The Trap - 8/29/26

Greeneville Seventh-day Adventist Church: Talking earlier about your prayer requests. I'm sorry, old people, I like the kids the best as far as their requests, and I take them just as seriously as I do yours. Recent ones. My mom's wrist hurt. R I S T I'm totally down with that spelling. Save letters. My finger hurts was a recent one. My favorite so far of all time. Grandma ate chocolate. That was the request. Grandma ate chocolate grandma, somebody's watching you. And furthermore, you had chocolate without inviting me. It's like people watch us. Our kids watch us. Kids are great. the way they think, so logically and succinctly, no gray areas, black and white. We come up with strange ideas as kids. When I was in first grade, there was a story in the local newspaper. And it was on the evening news. It was big news. I grew up in Utawa, Tennessee, and and somebody in Utawa, Tennessee had seen a bobcat. I was totally fascinated. I wanted to see a bobcat. And you know, first graders, they think funny. I'm thinking, I not only want to see a bobcat, I want to pet bobcat. You know, my childhood was filled with TV shows about kids with amazing pets. Lassie, a boy and his amazing dog. Flipper, a show about two boys and their pet bottlenose dolphin. I wanted one of those, but I don't think the Tennessee River was the right place for one. Gentle Ben, you remember that one? Show about a boy and his pet bear. that was great. I would be Bobcat Kent. That's what I would be. And I would hang out with Grizzly Adams. I planned long and hard on just how I was going to catch my new pet. My best friend, his name was Billy, and he was also in first grade and we got in lots of trouble together. And he was also interested in my plan and agreed to help me. And he would be a great help because he was an Indian. And when we played Cowboys and Indians, it looked real. I mean he was from Peru, but an Indian nonetheless. And Indians in my first grade mind are supposed to be naturally gifted in trapping wildlife. So with our parents' permission, which shocked me, they gave me permission to try to catch a bobcat. Wow, I have the best parents. We put our plan into action. Billy came over to spend the night at my house, actually behind my house. We set up my old blue canvas, musty smelling pup tent, and rolled out our sleeping bags for the night. And I also made sure that we had a flashlight, three teddy bears, and Uncle Arthur's bedtime Bible story book, you know, one of the blue editions. How do you remember you had all those things? My dad took a picture. I looked at it the other day. I was like, man, we're carrying all this stuff. And okay, we got all that stuff put in the tent and we set up the trap. And the trap was very sophisticated. It involved one of my parents' lawn chairs. You know, one of those that reclined back. One of the long things. The old aluminum ones with the webbing. All the old people are going, yeah. and we put it on its side in front of the tent. It was a wall. It was supposed to be like a funnel to guide the bobcat into the entrance of our tent. And there I had placed a a snare, a slipknot, and I put a stick. Inside the slip knot so that if the bobcat stepped on the stick it would break and wake me up, I would pull the string and have a new pat. My dad foolishly asked the question as we were getting in our tents, What are you using for bait? I said, Dad, we're the bait. Duh he'll smell us and come and investigate and we'll get him. I said, Okay, sleep tight. The next morning, guess what? Our hopes and dreams were crushed. We had slept through the night, and the bobcat had not so much even the decency to break the stick. The Great Disappointment. All of our plans are trap for nothing. Billy and I were not the only others in history to be disappointed that their trap didn't work. Turn with me to Matthew chapter twenty-two. In our never ending series on the book of Matthew. Matthew chapter twenty two. Go down to verse fifteen. Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle him in his talk. They're talking about Jesus. Jesus has just told three parables that nails them. How can we trap him? Then this indicates that something had happened. We discussed those three parables over the past two weeks. Jesus had used them to condemn the Jewish leaders for not following God's will. So now they're mounting a counterattack. He's nailed us, we're going to nail him. We're gonna get him trapped and tripped up. It's gonna be glorious. It's gonna be great. It's gonna end his influence. And they spent some time formulating how they're gonna catch Jesus like a bobcat. We gotta figure this out. We have to tame him some way. Get him to quit talking so much. We need to trap and discredit Jesus publicly. It may be helpful here once again to look at the makeup of the opposition. Within the story, we find scribes, Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees. All four. Scribes, they were the scholars who were primarily concerned with interpreting and applying the written law. We you might equate those, though, those were the closest things probably they had to pastors. These were often the rabbis. And they were sometimes called lawyers. They were, as this story calls them, experts in the law. Most scribes were also Pharisees, as in this story. We would call them legalists today. Pharisees were laymen. They were keepers of the law as interpreted by the scribes. They were extremely nationalistic, Hebrew to the bone. As long as they were allowed to practice their religion in peace, they didn't make political waves. We would call them holier than thou legalists today. Herodians, on the other hand, enjoyed the rule of Rome. They were lovers of Herod Antipas, thus their name, and opposed to the Pharisees. They were often spies among the people. The Pharisees despised them. We would call them opportunistic traitors today. And then you have the Sadducees. They were the aristocratic element of Jewish society. They were close to the priests and were political realists. They were also religious realists. They did not believe in things that were too good to be true, too hard to believe. They didn't believe in the resurrection. It posed too many unanswerable complications. And they also did not believe in angels, demons, or any kind of afterlife. When you're dead, you're dead, you're gone. That's it. They believed God created us. But did not believe that God was concerned with people's day to day lives. Do any of my ninth and tenth grade students remember what that's called? What? It starts with an A come on, you failed the test, and I haven't even given it yet. Okay, I'm gonna help them. Agnostics. Okay, yeah, agnostics. Good guy. Good job, guys. That's what we would call them today. They're agnostics. They believe that, yeah, God created us and moved on. He doesn't care anything about you and me. They loved Greek philosophy. And they had to suppress many of their beliefs because. Most of the priests came from them. How'd you like to find out maybe the G C president didn't believe in the afterlife, didn't believe in God, didn't believe in angels or demons. No, they gotta keep that secret because they have to hold positions. It wouldn't look good for the priest not to believe in much of Scripture. In fact, the only scripture they really would kind of believe in were the first five books of Moses. So we have these groups of people that traditionally have been enemies with each other, working together to destroy a common enemy. The enemy whose very presence shows a deep corruption in all of their ways of life. You ever see anybody that's really hated? It's often because they expose corruption. You're showing me up for who I am. And that's what Jesus was doing. And after we get rid of him, we can go back to hating each other as we traditionally do. There's an old saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. An example would be World War Two. We made alliances with the Soviet Union to defeat the Nazis. We made alliances with China to defeat Japan. And then after World War II, we went back to hating each other as usual. The relationships are not so good, even to this day. The Pharisees go first with the Herodians as their witnesses, just in case the words of Jesus will get him in trouble with the government. So we gotta bring in Herod's people. The first question is designed to trap him up. Verse sixteen And they sent him their disciples with the Herodians. Let's stop there a second. Wow. These guys are smart. Jesus would recognize the old Pharisees who are used to badgering him about this or that. Let's send some new faces. This will put Jesus off his guard. They forgot that the Son of God can read the hearts, as we shall see. Verse 16 again, and they sent to him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Teacher, we know that you are true. Is that right? Are they on the right track here? We know that you're true. Okay. That's good. And teach the way of God in truth. Okay, this is all good so far. Nor do you care about anyone. Okay, that's not talking about you don't care about anyone. It's talking about you don't care about position. And some of your translations will say that. For you do not regard the person of men. In other words, you don't care if I'm a scribe, a Pharisee, or Or King Tut, you don't care who I am, you go about your business like you want to do. All of this is true. And they hated Jesus because of it. They hated that he did not recognize their hard-earned positions in society like everyone else did. But this is what we call a good buttering up. We know that you're just a good guy all the way around. And they're speaking truth in order to flatter him, to get him off his guard, to trust them. Verse seventeen Tell us therefore, what do you think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? So the first question deals with the payment of taxes to Caesar. A loaded question in occupied Palestine. It presents Jesus with a dilemma. After all, if he says it's unlawful to pay taxes to Caesar, he will be promptly reported by the Herodians to the Roman authorities and arrested very quickly. On the other hand, if he approves the lawfulness of paying taxes, he will lose influence in the eyes of the people. The Jews held that God alone was king and that to pay taxes to an earthly king was to admit the validity of the kingship and thus insult God. So whatever answer Jesus gives is going to put him in hot water. The two groups presenting this part of the trap are polar opposites on the question. The Pharisees hate the taxes. The Herodians know that the taxes go to support their brand of politics. So how does Jesus deal with this? Verse 18. But Jesus perceived their wickedness and said, Why, why do you test me, you hypocrites? Show me the tax money. And they brought him a denarius. And he said to them, Whose image and inscription is this? Let's see whose is it? Let's see how well you know your money. This one has in God We Trust and a picture of John F. Kennedy. How much is this worth? Half a dollar. some old people here. Did they make these anymore? fifty cent pieces. Whose image and inscription is this? And they said to him, Caesar's. And he said to them, Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. When they heard these words they marvelled and left him and went their way. Jesus escapes the inescapable trap so carefully laid for him. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Jesus' answer is his point that Caesar's realm can be separated from God's. Up to this time in world history, there had been no separation of church and state. The two went hand in hand everywhere. Kings were viewed as representatives of the divine. You can go all the way back to Pharaoh and go, yeah, I'm a God right here. Jesus steers his followers in a new direction. This is new stuff. It opens the way for new ideas about church and state. Since his kingdom is not of this earth, Jesus' followers are to hold dual citizenship before the second coming. We will remain citizens of a particular nation and also be citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Unfortunately, in a less than perfect world, A Christian's responsibility to these two realms comes into conflict from time to time. This passage does not tell us, this passage does not tell us whether God's kingdom has priority over Caesar's, or vice versa, or whether the two are equal. The problem was worked out by the early church. While Paul and Peter agree that the rulers of earth's government ought to be obeyed since they are God's agents, Romans thirteen and first Peter two. The New Testament also makes it clear that when the commands of an earthly ruler come into conflict with God's commands, the Christian, according to Acts five twenty nine, must obey God rather than man. The second question in the Jewish counterattack against Jesus comes from the Sadducees. Remember, they don't believe in the resurrection, and this is the basis of their attack. They were used to stumping the Pharisees with questions like this. That's why the Pharisees hated him so much. Verse 23. The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked, saying, Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and And raise up offspring for his brother. Well, that would be complicated, would. brother, I see you're getting married. I hope she's a nice lady, because if you die, she's gotta be mine. Okay? Be careful. Verse 25, and now there were with us seven brothers. The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. Likewise, the second also had the third, and the third, and even to the seventh. Last of all, the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her. Jesus answered and said to them, You are mistaken, not knowing the scriptures or the power of God. For in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage. But are like the angels of God in heaven. But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And then the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at his teachings. Once again, Jesus turns the argument against his adversaries. His reply focuses on two points. First, he suggests that their question is flawed because they are in error and they don't know the scripture. He claims that they also fail to understand God and his power. They need to understand that the future existence cannot be measured in terms of the present one. God's new kingdom will be along different lines. As a result, the condition of marriage will not be the same, and jealousy will no longer exist. Resurrected people will be like the angels. Now we can debate on this for a lifetime. I mean, you're probably sitting there thinking, I like my spouse, I even love them. And sometimes we get along. I want to be married to them in heaven. Well, I don't know the answer to this. I I just hope God lets us live together because Susan and I we're hanging out. Okay, we're we're gonna be together for eternity. One way or another. But you could debate this for a lifetime and what it means. The Bible doesn't tell us. You can have all kinds of theories. But this would be falling into the same trap as the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The power of God to handle this situation is beyond. our understanding. But unlike the Sadducees, we can see God has his power through our that God I'm sorry. We can see that God has this power through our understanding of what the Scripture tells us. We also understand that whatever the conditions are like in heaven, they are going to be far above what we can imagine here. Joys that we have unknown in our imagination. God has it covered. God can figure it all out. I did a funeral one time down in South Georgia. And I was in that church for five years, and I knew this man, and I knew his three wives. Not all at the same time. Buried the first one in the backyard after I got there. He remarried, and the next one came along. She died. And I started to bury her in the backyard of his house too. And she said, and his kids said, Don't put her next to mama. Well, we did. And then he married again. And I don't know what happened to that when I left. There may be three in his backyard. I don't know. But God's gonna sort that out. They're gonna come up, they're not gonna start feuding when they come out. God's got it figured out. He may have some answers to some questions, but you know, it's gonna be okay. The second part of Jesus' answer comes from Exodus 3:6, a section of the scripture that the Sadducees accept. Jesus came that they are, or Jesus claims that they are even ignorant of that part of the scripture. After all, didn't God tell Moses that he was the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? And that he was therefore the God of the living? In other words, the God of Israel has not forgotten his covenant with the patriarchs. They did not enter the realm of non existence at death. The great patriarchs are alive, be careful, to God, according to Luke's telling of this story in Luke twenty thirty eight, which says He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive. You getting confused yet? It sorts out. They await the resurrection at the end of time, according to First Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4, Hebrews eleven. You can go on and on. Jesus describes death as a what? Sleep. Okay, when we think of somebody sleeping just like the disciples, he's going to get better. Well, they're going to get better on the resurrection day. So he's looking at it as asleep. We're looking at it as dead. We have no more interaction with them. They neither praise God nor curse anything or whatever. They are dead to us, but only asleep to God. We are assured that on the resurrection day, all that have followed and loved God will be raised to take their place by his side for eternity in that perfect kingdom. When we die, we may be dead to the world, but God knows right where we are, where we're sleeping. I love to explore places that are off the beaten track. Every once in a while I stumble upon some long-lost cemetery. Long forgotten, no paths lead to it anymore, grown up with weeds, only rocks for headstones and one place I couldn't even find any inscription on the rock, just a rock placed there it looked like. I did research using an old map of Cades Cove, which later became part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. And with this old county map that I found, I started exploring Cades Cove in a different way. I started hunting cemeteries nobody knew about. And I remember I was coming through a field one time and a park ranger saw me out in the field and he stops his car and he waits for me. And I said, maybe I'm in trouble. Maybe I wasn't supposed to be there. But no, he says, What were you looking at there? Because he saw me looking around intently. I said I was trying to read headstones in that cemetery. There's a cemetery out there? I've worked here for years and never knew about that. He was excited. He wanted to go see it. It had been forgotten. Tourists passed by it several hundred feet away all day, every day. But nobody knows it's there. God knows it's there. It had been forgotten by us. Lost to time, lost to relatives, not even a path going to it, nobody tending the stones. Years ago someone showed me a Cherokee burial ground near our conference's youth camp. And I go there once in a while. And it's kind of hard to get there. You got to cross the creek a few times, and you've got to know where it is. And I was so fascinated by There was close to fifty mounds of the Cherokee. And way back in the bush, hardly anybody knows that they are there. And I I show it from time to time because I don't want them to be forgotten. I show it to somebody I trust. I even took Pastor Dawson back there one day. And while we were hiking back there, I stopped. And right there in the middle of our way, wasn't really a path. There was a pile of A fresh dropping. I didn't recognize it. It's about this big around, like a big donut. I was like, woo. And it was fresh. I poked it with a stick. I didn't tell Pastor Dawson, but I wondered, maybe Bigfoot is real? And I I didn't know what we we looked at a while. We went and I showed him where the Indian mounds are, and we came back, it's piles still there. I looked at it again. And when we got back to where there was internet, I looked it up. Took the picture, looked it up. mountain lion. Like, that was so fresh. He was watching us. I know it. Hair stood up on the back of my neck a little bit. But I wanted to show him. Where this was, because he's a young man. He'll remember, and I'm old, I will I'll forget, I'll pass away. I want people to know where the history is. Forgotten cemeteries, but not forgotten by God. The resurrection will happen by those forgotten ancestors, just as it will be remembered for famous unforgotten people, or for the loved one that recently passed away. Dead to the world, but not to God. Yes, the people were astonished at Jesus' reply to the Sadducees. Even the Pharisees were hap they were happy somebody finally got the Sadducees. Haha, we'll remember his answer. Jesus had stumped the Sadducees on a point that had been a thorn in their plesh generations. Luke tells us that even some of the Pharisees and scribes were impressed. Well said, teacher, Luke twenty, thirty nine. Way to get With verse thirty four, the action shifts back to the Pharisees. And the third question of the counterattack. This time one of the Phariseic scribes asked the question Maybe a lawyer will be able to trap Jesus. They're good at that. Verse 34. Then the Pharisee heard that he had silenced the Sadducees. They gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him and saying, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Like the two previous questions, this one's loaded. And almost any answer is bound to end up in controversy. To the rabbis, it's obvious that some commands are more important than others. For example, the commandment not to murder Was to be held as more important than the command in Deuteronomy 14, not to boil a baby goat in its mother's milk. They divided the commandments into major and minor ones. They debated which of the 1613 scriptural commands were the greatest. So you see the question has a lengthy history. Most of the bystanders probably expected Jesus to select one of the Ten Commandments, but Jesus goes to one of the most familiar texts in Jewish culture: Deuteronomy 6.5. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. This is what the Jewish people called the confession of faith, the Shema. It opened every Jewish service and formed a part of the Jewish morning prayer. Jesus' answer places loving God with one's total being as the heart of religion. That answer alone would be satisfactory, but Jesus chooses to mention the second great commandment. This time he quotes Leviticus 19:18. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. Jesus makes it clear throughout his ministry that it is impossible to truly love God without loving your neighbor. And it is impossible to truly love your neighbor without loving God. As we can see, what Jesus is sharing is that all of the Ten Commandments, all the Scripture, hang on this wonderful principle. This had such an effect that Mark records in Mark thirte 1232 that the lawyer is impressed, and he says says this So the scribe said to him, Well said, teacher, you have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He. And to love him with all the heart, with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself is more than all the whole burn worth more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices. Now it's Jesus' turn to be impressed. Verse 34, there he says, Now when Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, This guy that was sent to trap him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. It's okay to ask God questions. You may find out you start out with the wrong reason, but he directs you the right direction. The trap has not worked. That text says, but after that no one dared question him. But this is not the end of it. Jesus takes advantage of the silence of disappointment by asking them a question. Verse 41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? And they said to him, The son of David. He said to them, How then does David in the spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. If David then calls him Lord, how is he his son? And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question him any more. The answer to Jesus' first question, whose son is the Messiah, is obviously David and the Jewish leaders say so. Jesus agrees with them, but notes that this answer poses a problem. Quoting from Psalm 110, Jesus points out that David calls the Messiah Lord and then poses his second question: How can it be that a father can refer to his son as Lord? The answer must be that contrary to Jewish wisdom, The Son, in this case, is greater than the Father. His father David. This fact, Jesus implies, gives the Messiah the right to go beyond what their expectations are about the Messiah. He doesn't have to be a conquering king like his father David. He can be the suffering servant. Jesus has a reason for asking this question at this point. He has told, he has just told them that God requires them to love the Lord their God with all their heart and with all and their neighbor as themselves. He is now making it clear that they must accept the Messiah as well, even if he is not the kind of Messiah they wanted. That their love for God should extend to His Son. The three parables he has just told them are brought back to their minds. They have not loved the Son. This series of questions leaves the Jewish leaders, the scribes, the Pharisees, the Herodians, and the Sadducees speechless. They are trapped by Jesus, by his logic and knowledge of Scripture and His relationship with the Father. Do you want to not fall for a trap? You need to have knowledge of Scripture and a relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They've been beat at their own game. Jesus has shown them and us that there are more important things to do than debate issues. I've seen people debate issues till they're blue in the face, and that's all they ever do. And and they tried to trap you. And I I think it was maybe the second week I was at this church. There was a visitor, and he cornered me back over here. And he starts asking all these questions. And I recognized a trap. I said, no, I'm glad you're here. See you later. Don't want to fall for those traps. Don't want to debate issues. Sure, we must learn and understand the scriptures, but Satan can try to trap us so much that we're in debate all the time rather than spending our time loving our Lord and loving our neighbors as ourselves. Satan's distraction traps are numerous, but the Holy Spirit can see right through them. One Sabbath afternoon. In Kenya. My family had a little time off, which was unusual. And we decided to hike around in the forest that was on our campus. Now, this is the forest that our kids would say, as they're heading out the door, hey, where are you guys going? we're going to go play in the forest. And I would go, Okay. Guys, remember where you live. Everything out there wants to kill you. Dad, we're careful. Have fun. Go at it. Well, this time we're back in there in the forest as a whole family. And we're walking around enjoying a nice sunny Sabbath afternoon. And my daughter's bringing up the rear. I'm right in front of her. And she says, Dad, I'm stuck. I was like, what do you mean? 'Cause I didn't see anything that we would get stuck in back there. There was no mud back there. I'm stuck. And I turned around and she's standing by the path with a bemused look on her face. What do you mean you're stuck? She says, I can't go any further. She then lifted up her foot, and I saw that she had been caught in a snare. probably set by one of the security guards hoping for a meal. And the snare is literally what this text uses as a word for the entrapment of Jesus. Here's the snare that caught my daughter. Kinda like the one I set for the bobcat. A slip knot and it was tied to a tree. And something's gotta come along and get its foot caught in it and pull it shut and she was caught. Okay, she has a brain, she could figure a way out of it, but she just wanted to mess with me a little dad, I'm in a trap. Okay. The snare works this way. The loop lays a on a ground and a careless person goes by and they're dragging their feet. You have to drag your feet a little bit to be caught in this snare. Because if you just put your foot straight down, you go on. As Christians, be careful where you put your feet. Walk deliberately, not shuffling in your spiritual walk. Because if you're just shuffling around in your spiritual walk, you're going to get caught in a snare. Because you're not very deliberate about your relationship with Christ. Don't allow him to catch you that way, to be caught in the enemy's traps. Now, it's been five and a half decades since I tried to catch a bobcat. A while back one of my friends posted on the internet he lives in that same area and he has a trail camera in his yard and there he posted a video of a bobcat wa walking by. Do you think I should go back? Try my luck again. Well, my slow growing wisdom has taught me that three regular cats are about all the pets I can handle. My priorities have been refocused. I don't need a wild cat as a friend. I have another friend that's far more precious. The wildest cat of all, the lion of the tribe of Judah. Help Us Lord to be so wholly thine and our focus so zoomed in on you that Satan's traps just go unanswered, that they don't catch us because we're walking right with you. We pray that you will bless us as we come near to the kingdom of God. May we be faithful and warn others of those same traps. Bless us this week, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Exodus 3:6 Leviticus 19:18