“You have heard that the ancients were told”
“Believing things ‘on authority’ only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy.
Ninety-nine percent of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I could not prove by abstract reasoning that there is such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so. The ordinary person believes in the solar system, atoms, and the circulation of the blood on authority—because the scientists say so.
Every historical statement is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Spanish Armada. But we believe them simply because people who did see them have left writings that tell us about them; in fact, on authority. A person who balked at authority in other things, as some people do in religion, would have to be content to know nothing all his life.” - C. S. Lewis
Lewis had a way of making some very interesting and thought-provoking observations on topics that most of us never pause to consider.
How often, for instance does any of us stop to think about why we believe the things we do; what information, what influences came to us or presided over us that ultimately led to the formulation of our systems of belief?
More than any time in history, I’m afraid, we now live in a culture at least in America, where information is being spewed out faster than anyone could hope to keep up; and unfortunately there is not a lot of documenting and investigating of sources going on among the general public.
HOAXES AND HOOEY
“A deadly new computer virus that actually causes home computers to explode in a hellish blast of glass fragments and flame has injured at least 47 people since August 15, horrifying authorities who say millions of people are risking injury, blindness or death every time they sit down to work at their PC!”
HOAX
“Recently Marines in Iraq wrote to Starbucks because they wanted to
let them know how much they liked their coffees and to request that
they send some of it to the troops there.
Starbucks replied, telling the Marines thank you for their support in
their business, but that Starbucks does not support the war, nor anyone
in it, and that they would not send the troops their brand of coffee.”
HOOEY
“During a recent study of KFC done at the University of New Hampshire, they found some very upsetting facts.
First of all, has anybody noticed that just recently, the company has
changed their name? Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC. Does anybody know why? We thought the real reason was because of the "FRIED" food issue.
It’s not. The reason why they call it KFC is because they can not use the word chicken anymore. Why? KFC does not use real chickens. They actually use genetically manipulated organisms. These so called "chickens" are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet. Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them.
This is great for KFC because they do not have to pay so much for their production costs.”
HOAX
Of course not all hoaxes and hooeys are harmless and funny. I know you’re all getting tired of hearing about the “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown. So am I. But I read it anyway, just so I would know what to say about it if I got into a discussion about it with someone.
Brown states in the very beginning that ‘all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate’. Now that may be a true statement with the exception of the ‘documents’ part.
I Googled one of the paintings he described because I had never seen it, and it appeared to me that he described it accurately. I can’t confirm or deny the documents or rituals he mentions; well, I guess I could if I wanted to take the time and energy to research them, but I do not.
What concerns me though is that in making this general statement he lends an air of authenticity to the rest of the content in his story so that if the reader does not stop to think it out he or she will read the story as an accurate account of history.
In fact, before I was half way through the book, which is well-written and suspenseful and imaginative by the way, I was laughing at the glaring inaccuracies in it.
No harm done; I know the truth and can see easily through the fiction. But those who do not know the Bible and have not desired to know the Biblical or historical truth about Jesus and His church may very easily be swayed to believe they have read the truth and react to the church and Christians accordingly.
It’s hooey.
Read it. Go see the movie. Just don’t believe the lie. Whether reading a book like this, or the record of any other point of history, or pamphlets on new medicines or tracts pushed into your hands by folks of any religious persuasion, or even watching the morning television news, don’t just swallow the mass of information coming your way without some discernment.
And remember that those wearing the titles and sitting in the high seats can be the ones you will be most easily deceived by, because they’re the ones that are supposed to know and honestly dispense the information. Be on your guard.
That should just be common sense stuff, but there isn’t as much of that going around as there used to be either.
THE EXPERTS AND THE SCRIPTURES
You may remember that in the previous sermon, “Running With The Bulls”, I read an excerpt from Lloyd-Jones about the tenacious dedication of the Scribes and the Pharisees in their studying and keeping of the Scriptures.
They were the ones with the titles. They were the ones who sat in the high seats. Yet Jesus, of whom the Scriptures spoke, was not recognized by them when He came. In addition, He correctly interpreted the Scriptures to them and they still didn’t understand. They approached the Scriptures as scholars but not as believers.
In his essay, “The Inspiration and Authority of Holy Scripture”, Herman Ridderbos made the statement, “God speaks to us through the Scriptures not in order to make us scholars, but to make us Christians”.
In Romans 15:4 we read, “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope”.
How it must have made the pious Pharisees and Sadducees burn with murderous rage, having been so diligent in their careful study and daily discussion and interpretation of the Law and the Prophets, to hear Him saying on so many occasions in preface to His responses to their questions and accusations, ‘…have you not read in the Law?’ (Matt 12:5) ‘…have you not read that which was spoken to you by God?’ (Matt 22:31) ‘…have you not even read this scripture?’ (Mark 12:10) ‘…have you not read in the book of Moses…?’ (Mark 12:26).
He cut right to the center of their self-righteous pride and demonstrated time and again, and very publicly, their ignorance of the very thing they thought they and only they understood clearly.
Let’s take this a step further. They weren’t just ignorant, and we mustn’t ever think that the only thing wrong with these religious hypocrites was that they didn’t know and didn’t understand.
Jesus never had or has harsh words for the purely ignorant. He will, if they will let Him, take them by the hand and teach them.
He wasn’t so gentle with the religious elite who followed Him around.
I don’t have time to read and comment on the eight ‘woes’ He pronounced on the Pharisees in Matthew 23:13-36, but sit down and read them carefully in your own time and you will see clearly what Jesus thinks of religious hypocrisy and self-righteousness. There in chapter 23 He doesn’t just chew them out for their current attitudes and behavior, He lets them have it for what they’re going to do in the future!
These guys were not innocently ignorant; not for a second. If they were, not only would Jesus have treated them more gently, He would not have refuted their teachings openly and in public.
This takes us back to our text.
YOU HAVE HEARD
Prior to the Protestant Reformation the Bibles that existed were only in Latin and only the scholars of the church could read them or had them. So the people were at the mercy of the leaders of the church to interpret the Scriptures to them.
So they weren’t necessarily getting the Bible, they were getting the church’s interpretation of the Bible. That is why the church was able to sell them indulgences and pretty much get them to do whatever was convenient and profitable for the church.
The greatest enemy of the true church of Jesus Christ has always been the organization called ‘the church’.
Well, this is what was going on with the Scribes and Pharisees. During the Babylonian captivity God’s people lost the ability to understand the Hebrew language. Therefore, like the Latin language prior to the Reformation, Hebrew was only taught and understood by the religious leadership. It is why Paul, as a former Pharisee, was able to speak in the Hebrew tongue to get the crowd’s attention which amazed them enough that they stopped trying to drag him away and listened to his defense, in Acts 21 and 22.
On the road to Damascus the fact that Jesus spoke to him in the Hebrew dialect must have been an immediate indication to Saul that the One speaking had intimate knowledge of him. In any case, it told Saul that the One speaking was at the very least a learned man of authority.
So when Jesus said ‘You have heard’, He was talking to people that had, all their lives, been at the mercy of the Pharisees and Scribes to interpret to them the Law and the Prophets, and like the priests of the pre-Reformation period, they largely taught the traditions of their fathers and told the people what was most convenient and profitable for them.
BUT I SAY TO YOU
When Jesus said ‘but I say to you’, this was yet another occasion for the multitudes to be astounded.
Remember, He had just defended the Scriptures in very strong language, declaring that they would be fulfilled to the last punctuation mark, then told them that it wasn’t enough to aspire to the works-based righteousness of the Pharisees and Scribes, but that their righteousness had to exceed that of their leaders if they wanted to get to Heaven.
So when He says ‘you have heard’, referring to the teaching of the Pharisees, and follows it with ‘but I say’, He is clearly declaring Himself to be the ultimate authority on the Scriptures.
In essence He has said to them, ‘The Bible is inerrant and infallible. It is pure and holy and good, and every last word is true. Now here is what these guys have been teaching you, supposedly from the Bible, but I am here to teach you what it really says, and since I am the one and only absolute authority in the interpretation of the Scriptures, you need to listen to what I tell you.”
When the editors of a certain Christian periodical agreed to publish my account of a canoe trip my wife and I took down the Brazos River some years back, the man doing the editing telephoned me several times to have me clarify certain points for him. What I did not realize was that for the sake of space in his magazine he was virtually re-writing my story; a deed doubly dastardly as it was a true story so changes he made resulted in altering the historical documentation of our trip.
As a writer, I was indignant when the issue that contained my story came out and I saw what they had done to it. My wife knows well, since she was the poor soul who had to listen to my ranting.
Now I certainly am not comparing my short story with the Bible. But my experience with the wholesale slaughter of my work gives me just an inkling of how the Lord of the Word must feel when the Word of the Lord is twisted, added to, watered down, misapplied, used for personal profit and with evil intent.
This was not a new problem. A reading of the Old Testament prophets, Major and Minor, will reveal that the indictment of God against His people over and over was that they perverted His Word, ignored His Word, disobeyed His Word.
It was not new to the Jews of first century Palestine and it hasn’t gone away.
I wish I could cite the source of a quote I heard a few days ago. I cannot because it wasn’t given. A third party in whom I trust implicitly had read that a preacher of a large metropolitan church had said in a newspaper interview, “I’d prefer to avoid the bad news about sin and give my people the good news of the Sermon on the Mount”.
I don’t even know where to start, there are so many things wrong with that statement. So I won’t. I’ll only say that I wouldn’t want to be standing in that man’s shoes on the day an accounting is called for concerning whether or not he was faithful to the accurate and complete exposition of that precious charge that was put before him.
Christians, there is just not enough time in the course of our daily lives to give ear to the ramblings of everyone with an opinion. It is harmful to do so. We live in the final days of earth and the thing people need to hear is what Jesus says to them. We need to go straight to the One who says ‘…but I say to you…’ and listen very intently to what He has to say, and let it change us.
WHERE WE’RE GOING NEXT
I want to say a few things in closing that you’ll probably hear again next week. These two sermons will overlap in that regard because it is very important that you comprehend this fundamental purpose behind the things Jesus is saying.
Through the rest of this chapter Jesus will use these phrases six times. “You have heard” and “But I say to you”.
In each case He will cite the traditional teaching of the Pharisees, then He will refute their teachings with Biblical truth.
What is important for us to keep in focus as we go is that while their teachings fundamentally made their religion more comfortable and manageable for the one following the rules with precision, Jesus’ teaching makes religion impossible.
The other thing I want us to be careful of is to avoid the trap of settling on each of the things Jesus lists, “Murder/anger”, “adultery”, “divorce”,
“false oaths”, “revenge/unforgiveness”, and picking them apart citing situational ethics and trying to make them fit our modern life and society better.
What Jesus said to this multitude as He sat on the mountainside in Galilee is no less pertinent to us today just as it was recorded for us. We will say what Jesus said and let each word apply to us as the God-breathed Word from heaven and let God’s Word do God’s work.
But as we go, and this is the reason I’m going to treat the entire rest of this chapter in one sermon, our overall focus and attention will be on the fact that what Jesus is making clear is that His expectation of us, His purpose for us, His command to us, is that we are to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.
Does that scare you a little? Well stay tuned. Next week I’m going to tell you how to be perfect.
“You have heard that it was said…but I say to you… be perfect”.
(Computer Virus, Starbucks and KFC hoaxes were picked at random from Hoaxbusters.com website)
