Mankind’s Greatest Crisis
Mark 12:13-17
* At the recent “Revival Meeting” we heard 3 great and godly preachers begin their messages with similar statements. Bro. Ed, Bro. Kevin, and Bro. Junior – all began with this thought; “We are in a mess.” Now they didn’t all say it the same way, but in their own way they said it. We are in a mess economically, politically, culturally, and spiritually. With respect to them, the one thing which they did not say is this: “The Spiritual mess leads the way for all the rest.” That is to say, however the church goes, so goes the culture, the politics, and the finances. For you see, we are in a mess today, a crisis if you will, which is more far-reaching than finances & politics. In our day, we call many things a crisis. For some, a crisis is a broken fingernail or a night without a date or a having your cell phone taken away or not working. For others, it is the loss of a friendship, the lack of enough money to buy ‘the latest gadget or gismo’ or even simply not getting their way. It is amazing what people call a crisis today.
* Without any reservation, I submit that the greatest crisis we faces today is found in our relationship or lack thereof to Jehovah God. This is ‘Mankind’s Greatest Crisis.” Our story today highlights this truth in ways that are astonishing.
* THE CONTEXT: We are in the last week of our Lord’s earthly life. It is probably Tuesday. He has already been challenged by the “Sanhedrin (I.E. chief priests, scribes, & elders)” & not only turned back their challenge, but He told a parable, painting pictures of the future which awaits those who miss the mark with the Father.
* We want to see crisis in the horizontal (relationships, felt needs), but the real one is in the vertical.
* A cursory reading of this story will give a horizontal impression that this was really about money, however Jesus turns the tables making the lesson far deeper than we imagine.
* So that you don’t think that I’m ducking this issue, let me simply state that Christ-followers should be good citizens. We should pay our taxes, we should vote, & we should abide by the laws which do not violate the laws of God. In several places (Romans & Peter), we are given this instruction.
* However, this is not the main or rich message from this text. Jesus came to offer you & me a way to God (“I am the way”) & He never allowed anyone to distract Him from that task. The religious people back then & even today attempt to derail the eternal message of the salvation, hope, help, & eternal life by clouding the issue with cultural debris.
* We must keep our focus on the truth that the Greatest Crisis Mankind faces today is this: We are lost & on our way to a place called hell without a relationship to sovereign God. This relationship only comes through the Lord Jesus. He is not a way, He is THE way. Lost people & Religious people don’t really want to face this truth. When you face a crisis, it requires action because it is a defining & decisive moment. What you do in that moment determines much about your future.
* We are in such a moment today. In this slice of Jesus’ life, notice 4 things.
1) An unholy Alliance – Verse 13 begins, “And they sent to Him some of the Pharisees & some of the Herodians.” What a mouthful. The part of “They” is being played by the Sanhedrin who found themselves on the losing & even embarrassing end of a challenge to Jesus. By the way, this will always happen when you oppose Jesus. So they couldn’t ‘get no satisfaction’ so look what they did. They went to their friends, the Pharisees, & asked their enemies, the Herodians to join them in their quest to trap & ultimately kill Jesus. They wanted to stop Him at all cost. The prevailing philosophy found in this verse is like, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” In just a few days, Luke tells us that Herod & Pilate two more enemies will become friends in order to silence Jesus.
* The Pharisees were the keeper of the Law of Moses while the Herodians were the keeper of the law of Herod. Anyone confused? One was deeply religious while the other was deeply political & both had a vested interest in silencing Jesus & stopping His message, so they made an alliance.
* How often has this happened within a church body? People who are knows to be enemies – how sad to say within the body of Christ – determine to thwart some needed change to protect their turf so they join together & win the day. Most times, the church loses.
* This story as much as any I can think of – points to the warning about ‘who you run with.’ The enemy will do his best to put someone in your life that will pull you down, point you in the wrong direction, and place you in the position of unwittingly opposing Christ.
2) An ungodly Approach - I call this an ungodly approach because of their stated motivation and their first conversation. They were sent to trap Jesus. My text actually uses the word trap, some translations use the word catch, the actual Greek word means something like “to take in hunting” or “to ensnare”. Have ever had someone to come to you and begin a conversation that you knew was a front for something else? I mean you could read in their eyes and here in their voice that there was a hidden agenda. That is exactly what was going on with this group and Jesus. They began with flattery and they concluded by attempting to put Jesus in a fix. As He always does, Jesus saw through their façade and turned their own question back on them.
* The truth is that most of us can tell when someone is trying to fool us by sweet talk, smooth talk, quite honestly give us a snow job. Then only begin with pseudo-complements to soften our spirits and stroke our egos. In verse 14, we see this group a doing that exact thing to Jesus. Would basically say, “we know that you teach truth, we know that no one can sway you, and we know that you truly teach the WAY of God.” Candidly, we see in these people the poster boy of saying one thing while believing in doing something entirely different.
* For you see, if the Pharisees and the Herodians actually believed what they were saying they would be saying it. Their next question was a dead giveaway. “Should we pay taxes to Caesar or not” is a question which is sure to make one or the other of these two groups mad. If He said they should pay taxes to Caesar, the Pharisees would be angry and He might even compromise his own claim to be the Messiah. For you see the popular opinion was the Messiah would come to set up his own kingdom which meant, of course, getting rid of Roman power. If on the other hand, He said Roman taxation and they should not pay taxes to Rome, He would be playing into the hands of the Herodians, who would denounce Him to the Roman authorities. Candidly, they thought they finally had Jesus backed into a corner from which He could not escape.
* Such is the nature of carnal and lost people. They are always trying to disprove Jesus and even discourage others from trusting and loving Him. Because the greatest need that mankind has is to have a relationship with Jesus the enemy is always stirring up those hearts in which he has some measure of influence. He binds the enemies of Jesus together and assaults the very Gospel.
* Allow me to offer one thought from the story at this point; when you approached Jesus with a preconceived desired outcome, you may wind up like these two groups and miss His offer. Whatever you may ask of Jesus He may well turn it into an object lesson just like this.
3) An unexpected Answer - When I read verse 15 I can imagine seeing the face of our Lord with a little smile on it. He knew that they were out to get them, He knew there was no sincerity and their question, and He knew that the test they were giving Him would soon turn into a test that He would be giving them. They focused on money, so Jesus focused on money. He said bring me a denarius and let me look at. Now, the denarius was equal to a day’s pay for common laborer, it was issued by the Roman government, so guess who’s picture was inscribed on it?
* I can imagine that the Pharisees thought they had Him until he asked about the inscription, then perhaps the Herodians might have thought they were going to be the ones to bring Him down. However, in the same way that you and I have no idea what goes on in the mind of our Lord, neither did these men. Here’s the answer; “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” Do you know what this says to us? In these words we discover biblical proof of what I stated when we began this message, “We need to be good citizens.” In other words to restate, we need to be registered to vote, and then actually to vote. We need to pay our taxes, we need to pray for our leaders, and furthermore because we have a voice we need to do our best to be sure that we vote for godly principles, godly leaders, and a godly direction. While we don’t have a Caesar, we do have a government which we are privileged to take part in and we need to do our part. These are the words of Jesus and/or the principles Paul and Peter wrote about for Christ followers.
* Had Jesus simply made that statement it should have been enough, but (& that’s a big “but”), He follows it with a mouthful. His unexpected answer was, “Give Caesar his due.” He followed with;
4) An unchangeable Affirmation - This is our message for today. Simply put from the mouth of our Savior, “Give God the things which are His.” In those seven words lie man’s greatest crisis, man’s greatest need, and man’s hardest decision. Most of us read this text and see it only in terms of our money. Certainly, it speaks about us returning to Him-His tithes and then giving our offerings. You will never know the blessing of God until you attempt to out give God. The Bible says that God loves a cheerful (a hilarious, joyful, happy) giver. You see, the reason God calls us to give is that when we become His, we are to become like Him. The very nature of God is to give. “For God so loved the world that He gave.” If we are to be like Him, we must give. Certainly this is what Jesus is saying. However, it doesn’t end there.
* Every person in this room belongs to God by nature of your creation, that is, He created you. As your creator, He wants the very best for you. The only way for you to discover, develop, and even deploy your very best, is to return to your creator. You return to Him when you respond to Him. This is an unchangeable truth, you can never come to Him on your own. For you see, you and I are flawed and faulty human beings. Our lives are filled with sin. We inherited this from our grandfather Adam. The payment for our sin is still death, even death like that on the cross. We can never pay the price. Render to God the things that are God’s. This begins with your life.
* Man’s greatest need is simply to render to God the things that are God’s.
* A little church was having a homecoming service to which ex-members, who had moved away, were invited. One of the former members had become a millionaire. When asked to speak, the wealthy man recounted his childhood experience. He had earned his first silver dollar which he had decided to keep forever. "But when a visiting missionary preached about the urgent need for funds in his mission work, and the offering basket was passed, a great struggle took place within me. As a result," the wealthy man said, "I put my treasured silver dollar in the basket. I am convinced that the reason God has blessed me richly is that when I was a boy I gave God everything I possessed." An elderly man rose & said, “Brother, I dare you to do it again.”
* Phil Johnson wrote these words almost 30 years ago, “Are you tired of chasing pretty rainbows? Are you tired of spinning round and round? Wrap up all the battered dreams of your life, and at the feet of Jesus lay them down. He never said that always be sunshine, He never said they’d be no more rain. He only promised heart full of singing about the very things that once brought pain.” The chorus paints the picture when it says, “Give them all, give them all, give them all to Jesus; shattered dreams wounded hearts broken toys. Give them all, give them all, give them all to Jesus; and he will turn your sorrows into joy.”
* Man’s Greatest crisis is this: will he give to God the things that are God’s? Will you?
