Many liked the comparison he made with being a judge to being an umpire in a baseball game. He stated that he felt that as a judge, he is not a player of the game, but it is his job to call the FOULS and STRIKES!
All the evidence indicates that he will make a good chief justice. But that can not be said of all judges.
Illus: At the height of a political corruption trial, the prosecuting attorney attacked a witness.
• "Isn't it true," he asked, "that you accepted five thousand dollars to compromise this case?"
• The witness stared out the window as though he hadn't heard the question.
• "Isn't it true that you accepted five thousand dollars to compromise this case?" the lawyer repeated.
• The witness still did not respond.
• Finally, the judge leaned over and said, "Sir, please answer the question."
• "Oh," the startled witness said, "I thought he was talking to you."
Illus: I also think about another judge where a woman was being questioned in a court trial involving slander.
• The Lawyer instructed her, "Please repeat the slanderous statements you heard, exactly as you heard them."
• The witness hesitated. "But they are unfit for any respectable person to hear."
• "Then," said the attorney, "just whisper them to the judge."
The Senate Judiciary Committee is a very partisan committee made up of Republicans and Democrats. Possibly, if these men who were questioning John Roberts were put under the same scrutiny, some of them would be locked up for life.
As aggravating as it may be to watch this partisan committee (Senate Judiciary Committee), it is necessary that we have men like John Roberts investigated because they have been nominated for a high position in this nation.
A man might be charming but that does not mean he is qualified.
Illus: A man by the name of Frank Abagnale, Jr. has one of those charismatic personalities that enabled him to charm his way into virtually any situation.
That ability made Frank Abagnale one of the most famous con men in history.
• Before his 18th birthday, he had posed as a pediatrician for a year.
• He was a copilot for a major airline for a year.
• He was an attorney for a year.
• He cashed over $2.5 million in fraudulent checks in every state and 26 different countries.
• He was finally captured in France, and after spending five years in prison, he was released to become a consultant for the FBI.
Frank Abagnale has an extraordinary gift of being able to walk into any situation and take it over. He used this gift to live a life of adventure and deception.
Other people use the same kind of gifts to lead people astray into religious lies.
Illus: I think about people like cult leaders Jim Jones, David Koresh and Marshall Applewhite, founder of the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult. They all possessed a charismatic personality that made them leaders.
They were able to persuade the people around them to do things and believe things that under normal circumstances would seem irrational.
Whether you call people like this sociopaths, con men, or whatever, the world is filled with them.
The reason I mention these things is because when the Lord was here, this is how he was viewed. He was such a magnetic personality that He literally had thousands around Him leaving everything to be one of His followers. The religious leaders of that day believed He was a deceiver, a con man, a self-proclaimed messiah who was leading people astray.
Virtually every one who came in contact with Jesus during His public ministry on this earth, at some point asked himself, "WHO IS THIS MAN?"
Around Easter, we look at the events of what Christians sometimes call "Holy Week." Holy Week remembers the final week of Jesus Christ’s life on this earth before His death and resurrection. Today we’re going to look at the third day of holy week, as we see Jesus debate some religious leaders in the temple.
Let’s look at –
I. THE DEBATE
Look at Mark 11:27-33, we read, “And they come again to Jerusalem: and as he was walking in the temple, there come to him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders, And say unto him, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority to do these things? And Jesus answered and said unto them, I will also ask of you one question, and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer me. And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then did ye not believe him? But if we shall say, Of men; they feared the people: for all men counted John, that he was a prophet indeed. And they answered and said unto Jesus, We cannot tell. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
Some folks belonged to a debate team in high school. There are a lot of skills in debating. Some think a good debater is a person who loves to talk. But this is not true, I know a lot of people who love to talk, but the more they talk the deeper they get themselves into trouble.
Illus: They remind me of a guy who sees a sign in front of a house: "Talking Dog for Sale." He rings the bell and the owner tells him the dog is in the backyard. The guy goes into the backyard and sees a black mutt just sitting there.
• "You talk?" he asks.
• "Yep," the mutt replies.
• "So, what's your story?"
• The mutt looks up and says, "Well, I discovered this gift pretty young and I wanted to help the government. I told the CIA about my gift, and in no time they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping. I was one of their most valuable spies eight years running."
• "But flying all around the world really tired me out, and I knew I wasn't getting any younger and I wanted to settle down."
• "I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security work, mostly wandering near suspicious characters and listening in."
• "I uncovered some incredible dealings there and was awarded a batch of medals. Had a wife, a mess of puppies, and now I'm just retired."
The guy is amazed! He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.
The owner says, "Ten dollars."
The guy says, "This dog is amazing. Why on earth are you selling him so cheap?"
The owner replies, "He's such a liar. He didn't do any of that stuff."
A good debater is more than just a talker, he is able to articulate what he means.
One of the techniques a good debater uses is to try to say something to make the other person angry.
WHY DO THEY WANT TO MAKE THEM ANGRY? Because once a person gets angry, the heart starts to pump the blood in our body faster and soon the brain is over-filled with blood, and this causes us not to think clearly.
Did you ever get in a very combative conversation and someone said something that made you angry. When you got home and calmed down, you began to think of a number of things you wish you would have said, but when you got angry you could not think of them.
Illus: Dr. Jerry Falwell is considered by many to be one of the best Christian debaters around. He will appear on national television debating some well known ungodly person. This person will make all kinds of ridiculous remarks or accusations, and Dr. Falwell will say in a very low voice, “Now that is not true, and you know it is not true and I want you to know that the Lord loves you and died for your sins!” He has the ability to express what the Bible teaches in a Christ-like manner.
But the Lord is the master of all DEBATERS. He faced some of the most ungodly men in His day and came out a winner every time. Look at this debate in the temple court.
This debate comes on the heels of one of the most radical things Jesus did during his lifetime. I’m talking about Jesus driving the moneychangers out of the temple, causing the temple sacrifices to come grinding to a halt.
That event had red-flagged Jesus as a dangerous man, a potential threat. So an official delegation of religious leaders come to Jesus, demanding to know who authorized Him to make a scene in the temple courts.
This group was a delegation from the official ruling body within the temple.
• The chief priests were the clergy, the professional ministers who drew their income from the temple.
• The teachers of the law were the Bible scholars and theologians. They were the guardians of orthodoxy, the appointed experts in understanding and applying the Bible.
• The elders were the lay leaders, most of them part of a renewal group called the Pharisees.
So you might think of this group as the equivalent of today’s pastors, Bible scholars, and lay elders. Now the official ruling body over the temple was a group called the Sanhedrin.
The Sanhedrin was composed of 71 members, and each member was either a priest, a teacher of the law or an elder. This group had absolute authority in the temple, and they also served as a buffer organization between the Roman government and the Jewish people.
Their question to Jesus is a set up, intended to make Jesus vulnerable to accusation. They asked this for two reasons, such as:
(1) By publicly demanding Jesus’ authority for his scene in the temple, they’re showing the crowds that they didn’t authorize Jesus’ action. You see, everything that happened in the temple was under their authority, and by publicly demanding to know where Jesus got his authority, they’re telling people that they didn’t give Jesus the authority to do what he did. This was a clever move on their part to discredit Jesus without accusing him outright.
(2) If Jesus didn’t have any human authority behind his actions, that could only mean that he’s claiming to act with God’s own authority.
You see, these religious leaders know that for Jesus to claim to override human authority and act with God’s authority was a very dangerous claim to make. Only someone claiming to be Israel’s true king could do that, which made Jesus vulnerable to the Roman authorities.
So by sending an official delegation to publicly question Jesus’ authority, the Sanhedrin is distancing themselves from Jesus and setting Him up for trouble with the Romans.
We see THE DEBATE and -
II. THE INTERROGATOR
The Lord’s response is totally different than what they expected. By refusing to answer their question until they answer his question, Jesus takes charge of the situation.
His question of them is an implicit statement of his authority. Instead of being the accused on the defensive, Jesus becomes the interrogator, on the offensive.
Now His question about John the Baptist’s ministry is important. Remember, John was Jesus’ cousin, and the Book of Mark began by connecting John’s ministry with the predictions of the ancient prophets.
According to Mark, John’s baptizing is a fulfillment of these ancient promises. Look at Mark 1:1-4, we read, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.”
Mark cites two ancient Hebrew prophecies to describe John.
Malchi 3:1, we read, “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.”
Isaiah 40:3, we read, “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
This makes sense for why Jesus asks about John. The promised messenger who prepares the way will be followed by an arrival of God himself in the Jewish temple.
• If John was the fulfillment of the first half of the promise
• Jesus is the fulfillment of the second half
That’s where Jesus gets His authority to make a scene in the temple. Jesus is the Lord who follows the forerunner John.
The response of the religious leaders to Jesus’ question is deeply troubling. Notice they never stop to ask themselves what the true answer to Jesus’ question is. Instead, like cynical politicians, they debate how their answer will make them look to others.
If they admit that John’s baptism was ordained by God, then Jesus will ask, "Why didn’t you believe him then?" Believing in John’s ministry was more than admitting that he was a prophet, but it was submitting to John’s baptism of repentance. You see, John’s message was unique because he was challenging Jewish people to do something that was normally only required of non-Jewish people converting to Judaism.
When a non-Jewish person converted to Judaism, that person underwent a kind of baptism. So when John called Jewish people to be baptized as an expression of their repentance, he was telling them that they had to be converted, just like a non-Jew converting to Judaism. You can see why the religious leaders didn’t like John.
But if they said what they really thought, that John’s ministry was self appointed, then they’d look bad with the crowd. So they take the path of non-commitment. They feign ignorance, pretending that they don’t know. Of course what they really mean is, "We don’t want to tell you what we really think, because it will make us look bad."
Jesus saw through their answer, and says that He won’t tell them where He got His authority. If they rejected John’s ministry, they’ve already rejected Jesus. It’s like a row of dominoes, and by rejecting the first domino of John, all the other dominoes fall, leading to a rejection of Jesus, the final domino.
Conclusion:
Notice, the Lord did not give them an answer to their question. Why? Because they really did not want an answer…this was a trap.
Illus: When the liberal Ruth Beta Ginsburg nomination came before the Senate Judicary Committee to be placed on the Supreme Court, Senator Joe Biden from Delaware explicitly told her she did not have to answer some of the questions and he said he advised her not to answer some of them.
But when a very conservative nomination like John Roberts comes before the committee, Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator Dick Durbin demanded that he speak out and tell everyone what he believes about homosexuality, abortion, and etc.
Listen, this crowd has always been around. They are like a pack of blood-hounds hot on the trail of someone.
The Lord refused to give this delegation an answer.
We have looked at:
I. THE DEBATE
II. THE INTERROGATOR
