The Pharisees and Sadducees

Well, good afternoon, brethren. Happy Sabbath to you. Thank you, Beth, for a very beautiful piano piece. That was very lovely. So I can get some light on here. Ah, modern technology. Well, again, happy Sabbath to you. Greetings from the Johnsons. I talked to Mr. Johnson last night. It's unusual that they're not here for three weeks in a row, but because of the snowfall and the way things happened, they are not able to be here today. They're spending a full day in Meadville, and I think after services there's a bowling activity tonight that they're looking forward to sharing with the brethren. So they send their greetings and descend their love, and they're looking forward to seeing everyone next Sabbath.

The Spring Holy Days are only about six weeks away, if I can calculate things correctly on my calendar. And today I would like to discuss beginning to think about the Spring Holy Days.

And to do that, I would like to explore two prominent religious groups that lived during the time of Jesus Christ. They were very influential, even though there were just a few of them.

They were a small group of oligarchal committees who had tremendous influence over the people of their time. In history, we know them as the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And, you know, just like us, they observed the Holy Days. And just like us, they kept the Sabbath faithfully.

But Jesus warned us not to become like the Pharisees or the Sadducees. And here's the thing that we need to keep in mind, brethren, if we are not careful, as a people, or this applies to people or organizations, if we are not careful, if we don't stay balanced and on the center of the road of life, there is always a natural tendency, a natural tendency, to drift to either the left or the right, to drift into one ditch or the ditch on the other side. And it's for that reason that I think it's very important for us to understand who and what they were, who and what the Pharisees and Sadducees believed, and what particular qualities they had that we need to be very careful to avoid. So I'd like to discuss the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the relationship with Jesus, what we learn about them through history and through the Word of God, and then look at our own selves and make sure that we're on that center of the road and in our own lives that we are not drifting to one side of a ditch or another. First, who in the world were these people and how did they come to power? Let me give you a brief history of what is known as the inter-testamental period, meaning between the end of the book of Malachi and when Jesus comes on the scene written about in the Gospels, there's a period in which there's not a lot of religious history known, but there's a lot of secular history. Here's basically what happened. You may recall that after the Jews went into captivity by the Persians, that after a period of time through the decree of Cyrus, some Jews were allowed and chose to go back to Jerusalem and set up the temple and set up a self-ruling kind of government, even though they were still under the thumb of the Persians. Well, the Persian Empire fell, as all great empires of man eventually do, and they were replaced by the Greeks. And so now the Greeks had influence in Judea and in that part of the world. And there were actually two branches of the Greek Empire after the death of Alexander, the great who vied for influence within Judea. They came and they went, and then there was a period in which the Jews were actually independent for a while, known as the Maccabean period, where they literally gained their own political independence. It didn't last for a long time, but it did happen, and it was during that time, the short period of time, a few generations, when the Jews had political independence that both the Sadducees and the Pharisees came on the scene because they were involved in that political independence. Well, that didn't last very long because after that, Rome came in and took over that area of the world, being the upcoming power of the Western world at that time. And by the time we come to the birth of Jesus Christ, Rome, of course, dominates that area of the world.

The Pharisees constituted, we'll begin talking about them, they constituted the most important group and were the most numerous of the organized religious groups. And according to Josephus, there were only 6,000 of them. So it gives you an idea of how small numbers of people could have powerful influence over hundreds of thousands of people who lived in this area. So there weren't a lot of them. They were a small oligarchy, but they had tremendous influence, religious influence, among the people of Judea.

They had some fine qualities. The Pharisees were often very critical of them, rightly so, but they had some fine qualities. They were zealous. They could be pious. They studied the Bible a lot, studied the law. They fasted. They prayed often, and they believed it was important to be obedient to God. Those are fine qualities unless they're taken beyond the bounds and perimeters of what God originally intended, and we'll get to that in a little bit.

There's no surviving writing that tells us the exact origins of when the Pharisees began. The earliest reference to the Pharisees, again by Josephus, in the time of a man named Jonathan Maccabees, who was a civil leader around 160 BC, and Josephus mentions that at that time there were Sadducees and there were Pharisees. But the Pharisees came to prominence. They came to importance about 70 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. There was a Judean queen named Salome Alexandria, who became queen, and she was the last ruler of ancient Judea to die as ruler of Judea being an independent kingdom.

After her death, a civil war occurred between her two sons who were trying to take over control of Judea. And that was the pretext. That's just what the Romans were looking for as an excuse to come into Judea and take over Judea. And that was what they used as a reason to do so, and that's why they were there 70 years later when Jesus was born and came on the scene.

The name Pharisee means separated ones. Now, the name may mean that they separated themselves to the study and interpretation of the law, and indeed they did. But it may have been a derogatory term because they were so religious that they referred to everyone who wasn't like them as the great unwashed. They looked at themselves as superior, as being more important, more godly, more righteous than people who weren't like them.

So they referred to everyone else as the great unwashed. They were responsible for the literal transformation of Judaism as a faith. Before they came along, Judaism was a religion of sacrifice, and everything was focused on the temple, and it was focused on sacrifices, on the Sabbaths, on the high days, on forgiveness, on the grace of God, on mercy. But they came along and they literally changed Judaism, and it became a religion of the law.

Now, to the Pharisees, there were two laws that were of equal importance. The first law you and I are fully aware of. It's what's written in this book, particularly the first four books known as the Pentateuch. That's the written law, and that was around for a long time, and the Pharisees believed in a written law. But they believed in another kind of law. That law was the oral law, or the oral tradition. And here's how they said the oral tradition came about. After Moses was done writing the law, he told Joshua things just one-on-one.

And then Joshua told those things to the elders after he died, or just before he died, and the elders passed it on to the prophets. And the prophets kept the oral law until it came down to the Pharisees, and then they wrote down the oral law, and it became as important as the original written law that is revealed in the Word of God. So they believed in the written law and the oral tradition, or the oral law. And they saw the way to please God was only through obedience to the law. Here's something you may not understand about their Pharisees.

You may think because they were judgmental and self-righteous that they were conservative, but they were the liberals of their day. Even though they had lots of laws, they had the ability to flex. And because they could rewrite the oral law and reinterpret law anytime they wanted to, they were very good at adjusting the new situations and new thoughts and new ideas. So they actually were the liberals or the progressives of their day. The Pharisees were very monotheistic. They certainly believed in God. They accepted the Old Testament as an authority. They believed in the reality of the spiritual world, angels and demons.

They had a firm belief in life beyond death, the resurrection of the body. And something unique about them is they were missionary. They believed in going to the Gentiles and trying to convert the Gentiles to Judaism, of course, their particular brand of Judaism, that is, being a Pharisee. And they also believed that God would send a Messiah to save his people. Something that was interesting about them that we believe is they believed that God was concerned with the life of each and every person and that the individual was responsible how he or she lived.

So there was individual responsibility in our conduct and how we live. They had little interest in politics. They were apolitical. They despised politics. Now, they had some good qualities, as I've just mentioned, but they were the opponents of Jesus. The Pharisees opposed Christ because he refused, adamantly refused to accept the oral law as being valid.

He knew that this stuff about Moses passing something on verbally, the Joshua passing it, he said that that's a balogna. Worse than that, it's pork balogna. So Jesus did not accept the oral law, and for that reason they would lock horns quite often. Now, Paul claimed, and Paul was a Pharisee before he became a Christian, and it is for that reason that when Paul was finally called and he came to see that the gospel should be preached to the world, he didn't have any problem doing that because the Pharisees would go out to the Gentiles and preach Judaism.

So for him it was no great leap to go to the Gentile world now and preach Christ instead of preaching Judaism. Again, they were the most numerous of the religious groups, and there were only about 6,000 of them, that is the Pharisees, according to the writings of Josephus. They controlled the synagogues outside of Jerusalem.

They were very strong and had a lot of influence, and controlled the synagogues and had a lot of influence on the general people. Now, among the Pharisees, kind of a subset of the Pharisees, were a group known as the scribes or the lawyers.

Now, they were the professional class of scholars who studied the law and were asked to decide questions regarding the law. And you can imagine, much like our legal world today, the more laws that you have, the more laws contradict each other. The more laws that contradict each other means that things have to be interpreted. Right? What does that do? That opens up vast employment opportunities, doesn't it? I'll resist every lawyer joke that I know, and it's really hard.

But during that time, because of the Pharisees' oral law and the interpretation of the written law and putting these two together, there needed to be a lot of analysis and interpretation on what was right and what was wrong, what was important. And so, this is professional class arose that the scriptures refer to as the scribes or the lawyers. Now, if you were one who taught students about that law, then the scriptures refer to those individuals as teachers of the law or doctors of the law. And that basically means that you had recognized authority to have students who you tutored and taught about the law. Now, over time, they had come to add Jewish traditions to the written law, and they attempted to force them upon the people. And that's why the Pharisees were not extremely popular. The scribes and the lawyers were not extremely popular classes among the general people. The general people, you couldn't say, were agnostic, but they were certainly sickened and turned off by those influential religious environments around them. They were not. The Pharisees were not an attractive people. As we'll see in the scripture in a few minutes, Jesus said, you travel all over the world to find one convert. And then it's interesting what he says they do to that convert once they find him. But they were not an attractive people. Let's go to Matthew, chapter 23. Thank you for bearing with me with that little background. Matthew, chapter 23, verse 12. We could go to a lot of scriptures, but this one here kind of encapsulates the relationship that Jesus had with the Pharisees. This is very powerful. Christ wasn't often this strong, this harsh with individuals, but he particularly was at this period of time.

So go to Matthew, chapter 23, and we'll pick it up in verse 12. And we'll see what he thought about the teachings, the attitudes, and the beliefs of the Pharisees.

Matthew, chapter 23, verse 12. I'm going to be reading from the New Century version. Please follow with me whatever translation you have in front of you. Jesus said, whoever makes himself great will be made humble. He's already addressing the Pharisees. Whoever makes himself humble will be made great. How terrible for you teachers of the law and Pharisees! You are hypocrites! You close the door for people to enter the kingdom of heaven. You yourselves don't enter, and you stop others from trying to enter. What Jesus is saying here is because of this corrupt inner core that you Pharisees have, which is selfish, which is condemning, which is arrogant, which is corrupt.

He says, you not only close the door on yourselves from being able to enter the kingdom of heaven, your teachings stop others from entering the kingdom of heaven. Verse 14, how terrible for you teachers of the law and Pharisees! You are hypocrites! You take away widows' houses, and you say long prayers so that people will notice you. Now, this comment about widows' houses, they were very skillful at taking advantage of the life savings or money for daily living of old people, and from the gullible, and from those who were zealous without knowledge. They were very skillful at conning them, to use a modern term, to conning them out of their life savings in order to give a gift to God. That's how they supported themselves. So Jesus says, you take away widows' houses, you say long prayers so that people will notice you. It was all about appearance. It was about being seen as righteous. Continuing, you will have a worse punishment. How terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees! You are hypocrites! You travel across land and sea to find one person who will change your ways. When you find that person, you make him more fit for hell than you are. Those are pretty powerful words, aren't they? He said, by the time you're done with a convert, they're even more despicable than you are. Why? Because you create all of these layers of law that my father never intended. You're corrupt to the core. You're arrogant. You're self-righteous. And you're an appalling people. And all you do is create more of yourselves when you go out and find converts. Verse 16, how terrible for you! You guide the people, but you are blind. You say, if people swear by the temple when they make a promise, that means nothing. But if they swear by the gold that is in the temple, they must keep that promise. You are blind fools. Which is greater, the gold or the temple that makes the gold holy. Jesus was saying, your theology isn't even consistent. The doctrine you have doesn't even make sense. As he's going to say, when you swear by the temple, it includes everything in the temple, including the gold that would be inside the temple. Verse 18, and you say, if people swear by the altar when they make a promise, that means nothing. But if they swear by the gift on the altar, they must keep that promise. You are blind. Which is greater? The gift or the altar that makes the gift holy. The person who swears by the altar is really using the altar and also everything on the altar. It includes everything. Verse 21, and the person who swears by the temple is really using the temple and is also everything in the temple. Verse 22, the person who swears by heaven is also using God's throne and the one who sits in that throne. How terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees! You are hypocrites. You give one tenth of everything you earn, even your mint and dill and common. You can just picture people picking mint out of their garden and then dividing it up. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, nine and ten. One, two, three, four, five, six. They're so meticulous on keeping the law. Jesus said, But you don't obey the really very important teachings of the law.

Justice, mercy, and being loyal. These are the things you should do, as well as the other things. You guide---------------------------------------------------------------- but you are blind. You are like a person who picks a fly out of a drink and then Now, the root core of who the Pharisees are.

And when you looked at the Pharisees, my did they look religious. Gleaning white robes, meticulously attired, praying in the public, appearing to be such a godly and righteous people. He says, but inside, Jesus says, they're full of the bones of dead people and all kinds of unclean things, meaning their thoughts and their attitudes. Verse 28, it is the same with you. People look at you and think you were good, but on the inside you were full of hypocrisy and evil. Verse 29, how terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees! You are hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets, and you show honor to the graves of those who lived good lives. You say, and this is said smugly, you say, if we had lived during the times of our ancestors, we would not have helped them kill the prophets.

But you give proof that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets. And then verse 32 is a prophecy, and you will complete the sin that your ancestors started. Jesus is telling them, you're going to be involved in my death. They don't understand that yet, but that's what he's telling them is a prophecy. You are snakes, a family of poisonous snakes. How are you going to escape God's judgment?

Now, we would have to say that this is rather a difficult, harsh, powerful statement by Jesus Christ of these groups of people. But he was trying to warn them. And I might add, in verse 33, when he says, how are you going to escape God's judgment? He wasn't just talking about Judgment Day. Jesus understood prophecy. And he said, that approximately 40 years from when he was speaking, the Romans would come into Jerusalem, and they literally would destroy the temple. I mean, that's basically where the Sadducees and the Pharisees end when the Romans come in in 70 AD. And I believe it was Josephus. Please forgive me if I have the wrong historian. But one historian said, I think it's Josephus, that they massacred and impaled so many Jews, and they killed them, including people he was speaking to hear Jesus, and lit them on fire, that the walk through Jerusalem at nighttime was like being in daylight. That's how many people the Romans impaled and lit on fire as human torches. So it was a terrible judgment from God, and what was going to occur in Jerusalem 40 years from the time that Jesus was saying this. And obviously, there were many in this audience who would live that long to experience the Romans coming in and destroying Jerusalem completely and totally. So that's a little bit of background on the Pharisees, on the relationship they had with Jesus, and what his feelings were towards them as a people and as a religious group. Now let's talk about the Sadducees for a few minutes.

The Sadducees were the aristocrats. They were the royalty of the time. They were the upper crust of the priestly families. They had wealth. They had influence. They were above the Levites. The Levites basically were maintenance-type workers who would take care of the needs around the temple. But the upper part of the priesthood were the Sadducees.

They were the ones who literally were in charge of the temple and its services. And their major power and influence was only in Jerusalem and not much beyond that. They claimed to be the descendants of Zadak, the high priest, in the time of Solomon. However, the real origin of their name and their influence is unknown. But again, they were an aristocratic class, and they felt that they were entitled to what they had.

They had a feeling of entitlement. We're special because we're the priestly class. We're more important than everyone else. Usually, they were the enemies of the Pharisees. They and the Pharisees clashed most of the time, except when it was politically to the advantage of them to join together for a single cause or an idea.

The Sadducees sought to conserve the beliefs and practices of the past. They were the ultra-conservatives, the Sadducees. And they opposed the oral law of the Pharisees. They didn't believe in it. They accepted the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Old Testament, as the ultimate authority. The Sadducees were very materialistic in their outlook on life. And here's why. They did not believe in life after death.

They didn't believe in reward or punishment beyond this life. And they didn't believe in the resurrection. Part of that came from the fact that they understand that man does not have an immortal soul. But beyond that, they didn't understand that God intended man to be resurrected. Now, let me give you a little riddle here. If you don't believe in an afterlife, and you don't believe that you're held accountable for the way that you live now, guess how you're going to live now? You're going to live pretty materialistically. You're going to go for the golden ring. You're going to grab for the gusto. Right? And that's exactly what the Sadducees did. They also denied the existence of the spiritual world. They did not believe in angels. They did not believe in demons. They did believe in one thing. The here and the now.

And they lived life, a physical life, to the fullest. So again, they were very materialistic. They did not believe that God was concerned about what people did. After all, there was no punishment. There was no reward or punishment after death. So they didn't believe that God cares about what people do. Rather, they believed that people were totally free to do what they want.

They were, the Sadducees, very politically savvy. They had the ability to flex, to maintain their power, no matter who the civil authority was. Whether it was Greeks or Romans or anyone else, they were able to flex, to maintain their priestly authority. They were very good at giving bribes to whoever they needed to give bribes to, to keep their power. It came to a period of time, in the time of Christ, that the high priest was the position that you paid for. You could bribe your way into becoming a high priest. Rather than judging by talent, it was whose turn is it, or who has the money to be able to take this position of being the high priest. So again, they were very politically oriented. They were always supporters of the ruling powers, whether it was the Greeks or the Romans. They wanted nothing to threaten their position, so they strongly opposed Jesus. Let's see a clash between Jesus and the Sadducees in Matthew 22, beginning in verse 23.

If you thought that Jesus was hard on the Pharisees, you'll see that he was an equal opportunity provider. Matthew 22, verse 23. That same day, the Sadducees, who say as there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him, saying, Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Now, there were with us seven brothers. The first died, and after he had married, having no offspring, he left his wife to his brother. Likewise, the second also, meaning the second, died. And also the third, the third married her and died. Even up to the seventh. Last of all, the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection, smirk on their face, of course we know there's no resurrection, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven shall he be, for they all had her? Now, they think that we've got this guy cornered. First of all, he says there is a resurrection. Right? And we give him this story that according to the law, you know, you had to marry your brother's widow. Well, this woman was had, to use Jesus' word, seven times by seven different men.

So, in this resurrection, Jesus, which one is she married to? And I think they have him cornered. And here's what he boldly says. Verse 29, Jesus answered and said to them, and realized this is in the public. This is not the way that one normally spoke to the aristocratic ruling class.

He says, verse 29, Jesus answered and said to them, You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given into marriage, but you know what? They're like angels. Something else you don't believe in that you're wrong about. They're like angels, he says, of God in heaven. But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Verse 33, and when the multitudes, that's the people sitting around who aren't necessarily Pharisees or Sadducees. They're just kind of hanging around because unemployment was high back then.

It says, and when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at his teaching. First of all, they're astonished at the boldness of a Galilean dressing down the aristocratic ruling class. You just told, you realize, you just told them they're wrong, and they don't know the Bible, and they don't understand God.

And that's basically what Jesus said to them. And they were astonished that he could be that bold, that dogmatic, and literally stop them on a dime. Verse 34, but when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. First of all, they got together, gave high fives, and said, oh, goody, goody! Yeah! Did you hear what Jesus said to those clowns?

So they all gathered together, and they said, you know, when we approach this Jesus, we better have our thinking caps on and be a lot smarter than the Sadducees were, because this was not pretty. So the Pharisees were pleased that their enemies, the Sadducees, were publicly humiliated by Christ. He just told them that they were wrong, and they didn't know the Scriptures. Now, let's see another example of the Sadducees, the influence of the Sadducees, in Acts chapter 2.

Of course, this is after the death and resurrection of Christ, when the early church is still in Jerusalem, and they are worshipping in the temple. Acts chapter 2 and verse 46. It says, again, speaking of the very early church, not long after Jesus ascended to heaven, so continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart. Verse 47, He was asking for financial support.

Then Peter said, And immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he, leaping, stood up and walked and entered the temple with them, walking, leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God. Very beautiful Scripture. I want you to notice that the early believers respected the temple while it was still standing. They respected the temple and the fact that it represented the presence of God. We see here that Peter and John go into the temple to preach. The problem is what they're preaching can be a little bit risky, as we'll see as we go to chapter 4, verse 1. Now, as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captains of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, and being greatly disturbed that they taught the people, here's what they were disturbed about, and preached in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. That's what got their goal. First of all, they're preaching A, the resurrection of the dead, and B, that this Jesus, whom they were an active part in making sure he was murdered, that they're saying he is the Messiah and was resurrected from the dead. Verse 3, and they laid hands on them, and they put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. However, many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of men came to be about 5,000. Now, we'll just stop right there, because I just wanted to point out the continuing influence of the Sadducees, and what their attitude was towards the early Christians. Now, I'd like to speak a little bit about the rare times when the Pharisees and Sadducees actually worked together, because usually they were devout enemies. They did not like each other. They had very different religious views, from the resurrection, to whether God worked with people as individuals, to whether there was a written law and another law. I mean, they were diametric opposites in a lot of ways, but to survive, they oftentimes had to work together. One of the ways that they worked together was in a council of religious authority known as the Sanhedrin. It was the highest Jewish council in the first century at the time of Christ. It also had morphed from that inter-testamental period that I spoke about. Before the Romans came, the Sanhedrin had unlimited civil and religious authority.

The Romans kind of limited their civil authority, but they were tremendously influential. The Sanhedrin included both of these Jewish groups among its membership. Since the high priest was a Sadduceean, they dominated the council. But if you look in Acts chapter 5 and chapter 23, you would see that there were also Pharisees who were members of the Sanhedrin.

The word translated from a word that means council in English. According to Jewish tradition, the Sanhedrin began with the 70 elders that were appointed by Moses in Numbers chapter 11, and that they were reorganized after the exile. But no one really knows when the Sanhedrin began. That's how they claimed their authority.

It's more likely that they just rose up during the time of the Maccabean and gained influence. Now, during the first century, the Sanhedrin exercised a lot of religious authority, but they were always under the watchful eye of the Romans. Generally, the Roman governor allowed the Sanhedrin a lot of authority, a lot of autonomy.

For example, in the trial of Jesus, it shows that they had the authority to put someone on trial for religious reasons, but they didn't have the authority to execute someone. They did not have the authority for capital punishment. That's why they went to Pilate. And that's why they cornered Pilate to have Jesus crucified. If you may remember this story, they said, this man has violated our law. Pilate basically said, I don't give a rip about your law, or as Mr. Henderson would say, that's just tough. But they came back and they said, we gotcha. This man claims to be a king. And the only king that we have is Caesar. That put Pilate in a corner because it would be treason for someone to claim they were a king greater than Caesar.

So they kind of forced his hand and forced him to give approval for the Roman authorities to execute Jesus Christ.

Now, the chief priest of the Sanhedrin conspired with a Judas to betray Jesus. After his arrest, it was the Sanhedrin that he was brought to before as a council. It was the Sanhedrin who used false witnesses to condemn Jesus. It was the Sanhedrin who sent him to Pilate and who pressured Pilate into pronouncing the death sentence on Christ. So they were very influential in the confines of Jerusalem and around the temple. Now let's go to Matthew chapter 3 and see if someone else shared the same amount of affection towards the Sadducees and Pharisees that Jesus Christ did. Matthew chapter 3, beginning in verse 1.

As I mentioned to you a little earlier, the common people did not respect either the Pharisees or the Sadducees. The common people were sickened by them. It was one reason why they were not a deeply religious people. They could see so much hypocrisy and corruption and smug arrogance that it turned them off. That is also true of the way John the Baptist felt about them. Matthew chapter 3, verse 1. In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. And John himself was clothed in camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locust and wild-hunting. Picking it up in verse 5. Then Jerusalem, all Judea and the region around the Jordan, went out to him, And were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, He said to them, Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance. And do not think to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our Father. For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. So John the Baptist says, you have to show fruit before I am going to baptize you. You have to show that it's not about appearance. You're out here because everyone else is out here. You're out here because you want to appear to be religious. You're out here because you think you're entitled. You're someone special because you're the descendants of Abraham. He says, I am not going to baptize you until you show literal fruits of growth and change on the inside of your hearts. Again, from John the Baptist, those are very powerful words. Let's go to Matthew 16 and verse 1 and look at another scripture here in which Jesus talks about both the Pharisees and the Sadducees together. Matthew 16 and verse 1. It says in Matthew 16, then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing him, asked that he would show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said to them, When it is evening, you say it will be fair weather, for the sky is red, and in the morning it will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening. Hypocrites, you know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. Verse 4. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. He's alluding to the fact that he would be dead three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, like Jonah was in the whale's belly for three days and three nights. And he left them and departed. Verse 5. Now when his disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said to them, Take heed, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

And we're six weeks away from the beginning of the days of unleavened bread. Those words ring as true today as they did in 31 A.D. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves, this is the disciples, saying, Is it because we have taken no bread, but Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves, because you have brought no bread?

Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets you took up?

Nor the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many large baskets you took up? How is it that you do not understand that I do not speak to you concerning bread? But to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Then they understood that what he did not tell them to beware of was leaven of bread. But of the doctrine of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the teachings, the inner core, the attitude that were reflected by the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Now let's go to Acts chapter 8 and take a look at verse 1.

God, in his marvelous wisdom and because of his incredible sense of humor, decided to call a Pharisee, a devout, I mean a really devout Pharisee to the faith.

And to have that Pharisee, known as Saul, later to become Paul, to be the one who would take impassion and zeal the gospel to the Gentiles. But before he was Paul, the Apostle, he was Saul. And we'll read about that here in Acts beginning in chapter 8 and verse 1.

Again, this is an example of how when it was expedient, the Pharisees would work along with the Sadducees. If they both felt threatened, if it's something that was good for both of them, they would work together.

Acts chapter 8 and verse 1. Now Saul was consenting to his death, meaning the death of Stephen. And at that time a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles.

And the devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made a great lamentation over him.

Verse 3. As for Saul, he made havoc in the church, entering every house, dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.

Therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word.

Now the positive side of what happened here is that they were no longer limited to Jerusalem. This forced the early church to be scattered, and now the seeds of the gospel were going to be expanded throughout Judea and ultimately to the world because of this persecution.

We see Saul here acting like a zealous Pharisee. He wanted to cleanse Judaism from this sect that believed that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, and he did it with an absolute passion.

Let's take a look at Acts 9 and verse 1.

Saul, then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, he went to his Sadducee, the top of the order of the Sadducees, and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the way, whether men or women, that he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

So we see here that even Paul, when it was politically expedient while he was still a Pharisee, went and worked with the Sadducees in order to try to stamp out and smash this new Christian sect that was just forming.

Now let's go to Acts 23.

Acts 23. And we'll see another instance of the Pharisees and Sadducees together in the council.

And we'll also see the same Saul, now that he's converted and he's become Saul, how savvy he was, how smart and shrewd he was to get out of trouble.

Because he's hauled before the Sanhedrin, and they are ready to do some really terrible things to his body.

And he doesn't want terrible things to happen to his body. Not right now, anyway. He still has a work to do. He still needs to go to Rome. He has epistles to write while in prison. He's got things he needs to do.

So how does he shrewdly handle the Sanhedrin? Acts 23, beginning in verse 1.

He was arrested by the Sanhedrin. Then Paul, looking earnestly at the council, said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day, and the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, God will strike you, you whitewashed wall. For you sit to judge me according to the law, and you command me to be struck contrary to the law.

Now, the law said that you could not punish someone until they were found guilty first, until there were witnesses, and until the council proclaimed or the elders proclaimed them guilty. And then you would decide on the form of punishment. And because the high priest Peacock wanted to strut himself and show everybody in the council how important he was, this was part of the arrogance that existed within the organization. He wanted to show everybody who was bossy, so just smack him in the mouth. Now, verse 3, Paul of course says something that's very unkind to him. And in verse 4, And those who stood by said, Do you revile God's high priest? Then Paul said, I did not know, brethren, that he was the high priest, for it is written, You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people. Paul was very shrewd. First of all, he didn't know that the man was the high priest. That's probably what bothered Ananias, because Paul didn't scrape and grovel in front of him. So it's probably what caused the situation. But Paul didn't know that he was the high priest. Paul immediately understood that if I don't back off and apologize, I make this man a victim, and it's actually going to bring the Pharisees and Sadducees together against me. I'm going to make this man a victim. So Paul backs off, and he apologizes.

He says, oh, I'm sorry. The scripture says that you should not speak evil of a ruler of your people. It gets very humble. He backs off. Verse 6, But when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out to the council, I know how I'm going to get out of this, with Hyde still left in my back.

He cried out to the council, said, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, and not just that. I come from a long, long line of Pharisees. My father was a Pharisee. He said, and you know what? It's concerning the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I'm being persecuted here.

I've only been called here because I firmly believe as a Pharisee in the resurrection of the dead.

Verse 7, And when he said this, a dissension arose among the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided.

For Sadducees say that there is no resurrection and no angel or spirit, but the Pharisees confess both, and there was a loud outcry. You can't hear him. He believes in the resurrection. Whatever he believes in.

So Paul knew that divide and conquer is a brilliant strategy that works every time.

And he just threw that out there, and everyone went for the fishhook, and they all took it.

And continuing here, an erosion outcry in the scribes of the Pharisees party arose and protested, saying, We find no evil in this man. You know, he's a good old boy. He's like one of us.

He comes from a long line of Pharisees. His father was a Pharisee. Yeah, yeah, a good old boy. So we find no fault in this man, but if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him, we let us not fight against God. So here's a situation where the Pharisees and the Sadducees were together, serving on the Sanhedrin, and Paul, being a very brilliant and sharp man that he was, used it as a way to get out of physically being abused and being able to continue the calling that God gave him because it wasn't his time yet to die.

Well, brethren, as we prepare for the Spring Holy Days this year, I believe it may be a good idea to evaluate the negative qualities of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Jesus warned the disciples about some of the qualities they had for good reason because they were not very positive qualities. As I said, as I began the sermon, there will always be a tendency for religious people to drift in one attitude or approach towards one or another side of the ditch if we're not very, very careful. History proves, including recent Church history proves, that whether it's organizations or individual people, that if we don't stay balanced, if we don't stay on that road in the center of that road, the straight road, the narrow road, that there is always a tendency to drift to the right or to the left. So what are some of the things that we should be careful of as we ponder the Spring Holy Days of 2010? Well, first of all, the Pharisees and Sadducees had some things they shared in common. They both thought that they were superior to other people, and that is a bad quality. One can never be a light if one comes across as superior. Instead of attracting people, both of these groups repelled people. They didn't draw people to them because of their light and their example. They disgusted people away from them because they had this superior attitude about themselves putting down other people. And of course, we shouldn't have that attitude. I hope we understand that. First of all, people whom are not called, God has purposely blinded them to the truth. And if they are blinded, if God's will, that they are blinded to the truth that we have, who are we to be so harsh and condemning to them considering the fact that they have been blinded? We need to be patient and tolerant and live lives of quality, live lives of godly character, and set an example without coming across to others as arrogant, self-righteous, condemning, and judgmental. Very important.

The Pharisees, we'll talk about them for a few minutes, they thought that they were more righteous than God. I mean, God only had written laws, but that's not good enough. They had to have oral laws. And what these oral laws did are they put unnecessary burdens on people that God never intended. And we have to be careful of that. This is our guide. This is the law. And we have to be very careful not to create rules, standards, or values, and equate them as if they're equal to this when God never intended it at all. When it was never God's intention in the first place for those kinds of things to be important, and yet we put so much importance on them. In time, in the case of the Pharisees, these man-made commandments took on equal or greater importance than even what the Scripture said. And I'm always amazed as I read literature that someone will refer to a Scripture, but the conclusion is this, because a man once said, it's like, huh?

The Bible says this, but it isn't really valid because a man, whoever his title may have been or his name said, and that's the final authority? What am I missing here? This right here is always the final authority. This is the law, and there is none other. So I think that's very important for us to understand. To the Pharisees, physical obedience to laws, and of course they had two types, was what was most important. Obedience was everything, and that's why they were always so quick to judge and condemn everyone else who wasn't exactly like them.

All righteousness to them was external. It was all on the outside. It was about washings and meals and drinks and physical things that you did. It was about appearance. It was about how you looked and whether you came across as being neat or righteous.

Jesus came to magnify something else. He came to bring a different message. First of all, Jesus came to magnify the written commandments and give them a spiritual element, which I might add is far more difficult in the Pharisees taught.

Jesus said that our heart must be right with God. It's the internal that's most important, because when you clean up the vial filth on the inside, it will eventually radiate and clean out the outside, and the outside will act better and be better and look better.

That's what Jesus taught. So in contrast to the Pharisees, where everything was about appearance, everything was external, Jesus said the most important thing is to have a relationship directly with the Father. And when one has a godly relationship combined with faith and obedience, that is what pleases God, not just external obedience.

Another thing we can learn from the Pharisees is that zeal can be a wonderful biblical quality, and it's one that we should all strive for. However, unbridled zeal in a spiritually immature or undisciplined mind eventually morphs into self-righteousness and judgmentalism.

Zeal can be a good thing, but if it's not disciplined, if it's not filtered through a spiritual mind, it becomes obsessed with self-righteousness and judging others. And that just turns other people off. That doesn't attract. That repels.

The Pharisees were incredible actors. They had the ability to publicly play church, to pretend to be religious. Now, outside of the public eye, as Jesus told us when we looked into Scriptures in Matthew, their inner core was very corrupt.

It was about how can we shaft widows out of their wealth? How can we do all of these things? But in public, they put on a very powerful church persona, and it's something that we have to be careful with. I spoke a little bit about that in a sermon I gave a while back on sincerity. Our lives need to be one compartment. The way people see us at church should be the same way that people see us at work, the way we treat our spouses at home, the way we are in our community events. We should be transparent. We should be one person. What you see is what you get. Hopefully, what you see is a person of integrity, of faith, of confidence, a person who loves God and lives God's way of life. And not one who just comes on the Sabbath and is suddenly religious for two hours on the Sabbaths and Holy Days and plays church. Because that doesn't do any of us any good. How about the Sadducees? Talk about them for just a few minutes. The Sadducees thought that they were entitled to things because they served as priests. They were the entitlement class. How about us? It's easy for us to have been in the church for 30-plus years, perhaps to begin to think that we're entitled to certain things. We're entitled to special perks or the way that we're treated. That we've been through it all. We've been through the wars. And I've earned my stripes. I've earned something because I've been through the wars. And I'm entitled to certain things. So that's something that we need to be on guard with. The Sadducees became corrupt because they were involved in their own internal politics. It was no longer about talent. It was about whose turn it was. It was about exchanging favors for influence. The office of the high priest, as I mentioned earlier, was bought and sold with bribes and favors. And they came to believe that they, as individuals, were above the law and beyond the standards that were expected of other people. We have to realize that each and every one of us, no matter what position, title we have in life, no matter what gender or race, that we all need to live by the same expectations of God's law. We are not above God's law. We are not above other people.

We are not superior. We do not have special exemptions for God's law because we are just me. It doesn't work that way. And regarding entitlement, the incredible thing about that is that Jesus came to teach us that we are the disciples of grace.

Everything we have isn't because we're entitled to diddly squat. We are people of grace. We were called, not because we were better than anyone else, we were called because of the grace, the mercy, the favor, and the pardon of God. So because in his plan, he knew in 1971 that he would call this 17-year-old boy and open up his mind of the truth.

That's why I'm here. It's not because of anything that I did. Certainly not. We are all here because of God's grace. And you know what? Even the physical things we own are due to God's grace. We may think that, you know, I own my home. Well, the home that I have in Litchfield, it's paid off. But you know what? I have that home by God's grace. Someday I'll be gone and someone else is going to live in that home. I'm just a trustee of the material things that I have. Whether it's my cars or my clothes or my home or any physical thing that we have, we are just temporary trustees of those things. Everything we have is by the grace of God, our calling, his Holy Spirit, forgiveness through the shed blood of Christ, those poor souls who married us. Everything that we have is by God's grace.

We should never think that we're entitled or have an entitlement or victimization mentality. The Sadducees believed that ceremony was very important. How you lived had little importance, but regularly going to temple and participating in the sacrifices was considered essential.

I already touched upon the fact that we need to do more than just play church. That we need to be one person who's transparent and are the same way all the time and in every environment that we are in. The Sadducees became materialistic. They lived for the here and the now. They lived pretty comfortable lives. We have to be careful because everyone that I look out and see in this room lived pretty good lives.

I don't see anyone that's starving to death. I don't know of any homeless people in this congregation. I mean, we're all... when we look at the lifestyles that our grandfathers or grandmothers lived in, and you'll realize how good you have it. We are incredibly blessed. And the problems with blessings is that it's very easy to become materialistic.

Success breeds complacency. Look at Toyota. I mean, that's a classic example. I made a comment to my wife the other day. One of the problems with Toyota and her quality problems. I said, it's the same old story throughout human history. She said, what do you mean? I said, success breeds complacency and arrogance. And it's true with us as a people, and it's true with major corporations.

Success can destroy you because it makes you complacent, and it makes you arrogant and thinking that you're entitled, and it'll always be this way. You know, after Jesus died, and he was buried, the Sadducees and the Pharisees strutted around and thought, life will always be this good. You know, we got rid of that one. Life is always going to be this good.

The Sadducees thought, we'll always be the priests, and we'll always have influence and be powerful. And the Pharisees thought, well, we'll always be the keepers of the law, of the true knowledge of the oral law. And a short, a mere half a lifetime, forty years later, Roman troops came rumbling into Jerusalem and turned their world upside down forever.

So complacency is a bad thing. Taking things for granted, thinking that we're entitled, is a bad thing, because it puts us in a fairy world of denial. And we can't even see what's coming upon us when we are in that kind of a mental state.

The Sadducees really didn't want a Messiah to come to earth. Life was good. Why would they want a Messiah to come? They wouldn't be in charge anymore, because a Messiah would know what they really like. So they wouldn't be a priestly class anymore if a Messiah came, so they really didn't want a Messiah to come to earth. They were happy with their comfortable lives and with their status, and they wanted it to remain that way. Remember the despicable money changers that Jesus confronted when he went into the temple, and he threw over the tables of the money changers and caused all kinds of a commotion? Do you know why they were there?

They were there because the Sadducees permitted and encouraged them to be at that location. The priest derived a profit from the function that the money changers did at the temple. They made money off of the money changers. That's one reason Jesus became so upset about it. They became very materialistic. It became about money, not about God. In reality, the Sadducees were not very religious. Now, that may shock some of you.

What they did was mechanical. There was no zeal left in the priesthood. There was no spirit of passion for doing the things of God that was left with the Sadducees. It was all a mechanical process to bring in the coins, to bring in the bling. That's what had happened in that culture and in their lives.

We have to be very careful that we don't allow that to happen to us because we are so blessed, physically speaking. Remember that everything that we have spiritually and physically is because of the grace of God. One final scripture, 1 Corinthians 5 and 6. Because of this background, perhaps, as I read this scripture, it will have a little more meaning for you than it has in the past.

1 Corinthians 5 and 6. This scripture was written by a former Pharisee who firmly remembered the hypocrisy that he saw in the temple, who firmly in his mind remembered the corruption and the falsehood and the phoniness that occurred on the holy days. How the temple was nothing more than a money-making machine on the holy days. The phoniness of the priest and the Pharisees, he firmly remembered that because he was part of the system. He had been there, done that. So now, understanding his background, you can understand why he wanted to change the way that the spring holy days were kept. 1 Corinthians 5 and 6.

I'm going to be reading through the New Century version. He says, 2 You're bragging is not good. It kind of reminded him of what he remembered from the Pharisees and the Sadducees. 3 You know the saying, A little yeast makes the whole batch of dough rise. Take out all the old yeast, that you may be a new batch of dough without yeast, which you really are. 4 For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. So let us celebrate this feast. 5 Let us celebrate this feast. Why is that important?

Because the critics of the Holy Days say that you cannot keep the old covenant holy days unless you go to Jerusalem, unless there's a temple, and unless you sacrifice in the temple of Jerusalem. 6 That was the only way that you can keep the old covenant holy days. And the answer to that is you're exactly right. That's why I don't keep the old covenant holy days. 7 I keep it the way Paul told a congregation in Corinth who had no intention of going to Jerusalem, who had no intention of sacrificing animals. That's why he told them these words.

8 Let us celebrate this feast, not with the bread that has the old yeast, the yeast of sin and wickedness, the yeast that he had sensed and seen himself in Pharisees and in Sadducees in Jerusalem, that he was part of himself in the past, not with the yeast of sin and wickedness. 9 Let us celebrate this feast with the bread that has no yeast, the bread of goodness and truth. 10 Paul was saying we have a chance to wipe the slate clean and to keep these holy days with a fresh and a beautiful and a positive environment that the Father intended from the very beginning.

We have a chance to participate in that. And that, my friends, is a gift. 11 Let us welcome that gift as it comes upon us in just six short weeks. Have a wonderful Sabbath! Hope to see you after services!