JESUS: His Timeless Principles                                                3-26-06

“You Don’t Know the Scriptures or the Power of God”           

Mark 12:18-27 (v.24 NLT) also Matt. 22:23-33     Audio

Last Sunday morning as we looked at “Becoming Healthier Followers of Jesus Christ…Together”, I made reference to two things that are crucial in this “becoming” process: the power of the Word of God and the power of the Spirit of God.  And we didn’t have the time last Sunday to look at those two important components of healthy Christian living.

This morning, as we return to our series of messages on the life and teachings of Jesus, we are going to begin looking at several statements of fact that Jesus made.  And one of those statements has to do with the power of the Word and the power of the Spirit.  So we are going to look at that today.

I want to read to you this morning from the New Living Translation. That’s the translation of the Bible that I am using each morning in my daily devotions, using one of the “Through the Bible in a Year” Bibles that we have at the information center. 

The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, and the New Testament was written in Greek.  They were not originally written in English.  Most of you know that already, but this is all new to some of you.  What we have today are translations out of those original languages. 

Even the English language changes.  Let me quote to you from some 14^th century English literature (Prologue to Chaucer’s Cantebury Tales).

The earliest English translation of the Bible was the Wycliffe Bible, translated in the 13^th century, written in that kind of English.  Today we could read that English Bible and understand some of it, but English has changed. 

The King James Bible was translated in the early 1600s, and is much easier for us to understand that the Wycliffe Translation. But English has changed since the 1600s.  We no longer use words like Thee and Thou and Thy and hast and wast and concupiscence & lasciviousness.  So modern language translations have been made, and many of us use those more recent translations.

Read Mark 12:18-27 NLT.

Let’s start with a little background.  The Sadducees – who were these people?

There were two prominent religious groups in Jesus’ day: the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  The Pharisees were the extreme conservatives, with myriads of rules and regulations.  The Sadducees were the extreme liberals and didn’t believe in the supernatural. They denied the existence of angels, of miracles, of life after death, and of any judgment in the future.  They lived very worldly and even immoral lives.

They didn’t even believe in the resurrection, or in heaven or hell, yet here they come to Jesus asking Him a question about heaven.  It was not a sincere question, but they were always just picking at Him, just as the Pharisees were.

Religious leaders gave Jesus far more grief than regular people did.  Look back in Mark 11 (read 27-28)

Then chapter 12 begins with Jesus telling a story – a pointed story and the religious leaders got the point – look at v.12 (read).

Then v.13 (read). 

And now the Sadducees are taking their best shot at Jesus here in the passage we read a few moments ago.

The Old Testament passage they quote from is in Deuteronomy 25, but they set up an impossible scenario from it.  Here is what the Jewish law said in Deut. 25 (5-10).

“If brothers are living together…”  What if they are not living together?  And is the second brother still single or does he already have a wife?  But those questions are not addressed, and the Sadducees aren’t asking about that.  They are rather asking “whose she will be when she finally gets to heaven”, a place they don’t believe in.

Jesus answer is what we want to look at this morning.  He does not even answer their question; He only points out their problem: Your problem is that you don’t know the Scriptures and you don’t know the power of God.  And then He adds: You have made a serious error.

Jesus is not asking a question here, nor is He issuing a command.  He is making a statement of fact.  It’s what I would call a timeless principle.  We make errors when we do not know the Scriptures, and we make errors when we do not know the power of God.

How many errors have you made because you did not know the Scriptures or the power of God?  How has your thinking been affected?  How have your attitudes, your words, your actions been affected by not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God?

We have millions of people today in the United States who say they are Christians, millions who claim to be born again.  As a matter of fact, four out of 5 people in America consider themselves to be Christians.  Yet only 29% of them said they had attended a church service, prayed to God, and read from the Bible during the past week.  And only 16% said the highest priority in their life was their faith.

In assessing their spiritual life, only 37% said they were above average in living out their faith; only 23% said they were above average in sharing their faith with others, and only 22% said they were above average in knowing the content of the Bible.

Jesus said, when you don’t know the Scriptures and you don’t know the power of God, you are open to error.

A few hours after the exchange we read a few moments ago from Matthew 22, Jesus and His disciples left the Temple area and went out and sat on a hill overlooking the city of Jerusalem.  He had told them that He was going to go away, but that He would come back again.  And His disciples asked Him: what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?  Matt. 24:3.

Do you remember Jesus’ reply?  Watch out that no one deceives you!  The sign of Jesus return has to do with spiritual deceit. In v.24 He says: For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible.  See, I have told you ahead of time.

What will keep you from being deceived in the weeks and months and years ahead?  Knowing the Scriptures, and the power of God.  Let’s look at each of those two things.

KNOWING THE SCRIPTURES.

The Apostle Paul wrote two letters to young Pastor Timothy.  In the second one, in chapter 3 and v.14 he says:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

“From infancy, you have known the Scriptures.”  It’s the same word that is used by Jesus when He talked about knowing the Scriptures.  It carries the idea of intelligent comprehension through the senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching.  Timothy had not come to know the Scriptures through some sort of inner revelation; he had come to know them through hearing them and reading them.

To know the Scriptures, you must hear them read, or read them for yourself. There is no other way. You can’t just put your Bible under your pillow at night & pray for some sort of osmosis.  You can’t pray and ask God to help you to know the Scriptures apart from your reading them.

That’s why Paul wrote to Timothy: Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. (1 Tim. 4:13).  In those days people did not have their own personal copy of the Bible.  Most of them listened to the Scriptures being read rather than reading them for themselves.  How blessed we are to have Bibles so readily available to us so we don’t have to depend on someone else to read it to us.

Those verses we just looked at give us some important teaching about the Bible itself, and about some of the things the Bible will do for us.

First of all, it says the Bible is inspired by God – God-breathed it says in the NIV.  What does that mean?

It doesn’t just mean that the Bible is an inspiring book.  It means that the source of the Scriptures is God Himself.  Human authors wrote the individual books, but God guided them, He kept them from error, made sure they said the right things, and didn’t leave anything out.

This book is different from any other book in the world.  2 Peter 1:20-21 says: Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

In this book, men speak from God.  And it’s a book through which God still speaks to us today.  As I have again been reading through the Old Testament, God has spoken more to me from that part of the Bible than I think He ever has.  I have to admit that I find parts of the O.T. that I don’t really like, but I still accept it as God’s Word.  And look at what these verses in 2 Timothy 3 say the Bible will do for us:

The Bible will show us the way of salvation.

Able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus, it says.  One of the great questions of life is: “Is there a heaven following this life, and if so, what must I do to get there?”  The Bible answers both of those questions.  “Yes, there is a heaven.  And the way you get there is by the salvation that comes through faith in Christ Jesus.”

Faith in Jesus!  When Jesus died on the cross, He died taking the punishment for my sin.  Three days later, God the Father raised Him from the dead, and people saw Him, and touched Him, and talked with Him, and ate with Him.

To put my faith in Jesus is to stop trusting in what I have done and can do, and accept what He has already done for me.  I turn from trusting in my own good works for my salvation and begin trusting in what He did on the cross for my salvation.  That’s what the Bible says.  The Bible shows us the way of salvation: faith in Christ Jesus.

The Bible will teach us.

It teaches us what is true; it teaches us what is right; it teaches us what is best.  The error of the Sadducees, the error of the cults today, the error of those deceived prior to Jesus’ return is that they did not let the Scriptures teach them.

People have said: “I found some things in the Bible I didn’t understand so I stopped reading it”.  I’ve found some things I don’t understand either, but don’t let that stop you.  Keep reading and some of those things you will understand. And those you don’t, put in the compartment that is labeled “Need more information.”

I said last week: “No matter where you are in your Christian life, you still need to grow.”  None of us has learned all we need to learn about God, about life, about relationships, about dealing with the powers of evil, about living as aliens in this world of sin. The Bible has more to teach us, no matter how much we already know.

The Bible will Rebuke us.

One of the reasons some people stop going to church is that they know the way they are living is not pleasing to God, and they don’t want to be rebuked.  One of the reasons some people stop reading their Bible is that they know they way they are living is not pleasing to God, and they don’t want to be rebuked. 

The word that is used here can also mean “conviction”.  This last Thursday morning as pastors from 7 different churches gathered in our chapel to pray, as we do each Thursday morning, we prayed that the Holy Spirit would bring conviction to our congregations as we preached the Word of God, just as He did when Peter preached on that first Pentecost Sunday. 

Don’t run from the Bible’s rebukes. Don’t run from the Holy Spirit’s conviction. When your life doesn’t line up with God’s will for your life, the best thing in the world is to submit to the rebuke and the conviction that He brings to you through His Word.

The Bible will Correct us.

The Bible will not only show us where we are wrong, it will show us what we need to do about it.  “It straightens us out” one translation says.  If you are being a lousy husband, it will not only rebuke you for that, it will also show you how to be a good husband.  If you are being a lousy parent, it will not only rebuke you, it will show you how to be a good parent.  If you are a poor steward of the material resources God has given to you, the Bible will not only rebuke you for that, it will show you how to be a good steward.  It corrects us.

The Bible will Train us in righteousness.

George Barna does a lot of polling of people about religious topics.  Recently he did a poll on holiness, both among adults in general, and among those who consider themselves to be born again Christians.  Here are some of the things he found:

Among born again adults, three-quarters (76%) say it is possible for a person to become holy, regardless of their past. Slightly more than half of the born again group (55%) say they know someone who they would describe as holy. And only 29% of born agains say they are holy, which is just slightly higher that adults in general (21%).

And then he concludes: “Realize that the results portray a body of Christians who attend church and read the Bible, but do not understand the concept or significance of holiness, do not personally desire to be holy, and therefore do little, if anything to pursue it.”

Did you know that MTV won’t train you in holiness?  ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, or even PBS or Disney won’t train you in holiness.  Your local video store won’t train you in holiness.  Your public school won’t train you in holiness; 24 hour fitness won’t train you in holiness.

For that you have to go to your Bible.  If you will ask God, He will use His Word to train you in holiness and righteousness.  It will make you unlike the world around you.  You will no longer fit into some of the situations you now fit into.  But God’s will for you is that you would be trained in righteousness – holy – every last one of us!

The Bible will Equip us for every good work.

Here the thought is usefulness.  God wants us to be useful to Him, and to be useful, we must be equipped.  This book will equip you to worship more effectively.  This book will equip you to minister to others, to be able to talk to them about Jesus and your faith in Him, to be able to bring encouragement and hope to people who need it, to bring comfort and mercy and grace to those who need those things.

“You are in error”, Jesus said, to both the Sadducees and to us, “because you don’t know the Scriptures.”

You don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know…

THE POWER OF GOD.

In the narrowest sense, Jesus was speaking to the Sadducees about God’s power to raise the dead.  That there was life after death, and those who had died already were not really dead, but still alive.  Their bodies had died, but the spirits of their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were still living – in heaven, with God.

The power of God – have you experienced it?  It’s the power to change lives.  My uncle Claude Crawford used to live somewhere in these parts. Back in the days of prohibition he has his still and made and sold white lightning.  But the power of God changed his life – saved Him, filled Him with the Spirit of God and made him into a preacher.  He pastored up in Chewelah, and in Bridgeport, and in Kendrick, Idaho.

Some of you have stories that are incredible, of how God has changed your life.  I have met former prostitutes, and Playboy Bunnies, and drug dealers, and alcoholics, and homosexuals, and even murders – but the power of God has changed their lives and now they are living for Jesus and being used by Him to bring others into the Family of God.

I have met people who felt hopeless, so hopeless that they had tried to take their own life, but the power of God has changed them.

Some of you, like I, have been miraculously healed by the power of God.  The doctors said there was no hope, but then God came, and His power healed you and gave you a testimony of the grace and mercy and goodness and power of God. 

For some of you, God has healed your marriage, or healed your family.  There seemed to be no hope, but the God of hope came and His power changed your hearts and today you are evidence of the power of God.

The word “know” that is used by Jesus, does not only refer to the knowledge of facts; it also can mean the knowledge of experience and relationship.  God does not just want us to know about the Scriptures and about His power; He wants us to experience them.

Perhaps you are here today, and you need to experience the power of God.  He is here to display His power among us.  Will He do everything we want Him to do?  Probably not.  Will He do everything He wants to do?  If we let Him, yes, He will.