“Sadducees came to [Jesus], who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question, saying, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no offspring. And the second took her, and died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise. And the seven left no offspring. Last of all the woman also died. In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.’
“Jesus said to them, ‘Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?” He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.’” [1]
If you listen to political debate on current “hot” topics, you are quickly struck by the ignorance displayed by those with the loudest voices. For instance, in the United States, unrest swirled around the issue of abortion on demand because the Supreme Court returned the matter to the states where the issue should have been decided over fifty years ago. Abortion activists and their political lackeys cried out that the decision destroyed democracy. Think about that! How can a decision to return the issue to the people destroy the opportunity of the people to decide an issue?
In July of this past year, following the Dobbs decision by the SCOTUS the United States Senate held hearings on the status of the abortion debate. What was astounding to even the casual viewer was that those advocating abortion on demand were incapable of defining the most basis questions! What is a woman? Can a man have a baby? How is encouraging a vote on a matter destroying democracy? Yet the witnesses produced by abortion advocates were unable to answer such basic questions.
What was worse, these same witnesses were proven arrogant in their ignorance. Refusing to answer question posed to them, they deflected, saying that they preferred to answer more interesting questions! Or they redefined basic concepts and demanded that the Senators questioning them speak only according to the woke concepts that the “witnesses” were producing. Truly the ignorant were proven arrogant.
Or how about the gun debate both here in Canada and in the United States? As I listen to multiple politicians speak, they make utterly absurd statements that cause anyone with a modicum of experience to shake their head. Powerful leaders throw out stupid arguments to support crazy positions. We hear frivolous arguments that deer don’t wear Kevlar vests, so no one needs a high-powered rifle. These are politicians who don’t know the difference between a “clip” and a “magazine,” or who are unaware of the difference between a “bullet” and a “cartridge,” and yet they want to be taken seriously.
Or you may have heard that no one needs a magazine that holds more than ten rounds for any firearm, noting that those making this particular argument almost inevitably use the word “clip” rather than speaking of a magazine. If someone needs protection, these brilliant politicians argue, that is why we have judges to issue restraining orders and police whom we can call to protect us. However, people know that restraining orders are only as good as the obedience of those against whom such orders are issued. If the person is not inclined to obey the law, the restraining order is worse than worthless. And those who permit themselves to think know that when facing a threat that requires one to act within seconds, it is somewhat less than comforting to know that the police are mere minutes away.
We read of school boards in the United States that want to abandon the Pledge of Allegiance because that pledge contains the words “under God.” The words don’t align with the schools’ diversity, equity, and inclusion values. [2] Incredible!
Political discourse has grown coarse, and the abusive language employed when speaking of those with whom we disagree grows increasingly corrosive. We allow ourselves to be segregated into tribes defined by novel criteria that separate us into increasingly hostile units. We are quick to anathematise those with whom we disagree, refusing to hear what they think, relegating them to a class we view as somewhat lower than we imagine our own class to be. There appears to be no hope of finding a solution as we erect barriers against those with whom we disagree. And it probably does no good to plead for courtesy from the other side; it is hard enough for our own side to find that constantly shifting line balancing reason with courtesy.
What is obvious from listening to these debates and the arguments as they are presented is that those making the arguments are prone to attempt to cover their ignorance by their arrogance. Tragically, the view just espoused appears to apply equally to either end of the political spectrum. The immediate resort of those wishing to change society in order to prove their progressive creds or the resort of those thinking they can somehow conserve what now exists is not some new phenomenon that has only recently arisen. This is apparent from even a cursory review of the Word. Since the days Jesus walked the dusty trails of Judea, the arrogance of the ignorant has been on full display.
The truth is that what is witnessed in the social realm is reflected in the realm of religion. It seems that we have never had so many people claiming to be religious when those same people are revealed to be utterly ignorant of the God Who gives them their being. It is as though we are witnessing the very thing that the Lord GOD warned Israel of as they were poised on the edge of the Land which God promised. Moses wrote, “When the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you” [DEUTERONOMY 6:10-14].
What I find astounding in this brave new world of religious expertise is not merely the ignorance of the experts, but the arrogance demonstrated by these supposed thought leaders. Ignorant people want others to think they are speaking knowledgeably, yet even though fully aware that they know nothing of what they so confidently speak they mask their ignorance through arrogance. They seemingly harbour the thought that they can bluff their way through their fallacious assertions with their chutzpah.
SADDUCEES — “Sadducees came to [Jesus], who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question” [MARK 12:18]. We read about the Sadducees throughout the Gospel accounts and in the historical record of the early churches. But who were these Sadducees? Why do they figure so prominently in the life of the Master and in the life of the earliest churches? And perhaps we should ask why there are no Sadducees today?
To simplify matters somewhat, it is important for us to know that there were two primary divisions within Jewish religious culture. I would suppose that most of us will have heard of the Pharisees. Though they have a poor reputation among the followers of Christ in this day, you should know that Pharisees were greatly admired in that ancient society. Pharisees were seen as a force for holding the nation to a higher standard, they were recognised as holding a high view of Scripture and as those who were looking for the Messiah.
We would not be out of line if we were to recognise the Pharisees as the fundamentalists within Judaism in the days of our Lord, and even during the earliest days of the churches. The Pharisees were effectively the conservatives of the Jewish religion. Even among the earliest adherents of the Faith of Christ the Lord, Pharisees assumed the role of the stabilising force. They weren’t viewed as a fringe group, they were highly respected. No father would be upset by the marriage of his daughter to a Pharisee. Rather, he would be honoured that his daughter would be noticed and accepted as the wife of such a valued member of society.
This should raise a question in our minds. If the Pharisees were conservatives, and we count ourselves as conservative in theology, why was there such conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees? Why were the Pharisees always trying to discredit the Master? The answer to that question is that they were conservative in the sense that they made a show of adhering to the Word of God; however, almost unconsciously they added to that Word by segregating into sects built around favoured interpreters. In time, the Pharisees were more prone to cite their favoured authors than they were known for citing the Word of God. Consequently, they tended to anathematise those who didn’t salute their flag. That isn’t so different from the manner in which many so-called conservative groups act.
Pharisees have been around for a long time. You should not be surprised to learn that Pharisees were found among the churches of our Lord in that earlier day. I suppose it was a natural migration from the strict sect of the Jews to a group that bore many of the same trappings, as did the earliest churches. In a similar manner, Pharisees are found among the churches of our Lord even in this day. Usually these Pharisees are prominent within the membership of Evangelical churches. These modern Pharisees are generally sound, but they are noted for their tendency to stretch what is written in order to create new rules by which they determine the value of the faith displayed by others. The inspection of those coming before these groups is intended to ensure that they agree with every jot and tittle of the sect.
But what of the Sadducees? What did the members of this group believe? Perhaps not surprisingly, Sadducees didn’t take seriously what was written in the Word of God. We are tipped off to their lack of beliefs by something Doctor Luke writes as he writes of Paul’s first appearance before the Sanhedrin. Remember that Luke wrote, “When Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, ‘Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.’ And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided” [ACTS 23:6-7].
Paul almost started a riot among those that constituted the Sanhedrin by identifying himself as a Pharisee. Why do you suppose that was the case for this august body? Why would esteemed and honoured leaders of the religious community almost come to blows on the basis of religious identification? It was almost as though this religio-judicial body was identity based rather than being constituted to provide answer to religio-social issues. The answer to this question is supplied by Doctor Luke as he writes, “The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all” [ACTS 23:8].
The assertion Paul made before the Sanhedrin ensured a disruption in the proceedings because the identity of the Sadducees was challenged by his prior identification as a Pharisee. There was no comity that could be obtained from the situation. The two parties were far apart when it came to the business of their respective beliefs. The Sadducees were the religious aristocracy; they held the priesthood. They accepted the Torah as given by God, but they appear to have had no particular devotion to accepting what was written other than demanding adherence to the ceremonial aspects of the Law. Effectively, Sadducees were the state religion that insisted that the people must perform the religious duties without necessarily believing what was taught.
The situation would be akin to conservative churchmen attempting to find comity with liberal churchmen in a contemporary denomination. In every instance where conservatives attempted to find comity with liberals, liberalism has prevailed as the denomination or the church moved inexorably and decidedly toward the view that rejects the authority of the Word and the rule of Christ among His people. Perhaps you can begin to understand the conflict denominations today encounter as many want to ensure that the denomination approves of same-sex marriage or accepts transgendered people as ecclesiastical leaders while others, holding to what is written in the Word of God, are unwilling to yield to such requests. These latter hold that that marriage is between a man and a woman in union for life, and refuse to concede that anyone can change their sex anymore than one can change his or her race. These are immutable conditions.
The text informs us that the Sadducees were convinced there is no resurrection. This position is affirmed in our text as Mark opens this particular pericope. Mark has written, “Sadducees came to [Jesus], who say that there is no resurrection” [MARK 12:18a]. The basis for the silly question that the Sadducees posed to Jesus was their rejection of any existence beyond this present moment. Though they might not have said the words, they effectively believed that when you’re dead you’re dead all over! Their view anticipated the prevailing view of this present western society, showing that we really haven’t made much progress despite the passage of years. There truly is “nothing new under the sun” [see ECCLESIASTES 1:9].
Think of the Sadducees within ancient Judaism as equivalent to what we would identify as modernists in this day. The Sadducees were the liberals, the high religious leaders who rejected the very tenets they purportedly guarded. I suppose you could make the argument that they were most closely akin to Reformed Judaism in modern Judaism. The Sadducees just knew that man’s free will was so powerful that there was no possibility of anyone suffering eternal consequence for their unbelief. What was written needed to be reinterpreted in light of all that man had come to know as true. What could people of the distant past know of anything. Their attitude fairly screamed, “We are the people and knowledge will die with us,” except when it doesn’t.
How often this has been the prevailing attitude among religious people! At one time the solar system was thought to be geocentric—the sun revolved around the earth! That view was promoted as a religious tenet, until it became absolutely untenable to even suggest such. This was what was taught and what was demanded that people must believe. Papal torturers forced Galileo Galilei to recant the theory that the earth orbits the sun. However, after he was forced to recant, he allegedly muttered, “E pur si muove,” “And yet it moves.” Of course, Copernicus demonstrated conclusively that the solar system is heliocentric.
I don’t mean to imply that the Sadducees were uneducated—they were actually highly educated. Ronald Reagan once said of those holding politically liberal views, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not ignorance, it’s just that they know so much that is not so.” A similar statement could have been made of the Sadducees in regard to their grasp of theology. Much like liberal churchmen in this day, Sadducees knew a lot that was not so!
One scholar accurately describes liberal Christianity in the following terms: “[Religion espousing] a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” [3] This religious expression is the spiritual successor of the Sadducees when witnessed in the Christian Faith. Such doctrine is deadening, enervating, utterly destructive; it must be rejected.
THE UNANSWERABLE QUESTION — “[The Sadducees] asked [Jesus] a question, saying, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no offspring. And the second took her, and died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise. And the seven left no offspring. Last of all the woman also died. In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife’” [MARK 12:18b-23].
Ha-ha-ha! That old saw had for decades stumped the Pharisees, the natural religious opponents to the philosophy of the Sadducees. From earliest days Sadducees had been trotting out that same stale question as a way of stumping those they ridiculed as religious fundamentalists. The Sadducees had Jesus pegged as another religious fundamentalist. Here was their opportunity to expose Him as the religious fraud they were certain He in fact was. All they needed to do was to ask him a question He couldn’t answer and let all His followers know how He failed. So, they pretended to be genuinely perplexed as they asked their old familiar question which was unanswerable.
There are people all about us who imagine they are able to ask such brilliant questions that no Bible-believer will ever be able to answer. Of course, these brilliant infidels suppose that their questions demonstrate their superior intellect. “Who created God?” “Where did Cain get his wife?” “If God is good, then why does He permit evil?” And the list seemingly goes on endlessly. These supposedly brilliant souls have read what some infidel said about the Bible, but few of them have ever read the Bible. Thus, they are ignorant of what they so confidently believe to be true. Here is the thing that you as one who believes God must realise—no answer will ever suffice for those who do not want to believe. They aren’t asking these questions because they actually want an answer; they are asking such questions in an effort to demonstrate their superiority.
I recall hearing of an old saint challenged by one wag who laughingly asked, “Where did Cain get his wife?” Without hesitation, the old saint responded, “I don’t know, but if she was good enough for Cain, that is good enough for me.” Will anyone change their opinion of God or of His Word just because they know where Cain’s wife came from? Do you actually believe that anyone was kept from the Faith of Christ the Lord because they couldn’t account for why a good God would allow hurt and pain in our fallen world? There are answers to these questions, but they will not convert infidels.
Let me remind the people to whom I speak, you are not obligated to answer every question with which infidels challenge you. You are not expected to know the answer to every unresolved question. It is only when we have at last been changed into the likeness of Christ our Lord that we will know as we are known. It is still true that, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” [DEUTERONOMY 29:29].
Some years ago the Chinese Christian Fellowship at the University of British Columbia had invited me to deliver a lecture on creation and evolution. On the day I was to deliver the lecture, the hall reserved proved too small to accommodate all that wished to attend. At the last minute, the group managed to secure a larger lecture hall. The hall was filled, and most of those in attendance were obviously not Chinese, so it was obvious that something was afoot. Seated in the front rows were a number of people who appeared overly eager for the lecture to start. They were members of a zoology class accompanying the associate professor responsible for teaching that particular class.
This man had been informed that the lecture was scheduled for that particular day and he had boasted to his classes that they might wish to attend as he would demonstrate the absence of a scientific basis for the subject matter and the foolishness of the lecturer. That lecturer just happened to be me. Being now almost forty years ago, it was still a time when a lecturer was accorded the courtesy of speaking without interruption. Questions would be reserved for the conclusion when such questions were solicited.
After delivering my remarks, I did invite questions from those in attendance. And the first question was eagerly posed by the associate professor who had seated himself at the front of the lecture hall immediately in front of the lectern. Feigning innocence, he asked which creation account was the correct one. He predicated this question upon what he stated to be common knowledge that there were two creation accounts in the Bible. I responded that there was actually only one account given twice, a rather common Hebraic literary mechanism. The initial account provided an overview of all that God had done in His creation work. This account was then presented a second time representing man’s perspective since man was the apex of God’s creative activity.
My interlocutor was not satisfied with this response, and he was vociferous in his insistence that I was wrong because he was assured there were in fact two accounts. “You’re certain about this?” I asked him in front of the audience. He assured me that he was certain about what he had just asserted. I walked over to where he was seated, my Bible in my hand, and proceeded to drop the Book into his lap, requesting that he show me the two accounts. The professor was aghast and unable to speak for several seconds. At last, he stammered that he didn’t actually know where to look; but he knew that there were two accounts.
The man was clearly embarrassed, as indicated by the blush creeping up his neck. It was obvious that this associate professor wasn’t seeking clarification because he was confused or because he wished to engage in a dialogue, he was attempting to conduct an exposé. And my wife’s husband was the one he was seeking to expose as ignorant. Because of the manner in which he had framed his query, I thought it wise to carefully explain for the benefit of the uninitiated that his argument was specious due to the absence of an acceptable scientific basis for his premise. In framing his question, he was citing secondary, or possibly even tertiary sources. Being generous, I suppose it was even possible that he was unaware of the egregious error he had just made, though as a trained zoologist he should have known the mistake he had just made. You see, it was abundantly apparent that he had never read the primary sources in question for himself.
This gentleman had built his argument on hearsay evidence rather than speaking to the subject from knowledge. If someone attempted to formulate a response from the premise on which this man had crafted his argument, confusion would result in the best case scenario; and at worst, no possible answer could be provided. He had committed one of the fundamental errors frequently witnessed among those who are ignorant of scientific methodology—and he definitely should not have been ignorant of the scientific method. Nevertheless, his blunder did provide me opportunity to restate a synopsis of the scientific method and how it could be applied in study of the Bible.
I responded to his sophistry by emphasising for those in attendance that day, “Don’t attempt to construct an argument from secondary sources.” The point applies for each one who hears me at this time. Dear people, take the time to familiarise yourself with primary sources before you attempt to comment on what is stated. Doing this will save you a lot of embarrassment.
It’s time for us to refocus on the text before us this day. In our text we witness the Sadducees as they imagined a special case that when presented would expose what they saw as the inherent flaws in the Word of God. They had read the words, but they failed to sense the flow of God’s revelation as He spoke through Moses. Consequently, these scholars were ignorant of the Word of God, just as they were ignorant of the heart of God. These supposedly brilliant religious leaders had taken one command delivered by Moses and created a scenario so convoluted that however preposterous, would verify the error they had concocted, at least for the unthinking who heard them.
These scholars had bested the Pharisees repeatedly with this old saw. In their view, if the Scriptures do not address every conceivable situation, then it is invalidated for all situations. The Sadducees had created the scenario out of their own bias without actually taking time to read what was originally written. You see, unbelievers and doubters want to stretch and distort the Word that God has given until it is unrecognisable. That way, they demonstrate their superiority to God’s Word.
What is evident is that the Sadducees began with the Mosaic Law that detailed the criteria and the rationale for levirate marriage. The scenario they imagined had served their purpose for a long time, allowing them to demonstrate the supposed ignorance of the Pharisees while exalting their own intellectual superiority. It is evident that they were seeking to use what had always worked to expose this upstart from Galilee as a religious fraud. When He couldn’t answer the question they had concocted, people would quit listening to Him. His failure to answer them would simultaneously have the benefit of shoring up their standing in the estimate of the people. Everyone would recognise that they were the religious elite. Everyone would again look to them for religious guidance.
CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT — “Jesus said to [the Sadducees], ‘Aren’t you deceived for this reason, because you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are angels in heaven. Now as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?” He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken’” [MARK 12:24-27 NET BIBLE].
When Jesus confronts our ignorance, all the arrogance in the world will not change the situation or our condition. “Aren’t you deceived for this reason, because you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God” [MARK 12:24]? Wow! Talk about ignorance being exposed! And in front of everyone! Jesus’ interlocutors couldn’t hide; they had tried to trip up the One Who called all things into existence. Now, they were exposed, and it was their own doing! These were the religious leader of Israel whom Jesus put down with authority, and everyone around that day witnessed their exposure as religious frauds. The high priest was a Sadducee! And he was ignorant of Scripture.
It is not unlike far too many of my fellow preachers who though well-versed in all the minutiae of the Bible are nevertheless ignorant of the God Who gave the Word. Throughout the ecclesiastical world are multiplied examples of church leaders who know about God, though they do not know God. They are eager to speak of things about which they are actually ignorant! It is not unlike many of those who lead the churches who are eager to speak in great detail as they counsel those who sit in their congregations but who have never known the counsel of the Lord God. They are trained in the latest sociological fads, but they know nothing of the transformation of the heart to honour God. Wow! Talk about ignorance.
I grew up hearing church leaders say that they would rather an individual learned his ABCs in Heaven than recite Greek and Hebrew in hell. In the realm of the spiritual, what you know is less important than is Who you know. We who are twice-born have One Who stands in the presence of the Living God pleading for us. And while we are compelled to confess that we have not arrived, we anticipate a day—and it may not be all that far in the future—when we will see the reality of the Apostle’s words. “Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” [1 CORINTHIANS 13:8-12].
Jesus confronted these Sadducees, challenging their ignorance of Scripture and their ignorance of the power of God. No preacher should speak of God’s salvation when they have never personally experienced His saving power. That was precisely the reason God, through the Psalmist, challenged those who thought they could appropriate His authority. Listen as the Psalmist excoriates those who imagine they can use God.
“As for the wicked, God says,
‘How dare you recite my statutes
or speak about my covenant with your lips!
You hate instruction
and toss my words behind you.
When you see a thief, you befriend him,
and you keep company with adulterers.
You give your mouth free reign for evil,
and your tongue devises deceit.
You sit and speak against your brother;
you slander your own mother’s son.
These things you did, and I kept silent,
because you assumed that I was like you.’”
[PSALM 50:16-21a ISV]
It is of no importance what you know, or think you know; what does matter is Who you know! The Apostle to the Gentiles couches his argument for continuing to stand firm in the Faith on the fact that we who are redeemed are known by God. He writes, “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more” [GALATIANS 4:8-9]?
The Prophets of God seem often to have confronted those who imagined they had a word from God when in fact they had nothing. Just because your stomach is in a knot is no indication that you have a message from God. You may just have indigestion. Listen to God as He speaks through Jeremiah on multiple occasions. God icily says, “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds. Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name although I did not send them, and who say, ‘Sword and famine shall not come upon this land:’ By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed. And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and sword, with none to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, and their daughters. For I will pour out their evil upon them” [JEREMIAH 14:14-16].
Here is the great tragedy, though the phoney prophets were speaking in the Name of the Living God, they were lying! And their lies were leading the people astray. There was a dreadful consequence to the lies that were being told in the Name of the LORD. Make no mistake—there are serious consequences for our own world, and especially for those who listen to false teachers! Lies will condemn our society and our churches.
The problem of lying prophets was so severe for Israel in the days in which Jeremiah prophesied, that God spoke through Jeremiah on another occasion, warning, “Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who steal my words from one another. Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who use their tongues and declare, ‘declares the LORD.’ Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the LORD, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them. So they do not profit this people at all, declares the LORD.
“When one of this people, or a prophet or a priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the LORD?’ you shall say to them, ‘You are the burden, and I will cast you off, declares the LORD’” [JEREMIAH 23:30-33].
Yet again, we witness God confronting the false prophets, saying, “The LORD God of Israel who rules over all says, ‘Do not let the prophets or those among you who claim to be able to predict the future by divination deceive you. And do not pay any attention to the dreams that you are encouraging them to dream. They are prophesying lies to you and claiming my authority to do so. But I did not send them. I, the LORD, affirm it’” [JEREMIAH 29:8-9 NET BIBLE]!
By even listening to the false prophets, the people were encouraging them to continue making up lies. And it was the lies of the false prophets that would condemn the people who listened to divine punishment. It was the same situation with the Sadducees, and it is the same situation with us in this day. Peter warns us who follow the Risen Son of God to avoid false teachers, just as Israel was warned not to follow false prophets Recall how the Big Fisherman wrote, “False prophets arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. These false teachers will infiltrate your midst with destructive heresies, even to the point of denying the Master who bought them. As a result, they will bring swift destruction on themselves. And many will follow their debauched lifestyles. Because of these false teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation pronounced long ago is not sitting idly by; their destruction is not asleep.
“For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into hell and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment, and if he did not spare the ancient world, but did protect Noah, a herald of righteousness, along with seven others, when God brought a flood on an ungodly world, and if he turned to ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah when he condemned them to destruction, having appointed them to serve as an example to future generations of the ungodly, and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man in anguish over the debauched lifestyle of lawless men,(for while he lived among them day after day, that righteous man was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)—if so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials, and to reserve the unrighteous for punishment at the day of judgment, especially those who indulge their fleshly desires and who despise authority” [2 PETER 2:1-10a NET BIBLE].
Cutting the Gordian Knot is as simple as reading and relying on the Word of God. For the people of God, those who follow the Saviour, it means that we must not allow ourselves to look to those who speak out of the overflow of their own imaginations. We must weigh what is said as one proclaiming the message of life against the Word which was given so that all may know the will of the Lord God.
There have always been false teachers who infiltrated the churches, and they have undoubtedly multiplied in this day. The defence given to the twice-born children of the Living God is the Spirit of Christ Who lives within us. When someone speaks, and we experience a sense of unease, don’t dismiss that uneasiness. Examine what is being said against the Word that God has given. Adopt the attitude of the Bereans who were noted as “examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” [see ACTS 17:11].
The Apostle Paul challenged those to whom he wrote in Corinth, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test” [2 CORINTHIANS 13:5]! It is the challenge I pose to each one who hears the message I deliver this day. Assure yourself that you are in Christ and that His Word has a place in your life. Do this today and live. Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] Andrew Haugland, “Fargo School Board rescinds motion, will no longer recite Pledge of Allegiance at meetings,” INFORUM, August 9, 2022, https://www.inforum.com/news/fargo/fargo-school-board-rescinds-motion-will-no-longer-recite-pledge-of-allegiance-at-meetings, accessed 20 August 2022
[3] Quote attributed to H. Richard Niebuhr, in The Kingdom of God in America, Wesleyan University Press, 1988
