Episode 79 Matthew 22 The King’s Wisdom

Dan (00:01):

Hi, everyone. And welcome to training for life redeemed. I am your host, Dan I’m here as always with my father, David Jackson. We are going to continue to talk through the book of Matthew. Been working on this for a few weeks. Now, dad, we’re up to chapter 22 and 22 begins with a power. Actually it finished chapter 21 with a parable about yeah. How the people who were living in the wine vineyard. That’s the word I’m looking at. The vineyard are killing the son. Yep. Right? That was the last parable. This parable. We have a king who’s sending out invites to the people. The people then don’t come to the party that’s being repaired. And so the king then, and they end up murdering the servant who sent. So the king sends his soldiers, kills them and burns their city and then sends messages out all over the highway to bring everyone in.

Dan (00:53):

They all come. And then there’s one person who he sees when he arrives the king. That is not in the right clothes to be there. <Laugh>. And so he kicks that guy out where there’s going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now the parable ends verse 14 saying for many recall, but few are chosen. So what’s going on here? I mean, that’s part of this. I think I can see where Jesus is kind of telling them that Jerusalem’s going to get destroyed and burnt because the Jews aren’t going to respond to the invite, cuz they’re the original people who invited killing the servants. Maybe that’s you know, Peter, Steven prophets, prophets, maybe it’s old prophets too. But yeah, there’s also servants who are bringing this message, I guess, to come to the party. Yep. Who they’re going to try and just get rid of completely. But then what’s going on this second bit, I think is a bit more confusing. Why do I have to wear nice clothes? Like <laugh> I got the invite. Okay. Right.

David (01:52):

Yeah. Why the big deal to go to hell for wearing the wrong clothes? No it’s this is the, the last time Jesus speaks public. The last record we have of Jesus speaking publicly in the temple and it’s on again off again with all the different factions of the Sanhedrin and the last little round he had, they’ve all gone off into their little closed meetings and they’re having a meeting to try and plan how to kill him because he did to accuse them of trying to kill him. <Laugh> so, you know, we’re going to prove our moral worth by doing what he accused us of. So now he’s, they’ve gone away. He’s talking to the crowd and he tells the crowd, this parable about a feast. And of course on Thursday is Passover. So this is Tuesday on Thursday is Passover.

David (02:42):

And then on Friday, the feast of 11 bread starts and it goes for a week. And he’s describing that as a, you know, a Royal marriage feast and in Royal marriage feast language when you invite somebody to a Royal feast and you don’t turn up, you have rebelled against the king and the King’s going to come and deal with you. So this is, you know, a Royal summons and any disobedience of that is telling the king to go jump. And that’s what Jesus is saying. You’ve told vey to go jump in the lake. He’s called you to his feast here in Jerusalem, and you are going to spend that feast killing his anointed king. What do you think he’s going to do to you? So he tells it like this story about a wedding feast and then he’s predicting the destruction of the city of Jerusalem.

David (03:39):

And in 40 years time, that prediction is fulfilled. Yeah. So he, and he’s warning the crowds about this while the guys that are actually plotting it, aren’t there so great scene. But this guy with the clothes, when the, when you proclaim a feast, a wedding feast or a Royal feast, these things went on for a week. We have a record of Solomon doing a feast for 14 days when he opened the temple killing tens of thousands of animals. He’s feeding the whole country for a, a party for a fortnight, with wine and meat and everything else. They also provided party clothes. Cause you didn’t want it to be an inconvenience, come to our wedding and then worry about what you’re going to wear. The king provides you with party clothes. And if you turn up and you go, no, I’m not wearing that. <Laugh> out you go. Yeah. That’s really offensive, disrespectful. But then you’ve got to ask yourself the question, what what’s that about in the big picture? And the answer is you flip over to Revelation 19

Dan (04:54):

And you close with Christ

David (04:55):

And you close with Christ. You, you know, there’s the marriage supper of the lamb on the last day and we’re all there. And the only thing <laugh> I tell the kids, this, the only thing you’re wearing at that marriage feast is your righteousness. <Laugh>, here’s a scary thought. But that’s okay. You’ll be better looking than I am right now, which is hard to imagine, but we’ll get there.

Dan (05:15):

<Laugh>

David (05:16):

But there you are. I mean, you, this is your clothes with the righteousness that Christ has given you. And you’ve said, no, I’m going to bring my own. Yeah. So out you go,

Dan (05:25):

Okay. So this then leads us into three questions that are presented to Jesus by three different groups, essentially. And then Jesus presents one back. So the first question is, should we pay taxes? Which is the Pharisees. They obviously aren’t into paying taxes. <Laugh> although they benefit from the taxes

David (05:45):

<Laugh> yeah.

Dan (05:47):

So Jesus says, pulls out a coin. You’ve got a bunch of coins here. Yep. For us, if you happen to be watching this on YouTube so the coin has, you know, imprints on it. I mean, even our coin in Australia, we have the Queen’s head on all of it, even though it got the current queen, but you know, so Jesus just says, well, whose image is it? And therefore you give that to back to Caesar because it’s got his image on it. And then there’s

David (06:11):

Imagine

Dan (06:11):

There’s the flip side of that is that we are the image of God. And therefore we are, what’s given back to God. Yeah. Show you coin, get up please.

David (06:19):

There’s there’s a real you can get the notes off the website or buy the book. <Laugh>, there’s a photograph of it there. This is a, a denarius from the days of Deion. If you’re an Australian that’s a 5 cent piece and that’s at Dari.

Dan (06:35):

That’s about half the size,

David (06:36):

About half the size. But the, the trick is it doesn’t just have his head on it. It says he’s a God. So he is the divine Augustus son of the divine Augustus. So it’s an idol and the joke is this tax is imposed by the Romans on people who live in Judea. People in Galilee don’t have to pay it.

Dan (07:03):

Mm

David (07:04):

Okay. So cause Galilee is run by somebody else. Whereas Judea is a Roman occupied place run by a Roman governor. So they charge you a Dari a year to pay for the Roman governance. So they’re asking a guy from Galilee who doesn’t have to pay the tax <laugh> to tell the people of Judea, they have to give the money to Caesar. Now that’s a question designed to offend everybody. Yeah. Right. If you say, no, the Romans will come and arrest you for treason. If you say yes, the crowds are going to go boo and walk away from you. So they think they’ve got him and he says, bring me a coin. And of course the big joke is what are you doing with a coin? It’s got, it’s an idol and you are, you know, and you are producing it. Well, you go and give that to whoever’s image is on it and give to God what we owe him. Yeah. And so everybody now goes, oh, that didn’t work. <Laugh>

Dan (07:57):

<Laugh>

David (07:57):

And they skier away.

Dan (07:59):

So that brings you our next group then. And the next

David (08:00):

Group, the

Dan (08:01):

Beautiful, so next group are the Sadducees who for those who are listening at home, the Sadducees don’t believe in a resurrection. They generally only follow the first five, four and a half to five books of

David (08:12):

The five. Yeah. They only follow Genesis to you. I mean, yeah.

Dan (08:15):

And so they’re bringing a question to Jesus about, you know, if, if there is this resurrection, you know, the law says, if you know my brothers, my brother dies, I have to marry his wife. Then if I die, my other brother has to marry the same wife until she gets kids. And if we all marry her and there’s 12 of us or however many, there are none of us give her kids, whose wife, is she at the resurrection?

David (08:37):

Yeah. So this, the rabbis called this a vulgar question, they got a special word for this kind of method of debate, right? Yeah. It’s a mockery. I mean, if they came along and they were serious, they’d say, you know, I’ve got one brother who died and then the next brother marries the same woman and she doesn’t have any kids. So whose wife is she? That might sound like a sensible question, but to pass a woman through seven brothers is absurd and it’s mockery. Yeah. And Jesus knows it’s mockery. And so the reply is he makes them look as stupid as their question. Yeah. So here are a bunch of guys who don’t believe anything past Genesis to Deuteronomy. So all the history, the wisdom, the prophets they’ve they reject

Dan (09:22):

Kmar

David (09:22):

<Laugh> but yeah, they don’t believe they don’t believe the book of Ruth. Yeah. They don’t believe in angels. They don’t believe in resurrection. They for this world only they’re out to make a buck and there as corruptors will get out and they collaborate with the Romans and they’re going to mock Jesus. Mm. And Jesus turned around and said, oh, haven’t you read the rest of the scriptures? Well, of course they haven’t. We’ll be like the angels

Dan (09:49):

<Laugh>

David (09:49):

That you don’t believe in <laugh> and off they ski, you know, there, you wanna mock me <laugh> I you’re going to look as stupid as you are. And that’s the foolishness and unbelief. Yeah. It doesn’t do well to mock the God will not be mocked.

Dan (10:09):

So then our next group, so we had the Pharisees come sent away, sat seat have come. No good. We then have essentially like their professor, their scribe, right. Their academics come bring in, we’ve lost. Let’s go back to the Santa. And who’s the smartest, where’s

David (10:23):

The professor of all

Dan (10:24):

Testimonial. You’re the one who does, is come out here and they just come out. They it’s a fairly simple question, really? Like what is the greatest commandment of that many <laugh> big from but that’s all they are like, it’s it doesn’t look like he’s trying to like, they’re trapping him necessarily.

David (10:41):

Yeah. But the, see in the rabbinic school, you’ve got this big debate going on as to which, which are the important commandments you have to keep and which are the ones we they’re, they’re not so important. I mean, to be quite honest, evangelicals do exactly the same thing. Is it central to the gospel? If it’s not central to the gospel? Well, it doesn’t matter fact that Jesus commands it or whatever. No, it doesn’t matter. As long as it’s not central to how I get saved, we don’t care. Well, the rabbis did the same thing. And so here, here is an academic question from a lawyer asking what’s the most important commandment and the assumption behind that is, well, if I can nail down what the important commandment is, I can let go of the rest. And Jesus does this really cute thing. The two great commandments, love the Lord. Your God love your neighbours yourself. He says all the other ones, hang off that. And so what, what you’ve got is this beautiful picture. Here are the two hinges on the door and in their theology, their way of looking at the law, you put the two hinges up and you throw the door away. <Laugh>

David (11:49):

<Laugh> and he just, he says, you know, on them, hang every other commandment. You can’t separate any of it. You’ve got to either love the Lord, your God whole package. Yeah. Or you offend him whole package. We’re not picking our, the eyes out of this thing. And of course, I mean, this is the great professor of theology thing. And they’ve sent the professor of theology has actually sent one of his senior students to ask the question. So it doesn’t look like he’s bullying him. Here, go and ask him that question. <Laugh> and he comes back with his tail between his legs. So Jesus comes back and he asks this guy to go back and ask them another question. Yeah. And that’s a beauty.

Dan (12:36):

Yeah. So the question goes back that, and this is, it’s nice that Jesus I’ve done your three. Right? You’ve had three shots of it. He’s one. Yeah. Who’s one for you. And the question is basically around how can the Christ or be the son of David when David calls him Lord. Yes. Right? Because you don’t call someone Lord, unless they’re actually superior to

David (12:56):

You. So one of the great problems we have with the old Testament for people to understand is that in the old Testament you have Yahweh talk to Yahweh mm. So you come across, I mean the new Testament, it’s explained a bit more fully where you, the father, the son, the holy spirit, we get all that stuff together. But in the old Testament, it’s the same thing is happening. The same God is there. And he talks to, you know, the one person talks to another person, the glory of the Lord is there. And the glory of the Lord talks to God and then speaks as God. All of this is happening in the old Testament. And these guys, they, they can’t figure out Jesus let alone the Trinity and Jesus just smiles and says, well, you go and figure out this little passage from Psalm 110. And come back and give me your answer. <Laugh> you know, you want to get tricky, hard Bible questions. I’ve got one for you. There you go.

Dan (13:49):

Yeah. Yeah. Explain the truth to me. Whether that I haven’t explained to you

David (13:52):

<Laugh> yeah. Off you go. You haven’t even thought about this. Have you in fact that, Hey, wait a minute. I am Yahweh. You know, you’re talking to Yahweh and you’re asking him theological questions here, go, go and figure that one out. Yeah.

Dan (14:05):

<Laugh> yeah. Well look, if, if their motives were different, you know, yes, you should go to yawe and ask him as many theological questions as you have. And he’s got the answers,

David (14:15):

Right? And here you are with the whole scriptures and the whole history of Israel. And we’ve come to the crisis of everything. God has promised. We’re standing in the temple. We are two days away from arresting Jesus. Three days away from the crucifixion. When all of this stuff is going to get fulfilled and your plan’s silly guys

Dan (14:35):

Hmm.

David (14:36):

And looming in the distance in one generation, 40 years, we are going to wipe this place off the face of the earth, because you are about to murder the Christ.

Dan (14:50):

Well, now that brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you guys so much for coming along and listening. If you wanna grab the study notes to go along with this episode and see the pictures of AARs coin and all that kind of stuff, please come to training for life. Redeemed.Com/79. Good. You’ll grab the study notes there. Make sure you hit the subscribe button and come back and join us next week. When we head into chapter 23.