FBC Morning Light – March 30, 2023

Jesus Confronts Religious Resistance in Luke 20

Well, a good Thursday morning to you. Today we're reading in Deuteronomy 23 and 24, Luke chapter 20, and the 64th Psalm. I want to zero in on an interchange that takes place between Jesus and religious people in Luke chapter 20.

Right in the middle of the chapter, Jesus tells a parable. It's the parable of the vinedressers, and this parable, Jesus tells it to really confront the religious elite, the chief priests, the scribes, the Pharisees, and they get that.

They realize that. Verse 19 tells us the chief priests and scribes knew that he had spoken this parable against them. Well, what do you do when God's Word confronts you? This was a very convicting, challenging parable that Jesus told, especially given the fact that the chief priests and the scribes realized that he told this parable to confront them with their own sin.

How do you handle it when God's Word confronts you with your own sin? The sin of thought, the sin of word, the sin of deed, the sin of attitude? How do you handle it? The verse 19 tells us that the chief priests and the scribes, it says, that very hour they sought to lay hands on him.

They wanted to take him by force, but they feared the people. They knew, we can't just get rid of him. Maybe that's an attitude that you might have, that you just want to get rid of that guy that's up there preaching that message that's convicting me, or that person who's taking the Bible and telling me what I'm doing is wrong, it's sin, and there it is in the Bible.

I don't want to listen to that. They can't do that. They can't get rid of that voice, because people want to hear that voice. What they do, they change their tactics a little bit, and in verses, really, the rest of this chapter, most of the rest of the chapter, it tells about that tactic.

Attempts to Trap Jesus With Taxes and the Resurrection

Here's what they do. It says in verse 20, they watched him, and they sent spies who pretended to be righteous, that they might seize on his words in order to deliver him to the power and the authority of the governor.

What they want to do is trick him. They're trying to trick him into saying something that can be used against him. Isn't it interesting that oftentimes when people are confronted with and convicted by God's Word, and they're unrepentant, they will grasp at straws to try to find excuses to reject what he's said?

This is what they do. The first thing, one of them comes to him and says, is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not? They think they've got him in a bind, because if he says, yes, it's lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, then they can go to the religious elite and say, see, he really is in favor of Rome.

If he says, no, it's not legit to pay taxes to Caesar. Caesar doesn't have any right to tax us. Then they can go to the authorities like the governor and turn him in as an insurrectionist, as a rebel.

They think they got him. Of course, that's the one where Jesus takes that denarius, that penny, if you will, and says, whose image is this? It looks like Caesar's image on there. Whose image is this on here?

Well, it's Caesar's. He says, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. They don't have an answer to that. They can't trip him up. Then in verse 27 and following, the Sadducees, another party in the religious elite, these are individuals who don't believe in any resurrection whatsoever.

They don't believe in the afterlife, the spirit world, and so forth. They try to trick him as well in presenting this crazy hypothetical situation, and Jesus deals with that as well. Here's the point.

Do Not Reject Truth by Attacking the Messenger

What are they doing? What really are they doing? They're grasping at straws, trying to find an excuse to reject what Jesus has to say. People do that in the contemporary world, in the contemporary church, by looking at the failures of people in the church, and oftentimes the person standing in the pulpit.

That person isn't perfect, or practically perfect, or his family isn't practically perfect, or whatever else, and then use that as an excuse to completely dismiss everything that's been said and done by that individual.

I think that's a mistake. I think you have to take the statements and the merits of themselves. Is this true? Is this God's Word? Is this convicting me of my sin? If it is, and it is what God's Word says, then the messenger may be faulty in the modern sense, and the typical human messenger will be faulty, and you don't dismiss the truth because of the fault of the messenger.

That's what the religious elite tried to do for Jesus. Of course, Jesus is perfect. He's the perfect messenger, and they couldn't find anything to complain against him, or find fault with him. Otherwise, they would have just dismissed him out of hand.

Let's not have that attitude of these religious elite that want to silence the convicting message or the messenger of God's truth. Father, deliver us from that attitude that when we are confronted with your Word, and this may be something we don't particularly like to hear, deliver us from an attitude that wants to silence the messenger, and we pray this in Jesus' name, and for his sake.

Amen. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your Thursday. I hope the Lord will bless you in it.

Good day.