Jesus is Bad for the Business of False Religion

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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Matthew, the 11th chapter. At that time Jesus declared, This is the

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Gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus, Amen. So in our

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Gospel text today, probably one of the most famous statements by our

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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Now I'm going to do something a little bit today that I don't normally do, but I want to set things up for next

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Sunday. And you'll note, if you look at the electionary, that next week we skip right over chapter 12 and we go to chapter 13.

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And sometimes that makes sense, but not in Matthew.

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It just does not make sense in Matthew. And there's a reason why it doesn't make sense, and it has everything to do with the fact that we need to pay close attention to the controversy that Jesus finds himself in.

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And so as you listen to our Gospel text, think of it this way. What Jesus is doing here is, the modern phrase is, it's called throwing down.

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Jesus is throwing down. And you can almost think of this as like some kind of a Gospel manifesto, which is kind of crazy if you think about it, because when we think about manifestos, we think about people who are trying to justify burning down all of society.

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It's about death and destruction. But what Jesus is throwing down on, he's throwing down regarding the false religion that we all so easily gravitate towards, the false religion of self -righteousness.

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And this is exemplified in the Pharisees. And so a good way to kind of think of this is that the

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Gospel is really bad. And I mean this. It's terrible for the business of false religion.

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It's just terrible for it. I mean, the reason why is because false religion, so much of it hinges on creating and instilling in people anxiety, fear, a sense of unending guilt, and never, oh never will false religion lift a finger to lift the burden off of you.

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And the reality is this. The reason why it works is because we all know we're guilty. We all know that we have completely and utterly failed

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God. We have completely, utterly failed all the people closest to us.

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Our spouse, our children, our mother, our father, our neighbors, we are just a mess.

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And so false religion comes along and it only speaks condemnation. It doesn't preach law and Gospel.

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It preaches the law to condemn you. And then it preaches the law and says, you better pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

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You had better get in line and when by the way, you better start tithing. It's always about the money, isn't it?

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It's always about the money. So Jesus comes along. So think of this, this Gospel manifesto, and then we'll come up with a frame for this for chapter 12.

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Jesus says, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you've hidden these things from the wise and the understanding and revealed them to little children.

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You see, Christianity is so easy to understand, even a five -year -old could get it. You see, false religion, you've got to buy their books, you've got to read how they've cracked the code.

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They have the secret inside specialty, cool kind of tracking, and nobody else can see what they see and nobody else understands what they understand.

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And don't think that you can figure this out on your own. The Bible is too complicated for you to actually read it and get it.

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And don't even ask the Holy Spirit to help you. You need to ask our leaders, right? This is how this works.

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And Jesus says, no, you've revealed these things to little children. A little child can understand this. Jesus loves me, this

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I know for the Bible tells me so, right? Little ones to him belong.

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They are weak, but he is strong. Yeah, we all know that song, right? So Jesus then throws down and says, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden,

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I'll give you rest. Are you burdened with sin? Are you burdened with following all the rules of the self -righteous

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Pharisees? Take my yoke upon you, learn from me, I'm gentle, lowly in heart, you'll find rest for your souls.

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Stop trying to pay for it, I'm going to give you it all for free, free, free, free, free, free, right?

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My yoke is easy, my burden is light. And think about this, I mean, this is scandalous, this is bad for business as usual, for false religion, for all the things that they are charging people for,

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Jesus has opened the doors wide open and all the people who have been condemned and bullied and continue to be condemned and bullied and burdened by self -righteous religion,

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Jesus comes along and he heals them. He loves them. He forgives them. He sets them free.

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How much does it cost? Well, it costs him everything, but he charges them nothing. Yeah, see, Jesus is bad, bad for false religion.

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Think of it this way, for what follows next as we kind of go into chapter 12. If you remember in the book of Acts chapter 19, after Paul had spent some time preaching the gospel in Ephesus, man, he spent quite a stint there.

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He even got a standing gig in the Hall of Tyrannus so that he can tell everybody about Jesus.

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He's out there proclaiming in him the forgiveness of sins. And you know what? Well, as Paul says, the gospel is the power of God into salvation and people hearing the gospel are being brought to faith in Christ in droves.

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But I don't know if you guys knew this, but in the ancient world, you ever heard of the seven wonders of the ancient world?

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There are the seven wonders of the world now, and there are the seven wonders of the ancient world. Well, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world was this temple in Ephesus, the temple, the great temple of Artemis of the

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Ephesians. Oh man, it was considered to be one of the things that you had to see in your life before you your life ended.

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It was on the ancient world's bucket list of places to go and photograph. That's an anachronism, but you get the idea.

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OK, and and so, well, with Paul preaching the gospel in Ephesus and all over the place, you know what happened?

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The idolatry market collapsed. It just utterly had the bottom knocked right out of it.

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And here's what happens in Acts 19, verse 23, it says that at that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the way.

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The way is one of the earliest names used for Christianity. Now, there was a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis.

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So he's this is a fellow whose livelihood depends on the idolatry trade. Right. He's it says he brought no little business to the craftsmen.

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These he gathered together with the workmen in similar trades. And he said, men, you know from that, from this business, we have our wealth.

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Note, he leads off with the thing that's most important to him, his money. Right. And and see, that's the thing.

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There's a lot of money to be made, a lot of money to be made in false religion. Truth, not so much, and rightly so.

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So he says, we've made our wealth. And you see and you hear that not only in Ephesus, but also in all of Asia, this

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Paul, he is persuaded and he's turned away a great many people saying that gods made with hands are not gods.

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What kind of crap pot is this? Everybody knows that you'll note that he doesn't see the irony in what he said at all.

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Instead, thinking about his purse, thinking about his bank account, his 401k is tanked. He's really worried about the future here.

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He says there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but that the that the temple of the great goddess

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Artemis may be counted as nothing and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence.

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She whom all of Asia and the world worship. So no, now he's he's clothing himself in piety regarding this false god

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Artemis. Right. So what did they do? Well, they incited a riot. I think they they started the

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Artemis Lives Matter movement and they burned everything. You get the idea. But that's kind of what happened.

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They created a riot. And there in the great outdoor meeting place in Ephesus, they had a riot that went on for a long time.

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And they were chanting, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. Great is Artemis of the

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Ephesians for hours and hours and hours and hours. You see, the gospel is really bad.

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And I mean, it's terrible for business. If your business is based on false religion and idolatry, it's just terrible.

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Because what everybody charges for, Christ gives for free.

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And so that's kind of our frame here. And so think of it this way. So rather than inciting a riot, you know, and saying that Artemis Lives Matter or Pharisaical Lives Matter, instead, what ends up happening is

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Jesus, true to his words, he says, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, I'm going to give you rest.

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And in chapter 12, Jesus just goes on a rampage.

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It's kind of weird to think of it this way, but he does, because the thing he's going after is the heavy laden, burden carrying, keep you under the thumb oppressive bullying of the self -righteous

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Pharisaical system. And Pharisees, by the way, in no way whatsoever represent

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Orthodox Judaism, Biblical Judaism. They're heretics. They claim to have a special, special Torah, the oral

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Torah. They claim that God secretly gave to Moses that they've been keeping forever. These guys are, they're complete heretics.

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And the big irony here is, is that the God that they claim that they worship, you know, the God of Abraham, the

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God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, that God, he's standing right in front of them all the time when

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Jesus is incarnate, and they don't recognize him as their God. By the end of this, they're going to claim that Jesus is doing all of his miracles by the power of the prince of demons himself.

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How, I don't think, religiously, spiritually, I don't think you could be farther from the truth.

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I, you know, this is like saying that that blue sky is the ground. That's how upside down all of this is.

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So Jesus goes on a rampage. In chapter 12, think of it that way. He's just smashing idols left and right.

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And in the oral Torah, the tradition of the elders, man, the rules regarding the

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Sabbath, they are a plenty. And you'll note that Jesus, in no way, ever bends the knee to any of their man -made rules regarding the

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Sabbath. So, first thing to fall is the way they oppress people on a day that God has set aside for rest, they have turned it into toil in all of their, all of the rules that they've made up.

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And it says in chapter 12, at that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry.

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They began to pluck heads of grain and eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they lose their minds here, look, look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful on the

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Sabbath. Now, are they really breaking a single Sabbath law according to the Torah? No, they're not.

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Okay. But see, in the Pharisees' new and improved expanded edition of laws regarding the

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Sabbath, to merely take in your hand, you know, a developed wheat, you know, plant, take the top of the head and rub it in your hand and then eat the kernels, you know, as you're walking through a field or something like that.

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Well, according to them, doing that equals harvesting and harvesting equals work and that's breaking the

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Sabbath. Well, here's what Jesus says, and note, who are they really going after?

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Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath. They're going after Jesus, all right? Because Jesus isn't correcting them.

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Jesus isn't censoring them. Jesus isn't going, whoa there, boys, we don't want to offend those Pharisees.

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No, so they're all offended. And so Jesus says, have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who were with him?

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And so you'll note that Jesus helps us understand that the commandment that says thou shalt not murder, taking care of people's physical bodily needs, trumps even their law, right?

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How he was hungry, how he was hungry. He entered the house of God and David ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him.

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It's only lawful for the priests. Or have you not read in the law how the Sabbath, on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple profane the

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Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, and listen to what

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Jesus says here, I desire mercy. But see, false self -righteous religion doesn't traffic in mercy.

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False self -righteous religion only traffics in fear, anxiety, and guilt, and uses all of those to oppress and to continue to bully.

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And so Jesus pulls the mercy card, the grace card, the gospel card. He says, I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

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You would not have condemned the guiltless. Jesus' verdict, my boys didn't do nothing wrong here, you

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Pharisees. You're the ones at fault. So the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath. I'm in charge, and I'm greater than the temple itself,

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Jesus says. Now, could Demetrius and the silversmiths who made the silver shrines of Artemis, could they be placated?

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No. So rather than repenting, well, things continue to get worse for them, on another

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Sabbath, oh, it's Sabbath time again, Jesus is in the synagogue, and there's a fellow that we learn has a withered hand.

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Generally, you are born with that condition, and we know this for a fact. The Pharisees' religion dictated, said that if you are born with a birth defect of any kind, blind, mute, withered hand, well, it's either you who sinned or your parents who sinned, and in the

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Pharisaical religion, fellows like that are held up as examples of this is what happens.

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God is going to do this to you and to your children unless you obey our commands.

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And you sit there and go, why would somebody go to church or to the synagogue to be held up as an example like that?

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Answer, because if they didn't show up, they would be breaking rules that could get them stoned.

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So you've got to come. And their theology says, you, oh, man, so you better obey, you better be like us, you better da -da -da -da -da -da.

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And so this is a guy who's going to church Saturday after Saturday, that's when church occurred on the

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Sabbath, only to be held up and to be, well, bullied, shown to be an example of what happens if you don't obey our rules.

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So what does Jesus do for this fellow? Does he point to him and say, yep, you are just rotten, you're terrible, you better get with the program or you're going to end up like this fellow or your children are going to come out like this?

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No, Jesus doesn't do that at all. So here's what happens. So there's the man with the withered hand. So they ask

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Jesus, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Now were they asking the question in order to gain knowledge?

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Were they asking Jesus because they were there to learn? Though the text says they did this so that they might accuse them, as they like to say on the forums and meme debates and things like that.

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My friends right there, that's called bait. They're trying to bait Jesus. I find it fascinating that Jacob Prash's people, they come onto my

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YouTube channel and they say things like, is it true, Pastor Rose, bro, that you are a

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Lutheran priest and that you forgive sins and that you baptize babies?

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That's bait. They're not there to learn knowledge. They're there to find something to accuse me with.

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And so here's what Jesus does with this particular question. Jesus fires back with a question.

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He says, all right, so which of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?

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Of how much more value is a man than a sheep? And you're going to note here,

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Jesus is saying that this man, this man, he's worth more to God than a sheep.

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God even cares about his sinful fallen creation. And in fact, do you remember what

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Jesus says? Are you of not more value than a sparrow? Right? So Jesus then makes this very blunt statement.

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So it's lawful to do good on the Sabbath, full stop. It's lawful to do good on the Sabbath. So then the man, he said to him, stretch out your hand.

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And the man stretched it out. And it was restored, healthy like the other.

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They saw it with their own eyes. The man whom they have theologically bullied and held up as an example of the consequences of sin, if you don't get with the program, well, their favorite target has been healed.

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How are they supposed to use him like that anymore? They can't. And you're going to note by Jesus healing them, he's taking their theology and smashing it.

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And so a miracle occurs in their presence. What's the right thing to do in this account? Fall on your knees in repentance and thank

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God for his mercy and his grace and call upon him so that he may have mercy on you.

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But here's what the text says, verse 14. Here's the reaction to this miracle of the

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Pharisees. So the Pharisees went out and they conspired against him on how they could destroy

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Jesus. Does that make any sense at all? You see, Jesus and the gospel, the forgiveness of sins and the mercy of God, it's really bad, really bad for the business of false religion.

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And then kind of the coup de grace is in verse 22. Here's a fellow who's demon oppressed.

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And as a result of the demon oppression that he suffered, he's blind and he's mute. And I would note this, that, you know, from what

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I understand about how demon possession and oppression works, nobody is just accidentally demon possessed.

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You have to be flirting with the occult in order to open yourself up to this kind of thing.

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So think of it this way. This is a fellow who clearly there's some issues here.

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Something has gone really wrong. The devil has oppressed him to the point where he's blind, he's mute.

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And chances are pretty good that this is a result of consequences with flirting with things that he should not have flirted with, idolatry or occultism or things like that.

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So the devil, the dragon has swallowed this guy whole. He's halfway down the gullet of the dragon.

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And what's Jesus gonna do with this fellow? Say, well, you know, you got what's coming to you. Is that how

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Jesus acts? No, here's what happens. So Jesus healed him. So the man spoke and he saw.

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Pharisees are, Johnny on the spot, Johnny on the spot on this one. Now the crowd, when they saw this, they were amazed.

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They were utterly amazed and said, can this be the son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, no, no.

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It's only by Beelzebub, the prince of the demons that this man is casting out demons. I seem to remember something here.

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The devil is a slanderer. He's the accuser of the saints.

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Christ says of the devil that when he lies, he speaks his native language. Isn't this interesting? If you were to think of it, you kind of using

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Harry Potter terms, you know, the ability to speak the language of a snake is called parcel mouth.

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Man, the Pharisees speak parcel mouth fluently. Do they not, right?

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But see, that's the thing. False self -righteous religion. Jesus describes in the book of Revelation as the synagogue of Satan.

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It's the synagogue of Satan. These are fellows, the reason why they speak slanderous parcel mouth so fluently is because they don't belong to Christ.

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They're not of the truth. They are really, for real, part of an entire religious system concocted by the devil for the purpose of ensnaring people.

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And it works through fear, anxiety, and guilt. And so Jesus comes along and he breaks their rules regarding the

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Sabbath. He heals people who they say are guilty of sin.

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And you'll note in other chapters of the scriptures, he forgives tax collectors.

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He forgives the hookers. He eats with them, lets them touch them.

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He touches lepers. He even touches the dead and they come to life. And what is their explanation for all of this?

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Because they can't deny that Jesus is performing the miracles. So they come up with an alternative theological narrative.

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Jesus has actually been sent by the devil himself and is operating in the power of the demonic.

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He's, if you would, the Lord Voldemort incarnate. This is nuts.

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This is nuts. But Jesus says, every kingdom that is divided against itself is laid waste.

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No city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan cast out Satan, he's divided against himself.

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How? Well, then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, let me ask you guys this, by whom do your sons cast them out?

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Therefore, they will be your judges. But if it is by the spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

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Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods? Unless he first binds the strong man, then indeed he may plunder his house.

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Whoever is not with me is against me. Whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore, I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven.

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And whoever speaks a word against the son of man will be forgiven. But whoever speaks against the

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Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either in this age or in the age to come. And so Jesus here binds their sins to them and makes it clear that by their willful twisting of the truth and ascribing the power by which

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Christ healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out demons, ascribing that power rather than to the

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Holy Spirit, but to the devil that they have committed now an unpardonable sin.

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And he's determined their judgment. You see, Jesus is really bad for the business of false religion. So brothers and sisters, keep this in mind for next

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Sunday's sermon, because we're gonna take a look at the parables next week. But as we consider then what is going on, note this, that each and every one of us have been either tempted by or have fallen victim to this false righteous, self -righteous religion.

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It comes in all kinds of different elaborate forms from the NAR to Roman Catholicism to strange sex within the visible church, everything always hinging on you obeying their man -made rules.

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And always and again with their man -made rules comes the obligation that you've got to give them money, money, money, money, money, money, money.

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And then when you come to them in time of need or help or guilt or shame, they have nothing to offer you, nothing except for more of it.

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Rather than tell you about the forgiveness and mercy of Christ, well, like the high priest, when

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Judas came to them and said, I've sinned against innocent blood. What did the priest say to Judas?

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What does that to us? Take care of it yourself. You see, self -righteous false religion cannot absolve you.

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Self -righteous false religion has no mercy or love for you. It's only going to burden you even more with the burden of sin that you have and will not lift a finger to lighten the load one bit.

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But here again, the words of our Old Testament text. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion.

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Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your King is coming to you. He's righteous.

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He has salvation and he's humble and mounted on a donkey on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

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He's not coming in on a war horse to conquer you, to slay you, to knock you down.

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He's come to deliver to you the salvation that he has for you.

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Because this Jesus, he took your burden of sin, your debt, the load that you could not lift off of your own back, the load that fettered you, the load that you buckled under, the load you cannot relieve yourself from.

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He took that load off of you and put it on himself and he carried all the way to Golgotha.

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And he bled and died for all of that sin and guilt. So he comes to you righteous and having salvation and he's humble, mounted on a donkey, the colt, the foal of a donkey.

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And verse 11 says, but as for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, the covenant in his blood,

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I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold,

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O prisoners of hope. Today I declare to you that I will restore to you double. So brothers and sisters, you have heard today that your sins are forgiven for the sake of Christ, that your great

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God and savior has given you mercy rather than bullying you.

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Rather than continue to point out your guilt and shame, he has quietly lifted it from you and bled and died from it so that you can be declared innocent and righteous in God's sight so that you can have pardon and mercy, grace, love, and peace.

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So stop going to false religion and expecting it to tell you that you are forgiven.

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It won't and it can't and you'll only be poorer for it. In spirit as well as in wallet, in the name of Jesus, amen.

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If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota, 56744. And again, that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota, 56744. We thank you for your support.

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