Matthew's Gospel, and it's been good, but it's been long and kind of tedious, and I apologize, but we're trying to learn some things, and we're noticing this is the final week, beginning in chapter 21, and no sooner than he goes in and presents himself as king, most of the mixed multitude is not interested. And so we're noticing the events of Monday and Tuesday where the Lord is giving, if you will, 10 warnings to the people, and he's doing it just very through words. That's all he's doing, just warning them. He curses the fig tree, cleanses the temple, he silences critics over the question of authority. He gives some parables of the disobedient son and the wicked husbandman and the parable of the king's son. And that got us all the way through chapter 22, verse 15. So all these things are happening in rapid succession over a two-day period. And we're still here on Tuesday. And what we're going to come to today is the three leading opponents of the Lord are going to come forward with a bunch of questions. Now, the Bible is a book with answers. And the Bible does not mind people asking questions. And in the Old Testament, back in the book of 1 Kings 10, what had happened a few chapters before that, a young man prayed to God for wisdom. And that would be Solomon. And God granted him wisdom. so that he would know how to be a good ruler and how to teach people to live well on planet earth. And he began to build his kingdom in his early years around the wisdom that God gave him, and the reputation began to spread. And in 1 Kings 10, a nearby queen from Sheba, the queen of Sheba, heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord. Notice, she didn't hear about him so much about the wealth that he had, or the type of administration he had, but concerning the name of the Lord. And she came to prove him with hard questions. People want to know things about God. And they're going to come with questions. And there are honest questions. And verse 3, Solomon told her all her questions. There was not anything hid from the king which he told her not. God's got the answers. in the Bible. Sadly, we're going to learn there are questions of sincere hearts and there are foolish questions and scornful questions and people that aren't really looking for answers, they're looking for an escape valve to get away. From God, and that's what's happening here with Jesus and these three groups are going to come in rapid succession The Herodians are going to come in verse of 15 Which we'll see in 15 the Pharisees took counsel and they sent the Herodians out along with their disciples and and the Herodians will ask a question, the Sadducees will ask a question in verse 23, and the Pharisees will ask a question in verse 34, and then Jesus is gonna wind the whole chapter up by, he's gonna ask a question. So we'll take a look at these questions and to see what it is that's going on. Are these people looking for answers? Are there answers to their questions? In verse 15, the Pharisees took counsel how they might entangle Him, that's Jesus. He'd just been teaching that great parable of the marriage of the king's son. And they want to entangle Him in His talk. And they sent to Him disciples with the Herodians. who said, Master, we know thou art true and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man, for thou regardest not the person of men. Tell us, therefore, what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness. and said, why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. And he sayeth to them, well, whose image in superscription is this? And they said, Caesar's. Then he said to them, well, render therefore to Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. And when they heard these things, they marveled, and left him, and went their way. And the first thing they do is they come with a political question. The Herodians were the politicians of the day, the Jewish politicians of the day. You'll find that, like in America, there are different people that have their different interests. There are people that are conservatives. There are people that are liberals. There are people that are historians. There are people that are New Agers. There's people that break up into different groups. And the Jews had broken up into three major groups by the time Jesus arrived. There were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Herodians. The Pharisees mostly kept the temple. The Sadducees mostly kept the scribes and the copies of the law. And the Herodians were like the civil leaders. They're the ones who weren't so much interested in religious duties. They were interested in civil duties. And the one thing they liked was Herod was part Jew. He was an Itamian with a little bit of Jewish blood. And he had purchased his throne in Rome many, many decades before. And because he had a little bit of Jewish blood, they thought it was best to have someone in office that was somewhat related to their people. rather than a full-blooded Roman or someone that Caesar might appoint like Pilate. It's better to have someone like Herod." And they were the Rhodians. They said, look, as long as we retain a little bit of governmental power, we're doing okay. By the way, there are Christians that like that too. If we could just retain a little bit of governmental power, we're doing okay. So the question is a political one. The political one is, we are the Jewish people, and why are we paying taxes to the Romans? Now, why are they doing this? Well, their method is to, of course, take counsel through committees and councils, and their design is to entangle Jesus and snare Him in His words, and find contradictions in what He says. That goes on today. The method of a lot of people is to look for contradictions in the Bible and look for something that doesn't line up here because now basically we've just found this is a discredited manuscript. That's a discredited man. We don't have to listen to him. So we're looking for a way to make him look bad publicly like we're looking for a way to make the Bible look bad publicly. That's their design. Their narrative, you'll notice in verse 16, when they begin speaking, they begin with the word, Master. They give him a little lip service. Oh, he's a good teacher. He's a good man. We know Thou art true and teachest the way of God in truth. Neither carest Thou for any man, for Thou regardest not the person of men. It said about two or three things that were true and one thing that wasn't. and their narrative is to mix truth with error. This is the way you set up a narrative. You put a couple of grains of truth in there, and then you slip in just a little bit of error. What's the error? The error that He doesn't care for any man. That's the leaven in their message. Jesus doesn't regard the person of men in that He's going to say, well, I'm going to regard this Jew more than a Philistine, because for both of them, they both have a soul, and both are in need of truth and salvation. And to say he doesn't care, he just went around three and a half years helping people and doing good to those that were oppressed and giving himself and ministering. Obviously, he cares. But the way they're showing you is in a lot of these discussions, we're in a political realm now, the way political people will work is they'll mix a little bit of truth with a straw man, fake... lie in the narrative to kind of frame the narrative in such a way where it's no longer accurate or honest. Almost no matter seems like how you would answer it, you're going to come out with something wrong because you swallowed a little bit of the leaven of the falsehood in what they've set up. This is how the newspaper is operated forever. They put a little bit of truth and a little bit of error, and they set it up in such a way that no matter how you respond to it, you've swallowed a little bit of leaven. This is the way they work. And so, Jesus knows that. Why are you tempting me, you hypocrites? In Mark, he talks about verse 18. He said he perceived their wickedness. In Mark, he calls it hypocrisy. In Luke, he calls it craftiness. And basically what he's saying is there are crafty, hypocritical, wicked people who take counsel to entangle God's Word and in God's people. That's why they exist. That's why I try and warn you, there's no need for any of you to watch any news. That's what destroyed the United States of America were the newspapers and radio and television. This is what built, the Bible is what built the United States of America early on. And early on when people had truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, we were doing fine. And as we started listening to the narrative of liars using the politics of newspapers and getting politics in everyone's life, everyone's political now. Nobody needs to be political. Nobody needs to be political, you need to be biblical. Nobody needs leaven. A little leaven will leaven the whole lump. The whole thing's leaven now. Have you seen where it's gone? After 150 years of the newspapers? Cancel your subscriptions. and read God's Word. Anyways, they come with this political question. Now here's their design. Their design is this. They know that there's great division amongst the Jewish people. The Jewish people are divided. Some of the Herodians think maybe it's okay to pay the tax because it keeps our guy in the throne there, Herod. Most of the Jews are against the tribute and the tax. And I could take you back to Old Testament passages, but that's not the issue. The issue is, they're thinking, no matter how Jesus answers this question, if He says, yes, we should pay tax, He's going to alienate a whole bunch of Jews. And if He says, no, we shouldn't pay tax, He might alienate a few Jews, but He's going to alienate the prevailing government forces. and they're going to get him for insurrection and sedition. So no matter how he answers this question, we framed it as an either-or question, as a yes-no question. No matter how he answers it, he can't answer it in a way that will satisfy people. By the way, they do that a lot. Lawyers are trained to do that when people are on the stand. Don't allow them to give an open answer. Funnel them down to a yes or a no answer, but frame the question in such a way that no matter how they answer it, they're going to look bad. If you stop beating your wife, There's evidence this man used to beat his wife. Have you stopped beating your wife? No. No. No. Oh, you're still beating her, are you? So you frame, this is the careful, crafty framing of issues in such a way they do this as they accost certain senators and congressmen coming out with a yes or no question, an either or question. No matter how they answer it, they're going to look bad. And that's what they're trying to do with Jesus here. This is the nature of politics. Like Brother Ed likes to say, a tick is something that bites you. And polyticks are many things biting you. You don't want those things on you. Stay away from them. Now, Jesus, though, perceived their wickedness. Jesus is one step ahead of them. He's not going to answer yes or no, either or. Instead, he's going to ask them for something. Show me the tribute money. Now they have to bring forth the money, and they bring one of the pennies that had been minted in Rome. And on that penny was an image of the head of Julius Caesar. And he asked them, whose image is this? Caesar's. Not only that, his name was there. It's not uncommon for Gentile entities to print money, to mint money, whether it be coin money or paper money, and to put people's faces on it, usually their rulers, and the names of those people. We have it on our dollar bills, and we're used to that. And they said, well, this money, it's Caesar's. Well, then render to Caesar the things which are Caesar's. After all, he printed it, he made it, isn't it his? He apparently is sharing it with you, he wants some of it back, give it back to him. Is this not unreasonable? You're living in whatever land you're living in. They print the money. They've set up the economic system. If they want some of it back, give some of it back. I have no problem with that, says the Lord. The Lord will take account one day. That's perfectly fine. You can pay tribute. You can pay tax. It will not contravene your work with God. That's his image. Give him what's his. Here's a question that he didn't ask. Whose image are you made in? The greater question isn't about the money and the image on the money. Who stamped his image on you? The money you can render back to Caesar. He's the one that printed it. But God put his image on you. Shouldn't you render back to God the things that are God's? Isn't God worthy of some of your time and your treasure and your devotion? That's what He's leaving open for them to consider. We've been made in the image of God. They say, well, our image has been marred and it's fall. That's correct. But we understand it's been restored in Jesus Christ. Ephesians 4, verse 24, put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. And so therefore, what Jesus is wanting and desiring and is teaching through His apostles and His prophets is, I beseech you by the mercies of God, present your body a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God. You can give your money to Caesar. You give yourself to the Lord. God's not interested in your money. He's interested in you. One day the money will canker and rot and be done away with. So, the first is the political question. And the Lord turns it around on them. Render to God the things that are God's. You're in the image of God. Give God your time. Give God your prayers. Give God your devotion. Give God your attention. And when they heard these words, they marveled. And the Herodians went their way and said, we're not gonna get him with politics. We can't get him to descend to our level of politics. He stays on the higher plane and the higher level, which is spiritual. He doesn't get down in the dirt with us. And the Lord doesn't want His children down in the dirty political world. He wants them on the higher road of spiritual truth and talking about the things that are God's and things that are the Lord's, as opposed to the things that are going to pass with time anyways. You do know our currency will fail. Currencies have failed. By the way, those Roman coins aren't worth anything today. They're gone. The dollars they were using in Nazi Germany, those are all gone. And your money will be gone soon, too. I mean, it's planned obsolescence. The people printing it right now, the fiat currency, they tend to do away with it. Have you noticed the prices are going up? Because the stuff is more worthless. Yeah. Yeah, nickel's not worth a dime anymore. Anyways, I think Yogi Berra said that. So first is the political question. The next question that's going to be brought to him, the next group is watching the Sadducees. The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say there's no resurrection. Interesting group of people. Sadducees, if you were to go back and you were to study them at that particular time, they were the scribal tribe that kept the law of Moses. And they had great reverence and respect for Moses. They believed all the Mosaic books were inspired. They did believe the other books were semi-canonical, but they really were inspired. They gave all their devotion to Moses. In other words, in their mind, they had subtracted many of the writings of God. The MO of the Sadducees is subtracting from God's Word. Today, the modern Sadducees are scholars. Both begin with S. They have the hiss of the serpent. They subtract things from God's Word. The first Bible I had in my hands was something called an NIV. It stands for the Non-Inspired Version. And in that NIV it had 64,000 fewer English words than a King James Bible. It had entire verses missing out of the book. It's the Bible light. It's had a pen knife taken to it and scalped it and a whole bunch of things have been taken out of it. Now, we know in the book of Deuteronomy, He shall not add to the word which I command you, said the Lord, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you. That's Deuteronomy chapter 4. of Revelation 22. We know what God says. That which is old, there's no new thing under the sun. What the Sadducees were doing, the scholars today are doing. And Jesus warned, if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and from the things which are written in this book. By the way, He didn't say if someone reads it. He said if someone's involved in performing and committing that act of treason. The men and the women on those committees are the ones who God sought to that they are not saved. Most Christian scholars, Hebrew and Greek, are unsaved. Probably 99% of them. Every so often there's a Christian guy who naively becomes a Christian scholar, a Bible scholar. He doesn't know what he's doing. He'd be better off just to be a humble student of the Word of God. But it happens. Some of God's kids make mistakes. But those people that took away from the words of the book are not saved, says God. So the Sadducees subtracted from God's Word. There were many great teachings in the Old Testament they did not believe in. You read about them in Acts 23. when Paul was being brought before this Jewish council after being arrested in Jerusalem, and there was the high priest, and there were some Sadducees, and there were some Pharisees, and it would be like there was probably an aisle down the middle with some on the right and some on the left. The Pharisees on one side, the Sadducees on the other. The liberals on one side, the conservatives on the other. And when Paul perceived the one part was Sadducee and the other part Pharisee, he cried out and he said, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee of the hope and the resurrection of the dead. I'm called in question. And when he so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the multitude. For the Sadducees say, There is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees confessed both. And so the Sadducees had subtracted key teachings from the Word of God. They would be like the modern scholars who don't believe in the virgin birth, who don't believe in the bodily resurrection, who don't really believe there is a heaven and a hell. You're going to see by the nature of the question, all of their thinking is based on the way they live right now. Everything is based on this present life, and maybe if there is a life after, it'll be just like this life, only a little bigger, but pretty much basically the same. And that's the way a lost religious man thinks. He knows nothing of the spirit world. So in their question, verse 23, back where we are in Matthew 22, They don't believe there's a resurrection in verse 23, so the first thing they do is ask about a resurrection. And Moses says, if a man dies and he has no children, and his brother marry his wife, he should raise up seed to the brother. Now, there were with us seven brethren, and the first, when he married a wife, deceased, having no issue. He left his wife to his brother. Likewise, the second brother also, and the third brother unto the seventh, and all of the women died also, last of all. So all these men are supposed to raise up and none of them have any children with her. In the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of the seven? For they all had her. And here's the funny thing about a liberal, scholarly mind. It asks a question about something it doesn't believe in. Why would you discuss something you don't believe in? Why are you spending all your time talking about God if you don't believe in God? Why are you asking questions about a Bible if you say you don't believe it? I wouldn't waste my time in it. I don't believe in any of the writings of Confucius. I don't waste my time with them. I don't ask questions about them. I don't read it. I don't believe DC or Marvel comics. I don't read those things. I don't ask how Captain America's doing. I don't want to know where Superman is. I don't worry about that stuff. I don't believe it. Why would I be involved in something that I don't believe in? This shows the warped nature of a liberal mind. The Sadducee is a liberal. He doesn't know what he believes in. And the second thing that he tends to do is he will ask a fabulous, exaggerated, imaginary, hypothetical, unlikely situation that will lead the listeners so far down into the woods and and into a thick cloud of gray darkness That he finds himself stuck in a situational ethics I got I better come up with something for this bizarre situation, which is never going to occur It's not based anywhere in reality And the Sadducee is like the scholarly philosophical thinker that sits around and just imagines things and he twists himself up into yoga knots in his mind. And he can't come up with any answers. He can just come up with a bunch of fabulous questions that have no answer to them because they have no reality to them. And the Lord is listening to this insanity. And His answer, very simply, verse 29, is, Ye do err. Why is that? Not knowing the Scriptures. Because truth is only found in the Scriptures. And you guys have wandered so far out in the woods there, you're nowhere near the rock of truth that God tried to set you on. Truth is in the Scriptures. This is known as the Scripture of truth. And if you want to know spiritual truth, you can only know it here. And if you reject it like they did, they whittled that. We don't believe that. We don't believe in the resurrection. Well, the resurrection's in the Old Testament. You've seen it, right? Job 19, verse 25. It's in the book of Isaiah. We've looked at these passages before. That was the hope of their people. By the way, it's curious. They talk about the resurrection. Verse 28. And you know that word isn't found once in the Old Testament? In the book of John, I think it's the 11th or 12th chapter, I can't remember what chapter off the top of my head, I think it's the 11th. Let me see, yeah. The 11th chapter, when they raise Lazarus from the dead, Martha runs out and says in verse 24, I know that I'll rise again in the resurrection at the last day. She just used a word that's not in the Old Testament. Why is that? Because the concept of the resurrection is taught throughout the Old Testament. That was the hope of the Jews, is to be resurrected and to live in the land with the Messiah. That was the hope. And so, what did God allow them to do? He said, although I haven't given you the word, I'm going to permit you to give a word to that concept. The very concept where Job said, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God. And that hope is all through the Old Testament. And the Jews that read it said, wow, he's talking about raising us up one day. We can call that resurrection. And God said, go ahead, use that word. Go ahead, use it. And when it came back, Jesus came the first time, they were using a word not found in the Old Testament. Now why are you telling me this, Brother Mike? There is a word we all use today. about a trumpet sounding and us flying up in the air and it's called the rapture and it's not written in the New Testament anywhere by that name yet the concept is found in 1st Corinthians 15 Revelation 4 and 2nd Thessalonians 2, 1st Thessalonians 4. I mean the concept is found all over the place and we've put a name to it and God says that's good. My children that read my book, I'm gonna give them the privilege of naming a couple things. I'll give them privilege of naming something else. You know what, what would you like to call this folks? Bible. That's not in either testament. And God accepts it and allows us to call it the Holy Bible. He allows his children to have a couple of gifts and a couple of privileges. Isn't that a blessing? That's the goodness of God. Now, he just allowed us a few. They got to name rapture. We get to name rapture. They got to name resurrection. We both got to use the word Bible, and God accepts it. I'm just showing you something. The resurrection's taught plainly in the Old Testament. The rapture's taught plainly in the New Testament. But you know what? Philosophers and scholars don't believe in either. And yet they'll ask questions about it. Scoffing questions. Confused questions. And Jesus says, well, if you don't know the Scriptures, you're in error. Because without the book, you can't know the truth. And without the book, you don't know the power of God. And let me tell you some things about the resurrection, verse 30. In the resurrection, people don't marry. And they're not given in marriage. They're going to be as the angels of God are in heaven. Angels don't marry. God made a fixed amount of angels. And He fixed the number. And they don't reproduce and procreate. And that was it. And with men, God allowed men and women, and the two shall become one. In the sense that his DNA and her DNA come together and make one brand new one with new DNA. And this one came from those two. And both parts of those two are in that one. And God permitted procreation as long as we're in this part of life. But when we get our glorified bodies that live in heaven, just like the angels in heaven, there's no more need for procreation. Heaven's only so big, we're not going to have a population crisis up there. We're going to have a fixed number of people moving up there, and we're set. And the other thing which you learn in Mark's passage and Luke's parallel passage is once we're up there, we not only don't marry, we can't die. That also makes us like angels. Angels cannot die. Those who are believers in glorified bodies cannot die. So they won't need to reproduce. It's not like they're going to die and they need to pass on their heritage. They're going to be alive forever. Their heritage is going to stay with them. They don't need someone to pick it up after them. And as touching the resurrection of the dead, verse 31, have you not read? That's something Jesus says about 10 times to them. Have you not read? Did you never read? Have you not searched the scriptures? I hope he never says that to you. I hope you have read. And you can say, yes, I did read, Lord. I didn't understand it, but I read it. But have you not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying..." Now notice what he's going to do. He's going to go all the way back to Moses. Why? These people claim they revere Moses. These people... Oh, I don't know if Isaiah's inspired. I don't know if Jeremiah's inspired. He's just a prophet. I don't know if Daniel's right with what he said. But Moses, that's our man. So he goes all the way back to when God met Moses at the bush in Exodus 3. And he said, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Notice, when he was speaking to Moses, and he's speaking to Moses, I'm trying to get the timing right, about 500 years after Abraham lived, about 450 years after Isaac lived, and about 400 years after Jacob lived. And he didn't say, I was the God. of Abraham, and I was the God of Isaac. I am right now at this moment the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Why? Because they're with me. I'm not the God of the dead. I'm the God of the living. And my children live unto me forever, even if their bodies die." And trying to show them the fact that there had already been a soulish and a spiritual resurrection of those people in Abraham's bosom with God at the very moment, when they didn't believe in Abraham's bosom either. And most scholars, religious scholars, probably don't believe 90% of what's in a Bible. They don't believe in a soul. They don't believe in heaven. They don't believe in hell. They don't believe in a supreme God. They don't believe in the devil. They don't believe in a resurrection. They don't believe in a millennium. They don't believe in the rapture. But God's the God of the living. And basically they're dead in their trespass and sins and they're dead to God with no relationship to him. And they do err not knowing the scriptures. And the multitude, when they heard this in verse 33, they were astonished at his doctrine. Wow, he really seems to know the book, literally and spiritually. So the political question has been kicked aside. The philosophical question has been kicked aside. Next is going to come the Pharisees. When the Pharisees heard that he put the Sadducees to silence, they gathered together. And then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Now, the Pharisees were the conservative religious group. Their M.O. was not to subtract from the Word of God. Sadly, their M.O. was to keep the Word of God and then add to it. Remember a few chapters back in the 15th chapter when Jesus was dealing with them earlier, and the Pharisees were arguing with Him. Why are Your disciples transgressing our traditions? And what the elders say. And Jesus said, why are you transgressing the commandment of God by your tradition? I mean, in vain you're teaching people to worship me, teaching your doctrines and commandments of men. And then the disciples said, knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? And he said, well, too bad. Every plant which my father hath not planted will be rooted up. Let him alone. They're blind leaders of the blind. If the blind lead the blind, they'll both fall into the ditch. My Father said not just don't subtract from My Word, don't add to it. But they loved to add to the Word of God. They loved to hyper-divide and study the Word of God and chop it up with a knife and add pieces to it and flavor it and condition it and do all kinds of things. They had gone through the writings in the Old Testament. I guess there were 613 so-and-so commandments that they had found through the books of Moses. And they divided them up into the positive ones and the negative ones, and the 248 positive ones and 365 negative ones. And then they went through and they weighed them. They said, and these are considered the important ones. We call them heavy. They're heavy. And these are the ones that are not so important. They're the light ones, the unimportant ones. And we're trying to rank them as to which this one. And so what do you say, Lord? What's the most important one? We're gonna get your stamp of approval on this thing here. Because there's some we don't even like to follow at all, the real light ones, we can just kick them off to the side. But thank goodness Jesus came to fulfill every jot and tittle, and not to break the law, but to fulfill it. But it is kind of a good question for a religious man to ask. I mean, you ought to know what is the great commandment in the Scriptures. And Jesus answers him in verse 37, and He takes him back to the Shema in Deuteronomy chapter 6. 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 the great commandment." They were required three times a day to recite this. It's in the book of Deuteronomy 4. Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord. thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might." And that was to separate them from all the people on the planet. I mean, God called Abraham aside and Moses aside because the rest of the world was off into polygamy and had all kinds of idols and false gods, and He wanted them to know that here, O Israel, there is one God. The Lord our God is one Lord. And that was the Shema they call it Shema because the word in Hebrew here is Shema Shema it's that I L. I don't I Elohim I don't I had that's kind of how they say it in Hebrew forgive my accent and that's how they would say it and they would record that thing every day and Say it three times a day. They'd recite it and and the point is that Jesus is saying is To love God is more than just a Lip service. It's more than just to say I have fond feelings for God. To love God is to do God's will and to serve God and to be obedient to God. That's what real love is. And that's the first and the great commandment. But not only that, Jesus also reaches back into the book of Leviticus in the 19th chapter. And he shows them you can't separate the love of God from the love of men because men are made in the image of God. Render unto God the things that are God's and men are made in God's image. And I came here as a lover of mankind. And you too must learn to do that. Thou shalt not avenge nor bear grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the Lord. Leviticus 19.18 And that's the second commandment, loving thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. God was trying to teach the love of God to His people. We have the Ten Commandments back there. And you look at table number one, and there's spiritual commandments about knowing the Lord and not making graven images and not taking His name in vain and honoring the Sabbath. And that's all the love toward God. And all the others are the social commandments. honoring your mother and your father and not harming someone. Paul would go on and explain in the book of Romans that that's how the law is fulfilled in loving one another. If you love someone, you're not going to steal from them. If you love someone and they get something, you're not going to covet what they have. This, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet. If there be any other commandment, it's briefly comprehended in this saying, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. And on those two, loving God and loving your neighbor as all the commandments hang. And this is what God is basically doing with His people, is teaching us so one day we will have a new world that He's going to set up in a millennium where people are going to love God and love their neighbor and there will be peace on earth. Because there's love to God and glory to God in the highest. And we won't need Congress's making up laws because the law will be in everyone's heart and everyone's living it and fulfilling the law. So, Jesus replies to them. Now, they've had a political question. Ridiculous. Don't need to worry about it. The simplicity is this. If you are a Christian, your higher citizenship is to heaven. And you can love God and you can devote yourself to God and you can still serve in your nation as long as your nation is not asking you to do something contrary to God's law. So even if your nation says it's okay to kill babies since you know it's contrary to God's law, you wouldn't kill a baby. Even other people are doing it. And if your nation says it's okay for your son to marry another boy, you know God doesn't like that. Your son's going to marry a girl, even if your nation is permitting that stuff. And your higher citizenship is that to the heavenly citizenship, not your earthly one. And in terms of philosophical questions, you can just abandon them altogether, because philosophers err. They don't know the Scriptures. And in terms of religious questions, and religion seems to be real big on the Ten Commandments, but they miss the heart of the Ten Commandments. The heart of the Ten Commandments is loving God and loving your neighbor. And so, now the political, philosophical, religious questions aside, Jesus turns around and said, let's ask the eternal question. Let's ask the spiritual question. Verse 41, And while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, Well, what think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He? You want to ask questions? Let's ask the most important one. Forget about politics and philosophy and religion. Even if you were to get the religious question right, and you recited, I'm supposed to love God and love my neighbor. Can you? The real question is, what are you going to do with Christ? What think ye of Christ? God didn't give that religion just for the purpose of you doing your own works. God gave that religion to get you ready for His Messiah, the Christ. What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? Well, he's the son of David. And I understand those men, the Pharisees particularly, the Herodians, the Sadducees secondarily, they probably didn't give much thought to it anymore. But they understood that there was a Messiah promised in the Old Testament. Now what had happened to them is over the years, reading like we were studying this morning about the first and the second coming and not being able to see the difference, they got confused that there were two messiahs. Messiah ben Joseph and Messiah ben David. And the Messiah ben Joseph is the one that suffers like Joseph was thrown into the prison. But the Messiah ben David is the one that sits on the throne. And they kind of drifted toward their love of the Messiah ben David, the conquering Messiah, the powerful Messiah, the kingly Messiah, the great Messiah that would take the shackles of the Gentile governments off of us. And so their answer is, well, he's the son of David. And they didn't go much further. So Jesus now said to them, well, how does David in spirit call him Lord? When he says in verse 44, going all the way back, he's quoting Psalm 110. He's quoting the great Messianic Psalm 110. I don't know if you're familiar with it. You might want to put your finger there. But in that particular Psalm, one of the great messianic Psalms that David himself wrote under the inspiration of the Spirit of the Living God. Notice carefully how it's written in Psalm 110. with capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, said unto my Lord, look at it, it's capital L, little O, little R, little D, sit thou at my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool. David is saying, David's writing, he's saying the Lord, Jehovah in heaven said to my Lord capital L little o little rd David saying I have a Lord besides Jehovah's and The Lord Jehovah is saying to my Lord to sit at my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool and How can he be David's son because no father refers to his son as Lord and The Son refers to the Father as Lord, and David wasn't talking about Jesse. And he's talking about the Messiah that he knows has been promised to him in the book of 2 Samuel 7, verses 11 through 16, when the promise was given that of the seed of David would we want to sit on the throne forever and ever and ever, and that would be the Messiah. The Messiah, the Son of David, and yet He's His Lord too. How can that be? If David calls Him Lord, how is He His Son? Verse 46, And no man was able to answer Him a word, neither just any man from that day forth. Ask Him any more questions. He stopped every mouth. He shut them all up. Because the whole point that he wants them to understand is the Messiah is not just David's son, he's God's son. And the Messiah is more than a man. He's the God-man. And that's the eternal question. That's the spiritual question. What think ye of Christ? What will ye do with Jesus who is called the Christ? And the last question he's asking there to these people on that Tuesday, this is the final question. Next week he's not going to be asking questions. Matthew 23, we'll read it next week. He's just rebuking them, calling them hypocrites and cursing them seven times over for the fact that they've taken God's religion and thrown it in a trash can. But the last question, he asks the most important one, what think ye of Christ? What think ye of Christ? Verse 42. That's the question God's going to ask. Every individual, whether it's a philosopher, a politician, a religious man, or just a member of some guy in the multitude just sitting around watching the intellectual tennis match back and forth as people are batting the ball around, nobody getting the right answers. The question God's going to ask is the eternal spiritual question, what think ye of Christ? Every mouth is stopped, but what think ye of Christ? Well, what you're supposed to think of Christ is that He's the Lord Jesus Christ and God raised Him from the dead. And when you believe in Him with your heart, then you believe unto righteousness. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, not behaveth. believeth and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation the confession isn't even so much that i'm a sinner although i am it's the confession that he is the savior he is the lord jesus what think ye of christ whose son is he was the only begotten Son of God, just like it was in the first chapter of Matthew. I mean, here we are 21 chapters later. And she shall bring forth the Son. Thou shalt call His name Jesus. That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. He's God with us. And the eternal and the spiritual question is the important one. And the hard questions really aren't that hard after all when you've got a Bible. They're simple to answer. Any thoughts, comments, or questions on what we looked at? Let's thank the Lord. Lord, thank You for stopping every mouth right there with a very simple question, what think ye of Christ? And Lord, we're thankful that You've taken the time to draw us, Father, and to enlighten us and to show us, as you showed Thomas, my Lord and my Christ. Thou art the Son of the living God. To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we thank you in the Savior's name, the one in whose name we pray, the Lord Jesus Christ.