SEPTEMBER 12 THE JESUS QUESTIONS
JQ#28
“Why do you test Me, you hypocrites?” (Matthew 22:18)
LIVING FOR JESUS Daily Prayer
JESUS, the Only Begotten Son, was Obedient to the Father’s Will,
endured a Cruel Sacrificial death, and though He was Innocent, Jesus
took upon Himself the pain that must be paid for each and every
sin in the world — a pain that cannot be described in terms that can
fully expresses the agony that Jesus, the Very Son of God Suffered
on our behalf, for You Lord Jesus are Innocent yet You became Guilty
for our sakes, and there is nothing we can do but to raise Praises
of Gratitude to say Thank You for becoming sin for us! Lord,
this world consumes us daily and even on the best of days we truly
fall short of Your Glory and on the worst of days it seems like
we have somehow blinded ourselves and let the lusts of the world
call us away from Your Path of Light into the darkness of disobedience.
Forgive me Lord and turn my heart from the world back to Your Word.
AMEN
THE JESUS QUESTIONS
Jesus used this Question “Why do you test Me…?” not as a Question
per se but to let the legalists plotting against Him know that He knew
that they were “testing” Him! The first group to try “testing” Jesus
was the Pharisees who sent their disciples along with the
Herodians which should have raised suspicions and eyebrows in
Jerusalem because the Pharisees and the Herodians were political foes
but had joined forces on this occasion to attack Jesus? Historians list
the Pharisees as a Jewish sect that believed the way to God
was through keeping the law as written in the entire Old Testament and
“According to Josephus, the Pharisees were the group most
Influential with the people, [the Pharisees] were noted for their
accurate and therefore authoritative interpretations of Jewish law,
and had their own traditions and way of life to which they
were faithful. They had a simple standard of living and cultivated
harmonious relations with others.”
The Herodians differed politically from the Pharisees in that the Herodians
wanted to restore a Herod to the throne in Judea and the Pharisees
wanted to restore the kingdom of David. Jesus posed such a great
threat to both sects and political parties that they put aside their
political differences and were plotting together how to kill Jesus
to protect their traditions and centuries old way of life in which they
held “offices of power” over the multitudes. Thousands of years earlier
there was a multitude of Israelites that were slaves in Egypt and God
sent Moses to free them for Egypt’s power and authority and now
Israel is crying for “deliverance” from the power of the Roman Empire
and God sends His Only Begotten Son to deliver them from their
bondage to sin and to free them from the “political powers” that
now enslaved the multitudes with their interpretations of God’s Law.
The first attack coming from this hybrid group did not catch Jesus off
guard because He had earlier Taught His disciples, saying,
“Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees
and the leaven of Herod.”
(Mark 8:15)
This quote from Jesus taken in this context of Him Teaching
in the temple of God in Jerusalem at the Passover feast
(which celebrated their “exodus” from Egypt) makes the
warning of “leaven” even more critical in understanding that Jesus
had come to set the multitudes free that they might for themselves
go in and inherit God’s “Promised Land”. The joining of these
political foes against Jesus demonstrates the desperation
of “power mongers” to retain their “powers” at all costs,
in this case they were willing to do what Jesus had just Taught in
His Three Parables on “Power and Authority” that
“Then last of all [a certain king] sent his son to them,
saying, ‘they will respect my son’ — but —
when they saw the son,
they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir.
Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’”
(Matthew 22:37-38)
This attack against Jesus by political foes uniting forces to maintain
their respective “offices of power” is a reflection of our modern society
as we have seen that all politics and political parties are on the
“attack” against God and His Authority, our political parties who
are “political foes” are united in their attempt to undermine God
and His Law and it is all done that they might retain their political office —
Does the term “Political Correctness” ring a bell?!?!?
It is also interesting to note that the “attack”
from the Pharisees (the lawyers)
and the Herodians (doctrines of men)
centered around asking Jesus
“Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
(Matthew 22:17)
which is obviously about “money and power”
and physical things of the world —
so that is why Jesus turned their “test” into a “Spiritual Lesson”
as He had them look at the image of Caesar and Jesus Taught
Spiritual Law #1:
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,
and to God the things that are God’s”.
(Matthew 22:21)
This Spiritual Law #1 enforced two other Truths of God
(T1)
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil…”
(1 Timothy 6:10)
and
(T2)
“Thou shalt not make …any graven image…
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them…
for I the LORD your God [AM] a jealous God…”
(Deuteronomy 5:8-9)
Whenever we find ourselves questioning the “authority of God”
we should revisit the Lessons of Jesus and these
“Spiritual Laws”
given to answer the “legalists” and the “doctrines of men"
which are simply man’s interpretation of God's Law
enforced by earthly authority on the populace —
can any law be truly
“legal”
if it is not approved
by the Divine Law Giver???
