SEPTEMBER 12 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#28 “Why do you test Me, you hypocrites?” (Matthew 22:18)

 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 (1) “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil…” (1 Timothy 6:10) and (2) “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???