The Authority Controversy, Part 3 | The Unassailable Authority of Christ

Well, we are back in Luke 20 and the authority controversy that erupted in Israel. And so you can turn to Luke 20 to see this authority controversy that erupted in Israel when Jesus came to the Temple, reclaimed the Temple for God. Last week I got through half my points, which was more than half of my sermon, and so I chopped it off right in the middle. And I’ve been able to go back to the shorter part of that half of the sermon and expanded even longer than it ever was. So I don’t know if it’s a cause for weeping and gnashing of teeth or great rejoicing, but let’s start by reading the text.

Luke chapter 20 verses 1 to 8 says this. “One day as Jesus was teaching the people in the Temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and said to him, ‘Tell us by what authority you do these things or who is it that gave you this authority.’ He answered them, ‘I also will ask you a question. Now tell me was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?’ And they discussed it with one another saying, ‘If we say from heaven, he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ But if we say from man, all the people will stone us to death, for they’re convinced that John was a prophet.’ So they answered that they did not know where it came from. And Jesus said to them, ‘neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.’”

Before we just launch into the text and pick up where we left off last time, I want to pause for a moment. Set this up by having you hear Jesus’ concern about spiritual authority. I want you to hear his concern about who it is you listen to, who it is you line up under, who it is you follow, who’s teaching you, ingest and digest, and the most important voices in your life. We can hear this concern of authority all the way back from the Sermon on the Mount.

So you can go to the end of Matthew Chapter 7 and take a look. As the Good Shepherd, Jesus is concerned about who you follow. He’s concerned about the voice or voices that you listen to. He’s concerned about whose life you watch, whose habits you imitate. So concern about spiritual authority, this isn’t a new thing for Jesus. It goes way back. It goes back to his teaching as Matthew records his teaching from his early ministry at the end of the Sermon on the Mount.

Find your way to Matthew 7 and verse 15. Jesus says this, “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles. So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”

Twice there Jesus says, once at the beginning, once at the end, twice he says you will know them and he’s referring to the false prophets, the false shepherds, the false teachers. You will know them, recognize them, by their fruits. You know what the challenging thing is about trees and fruits, about knowing a tree by its fruits? Accurate assessment requires close proximity over time.

It’s the same challenge in knowing teachers by their fruits. An accurate assessment requires close proximity over a sufficient length of time. You can’t possibly know, and examine, and watch, and assess, and come to a right judgement about a man and his ministry, or a woman and her ministry, about a ministry movement, about the effect of a denomination or institution or a movement or a church. You can’t know apart from close proximity and without sufficient time. Just as you can’t know what kind of a tree it is without an up-close examination, without sufficient time for the tree to bear its fruit.

According to Jesus, it’s the same thing with teachers and teaching. And you know what makes that so difficult today? Our technology has allowed us to pay no attention to proximity. We don’t feel the need anymore to be close to anything or anybody. In fact, you can see sometimes we’ve seen this as a family before. You see families sitting at a restaurant, family of four, five, six, whatever. And each one of them has their cell phone out and they’re looking down at their phones, ignoring everybody who’s in their close proximity while they are connected to someone who is far, far away.

We think that we have done away with the need to be close, proximate, near. We don’t need that anymore. We’ve advanced. We progressed beyond the need to be close in proximity. We’re also, as I know you feel this all the time, but we’re a society in a hurry. When my wife and I moved here from California, we were used to California highways, California driving, which is fast, dangerous. I kind of like it. Fast and dangerous, I got to admit, came here to Greeley and it was like, whoa.

My wife and I have noticed over the past almost nine years that we’ve been here, how many of our kind are moving here? Have you noticed that? And people from these bigger urban areas, they’re coming here and they’re starting to lay on their horns, and they’re being impatient and pushing. We are an impatient people. We’re an impatient country. We want our food fast. We want our driving fast. We want everything fast. We want results now.

If our Google search takes more than three seconds, we’re like, what’s wrong with this thing? Click, click, click, click, renew, refresh, refresh, refresh. What’s going on? We’re especially in need to hear Jesus’ warning. You must be close in proximity to see a teacher in his life and see the teaching. See the result of the teaching. See whether it produces good fruit or bad fruit. And you have to give it time. You have to be patient and wait.

It’s one of the challenges that me and the other elders feel and otherwise older people in this church feel, when young people come in, they want answers now. They treat us like human Googles, human Wikipedias. Just give me the answer. I just, just the words, is all. I wouldn’t, I don’t even need you, really, just if you could write it down, send me an e-mail, text it to me.

Jesus said, though, “Wisdom is vindicated by her children.” Children take time to grow up, to see their character, to see what they’re going to turn into. Wisdom is vindicated by her children. It’s going to take time. It’s going to take close proximity to observe the fruit of wisdom.

Now, with that in mind, transition over to Mark’s Gospel. Take a look at Mark’s Gospel and turn to, find your way to Mark 11:27. One book over to your right and we’ll see in Mark 11:27 the parallel account to what we’re studying in Luke, the section on the authority controversy. We read this in Mark 11:27, “And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he’s walking the Temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, and they said to him, ‘By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?’” Very same thing as what we read.

And again, what do they mean by these things? Back up in the same chapter and look at verse 15, “As they came to Jerusalem, he entered the Temple, began to drive out those who sold those who bought in the Temple. He overturned the tables of the money changers, the seats of those who sold the pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the Temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, ‘Is it not written. My house shall be called a House of prayer for all the nations. But you have made it a den of robbers.’” Same narrative pattern as Luke’s Gospel.

But notice in Mark’s Gospel what is a, a bit different. Look what comes directly before the Temple cleansing and then directly after it. Back up to Mark 11, verse 12 and through verse 14. “On the following day when they came from Bethany, he was hungry and seeing in the distance of fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. And when he came to it he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ His disciples heard it.” Now skip over the tem, Temple cleansing account and right after that look at verse 20, says, “As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots.”

What is this? Is Jesus lashing out at a tree because he can’t get figs when he wants them? Is he just hungry and bit irritated that this fig tree, even though it’s not the season for figs that the tree didn’t recognize the master, the creator of all things walking down the road and said, “Well pop, let me pop out a few figs.” Obviously not. He is not taking out his frustrations on this innocent tree. Jesus is using the fig tree as an object lesson here to illustrate Israel to his disciples.

The nation Israel had everything going for it. Every advantage from God, every blessing, every spiritual resource, the promises, the covenants, the Word of God revealed, written. Besides that, the physical protection and physical provision of God, blessing after blessing after blessing. But the nation failed to worship God exclusively, and thus the nation failed to bear the fruit of righteousness. And thus, the nation failed to obey its calling, which was what? At least this to be a light to the nations, to receive the nations into the Temple. That the Temple would be a house of prayer for all the peoples.

What Jesus wants his disciples to see here as they go from the Temple cleansing, and then they see the, the, they go toward the Temple, curses the fig tree, on the way from Bethany down to Jerusalem, curses the fig tree. They go to the Temple, clear the Temple, come back, go out of the city, they pass by in the morning. They see the fig tree that he cursed the previous day withered to its roots and then they go into the Temple, and there’s this authority controversy.

What Jesus wants his disciples to see here is the reason that there’s no fruit. The reason Israel failed to fulfill its calling the disease is not merely in the leaf or the branch. The disease isn’t even in, just in the trunk of the tree. The disease goes all the way down, hidden beneath the surface to the unseen root. What root has been feeding this nation? What root has been nourishing the people? What root has been helping them grow healthy, and strong, and mature?  Sur, certainly wasn’t the shepherds of Israel.

God indicted them, as we read back in Jeremiah 23, there’s another text you can go to, if you’d like to in Ezekiel chapter 34, Ezekiel 34. God indicted them all the way back in Ezekiel’s day as well, Ezekiel 34:2 and following, “Thus says the Lord God ‘Shepherds of Israel who’ve been feeding yourselves, should not the shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, and you clothe yourselves with the wool, and you slaughter the fat ones. But you do not feed the sheep. The weak you’ve not strengthened the sick you’ve not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness,” in other words in severity, “you have ruled them.’”

If the nation is dependent on, counting on that kind of leadership, to care for God’s vineyard and to nourish the nation, feed its people, what hope is there for good fruit to grow? None at all. Verse 5, the results, so they were scattered. The sheep were scattered because there’s no shepherd.

Oh, a lot of self-proclaimed shepherds. A lot of people wearing tags to say chief priests, elders of the people, Pharisees, scribes, a lot of people with education, a lot of people with wealth, a lot of people with prominence, power, authority, but there were no shepherds. They became food for all the wild beasts. “My sheep were scattered,” God says, “they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill.” You know what that’s a reference to? Idolatry.

They would go and commit idolatry all over the hills and mountains of Israel. “My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or to seek for them.” So when Jesus curses the fig tree, he’s illustrating to his disciples the deadness of the nation, and he is also showing how thorough the deadness is. And it goes all the way down to a diseased root, that which is meant to feed the nation, to nourish the nation, that is its spiritual leadership, they themselves are dead, and rotten, and dry, and withered, and diseased.

Bad religion is, as Hosea 4:9 says, “it’s like people, like priests.” And as the prior verse Hosea 4:8 says, “The priests feed on the sins of the people.” They are greedy for their iniquity. You want to know how to explain all these terrible evangelical scandals that keep showing up in the news? That’s it right there. The priests feed on the sins of the people. They just eat it up, and they’re greedy for the people’s iniquity. Rather than confronting it, they start by letting it go. And after letting it go for a while, they start indulging in it. And after they have indulged in it for a little while, they embrace it fully and they are ruined, shipwrecked, destroyed.

People aren’t off the hook here. God holds them accountable too. They’re not simply victims. They bear responsibility as well. In fact, that’s why Jesus tells the people, he bypasses all their leadership but tells the people, “Watch out for false teachers.” It’s your job, your responsibility to watch out and be careful who you follow, who you listen to.

But as we see, there is an even greater guilt and a higher accountability that God does require of the shepherds. Anybody who takes on that mantle, anybody who takes on that role, you watch out, because God will hold you accountable for those souls. You bear an extra responsibility. Now, as you go back to Luke, chapter 20, you need to have that context in mind. This is how Jesus is thinking. This explains how he views what’s going on at the Temple. This explains his great passion against all the profiteering, all the distraction, all the buying and selling and the money changing. This explains his offence at that.

It also helps us see why he did what he did and what’s going on. What’s at stake for all the false shepherds of Israel when he does it? We started last time point one on, number one, the sinful interrogation of rightful authority. Remember the sinful interrogation, that’s the interrogation of this Sanhedrin delegation and they’re coming to this rightful authority, the only rightful authority, without a doubt, is Jesus Christ in their midst, and they interrogate him. “One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the Temple, preaching the gospel, chief priests, scribes with the elders came up, said to him, ‘Tell us by what authority you do these things or who is it who gave you this authority?’”

Chief priests, scribes, elders, these men are the delegation from the ruling body of the Jews, the council of the seventy known as the Sanhedrin. It is their job, it really is their job, to examine leadership teachers and their teaching. But we also know from Luke 19:47, these leaders don’t come with pure motives. They’re offended. They want to kill Jesus. They’re actually murderous in their thoughts. And it’s not that Jesus, just that Jesus is bad for business. They see him as a threat to their power, to their influence, and their position.

Jesus just came and in one morning put a stop immediately to their Temple businesses. That’s irritating and disruptive, but frankly, they could recover from that, that disruption. Jesus had done that once before, come in, cleared the Temple, John Chapter 2. He’d done that three years earlier, and as we see at the end of Luke 19, they’d fully recovered. They’re back in business. In fact, business was booming even more than before.

The real menace from the perspective of corrupt priests, corrupt false shepherds, it was the fact that Jesus had taken up, even more so, a teaching position in the Temple, and more concerning than that, he showed no signs that he would be leaving anytime soon. The authority of Jesus, in clearing out the thousands from the Temple, in teaching God’s word, in preaching the gospel, in healing sickness and disease, the authority of Jesus is obvious, it’s undeniable, it’s indisputable. Or is it indisputable? Not in their minds. In their minds they’ve got a bone to pick. They want to dispute his authority.

Religious leaders had the gall to challenge Jesus here, to demand his credentials. Maybe it was risky, but if they pulled it off, they would have succeeded in bringing Jesus under their authority. So it’s worth the risk. They thought, with Jesus tamed, with Jesus wearing their bit and bridle, they could put their little world back into some semblance of order and get back to business as usual.

Not so fast. Second point, the humble imposition of regal authority. The humble imposition of regal, or kingly, authority. Jesus responds to their question, and his response imposes upon them his regal, or kingly, or messianic, authority. Look at verses 3 and 4, “He answered them. ‘I will also ask you a question. Now tell me, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?’” Jesus is not being cagey here. He’s, he’s not simply being clever in answering them, he is answering their question. But in answering this question that they’ve asked in this righteous way, we can see that he is showing actually great humility.

He could have just declared where his authority has come from and who gave it to him. He just could have declared that outright. But in submission to God’s word, showing submission to God’s prophetic timing, acknowledging his connection with John, he’s acknowledging God’s will in sending John the forerunner. Turns out that the trap that they tried to lay, Jesus deftly disarms them, takes the trap out of their hands, sets it down in full, vrew, view of everyone, and springs it on them.

They’re like children before him. His wisdom is so superior, his knowledge and intellect is, is, is divine. They are so outmatched and they don’t know it. This question he has posed to them has just totally flipped the script, put them on the defensive. And does he know that his questions going to do that to them? Oh yeah, he, he knows what it’s going to do. I can imagine a faint smile coming on his lips as he asks them.

But here’s his answer. Even though his answer comes in the form of a question, by asking, what is your view of John the Baptist and of his ministry? What Jesus is saying here is my authority, and John’s authority, our authority comes from the same place. So the real question is, do you believe us or do you not? That’s what he’s saying. That’s how he’s answering their question. He won’t just simply give them an indicative, he gives them an imperative, too. Not only here’s where my authority comes from, me and John, same, comes from God. But what are you going to do about it? Are you going to bow the knee? Have you bowed the knee? What’s the evidence of your life?

Puts the religious leaders in a bit of a bind, an awkward spot, in a bit of a pickle because first of all, just a few years earlier, this same Sanhedrin sent a similar delegation to this one, and they were there to ask John, John 1:22, but what do you say about yourself? Who are you? And John answered them, quoting about himself, quoting from Isaiah 40, verse three, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness ‘make straight the way of the Lord.’”

In other words, he’s saying I am the prophet, the prophesied forerunner of the Messiah. I’m the forerunner. That’s who I am. That’s John’s claim. When John backed his claim with biblical prophetic preaching, he came with a baptism of repentance. He came with prophetic teaching. It was very clear John was more popular throughout the land of Israel and further and beyond than even Jesus was at that time.

In spite of what the original delegation learned back three years earlier, didn’t make a dent in the pride of these religious leaders in Israel; didn’t make a dent, didn’t stop in their tracks one bit, didn’t cause them to stop and take notice. After four hundred years of silence, we got a prophetic voice showing up. We need to listen, guys. The chief priests, the Sadducees, the scribes, the Pharisees, the elders, the prominent men of the people, they all wholesale, collectively refused to submit to John’s preaching.

They refused to humble themselves and repent. They refused to submit themselves to John’s baptism. We read in John or no, Luke 7, verse 30. The Pharisees, the lawyers, they rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by John. They rejected it, refusing to submit and obey, rejecting his ministry. Their outward action revealed their internal thoughts and their judgement. They refused to believe God had commissioned John, plain and simple. Refused to believe it.

Refuse to believe God had authorized John’s ministry. So the question is, were they justified in rejecting John? Did they have a point? Did they have a case to make? Do the religious leaders have a biblical reason for their judgement against John? Can they open Old Testament chapter and verse and point to here’s why?

Because if they do have a biblical case to make, now is the time. Now is the occasion. Right here in public, in front of all these people, with this man who claims to be the Messiah coming after the forerunner has announced him standing right here. If they’re really concerned about biblical fidelity, if they’re really concerned about truth, about righteousness, if they really are the shepherds of Israel, concerned about the spiritual care of the people, the sheep and Jesus has just given them their chance. Clarify your position. Baptism of John? Two options from heaven, from men. Well, that’s review.

 Here’s the third point, number three. The shameful revelation of hypocritical authority. The shameful revelation of hypocritical authority. The mask comes off in verses 5 and 6, and we see them as they really are. They discussed it with one another. That is to say they, they engaged in reasoning together. That’s the word that’s used there. They engaged in reasoning things out, considering different options, going back and forth. A little bit of private, a huddle, a private debate. Jesus asked a question and it’s almost like you can picture them saying, Ah, one sec, and they go over to the corner and talking in the corner, right?

How do we know that they said this? How do we know what their reasoning was? Obviously someone heard them, but I know of two former members of the Sanhedrin, two who were named in scripture who may have been there. One is Nicodemus, another is Joseph of Arimathea. Maybe they’re the source of what was actually said in the huddle. They get back in the huddle, discuss it with one another saying verse 5, “if we say from heaven, he will say ‘well why did you not believe him?’ But if we say from man, all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.”

They have identified the two horns of the dilemma that Jesus has just caught them between. Clearly here there’s no problem of their intellects. The faculties of their reason are functioning just fine, but they are putting their reason to work as we see, for a shameful purpose. What are they, are they interested in truth? No. They’re trying to protect their self-centeredness, their position, their means of an income, and they’re covering over a very cowardly heart of hypocrisy.

Here’s what we see when Jesus rips off the mask of their hypocrisy with just a simple question. First, you can jot these down as little sub points, but first, they don’t care about the truth. They don’t care about truth, which exposes this inquisition as unrighteous. They want to talk about the rightful use of authority, supposedly an inquiry into truth. It’s all a sham. The discussion that ensues is not about what’s true or false, not about what’s right or wrong, it’s about what they should say, what they should admit in public, out loud.

These men are calculating we see, they’re also profane. For them, words are not for the purpose of glorifying God, used to testify to the truth for them, their words are tools of manipulation. They’re using words to manipulate people, measuring their words, figuring out what they should say, what they shouldn’t say, protecting interests. They just want to get what they want.

Their mouths are not instruments of righteousness used in service to God. Their lips are used here for deception, for self-interest, for self-preservation, for self-promotion. Again, they do not care about the truth. Beloved, it takes time to see this in certain teachers that become popular in different parts of the country or around the world. It takes time to see this. But I’ve seen again and again, people that I have watched their ministries grow up, rise up, become prominent, become big names, big sellers, big conference speakers, and they come flaming down, ten, fifteen, twenty years hence, because at the heart, they were rotten.

And people can tell. You can listen to the content of their teaching and you can see in the content of their character. But you know what? People ignore that. Why? Because a lot of people think these guys are great. So it’s again, voting by numbers, painting by numbers, this guy’s great.

By contrast, all that Jesus cares about is to tell people the truth. Jesus is a truth teller. He’s a truth teacher. When he proclaims the truth, he doesn’t do it in secret only. He does it in secret, yes, but he also proclaims the truth in public. The truth doesn’t run and hide from anybody. He’s open to scrutiny. His teaching is open to examination. That’s how every truth teacher acts. They put their teaching out there so the people can listen to it, look at their Bibles, see is this really what the text is saying? Be good, Bereans, we say.

Jesus puts all of his truth out there, all of his teaching out there, hiding nothing, saying the same thing in Galilee that he’s saying in Judea that he’s saying in Jerusalem, in the heart of the Temple. He’s saying the same thing because he wants the truth to bring glory to the God who gave it.

So first, they don’t care about the truth. Second, they don’t care about authority either. They don’t care about authority, and they’ve come forward claiming to be concerned about authority, about proper credentialing, and who should be authorized to teach in the Temple and, well, this whole clearing thing. This is an embarrassment, but we can get over that if you’ll just fill out the proper forms. Submit to us.

Their concern about credentialing, about who should be there, who shouldn’t. Proper use of authority. Pre, seems to presuppose an objective authority of God, seems to presuppose that they see accountability to God as important. What’s actually revealed here is they don’t care about God. These men fear man, not God. And so they’re concerned about authority, that’s a sham too.

But these men, even though they have ascended into positions of spiritual leadership, their deepest concern is not about fearing God. Their deepest concern is not about, does not care about what he thinks, ultimately, they’re not concerned about giving an account to him and him alone. These are man fearers. They care what people think. And not be even because they really regard people, because they want to be able to get stuff out of them.

You say, but they’re using people, they’re robbing people. They’re pitiless thieves, robbers. What evidence is there of that that they fear men? Well, actually, Luke has set us up to see it this way of recording Jesus’ indictment of them in Luke 19:46. He called this a den of robbers, right? Dens are for hiding. They hide from people. They, they, they escape to the den to, as a refuge from justice.

These men turn the Temple into a den of robbers because like robbers they fear getting caught. They fear being exposed. They fear losing their position along with all this means of making money by cheating the people. Also notice both their concerns are about, are about what the people think, not what about what God thinks, in verses 5 and 6. Verse 5, they’re discussing it with each other, “If we say from heaven then he will say, ‘Well why did you not believe him?’” They didn’t dare admit their unbelief in the hearing of the people.

They didn’t want to risk a negative reaction from the public because the people were convinced, as verse 6 says, John was a prophet. And therein lies the problem. They’re convinced, very strong verbal expression, by the way, it emphasizes here a fixed position, deep, deep persuasion. These people are not budging from this point of view. People are standing, as it were, in hardened concrete in this position about John, believing John’s a true prophet. There is no convincing them otherwise.

They’re so convinced they obeyed his command to be baptized. All these people, the ones who are residents of Jerusalem and this area, they went down to the Jordan to be baptized. Many other pilgrims who were living in Galilee, they went wherever Jesus was. They’re going to be baptized in his name, came to where John was preaching up in the that area, came to be baptized.

By contrast though, political religious establishment, spiritual shepherds of the nation of Israel, they rejected John’s baptism, and that’s a comprehensive rejection. They rejected John as a person, rejected John’s entire ministry, rejected his call to repentance, rejected his role as Messiah’s forerunner, all of it, wholesale rejection. And they justified the rejection of John the same way they had dismissed the power of Jesus’ miracles.

John, and Jesus too, they said neither of them are from God. They’ve been saying that for three years. They’re not heaven sent. In fact, they are demonic. They’re hell sent. They’ve been belched out of the bowels of hell. That’s where they come from. They are, they’re possessed by the devil. Jesus exposed that opinion. He said that quiet part of the rulers, the teachers, the, the leaders in Israel, he said that quiet part out loud when he’s teaching the people and they’re asking him about John the Baptist.

Well, tell us about John the what, what do you say about him? I mean, we’re hearing one thing, all this whispering about demon stuff. What do you say about him? Jesus said “among those born of women, none is greater than John the Baptist,” Matthew 11:7 and, and Luke 7:33, Jesus gives the religious leaders’ view of John. “John the Baptist has come eating no bread, drinking no wine. You say he as a demon.” He didn’t live like anybody else. He’s a crazy man from the desert. Look at how he dresses. Look at just look at him. He’s nuts. He’s insane.

Actually, his teaching makes too much sense to be insane because so really his rationality is there, his reason is there, that means he’s from the devil. He’s demonic, that was the stance of the religious establishment. They used that same tactic, right, when they discredited Jesus. They told everyone that Jesus performed his miracles by the power of who? Beelzebul, right, by the devil’s power.

So this, they were united in their rejection of John and then Jesus. And this represents collusion on their part. There’s a conspiracy afoot. It’s a strategy to, on their part of how they can justify denying John and then denying Jesus. Basically they’re saying since we can’t deny the authority and the power, let’s shift the discussion in public and talk about the question of source.

These guys sound intelligent. Yeah, they sound like good Bible teachers and all that stuff. Yeah, I know they’re healing. There’s a lot of power in the miracles. Can’t deny that. But let’s not talk about any of that. Let’s talk about where is this power coming from? What they say, what they do, it’s by the authority of Satan. It’s all through the power of his demons.

You know what that does to the people? Many of them maybe not educated enough to look it up for themselves, makes them fearful. Man, siding with John and Jesus means I’m, I’m siding with demons. That’s what they want, intimidation. I find out that people have said about this church, and about my church back in California, and about the church that my friend Don Green pastors, and about other faithful churches. You know what they say about these churches that practice church membership, church discipline, expository preaching, they call us a cult. They say all that’s cult like, they’re cultists.

You know what they’re doing when they’re saying those things? They’re not actually dealing with facts and texts. They’re not actually dealing with evidence. They’re using intimidation tactics to make you, true sheep, feel intimidated that you go to this church. They’ve done the same thing to churches, faithful ministries throughout the, the land, throughout history, they’ve done the same thing. Tried to misrepresent Paul as being against God, Jesus as being a, one who destroys Temples. Paul teaches people against the Temple; Stephen teaches people against the Temple. They try to miss, misrepresent them, and malign them, and align them with evil, malevolent forces.

Well, here in our text, that’s what these spiritual leaders have chosen to believe. And now they knew, even though they believe that, even though they held that view, they couldn’t say that out loud about John. Why? Why couldn’t they say that about John out loud? Why couldn’t they say that here when it’s the opportune time to make their case? Why?

Because the people loved John. People loved John. They couldn’t, couldn’t deal with John’s preaching on a textual level, on a biblical level. Couldn’t deny the results, the effects of his ministry. Good fruits in the people; fruits of repentance. People loved John. Why? Because he stood up to Herod. People hated Herod. He stood up to Herod, called him to repentance, told him “You have your father’s wife and this is not righteous.” You know what Herod did? Threw him in prison and then lopped his head off. So John is a national hero.

People are so convinced John is from God that the leaders believed the worst would happen if they differed from that opinion and said it out loud. Look at verse 6, “All the people will stone us to death.” It’s an intensified form, intensified verb, katalithazo. Lithos, you know, referring to stones. So lithazo, katalithazo. Kata meaning, down and lithazo, to throw rocks at, so “they will rain down stones upon us.”

These guys are terrified of the people. Form of the conditional sentence. This, if we say then this will happen statement, that conditional sentence. The original portrays this as an expression for what it really is, as an expression of fear. Something they see is not only possible, but it’s a probable outcome, like it’s going to happen.

 When this confrontation is over, in verse 8, we see that Jesus turns to the people and tells them a parable about the leadership that’s over them. Tells them a parable. At the conclusion of the parable, we read this, in verse 19, Luke says the scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour. They wanted to grab him, silence him. They can’t. They’re so offended at this story that Jesus told that featured them. “For they perceived he told this parable against them,” but what? “they feared the people.” Phobas, the word fear.

Now, whether or not the people certainly would stone them for this negative judgement about John, it’s kind of beside the point. The real question is, so what? So what if the people react that way? I mean, human reaction is never what determines whether or not we are to testify to the truth. Whatever happens, happens. We tell the truth, speaking truth before God, leaving the results to him. That is all that matters, get this, for one who fears God. But if you do not fear God and you fear men, fear anything else, all that’s negotiable.

Having a grave fear of man problem. You know they could find salvation in what Jesus said. Don’t fear those who kill the body, can’t kill the soul. Don’t fear all these people. I’ll tell you who to fear, “Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” That’s who you should fear.

Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man lays a snare but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” Because they fear man though, and not God, they’re willing to compromise the truth. The mask is off. Their concern about authority is not really a concern about authority. They don’t have a righteous concern about authority at all. They have a wicked and evil heart.

They are man centered, and because they’re man centered, they are manipulators. By contrast, Jesus fears God. Jesus reverences God and we saw that clearly when he faced down thousands of men with great interest in staying put and he drove them out of his Father’s house. He fears God. He wants the Temple treated as holy, not used for profane business and profiteering. Jesus is the consummate God fearer.