The Silence Was Deafening

The silence was deafening. Definitely an idiom that I hope you will have a better understanding of after this message today. You love sports. I have loved sports ever since I was a little bitty tyke. I just loved sports. Loved all kinds of sports. I still even enjoy that today. I tried playing as much as I could, but now when you get so old you can't play much anymore and you just enjoy watching. So I still enjoy watching. But there are certain in sports we have what they call heroes. People we enjoy watching as they perform at such a high caliber.

I know many today understand what a goat is, and it's not one of these things that go bah bah. It's not like that. A goat means the greatest of all times in a sport. Tiger Woods is being called a goat. But another goat that's actually playing right now or playing this weekend is Tom Brady. Tom Brady is a goat. He's greatest of all time. What a quarterback! He's won, I don't know, how many? Six Super Bowls. He's been MVP. He's had it all. But one of the things that everybody enjoys watching Tom Brady is he has an amazing intellect and he seems to know when to call the right play. And he loves throwing and he loves seeing the ball. Leave his hand as it does a spiral down as maybe even Randy Moss or Gronkowski or one of those catches that ball and brings it in for a touchdown. And everybody goes crazy. They love watching a touchdown. It's the epitome.

It's the top. It's the ultimate of success on the sports field, on the football field. Everybody loves to see a touchdown. I know growing up it was I was a Joe Montana fan and I love Joe Montana. He was a quarterback. He had a little skinny arms but he could still throw that thing so far down and he would he would he would catch Taylor or he would catch Jerry Rice on one of those magnificent touchdowns. And it was an amazing thing to watch because you didn't get to see it that often. A touchdown and you might have a few. Some games went, you know, seven and nothing and you might just get one. But then with Montana and Rice you would always you always had the chance of getting hitting that long pass and having Rice break it and go into the end zone for a touchdown. I loved watching football. Still do. My Titans and Dolphins that I watch each try to watch whenever I can they're playing tomorrow. So I'll be able to watch a little bit of football especially now that Mary's not there. I can watch probably a little bit longer without having to look like I'm busy. But oh I better watch. She is watching this. I think she got up to watch this. Okay so scratch that. I think this is live so I can't take that out. But football, everybody enjoys football. But you know most people though even though the newing of Patriots have won six Super Bowls. I don't know how many Joe Montana won three or four and and they've won those championships. A lot of people don't like them because they think of them as the Goliath. And most people like David versus Goliath. They like the underdog, right? Many of us do. We like seeing that underdog as they go against all the odds and come out victorious. We love that.

And that's so typical with David and we understand that. Maybe it's the U.S. hockey team. When they beat the Russians in the Olympics. But they defy the odds, even defy logic. I know with in basketball it was North Carolina State playing five slamajama Houston when they were like so many points down and favored five slamajama just beat everybody really bad. And they came into the finals of the NCAA and they were defeated on a last second shot and every crowd went wild. It was was an event I remember. So everybody likes an underdog, but what about the opposites? What about the opposites? Have you ever been part of the opposites of the underdog?

The ones that have the favorites? The dynasties you might say because there have been dynasties. One of the dynasties, of course, I haven't mentioned before is the Patriots. New England Patriots. All people love them. Ah, yeah, they're great. Oh, yeah, and we keep winning these championships and other people, they don't like them. And I think they've won six. Is that what I'm looking at there? Yeah, I think they have won six.

And people love to follow them and they get behind them and they love to watch that. Another dynasty in sports is, of course, the one and only New York Yankees. My mother, if she's watching this, she's know his favorite team growing up. I had to follow the Yankees with her. She loved watching the Yankees. Of course, you know, the history from Babe Ruth to Luke Gehrig to Joe DiMaggio to Mickey Mantle to Maris to Bucky Dent to Munson to all these people.

A-Rod to Jeter. I mean, people love the Yankees. And the Yankees have won more World Series championships, been the world champions, what time anybody else? 27 times. They won their league 40 times. They were used to winning and people wanted to go there to win. Then, growing up, of course, I was a Yankees fan and I enjoyed watching them. And I enjoyed baseball. It was the first game I really played ever since I went from the Little League to Babe Ruth League. And I loved watching baseball because back then in the 70s, 60s and 70s when I played, it was America's game. Football wasn't that big. Basketball was so big. But baseball, everybody was into baseball.

So I played baseball and I bring that out because baseball is similar to in the Caribbean cricket. I tried to play a little cricket as Dale and Kellen and those tried to teach me how to use a strange looking bat and hit a ball that they throw in the dirt. A totally different game but somewhat similar. But I remember being a person that just knew I had baseball cards ever since I was a kid. I knew all the players and everything and loved to play. Loved to play. I wish I could have been good, but I wasn't that good playing baseball.

And I learned something when I went to Babe Ruth League. I played for a team called the Indians and we were not a very good team. We had a few good players, but they had too many like me, I guess. And we won like three or four games and lost about 15. But in our Babe Ruth League, there was a team called the Dodgers, as we were named after all these things. And the Dodgers were good. The Dodgers were not only good, they were great. They went undefeated that year. The thing I remember most is I was playing right field for the Indians.

And if any of you know baseball, you know where they put the right fielder, why they put the right fielder in the right field. Okay, and why I was batting eight. But there was a guy that went to high school, same age, we were freshmen at the same time. His name was Errol Lyons.

Errol Lyons, and Errol's older brother Pierre, was pitching in the farm system for the Cincinnati Reds. He was four or five years older than Errol. And by the time Errol was a freshman, he was six foot tall, 175, 180 pounds, chest muscle. And he had been batting or learned to bat or hit the ball from his brother, who was so much better. So ever since he was 11 or 12 years old, he had to learn to hit against an older brother who just could throw out of this world.

And Errol became very, very good. He was, as a matter of fact, he was amazing against all of us. And I remember the first time we played the Dodgers, they took the outfield and they said, oh you don't, this is Errol. This is Errol Lyons. He said, he's going yard.

He's going yard! And I had to look, and I'm the country boy that I was, well what's yard? Well, go yard means, you know, that's your yard and you're going outside. You're gonna drive it all the way across that yard and make it a home run. I mean, going yard meant, you know, it was like the touchdown, but it was a home run.

And it wasn't one in the park. It was so far over the fence that there's nothing you could do about it. And I said, well, you know, but he's batting right. He said, he can hit, he can hit to any field. So that's Errol. He's going yard. And so our field was, our fence was 280 back on the sides and 310 at, 310 at the front. And I remember him getting up and the first time just, wasn't the second pitch over the left field fence by, I don't know how much.

And all of a sudden he came up the next couple inning, hits it in center field. He was just toying with all of us. That was Errol. And so I'm sitting there to go, they're coming your way. I said, wow. So I backed up five feet from the fence, ready to catch this ball. And he hits that thing right towards me.

And I just know when it passed me, it was still rising. It was still going up. And he must have hit it 400 feet. It was just amazing. As a matter of fact, the only time we got him out that night was when our coach said, do not pitch him, throw it so far outside he can't get it. And so he went outside. He won his so bad he crossed the plate and smacked one. And they called him out.

But going yard, going yard, hitting the home run, making everybody. And it was so amazing because when Errol would get up, there was silence. They say the silence was deafening because everybody just wanted to see this. Everybody knew this was a special player. And everybody waited to see what he was going to do. And all of a sudden you'd hear that bat. You'd hear the crack of that bat. And you know it was a powerful, powerful hit. Well, I'm bringing that up today. You say, what has this to do with a sermon? What's wrong with you, Pastor?

Well, today I want to show you a day in the life of Christ when Jesus Christ went yard.

When Jesus Christ went yard, when the day that Jesus Christ knocked it out of the park, not once, not twice, but three times in a row. You see, I remembered what made me think of that was Errol's three home runs against us that night. And they finally called the game in the fifth inning because they were up 25 to 2.

And I was kind of enjoying seeing the missiles going off, even though we were losing. But I want to look at that day because I think sometimes we miss this. We miss exactly the beauty that was Christ and his statements and how he could knock it out of the park when somebody tried to pitch him a question, pitch him a problem or an issue. He did what? He said, bring it on. Bring it on. I'm going to go yard.

Because you know, it's nothing for Christ or God to go yard. It's an accomplishment for us, but not for him. But I think we need to appreciate that today. So today I want to look at some scriptures, but first I want to show you the pictures. The pictures who decide they're going to pitch against Christ. They're going to try to strike Christ out.

They're the religious leaders of the day. And so it's kind of nice to know who you're going to be batting against. And so it wasn't Christ wasn't anything for Christ, but the first picture was the Herodians. And who were these Herodians? Herodians were a public political party of Israel who distinguished themselves by the fact that they were sincerely friendly to Herod the Great, the king of the Jews, and to his dynasty.

And so here they didn't like Christ. So they were going to try to strike the mighty case here as we would knowing the mighty Christ out and see if it works. The next pictures were the Sadducees, a Jewish sector party of the time of Jesus Christ that denied the resurrection of the dead, the existence of the spirits, and the obligation of oral tradition, emphasizing the acceptance of the written law alone. And then the third picture on our metaphor travel today is the Pharisees. You see them more than anything because there were more Pharisees.

There's like three quarters of all the people, religious leaders, were the Pharisees at that time. But the Pharisees were distinguished by strict observance of the traditional written law and commonly held to have had pretensions to superior sanctity. They thought they were right and holy. As a matter of fact, they kept themselves separate because the Pharisees also could mean separated ones.

And they were a supporter of the line of David for the throne of Israel. So go with me and let's see this incredible display of Christ's going yard and pictures, religious pictures, thinking they could strike out the mighty King, the future King of the universe. So let's go to Matthew 22. Like you go Matthew 22 and verse 46. Let's read the very end, the very last verse, and then we'll go back and look at the story. Verse 46, And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question him any more.

What it was, it the silence was deafening. The silence was deafening. Now let's go back and find out what made the silence deafening. So we go back to Matthew 22 verse 15. And I want to start with the story here and I'll add a little bit as we go. And we're going to see this incredible story here. Verse 15, Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle him in his, what?

Talk. In his talk, so they actually thought they could trap Christ with his words. They're going to use his words against him. Isn't that amazing? They're talking to the entity who made the mouth, who made vocal chords, who made everything, who gave them a brain, who knew all this stuff. He created all this and they think they're going to trap him, entangle him in his own words. And so they sent to him, their disciples, with the Herodians.

Okay, so here we go. Here is the first picture coming up. Well, they had a little warm up. Now they're ready to throw him. Slider he doesn't even know is coming. And they said, teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God in truth. Oh, really? Think about that. They were just trying to set him up and here now they're trying to schmooze the typical politicians because they love the king. They love the politics of the day. Right? So here they're just out now lying and they don't think he can tell. He said, and you teach the way of God in truth. Oh, don't they sound so sincere? Nor do you care about anyone.

That means you didn't care what anybody thought. For you do not regard the person of men. Tell us, tell us therefore, what do you think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not to pay them? But Jesus perceived their wickedness.

He's already stretching. So I got the back loaded backs. He's okay. He's ready for the pitch. You know, the ball's on his way and he's going yard. He's going yard. He didn't just tell him he smacks it out of the park. He says, why do you test me, you hypocrites? They were hypocrites.

Now I'm sure everybody watching saw that. Why do you test me, you hypocrites? Show me the tax money! So they brought him a denarius and he said to them, whose image and inscription is this? And they said to him, well, it's Caesar's. It's Caesar's. And he said to them, let's watch the ball sail out of the park.

Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar and to God the things that are God's.

And the silence was deafening. What would you do?

You thought you had him. You're smart. You thought you were going to strike this guy out. The next thing you know, you're seeing the ball go yard. It's heading over the fence.

Verse 22, and when they heard these words, they marveled and left him and went their way. Home run. Home run by Christ to these men, religious leaders, who thought they were something. Thought they were smarter than he was. Thought they were better at the game than he was.

And so let's see. Had to pull that picture. They got another picture here. So the religious leaders said, oh wait a minute. Okay, well these guys, they weren't sharp as we thought they were. They weren't as good athletes. They couldn't throw that breaking ball. Couldn't throw that fastball like they could. So it says, the same day the Sadducees who say there is no resurrection came to him and asked him, saying, teacher, Moses said if a man dies having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.

Now, they were with us. What? Look at those words, brother. Now, they were with us seven brothers. They made this stuff up. They're lying. They're not with seven brothers. I mean, just think about it. Seven brothers all die in a row and they all married wife with, you know.

There were seven of us with us with seven brothers. The first died after he had married and had no offspring, left his wife to his brother. Likewise, the second also, and the third even to the seventh. So they've all had. And last of all, the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her.

She was a wife to all of them. Well, let's go back. What does the Sadducees not believe in? The resurrection. So what are they doing asking him about resurrection? I had somebody that said they were an atheist one time asking me about my, because I believe in God, the cruel God that I blessed. Why are you asking me that? You don't even believe in a God. So what's it to you? What's it to you? You say, there are no gods. So what's wrong with me following my God? I'm not making you follow him. So here, these Sadducees, they are the religious leaders, Caiaphas and all of us, and they were sitting in control of the temple at the time of Jesus' life. And so here they were the heads, even over the Pharisees. And the Pharisees had more people. But he asked him this stupid question. Asinine, Christ had one, and he's going, oh man, you didn't throw me, you just didn't underhand, you didn't pitch underhand to me now, did you?

Because he's about to go yard. He's about to slam this one right over, and it's simple. But think about that. Think about that. They were asking about resurrection. They didn't even believe in. Yet they were supposed to be the religious leaders of the day. Where did that come from?

But go to Isaiah 26, brother. Go to Isaiah 26. I don't think I even gave you this, Jeff, as I was thinking of this. What was Christ? Christ was about to tell them, you don't even know the scriptures. You're so dumb, you don't even know that the scripture talks about this. But Isaiah 26, verse 19, which they should have known, said, your dead shall live, together with my dead body, they shall arise, awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust. For the dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out its dead. It was scripture. There's a resurrection. People are going to come up, and yet they're trying to put him on the spot. And he's saying, well, how dare you? He might ask this question when you don't even believe what the scriptures say. So why should it be of importance to you? What happens there? Let's go and read his answer as he drives this one out of the park. In 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 in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. You see, and the angels don't marry.

And when we're resurrected, we're not going to marry. We're spirit beings. We're like God. We're like Christ. We're like the angels. And so he's saying, you're ignorant. You're just totally ignorant. But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read? And he didn't even go to Isaiah 26. He goes to, originally back to Exodus 3, verse 6, that I talked about earlier in the questions about the name of God. Because in Exodus 3 and verse 6, he says, who am I? He said, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the what? The God of the dead, but of the living. See, and say, I am the God and Abraham's dead. Well, it was dead, but he's going to be resurrected. He is the God of Abraham. Isaac's going to be resurrected. Jacob, resurrected. He's not the God of the dead. The God of the living, because living of eternal life. And these people were supposed to be the religious teachers of the day. And what about Daniel? Go to Daniel 12. I mean, just think about Daniel 12. I mean, Daniel 12, just 12 too says, and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to condemnation. Sounds like a resurrection to me. Sounds like a resurrection to Christ. Sounds like a resurrection to Daniel, but not to these lousy pitchers called the Sadducees. It's called the Sadducees.

Let's go to verse 33. Verse 33.

And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished. They were astonished at his teaching. Why? Because he just went yard! He drove them all, all the way over the fence. Here are these religious leaders. They thought they were good. They thought they could pitch him and he went yard. Brother, that's the last time you went yard on somebody. Are you capable?

Do you have what Christ had? Had his Holy Spirit? Had his word? Had his word? Is it necessary sometimes to go yard?

So he knocks the bark and knocks the ball out again.

Two home runs, all in a row. And then what happens next? We have a third. We had a third.

And let's go down to verse 34. It says, but when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Oh man, what are we going to do? He made them look like idiots. Yeah, those Herodians, those stupid people didn't even know what they were saying. The Sadducees, they're idiots too. We can't do this. Let's knock him out. Let's just throw them by him that he can't even handle this. We don't have to. We don't have to put up with him looking like he's all world.

Verse 35, then one of them, a lawyer. A lawyer. Hmm. Doesn't that make your mind think today? What lawyers have thought of them from the looks of this, they weren't much better back then. A lawyer who was a lawyer was a teacher of the law. So they were supposed to know the law. They were supposed to know everything.

And he said, here's his pitch. It's coming in fast, teacher. Which is the greatest commandment in the law? And Jesus said to him, I'm going yard. How simple? How simple is this? He said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And then he loads up just so he's got a little extra wood in that bat. And he said, and the second is like it. Remember? He's saying this to the Pharisees. He's saying this to the ones who believe they're the separated ones. Ah, well, we're so great. We don't even need to hang around you. You just have to look at us and we're just so great. And they treated everybody really bad.

And he said, and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. He took their ten and broke it down to two and drove it out of the park. And then he said in verse 40, on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Everything that you want to teach, all the prophets, all the law, hang can hang on these two commandments. Everything. As Christ had already taught by this time, in Matthew 5, the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, 6, and 7, as he talks about, gives the sermon on the Mount.

Beautiful. What a way to watch that ball just sail out of the park as Jesus Christ for the third time. He went yard. He went yard. But then the story's not over. Oh man, it's beautiful. It's beautiful because he has just knocked three pictures out of the game. Three home runs, three out of the park answers to all of them. But then he does something else. He throws down the bat and he goes and he picks up the ball and he decides he's going to pitch. I would have loved to have seen this. I would love to have seen the first of it as these men with their long robes and they were just like, looked so good and they thought they were something and then they just had to put their tail between their legs as they were embarrassed by the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Messiah, their Savior that they did not even recognize.

So let's go and see what Christ does as he becomes the picture. In verse 41, while the Pharisees were gathered together because they were just like, well, yeah, well, he's wrong. No, he's gotta be right. He's quoting the law. What can we say? Somebody say something.

Jesus asked them, what do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? He's throwing some heat here.

Throwing some heat, a little bit of slider involved, a little bit of knuckleball, the pitch that he knows they can't even put the bat on. Whose son is he? They said to him, the son of David. They were quoting scripture.

He said to them, then, how does David in the spirit call him Lord, saying from Psalm 110 verse 1, the Lord said to my Lord, how's he gonna do that?

Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. So if David then called him Lord, how is he his son?

And the silence was deafening. The silence, brother, was deafening. And we'll go back to read up to 46.

And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question him anymore. Well, I guess not. To be embarrassed, as they should have been embarrassed, was a whole lot different than me being embarrassed by getting beat 25 to 2 by Errol Lyons hitting the home run every time he came up. But here, this is their expertise.

This is what they did for a living. This is who they were, was a religious leader.

And yet, here was a chance to really meet God in the flesh, to understand who he was, other than the Nicodemus. Most of them didn't have a clue. This was their chance to ask him those probing questions, to learn from him and everything else. But what did they want to do?

Cynical, sarcastic, bitterness was eating them up. They had such a root of bitterness that they just couldn't stand. They even plotted to kill him. You remember why they said they plotted to kill him? Because if we don't, if we don't kill him, the leaders are going to come, and they're going to take our place away. They're going to take our leadership away. Brethren, what an incredible story this was. What an incredible story. And I use metaphorically today. I took license with that, with baseball and so forth. But I wanted us to understand, I wanted us to see just how special knowing the Word of God is. What a blessing! How powerful is it that we can have such a wonderful blessing as God's Word. So as I think about today, I want this to be something that we've learned today, something that we will use this week, that we learn from the Word of God, and we really appreciate the lesson that Christ gives us here, and how it so relates to us. It needs to be a part of us. Every time you open up the Gospels, and you see Christ living, there's a lesson there for each and every one of us. And no matter how many times I've read this in the past, I just, as I relate it to me today of what I need to do, how I need to be, how I need to be Christ-like, how about you? See, I come up short, just like I used to come up short in Babe Ruth's League. Okay, and that was just a game.

But brethren, this is eternal life. This is the thing that God has called us on his team. His special team, and he didn't call everybody. He didn't draft.

Not everybody's able to play. It's wonderful, wonderful, metaphorically called game of life that he's given us. It's a game of spiritual life. It's a game where we get to have more of his spirit if we ask and we use, as he says, grow in grace and knowledge. Grow that spirit, feed that spirit.

Brethren, we can do that. And he instructs us. So let's go to the last scripture as I wrap this up today. I'd like you to go with me to 1 Peter. 1 Peter 3 and verse 15 in the new King James version, because Peter's one who knew! Peter let that mouth run off way too many times, guilty in the past. But you know, the longer Peter lived, the longer he had God's spirit, the longer he grew in that grace and knowledge, the more powerful he became. And so even his shadow healed someone. God was using him. Brethren, and God is using us. We limit ourselves. God doesn't limit us. We have no limitations. As I think about what I think of James 4 verse 2 or 3, it's that you do not have because you do not ask.

What does that tell us? I think we need to ask more. Ask for more power. Ask for more of his Holy Spirit. Ask for that power. Ask.

And he will give it to us. He did it in the past. We have his word to show that. Because in verse 15 he says, but sanctify the Lord your God in your hearts. Have you done that lately? I don't always do that. I have to make sure it's in here, not just up here. It isn't all about knowledge. Oh, wait a minute. I'll learn this Bible. I've heard of two or three people and I found out it was actually true. They have memorized the entire Bible. They can quote the Bible. The entire Bible. Now that's rare for a person, but there are those who have done it. I think it was Margaret Gortner as one guy that could quote the Bible and he could do it by the time he was 15, 16 years old. The entire Bible. Okay, but okay, you can know it. The Pharisees knew it. God even said the demons know it. The demons know his word. But do we sanctify it in our hearts? Does it mean something to us? You know, as it's set apart, do we set apart God in our heart and have that place for him? And always be ready to give a defense to everyone, everyone, not one, everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and in fear. So let us study to know God's word so that we can go yard. We can go yard when it's required. And like Jesus Christ, we can make the silence deafening.