Also, know this, the man knows that if he gets healed by Jesus.
Then he's going to be a living symbol of Jesus's defiance.
He's not going to be on the good side eye to the Pharisees. He's going to be
a walking testimony of what Jesus has done in defying the Pharisees and Jesus
(29:41):
doing his own thing as he believes it needs to be done.
So we need to keep that in mind as well.
So let's take a look now at what happens. He says to the man, stand up, right?
Come up, come stand up, come right up here and pay attention.
So the man has to get up and and become the center of attention.
(30:02):
I don't know if he was, I mean, a lot of tension going on now.
The Pharisees have made the advance and said, can you do this? You think it's right?
Jesus dialogues with them, says, ah, yes, you gotta do good on the Sabbath.
And then stand up, and the man stands up.
So, I'm sure you could hear a needle drop now in that synagogue.
(30:24):
Then Mark 3, verse 5. And he looked around at them with anger,
grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, Stretch out your hand.
He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
Exactly. Let's look at that. He looked around at them, person by person,
face to face, in anger, yes, and deeply grieved, distressed.
(30:49):
I mean, the anger is there, but deeper than his anger is his grief that people
can be so perverted with their rules and regulations that they cannot see that
healing someone on any day,
but later as we'll see, especially on the Sabbath is the time to do it.
If you're there and it's proper, I mean, you're having a Sabbath meeting is
(31:11):
the most wonderful thing of all.
They are totally warped.
Jesus has great grief. Well, he's the man of sorrows. So stretch out your hand.
Now, here's a good question. Who's working now, Jesus or the man?
The man's working. He stretches out his hand, and it's automatically, immediately healed.
(31:32):
What's the reaction of the Pharisees? Mark 3, verse 6.
The Pharisees went out and immediately
held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
Right. That's their reaction. He did a healing on the Sabbath.
And he must die, you say, oh, surely there are not people around here in today's world like that.
(31:54):
Yes, they are everywhere. Everywhere. There's Pharisees in every earthly organization.
Everywhere. And when their rules get broken, their heart is going to be like
often the Pharisees, you know, that guy needs to drop dead. He broke my rule. He needs to go.
But okay, maybe we're are being too difficult, too hard on the Pharisees.
(32:15):
Let's look at Luke 13, verses 10 through 13.
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.
And behold, there was a woman who had a disabling spirit for eighteen years.
She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.
When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, Woman,
you are freed from your disability. and he laid his hands on her and immediately
(32:38):
she was made straight and she glorified God.
Right. Immediately she was healed. Now, think of it.
18 years been over. This means that your face was closer to your toes than anything else on your body.
You look like a U-shaped, kind of upside down U.
And notice what Jesus does. It's on the Sabbath, when he saw her,
(33:03):
verse 12, he calls her forward.
This is going to be an object lesson again for the Pharisees.
And then he goes and heals her immediately.
Now, does he ask permission from the Pharisees to do this? No.
Does he ask permission from the people gathered in the synagogue?
No. Does he ask permission from the bullmen? No.
(33:23):
He just says, come over here, come forward in front of everybody.
That's defiance. And Jesus does it regularly, always, with the Pharisees.
Well, one of the Pharisees there, who's what they call the ruler of the synagogue,
he's got a reaction to this. Let's take a look at it. Luke 13, 14.
(33:44):
But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath,
said to the people, There are six days in which work ought to be done.
Come on those days and be healed and not on the Sabbath day.
Okay, he is indignant. Now, we have to ask the question, why is he so upset,
especially on the Sabbath?
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Well, one is, as I said, that was the Sabbath and the rules about it was the
essence, the epitome of their rule system.
And they have protocols. Let me, if I can read his mind and interpret it,
he's saying, listen, Jesus, He says, we've got protocols here.
Things are going to be done decently in order. This is disruptive. It's out of order.
(34:26):
And we're trying to have worship of God Almighty here.
And you can do that healing on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday. But not on Saturday, not on the Sabbath.
It's just, it's wrong.
Okay. You could have done it on any other day. Where's your respect for us?
Now, that's basically his thinking.
(34:47):
Now listen to Jesus' reply, Luke 13, 15.
Then the Lord answered him, You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath
untie his ox or donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it?
Take note that Jesus has observed what Pharisees do on the Sabbath day.
They've been looking to see what he does. Long before that, he was already watching
(35:09):
what they do on the Sabbath.
They have more mercy for their animal than for people.
Rules for thee, but not for me.
And here's what he says then, Jesus says, after he says, listen,
I've been watching you guys.
Here's how you treat your animals. You're merciful to them.
You know, Luke 13, verse 16.
(35:31):
And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound for 18 years,
be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?
Yes. Notice how he says it. This woman who's been bent over for 18 years,
shouldn't it be this day of all days, the Sabbath day, that she should be set free?
(35:52):
She's not going to suffer one more day.
That's right. She's going to have Sabbath as a day of worship and praise,
a day of freedom and restoration, a time to get our spirits renewed and all of that.
Jesus has a radical radical view of mercy, more radical than the rules of the
Pharisees. Here's the Pharisees, radical.
(36:13):
She's been that way for 18 years. One more day won't matter. Keep the rules.
Here's Jesus's radical mercy. She's been this way for 18 years. Enough is enough.
Today she's set free on the Sabbath, which is to be a day of joy,
of worship, of restoration, to regain rest.
And And she's going to now finally have rest like she's never had for 18 years.
(36:37):
So it's altogether appropriate the day of rest that she'll get that on the Sabbath
day. And everybody, of course, praises God.
Well, what happens now to the indignant ruler and his friends? Luke 13, 17.
As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame,
and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
(37:00):
Right. Right. If we use the NIV, humiliated. When he said this,
all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted.
Humiliated, made to be shameful. So Jesus goes over and apologizes.
I'm sorry I hurt your feelings.
No, it does not happen. No, it does not happen.
And here, as we finish up, is a really important note.
(37:25):
As the resurrected and enthroned Jesus in heaven, he's crucified,
he's raised on the third day.
Forty days later, he ascends off Mount of Olives back into heaven at the throne
of God, as Peter says in Acts 2 and book of Hebrews chapter 1 and various other
places in the New Testament, the right hand of God.
Even as the resurrected and enthroned Jesus in heaven as we speak,
(37:48):
his mind hasn't changed one bit about Pharisees.
Because what happens is there's a guy named Saul, and he's going around and
he's taking Christians, either he's having them killed, approving of it,
or trying to make them blaspheme.
He's on a rampage against them. In Acts chapter 9, he's on his way to Damascus
to get more Christians and put them in jail or do whatever he can to them.
(38:12):
And of course, we know what happens.
Jesus speaks, a light breaks through, he's knocked off his donkey into the dust.
And Jesus says, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
Okay, right there, keep in mind, Jesus takes this personally.
Yes, they're persecuting his people, which Paul later recalled the body of Christ,
(38:33):
but Christ is so involved with his people, it's like he is the one. You're doing it to him.
You're doing it to me, and I take that personally.
And so when Saul says, who are you, sir, or who are you, Lord?
And of course, he's not confessing Lord, he just knows someone superior to him.
I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Now get up, go into the city and it'll
(38:53):
be told you there what to do.
Not so much as a, I'm sorry, I knocked you down. I'm sorry, you're blind.
I'm sorry, this has been disturbing to you. Now, Saul, later known as Paul,
by his own confession was a, Philippians 3, Pharisee of Pharisees.
Now think of the Pharisees of Jesus' time, but Paul says, I was the Pharisee of Pharisees.
(39:17):
And then in 1 Timothy 1, he describes describes himself as a,
had been a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent.
And before King Agrippa, as we come to Acts 26, he's defending himself there
ostensibly against false accusations,
but it gives him, as it does in other places, a time to give his testimony of
(39:38):
what happened to him on the road to Damascus that changed him from being a Pharisee
to the apostle to the Gentiles.
Listen to this as he's talking to King Agrippa, Acts 26, 6, 10, and 11.
And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison
after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to
(39:59):
death, I cast my vote against them.
And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme.
And in a raging fury against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.
Yes, I was there when they were put to death. I cast my vote against them. They gotta die.
I punished them often in many ways, tried to make them blaspheme,
(40:21):
which means put them under some kind of torture, a raging fury, and to foreign cities.
This is always the result of those who are convinced they have a duty to punish
those who don't follow their rules.
And if they got the power to do it, you know what will happen?
They'll do it. They'll use it. But notice Jesus. Jesus is always full of surprises.
(40:44):
The Pharisees were the ones who plotted to kill him. He had trouble with them his entire ministry.
But Jesus chose Saul of Tarsus and put him in his service.
Why? Why? Because now he has a man who would truly know the difference between God's word and man's.
And that's why he gets to be the apostle to Gentiles. Paul's not going to be
(41:06):
confused about the word of God versus the rules of man.
God's ways are not burdensome. His yoke is easy, his burden is light.
Beware of the Pharisees, either in the government or in your hometown,
town, in your church, or where you work.
Don't do what they do. We are to live a life of being yoked to Jesus,
(41:28):
which will bless others, to see that mercy triumphs over judgment.
And that's the Christian expectation.
Well, that's it for the Pharisees. We sure all know one here or there.
And you might have questions or comments about them or about the lesson today.
And if you do, please send your questions or comments to eventsandexpectations
(41:51):
at gmail.com or leave a comment in the comment section of the podcast.
Also, if you'd like to hear a specific lesson or a specific topic,
please let us know or let us know how this program has blessed you.
This has been Current Events and Christian Expectations. Until next time, keep looking up.
Music.
(00:07):
Good day to you, brothers, sisters, friends, and new faces, and welcome to Current
Events and Christian Expectations.
And today in this podcast, we're going to be talking about the modern-day Pharisees.
We'll start off with Matthew 23, verses 1 through 4, and we'll have several
other scriptures that we reference and read today, and we'll put those in the overview.
(00:28):
But with the rules for thee, but not for me, as the centerpiece today, let's just dig right in.
Right. Thank you, Randy. Brief history of the Pharisees.
They seem to have organized and originated around 150, 160 BC,
coming out of the problem with Antiochus Epiphanes IV and his desecrating of
(00:53):
the temple and then the Maccabean revolt of that and so forth.
And they wanted, the original intentions were good to make sure people now followed
the law and they began to use rules and made-up rules to help people follow the law.
Well, not only that, we had the Ten Commandments, and then they had the 316
sub-commandments, right? Yes, yes.
To keep you from breaking the Ten Commandments. Right, right.
(01:15):
So, it appears that they had good intentions in the beginning,
but it spiraled out of control.
And the rules that were supposedly there to help you do the commandments ended
up actually keeping you from doing the commandments.
That's the problem. them. It's roughly guessed probably around 10% of the population
at any time would be constituted of the Pharisees.
(01:39):
So they went from good to bad to making an idol of their rules.
The Babylonian captivity supposedly
cured them of idolatry, of the kind making that with your hands.
But now they got into a more sophisticated kind with their rules.
So 10% ran the culture by by running people into the ground.
In all societies, keep this in mind, this is why we're doing the podcast,
(02:03):
in all societies, ancient and current, it is a minority who run the narrative,
and they're usually Pharisees.
Well, and the Pharisees, they wanted to also legislate morality,
and we have a podcast on that too, right?
Yes, we did. Absolutely, yes.
So let's take a look at Matthew 23, the first four verses, to see how Jesus
(02:25):
sums this up very neatly. Thank you for watching.
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, The scribes and the Pharisees
sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you,
but not the works they do.
For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens,
hard to bear, and lay them on the people's shoulders, but they themselves are
(02:47):
not willing to move them with their finger.
That is the very nature and the heart of what Phariseeism is all about. out.
He says, when they sit in Moses' seat, meaning when they are teaching as they
should be, truthfully, following the authority of Moses, so that that is an
authoritative teaching, follow it. It's Scripture.
(03:08):
Do what they tell you when it's connected to Scripture.
But don't do what they do. Don't do it because what they do is then begin to
add their rules to everything, and disciples are forbidden from doing that.
And notice that these Pharisees tie tie up heavy cumbersome loads,
and they put them on everybody's shoulders, all these rules and regulations,
(03:29):
but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
That's also characteristic of being a Pharisee.
Well, he also said in another scripture, too, that they make their followers
twice the son of hell than they were.
Yes. When they would bring someone, convert them, so to speak,
into their group, then the ones they convert become worse than the original
(03:51):
people. It's just, it's a spiraling downward into darkness.
Well, rules for thee and not for me. That's the way they work.
Here's a couple of current examples. Bear with me, we'll read a few things here.
There's been in our country for some time, complaints about a two-tiered system of justice.
In this country. And we're going to give you a couple of examples of the present,
(04:16):
administration, but then we're going to move from the government into just personal
life where we also have Pharisees.
And keep in mind, we here at Current Events and Christian Expectations,
we're not promoting Democrats, Republicans.
We have no claim, no investment. No, we think they're both equally worthless. Yeah.
Yeah. For years, I would tell people as a minister, you know,
(04:36):
the Democrats have no no conscience, and the Republicans have no backbone.
And that's why we're in the shape we're in.
But every administration has its corruptions. If we were back in the 80s,
maybe we could do something on the Iran-Contra affair when Mr. Reagan was president.
This is from vigilantnews.com from February 28th of this year, and it's citing Dr.
(04:57):
Phil. Now, everybody probably knows who I'm talking about. Of course they do. Dr.
Phil has an interview with, now, everybody may not know this guy, Charlemagne Tha God.
Don't know that one. Okay. Yeah. This is a fella. That's his title.
And he's interesting. He's on the left, but he's also sort of like Joe Rogan.
He's interested in things, and we'll look into them and take a look-see.
(05:20):
Previously, Dr. Phil had, in fact, been interviewed by Joe Rogan about the border
problem in our country and the problem with the COVID-19 and what it did to schools.
Dr. Phil says this about the current U.S. government on this particular interview
quoted quoted by Vigilant News in an interview with Charlemagne, the God.
(05:41):
Phil says, we got people in charge of solving problems that don't really want
to solve them because their job depends on having that problem.
They need that problem to justify their existence.
They need that problem to maintain this huge bureaucracy, to maintain this big
budget, this big agency.
They need that problem to exist.
I think we got problem in charge of solving problems that are not problem solvers.
(06:06):
Now, we just, end of quote, apply that to the Pharisees. Their power,
as we see in the New Testament, is dependent on keeping people in check by their
rules so the Pharisees can rule over them.
And they're not going to solve the people's problems that they produced.
They're not willing because that would change the balance of power. And power is important.
(06:27):
Why? Because if it's not power, it's money.
If it's not money, it's power. And both are equal in terms of greed.
So, when those in charge of the narrative run for their own aggrandizement,
those who need help fall through the cracks.
Such people in charge always present themselves as superior in virtue.
Listen to Luke 20, 46 and 47. 7.
(06:50):
Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and love greetings
in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor
at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers.
They will receive the greater condemnation. How can Jesus say they devour widows'
(07:11):
houses? Aren't they law-abiding people?
That's in the Old Testament. Sometimes on every other page, you take care of
the widows and the orphans. And here we're told the Pharisees,
what little they have left to them, which is their house, they take that away from them.
And then they cover it with long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.
(07:33):
Now, as to money, listen to this from Luke 16, 13 and 14.
No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the
other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and money.
The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him.
(07:53):
Yes, another way to spot a Pharisee. He'll be a lover of money And he has a
rule about how he uses it And it won't include you or me Yeah So then we have
And now we turn to a real current event Still going on as of yesterday.
Special exemptions Pharisees believe they
have special exemptions That others don't get to make This is from ABC News
(08:18):
February 8th of this year Special counsel Robert Herr Herr said he will not
recommend charges against President Joe Biden for his handling of classified
documents while out of office,
despite finding evidence that Biden willfully retained materials.
Nonetheless, throughout the 388-page report, Herr painted a dim picture of the
(08:45):
president, one that his political opponents at once seized on.
As an elderly man with memory issues who could not remember when he finished
his term as vice president, or when his son, Beau, died, we have also considered that at trial, Mr.
Biden would likely, this is her speaking, and he says in quotes,
we have also considered that at trial, Mr.
Biden would likely present himself to a jury as he did during our interview
(09:09):
of him as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.
He goes on to say, Mr. Biden's memory was significantly limited,
significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with a ghostwriter
in 2017 and his interview with our office in 2023.
(09:31):
And yet a few days later, when he was taking physical, they said he needs no cognitive test.
He rules for thee, but not for me. Then just this week, this is from March this month of the 11th.
And this is from Jonathan Turley.
And for those who don't know Mr. Turley, he is a well-versed lawyer.
He's a classical liberal.
(09:51):
He's not on the right. But what I like about him, having read him over the years,
is he knows what he's talking about.
And when he sees a problem, left or right, he brings it out.
So here's what he says. The transcripts are now released. President Biden claimed
no knowledge of any of the classified documents in his home and open in his garage.
(10:15):
And that is 40 years of memory lapse in the face of open violations of federal law.
In other words, Biden had documents move between his office and his various
homes without his knowledge or involvement.
Unnamed staffers just elected to store the documents wherever he was working or living.
And then responding to a question from Representative Jim Jordan from Ohio about
(10:40):
whether or not the White House tried to interfere with his investigation and this transcript,
Robert Herr stated that there was pressure from the White House to change the report.
Rules for thee, but not for me.
Such rules become pervasive when Pharisees are in charge, and they can infect anyone.
(11:02):
Listen to this from Matthew 16, 5-6, and then verse 12.
When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread.
Jesus said to them, Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread,
but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. So Sadducees are infected too.
(11:26):
They actually teach these things. They go along with the Pharisees.
You always have the enablers of Pharisees.
And that's what Sadducees seem to be. Even though they disagreed on basic doctrine of truth.
Is there a resurrection? Is there life after death?
Are there spirits? They disagreed totally on those subjects,
which are of great import.
(11:47):
Now, could one successfully refute their teaching? Well, the answer to that is yes and no.
In John chapter 9, Jesus heals a man who's been born blind.
The man born blind gets hauled by some people who know him into the Pharisees
because it's a Sabbath day, and how dare he get healed on a Sabbath day?
Jesus disappears, and then he focuses on this man who's now been healed,
(12:11):
and he's interrogated, given a third degree by the Pharisees,
and it reaches a point where finally the man born blind realized what's going
on, and sarcastically, he just simply says, is, I see you want to be followers
of him too. You're asking all these questions.
And they are just indignant at that kind of comment coming from him.
And here's the response that we find from them in John 9, 34.
(12:35):
They answered him, you were born in utter sin, and would you teach us? And they cast him out.
Yes. They are the teachers. We are not. They are pure.
He is not. Those who.
They don't see what the Pharisees are getting at. They're obviously born in sin.
And of course, the Pharisees, they're exempted from true criticism.
(12:58):
He has criticized them correctly as to what they are.
But of course, they are exempted because they have the power to put you out
of the loop, cut you off, out of the narrative, offend them, and they cast you out.
And in Jesus' case, they plot to kill him, which is the ultimate casting out.
But they are righteous. Oh, they're righteous. Luke 18, 11-14 The Pharisee,
(13:22):
standing by himself, prayed thus, God, I thank you that I'm not like the other
men, extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to
heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me,
(13:46):
a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other one.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
Yes. God, I thank you. I'm not like other men because I have made myself what I am.
And not from your grace or your mercy, God. I've done this.
(14:06):
Besides, I'm not that bad. I'm not that bad. And this tax collector, he's- Even worse.
He's a bottom feeder. Yes. I'm not extortioner, adulterer. I'm not even like
this tax collector. I fast twice a week.
I give tithes of all that I get.
Here's a quote. This is from Adrian Rogers, good old Southern Baptist fellow, died some years back.
(14:27):
Have you ever wondered what a church full of Pharisees would be like?
One, they would all attend every service. Two, they would all tithe.
Three, they would all work in the church. Four, they'd all go to hell.
And that's about the sum of it. I like Tim. Yeah.
The commands of God are not burdensome. 1 John 5, 3, that's what John says.
(14:53):
The commands of God are not burdensome.
But people, what Pharisees try to put on you, that's very burdensome. They're unbearable.
That's very unbearable. So
here's what Jesus says in response to that kind of approach toward life.
This is from Matthew 11, 28 and 30.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
(15:14):
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Gentle and humble in heart, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Yoke means, of course, two oxen would get into the yoke, one on one side and
(15:35):
one on the other, and they'd be harnessed together.
Jesus would be the lead, and he's easy to follow. He's not jerking you around.
Pharisees jerk you around.
Jesus says, when you get to my yoke, we'll be in coordination,
we'll be in harmony, me because I'm not that way.
My burden is light. It's a burden, but it's light. And see, there's no middle ground.
(15:58):
And there are Pharisees everywhere, wherever there's an organization.
And I can give you lots of examples in my experience in the world of education,
which is filled with Pharisees. In a teacher's organization? Yeah, believe it or not.
But here's an example I think which points out a little more clearly about what we're talking about.
Back in the 1960s, I was out of the Air Force looking to finish college and
(16:19):
working my way along with the help from my parents.
Making money in the summertime by working on the C&O Railroad,
which both my father and grandfather had worked, so it wasn't hard to get a
job there with their recommendation.
And I was with a bunch of other young guys my age, and we were doing the hard
work on taking out bad ties and putting new ones in, filling up the ballast
(16:40):
under the rails. You were a tandy dancer.
Yeah, I was a tandy dancer. That's the word used from the old guys on the job.
And during the summer, you can imagine, Imagine it was a hot job on those steel
rails, out in that gravel, the ballast, the creosote-soaked ties.
So one day, my shoestring was untied, and I'd been down, stooped down,
(17:02):
actually sort of sitting down on the ground to tie it. Maybe I was a little tired.
And the foreman, whose name was Dutch, got after me. He said, that's a union rule.
You cannot do that. You get up. You get up. I said, get up for what?
He said, you cannot do that and tie your shoestring that way.
And of course, I'm young and a little full of myself, but I said,
(17:22):
well, that's a stupid rule.
And he said, you're fired. So I thought, okay, I'm fired.
So I just got up, I tied my shoe and began to walk off to go to wherever my car was parked.
I reckon, of course, the rest of the guys, and we had a good camaraderie now, they cheered me.
But here's how that worked out.
I was hired back immediately by the next day because people a little higher up who had.
(17:48):
More sense than our foreman, realized he didn't handle that well.
And so we had a little speech from the higher-ups, and we all got to get along.
Of course, the rest of the summer, we still had him as a foreman,
and I didn't do it, but the guys would play pranks on him, get after him,
because he was that kind of a guy.
(18:08):
The next summer, different foreman.
Okay, that was great. And he was a grandfatherly type, and he must have loved
us guys. he had the same rule book, but it's different, you know,
how you look at a rule, whether you have a sense of mercy or you're a Pharisee.
And he gave us the breaks we needed. When it was hot over 90 degrees, you got to drink water.
(18:30):
You got out of the heat of the rails and the ballast and the ties,
and you went over in a shade tree until you get yourself cooled off,
then you could come back.
Sometimes when you saw the storm coming down the Ohio River,
you'd say, well, it's going to rain. We can't do anything more.
It's already three o'clock.
Well, you say, let's just put the the truck, our tools, and go home.
Well, he saw the rules were there to protect versus control. Exactly. Exactly.
(18:54):
A rule book will always have to be interpreted by the specific situation to which you apply it.
And you can be merciful or you can be a Pharisee.
Listen to this from James chapter two. And this is one of my favorite verses.
And James, I think right now, it's my my favorite. James 2, 12 and 13.
So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.
(19:20):
For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.
Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Judgment is without mercy to anyone who's not shown mercy.
That's withering. Mercy triumphs over judgment. In other words,
if you got to interpret something, you have two choices. Jesus, lean into mercy.
(19:40):
That's the teaching. If you're going to err, better to err on the side of mercy every time. Yes, yes.
So, what happens when rules become an idol? Well, if you're Jesus, you are defiant.
There was a film years ago called The Defiant Ones.
Jesus, when it comes to Pharisees, is the defiant one.
Listen to this from Mark 3, the first six verses.
(20:03):
Again, he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand.
And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath,
so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, Come here.
And he said to them, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm,
to save life or to kill? But they were silent.
(20:23):
And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart,
and said to the man, Stretch out your hand.
He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
The Pharisees went out and immediately
held counsel with the Herodians against him how to destroy him.
Right. Right. How to destroy, how to kill Jesus. And we have basically three
(20:45):
participants here, the Pharisees, Jesus, and the man with the withered hand.
First of all, let's look at the Pharisees. They're already fed up with Jesus.
And Mark chapter one and two, especially chapter two, the preceding chapter, Jesus has been healing.
He heals the man who comes down through the roof, but then forgives him of his sins.
Pharisees have a real issue with that. And then later, Later,
(21:07):
the Pharisees, because now they're watching him, he's eating with sinners,
the tax collectors and the prostitutes and things like that.
And they raise a fuss about that.
Then they find out that he doesn't fast and his disciples don't.
And they have an issue with that because, as we heard earlier,
a true Pharisee will say, I fast twice a week.
And then they caught the disciples going through the grain fields and taking
(21:34):
their hands and picking off some of the grains and eating them like we would
for snacks and they got a hold of Jesus and said, why do they do that?
That's a violation of the Sabbath.
Doing that. And Jesus makes this great statement to him. The Sabbath was made
for man, not man, for the Sabbath.
And we're going to come to a conclusion with an incident that shows exactly
(21:55):
what Jesus means by that statement.
So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.
The Sabbath, in other words, is an act of mercy, as we shall see.
So how dare he heal on the Sabbath? In other In other words,
he'd done all those other things, but now it comes, and the Sabbath rule was
(22:15):
like the rule of rules for them. And that's why it's so important here.
How dare he heal on the Sabbath? So they are there when Mark 3 starts out.
They're there to see if he's going to do something, if he's going to heal,
because the man with the withered hand is there.
And a lot of attention is on the man with the withered hand.
And then back to Jesus and the Pharisees are there. I picture them lining the
(22:38):
walls like vultures, just waiting to attack in some way.
Now, in other dialogues with the Pharisees, Jesus has called them that they
have a father named Satan.
So Jesus can be very pointed and to the point of being blunt and he's defiant
when it comes to Pharisees.
He says, you belong to your father, the devil in John 8 44.
(23:00):
And Jesus is not like current approach.
Tell me your story. Tell me your journey, Pharisee, so I can understand you.
Because if I understood you, then he's not interested in that.
Because they are wrong and they're violating the word of God with their rules all the time.
And teaching people wrong things and putting loads on them that are just spiritually
(23:22):
killing them. So he is defiant.
In Matthew 15, once again, the disciples err. They forgot to wash their hands ritually.
There's a ritual you go through. where you wash one hand one way,
then you go up to your elbow, then you go up to your elbow, and then you go forearm.
And they didn't do any of that. They just sat down, got their stuff out of their bag, and began eating.
And the Pharisee says, well, that's a violation of the rules,
(23:46):
of the tradition of the elders.
And Jesus often does, responds to them by pointing out their problem.
He says, well, you guys are really something, because with your rules and regulations,
you violate the law of God.
We've got a commandment that says, honor your father and mother.
And the rules you set up that you can donate money aside for some spiritual
reason and not have to use it when your parents get old and need help,
(24:09):
and therefore you don't honor your father and mother.
You have many such rules and regulations whereby you violate the very law of God.
So he really pours it onto him. Then listen to this after that scene with the
Pharisees, Matthew 15, 10 through 14. And he called the people to him and said
to them, Hear and understand.
(24:29):
It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out
of the mouth. This defiles a person.
Then the disciples came and said to him, Do you know that the Pharisees were
offended when they heard this saying?
He answered, Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone.
They are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into
(24:53):
a pit. it. Well, let's take Jesus' words to heart.
But first, let's understand, these are His disciples, and they're enablers.
They're upset that the Pharisees were offended.
Jesus has hurt their feelings, and they're upset about that.
That shows you what a grip Jesus,
the Pharisees had on disciples who already had been spending at least a year
or longer in the ministry of Jesus.
(25:14):
Lord, don't you know that you offended them when you said that?
You don't have to be that way, do you?
And of course, his response is, if they're not planted by God the Father,
it doesn't matter because let them alone, they're blind guides.
And if the blind lead the blind, and meaning if you want to be blind,
you're going to fall into a ditch.
And so the disciples are defender of the Pharisees. And once again,
(25:36):
Jesus has to take them and say, no.
Here's a good quote from Craig Groeschel. If you are not offending some Pharisees,
you are not being effective.
Ooh, that's interesting. Yeah, that's a good quote.
In other words, if a person is a Pharisee and you're not offending them,
(25:56):
you're a disciple enabling them because you don't want to hurt their feelings
because they're in control and And they got the rules.
There's a quote from Don Quixote.
He says, I know we are moving, Pedro, because I can hear the dogs barking.
Yeah. That the minute you're moving and doing something, the dogs are going to bark at you.
You're not doing it right. You're not doing it fast enough. You're not doing it our way.
(26:19):
But you're the one doing it. And so you've attracted all the ire. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, the man with a shriveled, withered hand is now the center of attention. It's interesting.
Apparently, he was the only one in the synagogue at that day who had a need to be healed.
His hand, which in those days would have made it very hard for him to work for
(26:43):
a living. A palsy of some kind.
Palsy or whatever, but it's shriveled up. It's convoluted. It doesn't work.
Fork, how conspicuous is he?
Well, first of all, he knows the Pharisees. He knows how they are.
And how would, put yourself in his shoes.
You know Jesus heals. There's no knowledge yet that he does it on the Sabbath.
(27:05):
And you know what the Pharisees think of the Sabbath.
Will he heal on the Sabbath or will he follow the rules of the Pharisees? He wants to be healed.
But at the same time, I'm sure he's not expecting what Jesus does.
What does Jesus do? Well, before we get to what Jesus does with the man with the withered hand.
Let's pick up Matthew 12, 9 through 10, because this shows something that happened
(27:26):
that caused Jesus to ask the question he did that we just heard Randy read from Mark 3.
So we need to put harmony of the gospels, need to put these two together.
It's the same incident, same synagogue, same day, but Matthew 12, 9, 10.
He went on from there and entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a
withered hand, and they asked him, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath,
(27:48):
so that they might accuse him? Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?
Now, we come back to Jesus' response, which he often does, a question with a question of his own.
They ask, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? In Mark 3, verse 4,
Jesus then asked them, which is lawful on the Sabbath? In other words,
(28:10):
glad you brought up the subject.
Let's discuss it. Which is lawful? You tell me.
Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil? to save life or to kill
life, but they remain silent, says Mark.
Well, they can't deny the good because obviously you can't say,
well, no, you can't do good on the Sabbath. That would put them in an odd situation.
(28:32):
And then to save life or kill, clearly they would want to save life in extremis.
They did have a out on one of the rules where if you were going down for the
third time, something like that.
You might go ahead on the Sabbath day and save somebody.
But there's all kinds of ways to save a life. And that's what Jesus is saying.
This man's going to have his hand saved.
(28:53):
If your arm or hand doesn't work and it's been that way for a long time,
wouldn't you want on any given day, if somebody says, I can fix that for you?
To let them do it. Yeah. You want it done.
So Jesus comes right back at them.
And their problem is healing is a good thing. They know it, but they don't want it on the Sabbath.
Their rules are more important than giving relief to a man when there's all
(29:16):
the kinds of power right there in the person of Jesus and his ministry to get it done.
Also, know this, the man knows that if he gets healed by Jesus.
Then he's going to be a living symbol of Jesus's defiance.
He's not going to be on the good side eye to the Pharisees. He's going to be
a walking testimony of what Jesus has done in defying the Pharisees and Jesus
(29:41):
doing his own thing as he believes it needs to be done.
So we need to keep that in mind as well.
So let's take a look now at what happens. He says to the man, stand up, right?
Come up, come stand up, come right up here and pay attention.
So the man has to get up and and become the center of attention.
(30:02):
I don't know if he was, I mean, a lot of tension going on now.
The Pharisees have made the advance and said, can you do this? You think it's right?
Jesus dialogues with them, says, ah, yes, you gotta do good on the Sabbath.
And then stand up, and the man stands up.
So, I'm sure you could hear a needle drop now in that synagogue.
(30:24):
Then Mark 3, verse 5. And he looked around at them with anger,
grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, Stretch out your hand.
He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
Exactly. Let's look at that. He looked around at them, person by person,
face to face, in anger, yes, and deeply grieved, distressed.
(30:49):
I mean, the anger is there, but deeper than his anger is his grief that people
can be so perverted with their rules and regulations that they cannot see that
healing someone on any day,
but later as we'll see, especially on the Sabbath is the time to do it.
If you're there and it's proper, I mean, you're having a Sabbath meeting is
(31:11):
the most wonderful thing of all.
They are totally warped.
Jesus has great grief. Well, he's the man of sorrows. So stretch out your hand.
Now, here's a good question. Who's working now, Jesus or the man?
The man's working. He stretches out his hand, and it's automatically, immediately healed.
(31:32):
What's the reaction of the Pharisees? Mark 3, verse 6.
The Pharisees went out and immediately
held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
Right. That's their reaction. He did a healing on the Sabbath.
And he must die, you say, oh, surely there are not people around here in today's world like that.
(31:54):
Yes, they are everywhere. Everywhere. There's Pharisees in every earthly organization.
Everywhere. And when their rules get broken, their heart is going to be like
often the Pharisees, you know, that guy needs to drop dead. He broke my rule. He needs to go.
But okay, maybe we're are being too difficult, too hard on the Pharisees.
(32:15):
Let's look at Luke 13, verses 10 through 13.
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.
And behold, there was a woman who had a disabling spirit for eighteen years.
She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.
When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, Woman,
you are freed from your disability. and he laid his hands on her and immediately
(32:38):
she was made straight and she glorified God.
Right. Immediately she was healed. Now, think of it.
18 years been over. This means that your face was closer to your toes than anything else on your body.
You look like a U-shaped, kind of upside down U.
And notice what Jesus does. It's on the Sabbath, when he saw her,
(33:03):
verse 12, he calls her forward.
This is going to be an object lesson again for the Pharisees.
And then he goes and heals her immediately.
Now, does he ask permission from the Pharisees to do this? No.
Does he ask permission from the people gathered in the synagogue?
No. Does he ask permission from the bullmen? No.
(33:23):
He just says, come over here, come forward in front of everybody.
That's defiance. And Jesus does it regularly, always, with the Pharisees.
Well, one of the Pharisees there, who's what they call the ruler of the synagogue,
he's got a reaction to this. Let's take a look at it. Luke 13, 14.
(33:44):
But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath,
said to the people, There are six days in which work ought to be done.
Come on those days and be healed and not on the Sabbath day.
Okay, he is indignant. Now, we have to ask the question, why is he so upset,
especially on the Sabbath?
(34:05):
Well, one is, as I said, that was the Sabbath and the rules about it was the
essence, the epitome of their rule system.
And they have protocols. Let me, if I can read his mind and interpret it,
he's saying, listen, Jesus, He says, we've got protocols here.
Things are going to be done decently in order. This is disruptive. It's out of order.
(34:26):
And we're trying to have worship of God Almighty here.
And you can do that healing on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday. But not on Saturday, not on the Sabbath.
It's just, it's wrong.
Okay. You could have done it on any other day. Where's your respect for us?
Now, that's basically his thinking.
(34:47):
Now listen to Jesus' reply, Luke 13, 15.
Then the Lord answered him, You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath
untie his ox or donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it?
Take note that Jesus has observed what Pharisees do on the Sabbath day.
They've been looking to see what he does. Long before that, he was already watching
(35:09):
what they do on the Sabbath.
They have more mercy for their animal than for people.
Rules for thee, but not for me.
And here's what he says then, Jesus says, after he says, listen,
I've been watching you guys.
Here's how you treat your animals. You're merciful to them.
You know, Luke 13, verse 16.
(35:31):
And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound for 18 years,
be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?
Yes. Notice how he says it. This woman who's been bent over for 18 years,
shouldn't it be this day of all days, the Sabbath day, that she should be set free?
(35:52):
She's not going to suffer one more day.
That's right. She's going to have Sabbath as a day of worship and praise,
a day of freedom and restoration, a time to get our spirits renewed and all of that.
Jesus has a radical radical view of mercy, more radical than the rules of the
Pharisees. Here's the Pharisees, radical.
(36:13):
She's been that way for 18 years. One more day won't matter. Keep the rules.
Here's Jesus's radical mercy. She's been this way for 18 years. Enough is enough.
Today she's set free on the Sabbath, which is to be a day of joy,
of worship, of restoration, to regain rest.
And And she's going to now finally have rest like she's never had for 18 years.
(36:37):
So it's altogether appropriate the day of rest that she'll get that on the Sabbath
day. And everybody, of course, praises God.
Well, what happens now to the indignant ruler and his friends? Luke 13, 17.
As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame,
and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
(37:00):
Right. Right. If we use the NIV, humiliated. When he said this,
all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted.
Humiliated, made to be shameful. So Jesus goes over and apologizes.
I'm sorry I hurt your feelings.
No, it does not happen. No, it does not happen.
And here, as we finish up, is a really important note.
(37:25):
As the resurrected and enthroned Jesus in heaven, he's crucified,
he's raised on the third day.
Forty days later, he ascends off Mount of Olives back into heaven at the throne
of God, as Peter says in Acts 2 and book of Hebrews chapter 1 and various other
places in the New Testament, the right hand of God.
Even as the resurrected and enthroned Jesus in heaven as we speak,
(37:48):
his mind hasn't changed one bit about Pharisees.
Because what happens is there's a guy named Saul, and he's going around and
he's taking Christians, either he's having them killed, approving of it,
or trying to make them blaspheme.
He's on a rampage against them. In Acts chapter 9, he's on his way to Damascus
to get more Christians and put them in jail or do whatever he can to them.
(38:12):
And of course, we know what happens.
Jesus speaks, a light breaks through, he's knocked off his donkey into the dust.
And Jesus says, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
Okay, right there, keep in mind, Jesus takes this personally.
Yes, they're persecuting his people, which Paul later recalled the body of Christ,
(38:33):
but Christ is so involved with his people, it's like he is the one. You're doing it to him.
You're doing it to me, and I take that personally.
And so when Saul says, who are you, sir, or who are you, Lord?
And of course, he's not confessing Lord, he just knows someone superior to him.
I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Now get up, go into the city and it'll
(38:53):
be told you there what to do.
Not so much as a, I'm sorry, I knocked you down. I'm sorry, you're blind.
I'm sorry, this has been disturbing to you. Now, Saul, later known as Paul,
by his own confession was a, Philippians 3, Pharisee of Pharisees.
Now think of the Pharisees of Jesus' time, but Paul says, I was the Pharisee of Pharisees.
(39:17):
And then in 1 Timothy 1, he describes describes himself as a,
had been a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent.
And before King Agrippa, as we come to Acts 26, he's defending himself there
ostensibly against false accusations,
but it gives him, as it does in other places, a time to give his testimony of
(39:38):
what happened to him on the road to Damascus that changed him from being a Pharisee
to the apostle to the Gentiles.
Listen to this as he's talking to King Agrippa, Acts 26, 6, 10, and 11.
And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison
after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to
(39:59):
death, I cast my vote against them.
And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme.
And in a raging fury against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.
Yes, I was there when they were put to death. I cast my vote against them. They gotta die.
I punished them often in many ways, tried to make them blaspheme,
(40:21):
which means put them under some kind of torture, a raging fury, and to foreign cities.
This is always the result of those who are convinced they have a duty to punish
those who don't follow their rules.
And if they got the power to do it, you know what will happen?
They'll do it. They'll use it. But notice Jesus. Jesus is always full of surprises.
(40:44):
The Pharisees were the ones who plotted to kill him. He had trouble with them his entire ministry.
But Jesus chose Saul of Tarsus and put him in his service.
Why? Why? Because now he has a man who would truly know the difference between God's word and man's.
And that's why he gets to be the apostle to Gentiles. Paul's not going to be
(41:06):
confused about the word of God versus the rules of man.
God's ways are not burdensome. His yoke is easy, his burden is light.
Beware of the Pharisees, either in the government or in your hometown,
town, in your church, or where you work.
Don't do what they do. We are to live a life of being yoked to Jesus,
(41:28):
which will bless others, to see that mercy triumphs over judgment.
And that's the Christian expectation.
Well, that's it for the Pharisees. We sure all know one here or there.
And you might have questions or comments about them or about the lesson today.
And if you do, please send your questions or comments to eventsandexpectations
(41:51):
at gmail.com or leave a comment in the comment section of the podcast.
Also, if you'd like to hear a specific lesson or a specific topic,
please let us know or let us know how this program has blessed you.
This has been Current Events and Christian Expectations. Until next time, keep looking up.
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