Chapter 20, reading from the verse 19. Chapter 20, verse 19, and the scripture reads, And the chief priests and the scribes, the Seymour, sought to lay hands on him, and they feared the people, for they perceived that he had spoken this parable against them. And they watched him, and sent forth spies, which should see in themselves just men, that they might take hold of his words, that so they might deliver him unto the power and authority of the governor. They asked him, saying, Master, we know that thou sayest and teachest rightly. Neither acceptest thou the person of any, but teachest the way of God truly. Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar or no? But he perceived their craftiness and said unto them, Why tempt ye me? Show me a penny. Whose image and superscription hath it? They answered and said, Caesar's. And he said unto them, render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's. And they could not take hold of his words before the people, and they marvelled at his answer and hailed their peace. And thus far we read the word of the Lord. Our theme this evening is entitled Whose image is stamped on you? Whose image is stamped on you? The journalist Celia Walden recently wrote an article entitled The Curse of Identity Cannibalism, a 21st century female disease. Her thesis was this, In past years, girls looked at older successful women as role models. Today, girls look at successful women and think, I want to be that person. So they get plastic surgery for whatever bits they don't like or want more of. They change their hair. They buy the same clothes as the particular image they have before us and they literally become someone else. They want to be perhaps Victoria Beckham or Kate Moss or whatever. Walden then points out the Bible calls this covetousness and covetousness is idolatry. Christianity teaches contentment with your lot. But our culture teaches the opposite. These identity cannibals steal another's clothes, figure, looks and lifestyle to create a new me. That is the image they want. And the passage before us addresses specifically this issue. Whose image is stamped on you? In whose image are you? Who do you want to be like? Now I know that quite often this passage is taken as referring to church-state relations and yes it does have something to say about that but it somewhat misses the point of the passage to reduce it solely to that. I want you to notice firstly The hatred of sinners and their hearts for Christ. The hatred of sinners and their hearts for Christ. You see that in verse 19 and 20, the chief priest and the scribe, the CMR sought to lay hands on him, and they feared the people, for they perceived that he had spoken this parable against them. And they watched him and sent forth spies, which should be in themselves just men, that they might take hold of his word, that through they might deliver him unto the power and authority of the governor. Now what rives the hatred of these people? What could Christ have said and done that so annoyed these people? Well we look at the context, chapter 20 verse 1, we see that he preached the gospel. So there's the first thing that annoyed them and upset them. Christ preaching the gospel. This is what they were opposed to, gospel preaching, yet they were religious. How incredible, religious people hating the gospel. Gospel hating religious people. How remarkable and incredible. And from verse 2 to 8, Luke records for us the conflict that ensued over Christ preaching the gospel. And then in verses 9 to 16 he makes a pointed application of the gospel. There must always be pointed application of the word of God. That's why we have a section with applications. Pointed application. Well that pointed application climaxes in verses 17 and 18. He beheld them and said, What is this then that is written? The stone which the builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner. Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder. Now there was no mistaking in the minds of the hearer exactly what Christ was teaching. They knew what he meant. Verse 16 or verse 15, What therefore shall the Lord of the vineyard do unto them? He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others. And when they heard that, they said, God forbid. They knew what Christ meant. How did they know? Because the metaphor or the image that Christ used was an Old Testament one. The vineyard, straight from the book of Isaiah, represented the nation of Israel. The tar, the parallels tell us that the owner of the vineyard built a tar in it. The tar represented Zion, the temple that was erected. The wine press pointed them to the ceremonial laws and the sacrifices that were made. The husbandmen, why they were the Levites, the priests and the scribes, the ones who were in charge of the religious life of the nation. And to this vineyard, the owner sent servants. To Israel God sent a long line of gospel preaching prophets. They came with the law in their hand to judge the people and having examined them in light of the law called them to repentance and faith in the coming Messiah. But these prophets were cruelly treated. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Ezekiel, they were all cruelly treated, they were hated, they were despised. The only fitting punishment was to take away all these privileges and to give them to others. The only fitting punishment. And they grasped that. And they were immediately struck with horror. God forbid. It cannot be. What a tragedy, what a disaster of all this gospel privilege to be taken from us and given to strangers, even to dogs. That's how the Gentiles were viewed. This is not the first time that they were warned about this. Matthew 21. And Matthew 21 verse 43, Therefore I say unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation, bringing forth the fruits thereof. If you will not repent at the hearing of the gospel, Have you so privileged? Well despise these privileges. God will take them from you and he will give them to those who will come to Christ. That's what will happen. So Christ drives home the importance of making use of gospel privileges. The stone which the builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner. Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. Come and bow to Christ, or Christ will make you bow to him in judgment. And as for these wicked husband men, those recipients of gospel privileges who despise them, they shall be punished. Matthew 8, 12, but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. These are solemn words. And it was this pointed application That was the final straw for these religious people. To speak generally was fine. As long as you spoke in generals it doesn't matter. But once you start to speak specifically, pointedly, then it was no longer okay. That they wanted to injure Christ is clear from verse 19. They sought to lay hands on him. But they were restrained by providence. They feared the people. The Bible clearly teaches us the reason why the wicked do not always do what they want is because in providence they are restrained. Providence restrains them. Sometimes that restraint is a social restraint. Other people around them. Sometimes that is sufficient to restrain the wicked. Sometimes it is not. Other restraints are brought to bear in Providence. But here in Providence is one restraint. But of course to be restrained in one way, such is the evil in their heart that they want another way. They want to get around that restraint. And so they have another tactic. They perceived that he had spoken this parable against them and they watched him and sent forth spies. They have other avenues, they have other tools in their armoury of hatred against Christ. And so they hire these spies. And the word that Luke uses tells us they were men chosen and specifically instructed for this task. They were selected, they were recruited and then they schooled them as to what they should do in order to try and trap Christ. And what kind of people did they select? Well we're told that they were hypocrites which should feign themselves Just men. We get our English word hypocrite from this Greek word that is used. It's a word that is used for actors on the stage. This is what the word means. People playing a part. They're hypocrites. They played a part. What was the part they played? They deemed themselves just men. As righteous and holy people. This was the part they played. How awful to try and pretend to be righteous and the sole reason for pretending to be righteous is in order to trap Christ. What a terrible way to deal with the Saviour. What an awful approach to have towards Christ. Reminds us of Absalom. He covered his evil designs under the cloak of making a vow of religion. He was going to do something holy. But we know that his evil design was the overthrow of the kingdom. The objective that these men had was to take the words of Christ and then to twist them into an accusation against him. What are we learning here? What are we seeing here? We are seeing the hatred in the hearts of sinners for Jesus Christ. And no one thinks that the sinner today is better. that he would do something different. He will not. But then secondly, verse 21, the flattery of sinners with their mouth toward Christ. And they asked him, saying, Master, we know that thou seest and teachest rightly, neither acceptest thou the person of any, but teachest the way of God truly. The flattery of sinners with their mouth to Christ. We see the reverence. Master. They have been well schooled, haven't they? They're very polite. There's their deference. Master. We have their profession. We know that thou seest and teachest rightly. Neither acceptest thou the person of any but teaches the way of God truly. Any person listening to this, any man or woman that stood there that day, in the midst of all that multitude of people, hearing these words would have said, these men have got it right. What a wonderful testimony, what a great profession, what acclamation For Jesus and Nazareth, they pile one statement upon another. They have been well schooled in hypocrisy. They have been well instructed as to how to act before Christ. But it's all a front. And they finish with a most flattering tribute. but teaches the way of God truly. That Christ teaches the true way to God or the true way of God. What a great statement. That everything he says is absolutely true. But the plan is simple. They want to throw Christ off his guard. The idea is that if we simply flatter him, he will just be so taken off with our words of flattery, he'll say something wrong. That's their evil design. We will trip him up. We will encourage him. So having sort of egged the whole situation and spoken all these things, now comes the very simple question. Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar or no? When they say is it lawful, it was lawful according to the laws of Caesar, but was it lawful according to the law of God? That was the issue. And to understand that fully, we need to go back to Deuteronomy, chapter 17. Deuteronomy 17, and in verse 15, Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose. One from among thy brethren thou shalt set king over thee. Thou mayst not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother. Well, Caesar was no brother. He was not from amongst the Jews. So it was lawful according to Caesar's law, but was it lawful according to God's law? This seemingly weighty question that seemed to press so hard on our conscience. We see that when they say it is lawful for us, that is, we the seed of Abraham, we the children of Abraham. It is unlawful for us to pay this tribute, tribute, a poll tax brought in by Caesar. Nothing wrong with a poll tax, no matter what the politically correct people may tell you. But here it was. So their plan was simple. He perceived their captains. What was their plan? That they might deliver him onto the power and authority of the governor. They wanted to use the secular authority to punish Christ. Now if he said no, then they would say, ha ha, we have you now. That means you're setting yourself against Caesar. If he said yes, then they had him as well, because that meant he was denying his Jewishness, that he was setting himself against the people. They thought they were really smart. Remember in the earlier part of the chapter, Christ had put these people in a corner. He asked them a question. And then they said, oh well, that's such a difficult question, we really don't know how to answer that question. And we just don't know what the answer is. And Christ said, well, I'm not going to answer you then. Well now they had devised a question which apparently there's only one kind of answer, it's either yes or no. And if he said no, they've got him. If he said yes, they've got him. They thought we have trapped him just as he has trapped us. So they used flattery to try and trap the saviour. But then thirdly, sin makes sinners think wrongly. Sin makes sinners think wrongly. Verse 23, But he perceived their craftiness and said unto them, Why tempt ye me? Show me a penny. Whose image and superscription hath it? They answered and said, Caesar's. He said unto them, render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's. Blinded by prejudice, twisted by sin, they ignored the most basic and fundamental rule. Christians think Christian. They begin in their minds with God. They belong to God and the outworking of that belonging to God is to do all God commands them to do. And so they view all issues from this angle. We belong to God. The sinner is a slave to sin and so begins his thinking and his reasoning from that position. Christ's answer comes down to this. The Jews bear the image of God and so they are obliged to recognise and acknowledge his lordship over them. That's his point in question. Whose image is on you? They have limited their thinking to politics and worldly principles and that's why their whole mindset is all about his relationship to the sacral power. But they ignored the basic rule. If we belong to God, that's how we must think of everything. That's how we must view every issue. They limited their thinking to one kingdom alone. The Christian thinks of two kingdoms. There's the kingdom of heaven in which we are citizens. Then there's the kingdoms of this world in which we are earthly citizens. Well, which predominates the kingdom of heaven? It is as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven that we live as citizens in earthly kingdoms. But our first allegiance is to God. And that determines all our actions and what we do. The Christians have duties in both kingdoms, but the sinner can only see one kingdom, and that is Caesar's. All his arguments are all political arguments. He only sees political issues, though often he couches them in religious terminology, and indeed even like these people. They are put in the words of religious flattery, but Christ cuts through all the fog and all the mist and all the flattery. And he asks, whose image is stamped on you? Show me a pen. Whose image is on the pen? Of Caesar's. Well, they render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. And render unto God the things that are God's. They forgot the most basic fundamental truth. We are made in God's image and our duty is to acknowledge this fact. We are to love God, we are to serve God, we are to obey God and we are to render unto God all that is His. We are not to render unto Caesar the things that belong to God. to render unto God all that belongs to him. Yes, these people think in terms of earthly duties to an earthly Caesar. But they thought nothing about being heavenly citizens to a heavenly Caesar. Their principal duty is to God. Christ, you see, is actually through this statement reminding them most pointedly of Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1 verse 26. And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. And the failure of these people was to consider the image of God that was a monumental failure. All are obliged to acknowledge the Lordship of God over them. Life is not about political authorities, but about obedience to God in whose image they are made. The problem with these people was they saw only Caesar. They never saw God. That was their real fate. And Christ pointedly shows them. You do not see God at all. All you see is Caesar. All you see is this state in which you live. But you do not see God. Let me come to application of all of this. First of all, beware of common hatreds. Hitler's policy was to unite the Germans by giving them a common Hitler. It's not an old or a new thing. Here we see bitter enemies uniting against Christ. The parallel tells us that the ones that they hired were Herodians. Now the Jews hated the Herodians. The scribes especially, the Pharisees hated the Herodians. Who were the Herodians? They were Jews, They welcome the Roman state and work for it. They're better enemies, the Herodians and the Jews. And yet here they are in a common alliance, the one with the other. They have a common hatred. And how often this is noted in scripture, Luke 23. In the verse 12, and the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together for before they were an entity between themselves. Those who are enemies of each other uniting in a common cause against Christ. And you know friends, we see this on a regular basis. How often we read in the newspaper of Hindus and Muslims uniting, they hate each other, but uniting to drive out Christians from a particular neighbourhood. The Gospel is an offence to the ungodly. And so the ungodly, even though they may dislike each other and despise each other, are quite happy to join forces against a Christian. I'm quite happy to do that. So do not you be alarmed when you see the ungodly, especially those who hate each other, making alliances against the godly. Here's an example. They united against Christ. Secondly, Even enemies can be brought to praise Christ. You know verse 21 is a great statement. Master we know that thou sayest and teachest rightly, neither acceptest thou the person of any but teachest the way of God truly. What they mean by that statement is that Christ does not tailor his message to sit to hear, as we would say speak up somebody's street. He's unashamed of the message and no matter who the audience is, he tells them the truth. Yet here is this marvellous statement. Of course what they said was motivated by sin. We acknowledge that. Yet what they say we can't quote. We agree with this statement. We agree with it entirely. Because we know Christ, we can take the very words of the enemy and use it to our own advantage. Do they call him Master? So do we. He is our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. Do they acknowledge what he says is right? So do we. Anushimala. Do they confess his teaching alone to be true? Then so do we. Anushimala. We can say these things. We understand these words. Don't you understand these words? Don't you believe these words? Isn't he our master? Isn't he our governor? The one who rules over us? He's our prophet and our king. Even enemies can be brought to Christ whether they want to or not, but they can't be brought. Then the third thing, following on from that, our lips and hearts should always agree. Our lips and our hearts should always agree. The psalmist reminds us of this, Psalm 55, and in the verse 21, the words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. The words were softer than oil, Yet were they drawn swords?" There's the hypocrite, isn't there? Smooth words, smooth as butter. But it was Warren's heart. We turn back to Psalm 5, Psalm number 5. And the verse 9, where there is no faithfulness in their mouth, their inward part is very wickedness, their throat is an open sepulcher, they flatter with their tongue. What does Proverbs have to tell us about this? Proverbs 27, and in the verse 6, faithful are the winds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Better to speak the truth than to be like a hypocrite. You have a good example of all of this, have we not, in 2 Samuel. 2 Samuel chapter 20, you know the incident to Amasa. 2nd Samuel 20 verse 9, And Joab said to Amasa, Art thou in health, my brother? And Joab took Amasa by the beard with the right hand to kiss him, but Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab's hand. So he smote him therewith in the fifth rib, and shed out his bowels to the ground, and struck him not again, and he died. Joab was aware of his other hand. put an arm round him and say, well, how are you? Are you in good health? But he ignored his other hand that had a sword and he smote him. Our lips and our heart should always be in agreement. Sometimes we can say nice things, but in our hearts there is war. These men that we have before us, though they did say such wonderful things, they didn't believe a word of it. Didn't believe any of it. We must speak truly. Fourthly, a warning to Christians. The ungodly may not make you commit a crime, Well they can stain your name and make you to be suspected of a crime. They can, as it were, put out a word that makes you suspicious. That's what these men are trying to do. They're trying to trap Christ to get him to say something. that they could use to make them be suspected of a crime. That they could ruin them. They could finish them. Here's a lesson for Christians. Look after fellow believers. Look after fellow believers. Look after their name and reputation. Stand shoulder to shoulder with other believers. the ungodly. Like nothing better than to see the believer tarnished, placed in such a predicament that they are unable to operate. As Christians we cannot swallow their tactics and all that they do. Look at the disgraceful way these men are treating Christ. They want a mission. They want to ruin the saviour. They want to ruin his name. Ruin his work and everything that he does. So they could have him accused before other authorities. Before the Governor and all the rest. Don't go along with the armed government and all that they seek to do. We have the folly of sinners. And what folly there is in the hearts of sinners. The folly of sinners. What is the folly of sinners? To have a conscience about civil tax, yet ruckus about spiritual things. There's the folly of sinners. And how often we see this In the lives of sinners, they're so diligent about their work and yet so careless about their souls. So diligent in making plans about earthly things and yet wholly indifferent to eternity. If they're getting their car serviced, they will make all the arrangements Take all necessary steps to ensure their car is booked in and they'll check it out and all the rest of it. Yet when you come and you tell them, you're going to die. What then? I was talking to a man the other day. I was asking him how his health was. He hadn't been too well. And he said, well, you know, He wasn't great. I said, I see you've got the place up for sale. Yes, he said, I went to the hospital. They told me that I had cancer and I was going to die. And I thought, well, I'd better sell the place. I said, well, I see it's not for sale anymore. No, he said, I went back and he told me, well, everything's all settled down. I said, so you're back to your old way. You couldn't care less about death and eternity. I said, that's the worst news they told you to tell you you were all right. So diligent, one moment. Needing to get us a fair source of life. But what about eternity? Oh, the folly of sinners. The folly. Diligent in earthly things, yet reckless in relation to eternity. They don't care. Finally, I leave you with this question. To whom do you owe allegiance? To whom do you owe allegiance? With simplicity Christ catechizes the hearer. Man and creation stand with the image of God. That image marred and shattered with the fall. Restored by the work of the spirit of regeneration. Now friend Caesar, yes let me say something about Caesar. He's satisfied if his lordship is merely outwardly acknowledged by paying him tax. He's quite happy with that. Doesn't care if you hit him. Doesn't care if you curse him up and down the country. As long as you keep paying him your taxes, Caesar is happy. Because he can keep on doing what he wants to do. Friends, that will not do for God. Will not do for God. God will not be satisfied with simply coming, mumbling a few words of prayer, reading a text of scripture and getting on with your life. Matthew 22 verse 37 says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. God will not be satisfied with anything less than wholehearted submission and love to him. You see the first question of these men was not the question they asked. Their first question should have been should they have even received the money of Caesar. Having admitted you see that it was the instrument of commerce they were in fact bound to sustain Caesar. It was the mark of his sovereignty over them and their subjection to Caesar. The question had already been answered, the very fact that they had the penny in their pocket with Caesar's image on it demonstrated they had already answered the question that they were servants of Caesar. It was therefore absurd to quibble about tax when they ignored the real issue. Serving God and being in subjection to God. If God's image was stamped on them, then they already knew what they should do. That they should pay their taxes to Caesar. That question was already answered in the Old Testament. If they had known their scriptures. The real question was, did they know God? Was the image of God stamped upon them? Let me ask you then, do you know God? Are you serving God? Is His image stamped upon you? 1 Peter 2, and in the verse 17, honour all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honour the King. Fear God, honor the King. There's a simple order there, isn't there? Do you know God? The issue is not do you honor the King. The issue is do you fear God? Do you know God? Is His image stamped on you? You see, serving God does not mean defrauding the King. As far as scripture is concerned, it doesn't mean that. Acts 23.5, I shall not speak evil of the ruler of thy people. Christ takes the whole issue and he lifts it up into the spiritual realm and he says, here's the question, are you serving God? Do you know God? The question about Caesar is superfluous. That question is dealt with. There's the image of God upon you. whose image is stamped upon you. Amen.