Word of Salvation – Vol. 46 No. 42 – November 2001

 

Watch Out!

 

Sermon by Rev. S. Bajema on Mark 12:38-40

Scripture Readings: Galatians 3:1-14; Mark 12:35-44

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

This is a harsh attack by the Lord on the very pillars of society!  Yet it's something He has to say, especially as He has just clearly stated who He is.  But Jesus cannot just say what He said and leave it at that.  Otherwise He could be accused of being judgmental, divisive, and definitely unloving!  And it's precisely because of His love for His own that there's this stern denunciation of the most religious men of that time!  For of all those among the Jews then, none were seemingly purer in their worship and service of the LORD God than these teachers of the law!

And that's just it!  They were in such a prominent position, as our text goes on to show.  You see, congregation, there was no general sense of service from these so-called men of God.  While there were a few who genuinely warmed toward the gospel message, the vast majority emphatically rejected Jesus!  Their scheming eventually had Him hung on that cursed cross.

But even now, when Jesus spoke these words, everyone knew of their intense hatred for the Nazarene carpenter!  The words above the text, "The large crowd listened to him with delight," shows our Lord at definite odds with those men.  That's why the people were loving it!  A bit of put down for those uppity, holier-than-thou, clergymen, was popular.  Those teachers, so full of their rules and regulations, were getting a bit of their own back!  The people already had quite some resentment against those religious bureaucrats because they made it so difficult for everyone else.  All those hundreds of little laws that they said you needed to keep to be right with God!

Still congregation, the important part of this text isn't that Jesus had a go at those highfalutin theologians.  This is no mere dig at those who happened to be obviously well off!  Actually, what Jesus exposes here is as important as life and death – as absolutely vital as the difference between heaven and hell!

You see, there is a wrong kind of religion.  There are churches where tradition and ceremony, and the rules and the rule-makers, are their only reasons for existing!  And, most sadly of all, there are Christian preachers who don't preach the Gospel!  Oh, they have it all on the outside.  You can't fault them on appearance and on what it seems a Christian church should look like.  But there isn't what counts on the inside.  There you find a lie!

Since all they have is on the outside, they make a lot of that, to try to make others believe, and especially try to somehow convince themselves, that they have it altogether on the inside!  Jesus rips away that mask!  He openly exposes them for the frauds they are!

And right now, right here, the Lord wants us to know the same from this text.  Congregation, the Lord tells us TO WATCH OUT!  He is telling us:
- firstly, THE CHARLATAN'S CHARACTER;
- secondly, THE CHARLATAN'S COURSE;
- and thirdly, there must be, THE CHRISTIAN'S CAUTION.

So let's see what makes up such a person, where that person is going, and then what we must learn from it for our lives now.

Congregation, there is, then, firstly,

THE CHARLATAN'S CHARACTER.

A charlatan is, very simply, a fraud.  To describe this definition further, we'd say, "He's an empty pretender to knowledge and skill."  In other words, he ain't got nothing!  Like so many high-flying entrepreneurs of the late 80s, he's only out to take, without ever having to put in!  So when the Stock Market crashed, so did they!  They had no capital – nothing to support all their grandiose schemes!

Mind you, they had a tremendous energy at work.  Their names were rarely out of the papers as they moved from one ambitious project to another.  Which is quite like the Teachers of the Law.  That little word "like", as in, "they like to walk around," points to an obvious intensity in their work.  They believe in what they're doing.  And if any of us had been there and met them, we could only come away impressed with their sincere devotion.  There ought to be more like them in the church!  You knew that when you saw them.  They presented themselves well – in fact, very well!  And yet that appearance which was so impressive on the outside showed an emptiness on the inside.  Listen again to verse 38, "They like to walk around in long flowing robes."  Isn't this a bit showy?  It's something more than the standard gown of a priest.  You see, those tassels they're required to have on the edge of their gowns, are a bit longer.  It's the robe of a notable.  In fact, you couldn't help but notice it!  And they're not hiding it.  They've worked for this.  It's all the blessing of the Lord on their work.

Whether it was the fancy dress then, or the pink Cadillac, the mansion in a better part of town with all the latest luxuries and the extensive expense account of today, of course the Lord's blessed us!  What kind of advertisement is it for Him to have poor people leading His Church?  Didn't you know Jesus was a millionaire?

Congregation, that's a genuine quote from one of today's televangelists.  Another one said, "If a preacher is not rich then he might as well spit on the cross because it's not working for him!” (from: Contending Earnestly For the Faith, April 2000)

Jesus is spot on about them in describing their colleagues two thousand years ago.  In His words from Matthew 23, "Everything they do is done for men to see: they make their phylacteries wide (in other words, those small boxes containing scriptures on their foreheads and arms were deliberately bigger) and the tassels of their prayer shawls long" (vs.5).  It's all about style!  God loves a snappy dresser!  In the advice of one of them about how you can be rich and so be obviously blessed by the Lord, “It's time to relax and become comfortable around money.  You need to stretch yourself and position yourself right out of your comfort zone.  For example, it may involve a little exercise like putting on your best clothes and ordering coffee in a fancy restaurant or hotel lobby.  Even though you could make the coffee for half the price at home, the total experience may enlarge your thinking.  You may even feel better about yourself and life.  I challenge you to do something that will break any poverty thinking and guilt that has a hold on you.  It may only take one cup of coffee, but it's a step in the right direction of making you feel more comfortable about money." [a quote from Brian Houston's book, 'You Need More Money (Discovering God's Amazing Financial Plan for Your Life).]

These teachers of the Law are still in the Church today.  They are still teaching and it's all about the law alright – the Seven Laws For Financial Success!  But it's still so far from God's Law!  And it's still so far from the serving a true leader does.  Because they certainly won't serve you – why, didn't you know, you're part of God's plan to keep them in the life they're accustomed to – and then some more too!  You have to notice them!

When the text speaks of their loving to be greeted in the market places, you're not saying "G’day!"  You're not even saying the respectful "Sir".  This is calling them by their own title, "Rabbi".  Rather than a friendly disposition to all, they listened for the highest position.  You see, the title "Rabbi" means "My Great One."  That's what they liked a show of respect for the high position they had.

Don't forget, the Lord has blessed them – they have His anointing!  Just touching them is good for you.  So get down on the ground.  Grovel before them.  It's good for you.

And Jesus just keeps going.  The next two illustrations prove it all the more!  For "the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at banquets" (vs.39) are in the original Greek literally "the first seats" and "the first places."  The Greek further implies that these were things they even waited to receive!  It was their right!

How different from our Lord could this be?  This is the complete opposite to He who said, “But many who are first shall be last, and the last first" (e.g., Lk.14:8).

Congregation, Jesus is showing here much more than just some misguided and over-zealous men.  These are people so totally subsumed by the drive to be first they miss the One who is first!  They are that busy in their socialising prominence – being seen in the 'right' company and in the 'right' place at the 'right' time that they've lost touch with the One who is perfectly right!

This is what we see now in the second part:

THE CHARLATAN'S COURSE.

Those teachers have become so wrapped up in themselves that they've forgotten they are here to serve, and not to be served.  So, as much as the beginning of verse 40 should shock us, it's really an accepted fact of their church life – “They devour widow's houses."  Things have become so very, very wrong.  The devil's influence has become strong.  The incident following the text shows that.  The full temple tax was still forced upon the widows.  But it's not only that.  Jesus is still focussed on these men.  It was they who had manipulated others so that they could do as they wanted.  It was a whole selfish attitude – they were there to be served not to serve.

Congregation, a Teacher of the Law originally took no pay for their actual teaching.  That was meant to be part of his voluntary service to the Lord's church.  He was meant to have a trade by which he earned his daily bread.  Like the apostle Paul was a Pharisee and a tent maker at the same time.

But these "legal eagles” had managed to dupe the people into believing that there was no higher duty and privilege than to support a Rabbi in comfort.  Such support, they assured the people, were the good deeds that God would reward, both now and with a higher place in the heavenly academy.  And what a tale they can spin, these men of the cloth.  For they claim a higher mystical or theological rationale.  "The LORD has shown me," they say.  Or it's bolder still, "The LORD has said to me...".  And who would want to argue against God?  Especially if there is held over against you the curse of God, whether that be through what those Teachers said then, or the Roman Catholic church with its purgatory and absolution and a host of other rituals, or the many so-called Bible-based ministries today, which still have prophets and even apostles bringing a new word to the church.

Congregation, don't be fooled.  These new 'Teachers' are really just like the old.  They will claim to bring a new word from the Lord, the word that says you yourself can say the word, and have whatever you want.  Only if you do it their way, of course!

Someone described the results of this 'Word of Faith' movement this way: "Rather than being taught the Bible accurately, rather than having the whole counsel of God preached, and rather than having their priorities straight, millions of Christians are being given a distorted set of spiritual values and priorities, which, if not corrected, will lead to further difficulties and perhaps tragedies" (p.16, 'The Facts of the Faith Movement,' by John Ankerberg & John Weldon).

Who would dare go against such an anointed messenger of God?  Who could challenge such a power that dominates the religious programs on the television?  Apart from one or two genuinely Bible-based ministries, the rest are all these new teachers.  How do you think they're able to afford being on TV?

That's where we come to the next part of the text.  Jesus says that "they devour widow's houses."  Now, the "widows" here represent all those less able to care for themselves within the covenant community.  They, more than anyone else, depended upon the leadership of the church.  That's why the LORD told His people, from the very beginning, that these ones had to be especially cared for.  They weren't to be abused – because they easily are.  They are the "poor".

Right throughout church history the faithfulness of the Lord's church at any given time can be seen by how she treated these people.  You only need to read the prophets' condemnation of Israel's rulers when the nation left her Lord, to realise that it was the widows and the fatherless – those defenceless ones – who were so terribly abused and misused.  It was no different in Jesus' time on earth.  And it's certainly the same today as "poor" Christians are sucked in by today's enlightened Teachers.

The coins which dropped into Tetzel's coffer in the 16th Century, are still being taken in today – by cheque, credit card, and EftPos.  And if that Teacher comes to town, cash is fine too.  One of them cleared several million dollars out of Perth for five days of meetings!  The richly long robes, the Cathedral of St Peter, or the mansions in the better part of town, are still being paid for by those who can least afford it.  What those Teachers can show!

And that's just it – it is only a show.  The "show" of "lengthy prayers" leaves such an impression.  They can move you from the valley of tears to the mountain tops of joy with their words.  And you dare not doubt.  Would you want to be seen as unspiritual, as perhaps missing the blessing?

Imagine if a major new teacher of today, the most respected among them all, sends you a letter telling you that you could send for his "33 Predictions for You" for the next year.  He writes that based on exercising his "gift of prophecy" for you, and by expecting "creative miracles" and money, together with simply sending a “seed-faith gift" you could well get to a "hundred-fold return"!  As well, he tells you that if you would neglect what God is especially saying to you, then Satan will take advantage and hit you with bad things and you'll wish the next year had never come.  Don't say that isn't spiritual abuse of the poor!  Like the teachers of Jesus' time it's not only that they're trying to manipulate God according to their wishes, they're actually tearing apart His own people.  With such a catalogue of deception and dastardly deeds, it's no wonder the Lord begins this text with the cry of warning, "Watch Out!"  And we must.  We must watch out.

Congregation, we have come, in the third place, to:

THE CHRISTIAN'S CAUTION

You see, Jesus isn't addressing those teachers themselves.  Certainly, He's spelt out in general what they're like.  And that's a description which has proved true for thousands of years of church history.

But these words are really for you!  Watch Out!  You could be sucked in and spat out!  Harsh though that sounds, that's exactly the sense of Jesus' words here.  Maybe it doesn't seem like it at the time.  Hindsight will tell it though.  But hindsight isn't foresight, and that's what Jesus wants you have – right now!

Fellow believer, the Lord has just, in the verses 35 to 37, spoken clearly of who He is.  He has lifted Himself right apart from who the Jews liked to think they were as children of the covenant.  He has claimed that covenant in Himself.  He calls us to faith in Him, not to futile hopes without.  There is an implicit challenge from Jesus in our text.  He's asking those around Him – and us today – “Who is right?"

This is the starkest contrast.  He urges the people to consider what those teachers are saying about Him.  And in the text He asks if they are substantiating that claim against Him by being so godly themselves!  Are they like the poor widow who gave everything she had?  Or were they actually taking?  For it's certainly no skin off their noses as to what they're putting in that offering.

Believer, take these very clear descriptions by our Lord, and discern what's happening in the churches.  Go through your so-called Christian books at home, and see if what the authors write about is like those teachers.  Analyse the songs from many Christians today, like those popular Hillsongs, and consider if that teaching isn't a bit like these teachers.  The warning is for you!  Watch Out!

If Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light, then let's not naively believe whatever comes under the title "Christian".  Because next to all that they say and write and sing about what they can and have done, Christ, kind of, gets a bit left out.  Like these teachers, they make quite some display of the money they contribute, and all those other things they do.

I'll never forget the scene of one Pentecostal revival meeting I was invited to while at Massey University in the late 70s.  It was time to take up the offering.  The crowd was being cajoled to give heaps.  Pulling out a $20 note, the big blond American gospel singer challenged us, “Look at what I'm putting in!  I challenge you to do at least the same!"

Perhaps these days $20 might not seem like much.  Back then it was my student assistance for a whole week.  That was what got me through seven days, equivalent to near $200 nowadays!  That was what he was psychologically demanding of many whom I knew couldn't afford to give at all!

How completely opposite to this spirit of one-upmanship is the joy of grace.  Grace - that's a total focus only on what God has done for me.  That's humbleness, because we know we didn't deserve anything at all!

Now, Christians have often been quite gullible when it comes to those who claim to have vital biblical ministries.  We like to hear the success stories on the mission field, and we like it when preachers are being so successful in the western world, too.  It's a type of salve to what can otherwise seem pretty unfruitful lives.  It's a salve, though, which can blind us.  We forget that the success this world promotes is the failure in heaven.

And shouldn't we actually be trying to seek the One who is from above?  Aren't we the ones who should be asking, "Where is my Lord in this?"  "How does this speak His Word as I have it so clearly in Scripture?"

With this understanding the ending of our text is fair, "Such men will be punished most severely."  They are the ones who have been hanging millstones around the neck of God's children!  They are a similar kind to the ones with whom the apostle Paul is extremely angry in his letter to the Galatians.  Listen to his cry of anguish to those believers, "You foolish Galatians!  Who has bewitched you?  Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.  I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?  Are you so foolish?  After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?" (Gal.3:1-13)

The teachers of the law and their outward show continued in the sin of the Judaisers.  Just as it is today, whenever there's an outward appearance put on top of faith.  For that's not faith.  It's actually anything but faith!

That's why Jesus condemns them so!  "Such men will be punished most severely" (vs.40).  And it's what Paul says of those demanding circumcision as an outward show, "As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!" (Gal.5:12).  Yes, let them castrate themselves!

That's a harsh thing to say – from both the apostle Paul and the Lord Jesus.  But where have these men laid Jesus?  For each time they have pointed to what we have to do they have denied the power of His death and resurrection!

Congregation, we should be most careful ourselves to not judge others.  Yet we should let them, and others, hear what they are really saying.  And most of all – what Jesus is saying!

We cannot be silent bystanders as the world increasingly attacks the honour of the Lord of the Church.  More than ever we should stand up for Jesus.  We are not self-seeking!  We are Him seeking!  In this age that has glorified selfishness, let's say and show that no one can be in the Church for what they get out of it!  For if we are following in the example of the Master, it's what you put in!

Amen.