The Zealot Series

OPEN: This morning I want to talk to you about the periodic table (we showed a periodic table on the screen). On this periodic table are two elements that I find intriguing. One of these is Sodium. Sodium is the 6th most abundant element in the Earth's crust (did you know that?) As a solid, Sodium is flammable and will ignite spontaneously in air and reacts violently with water or steam to produce flammable and explosive Hydrogen gas. It can highly corrosive to eyes, skin and mucous membranes.

Then there’s chlorine/chloride. Chlorine is among the 10 highest volume chemicals made in the USA. At room temperature, chlorine is a gas. And when chlorine enters the body as a result of breathing, swallowing, or skin contact, it reacts with water to produce acids. The acids are corrosive and damage cells in the body on contact. Chloride has been classified by the EPA as a hazardous waste.

Separately, these two elements are very hazardous to us. But if you combine them TOGETHER do you know what you get? TABLE SALT!

Someone once observed that if put these 2 hazardous elements in your mouth by themselves, they’d either blow you up (sodium) or poison you (chlorine). But merged into a compound—called sodium chloride—they change into an essential element of life. You’ve got to have salt to survive!!! The salt taste comes from the chlorine; which is also vital for making the hydrochloric acid which digests food in our stomach.

With that thought in mind, I want to remind you of Jesus’ comment: “You are the salt of the earth.” (Matthew 5:13) You and I make the world “flavorful” but separately we are made up elements that would make us dangerous to the world around us.

For example, last week we talked about Matthew the Tax collector. Matthew was one of the 12 Apostles, but originally, he was a man of questionable reputation who’d collected taxes for the hated Romans.

Today we’re going to look at another apostle named Simon the Zealot. That was his label – Zealot! We don’t know much about Simon from Scripture, but we do know he was a zealot…and we know a lot about the zealots. About 10 years after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, there was a group of Jewish partisans who absolutely hated Rome. They’d followed a Galilean named Judas and they stormed the palace in Jerusalem and broke into the arsenal intending to start a revolution. But… that didn’t go real well. Acts 5:37 tells us "Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered."

And that was the beginning of a rebellious group that became the Zealots. They may have been scattered but they were determined to undermine the grip of Rome on Israel at all costs. One specific group of the Zealots became assassins (called the sicarii) and often carried a curved knife under their robes to assassinate anyone who displeased them. Their goal to terrorize the countryside and they burned the homes of rich Sadducees to the ground and eliminated anyone they saw as a traitor to their cause. It was these actions of the Zealots that instigated the Great Jewish Revolt (67–73) which caused Rome to sweep through Judah ultimately surrounding and destroying Jerusalem. As Jerusalem was under siege, people inside the city were starving, and the situation was bleak and hopeless. People began to think of surrender. But, the Zealots so hated Rome, that they began to murder anyone who even spoke of surrendering to the Romans. (From a sermon by Glenn Pease)

The zealots looked on Jews who paid taxes to Rome as compromisers and enemies of Israel. Their battle cry was, "No Lord but Jehovah, no tax but the temple tax, no friend but the Zealot." And any Jew who entered into an agreement with the Romans (say, a Jew who became a tax collector) was marked for assassination.

And Matthew was a tax collector. Simon was a zealot. Sodium… and chloride!

Ordinarily that wouldn’t have worked out real well. Somebody was going to die and I’m pretty sure it would’ve been Matthew. But that didn’t happen! WHY? Well… Jesus happened.

There was something about Jesus that caused His followers to be so focused on HIM that nothing else mattered. There was something about Jesus that caused people to love Him more than anything else. Jesus came to transform us so that we wouldn’t be hazardous to those around us. So we would become the salt of the earth,

In fact, that was prophesied way back in Isaiah 11 - “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; Their young ones shall lie down together; And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole, And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse, Who shall stand as a banner to the people; For the Gentiles shall seek Him, And His resting place shall be glorious.” Isaiah 11:6-10