Sinat Chinam (Part 2)

We talked a bit about what that looked like in the last message. How that kind of appears and how it manifests itself in the heart of man. We talked about how we tend to want to assume or we tend to want to impute motive on others. How we sometimes will respond several levels above in anger what the situation warrants. The situation is a level two when we come screaming in at a nine. We talked about how our human heart is more focused on our desire for justice instead of being willing to exhibit mercy and forgiveness.

Today what I'd like to do is move into more of the situation on the ground at the time of Jesus Christ. Because to be able to understand the claims of the Jewish sages, that the Second Temple was destroyed by Sennach Hanam on account of senseless hatred. You have to understand their perspective. You have to understand what was going on contextually at that point in time. The Jewish people believe that at the time of the Second Temple that they were completely and totally obedient to Torah.

They believe that they were not breaking God's law in any way, shape, or form. So in their mind, something else must have been going on that caused God to punish them in such a way. First off, we know that claim to be false. The Jews in the first century were not 100% observant to the law of God. They may have kept the letter of it, and they may have even devised ways to go beyond that sometimes in order to prevent breaking it.

But Christ brought out over and over and over again the spirit of that law that they were ignoring. He illustrated just how deficient they, and frankly, all of us are, without God's Spirit working in us. So we're going to take a look at the conditions of the first century today, in today's message, and try to draw some parallels. Begin to draw some parallels, I should say, with the modern era of the church. The title for the sermon today is Sennach Hanam, Part 2. We will definitely have a Part 3. I thought I might be able to wrap it up in two, but I was beyond wrong.

So, Sennach Hanam, Part 2. Before we begin today, I want to remind everyone who's listening to this locally, who's hearing this today here with Sabbath services here in Salem, Eugene, and Roseburg, or who may end up hearing it later online.

I want to make this point abundantly clear. We are not Jewish. We are not Jewish. I'm not talking about Tish B'av because I'm encouraging us in some way to begin keeping it as a day of fasting. I'm addressing this concept because the Israelites were the chosen people of God. They were part of the Old Covenant. We're under a New Covenant, and as such, while we're not Jewish, as New Covenant Christians, there are certain degrees of parallels between physical Israel and spiritual Israel. In other words, certain lessons that we can learn from taking a look at their example. Remember, all Scripture is good for doctrine, for reproof, for teaching us and learning lessons from.

And while we would agree, when we go back and we look at the example that the Jewish people set during the first century, while we would agree that they weren't perfectly obedient to the law of God during the time of Christ, frequently missing the forest for the trees, the Jewish sages aren't wrong to state that Sennach Hanam was a factor in the downfall of Jerusalem in the first century AD.

Was it the sole reason for the destruction of the Temple? No. No, it wasn't. Was it a problem? Absolutely, it was. It was a problem then, and frankly, brethren, it's an issue even today. The Midrash, which is the collection of rabbinical writings and literature and stories, as well as the Talmud, which is the written compendium of the oral law. Basically, all that was passed down orally from rabbi to rabbi to rabbi has been written down in this compendium known as the Talmud. So it's the writings of the oral law and the collection of rabbinical literature, Midrash and Talmud. They feature a story that highlights what led to the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.

So there's a story that is contained in both of those books, so to speak, in both of those collections, that discuss the destruction of the Temple and what led to it in 70 AD. And it's very likely, I want to be upfront with this, it's very likely that the story itself is apocryphal, meaning that it's allegorical or it's not completely 100% true.

It is a story that is revisited each tishbaw to illustrate the senseless hatred that the Jewish leaders felt was responsible for the low spiritual state of their people, which brought about their destruction. The story involves two men. One of the men was wealthy and of some renowned, and he chose to throw a party, drafted up a guest list, talked to his servant, and instructed his servant to invite all of his friends to come to this particular party that he was throwing, this feast that he was throwing.

One of the men that the servant was intending to invite, that he was instructed the servant to go and invite, was a man by the name of Kamsa. The servant went out to make the invitations, but by mistake, invited a man named Bar Kamsa instead of Kamsa. I mean, it's an honest mistake. I mean, if you're the servant, you know, a little bar in front of the name, it's close enough, right?

Well, it was a mistake nonetheless, because the problem was Bar Kamsa, as the story goes, was a sworn enemy of the man throwing the feast. So rather than the servant going out and inviting all of this man's friends, he got all of his friends, but he got one of his sworn enemies. And so when Bar Kamsa received this invitation, he assumed that the man was desirous of or desiring reconciliation. So he wore his finest clothes, and he attended the feast seated at one of the tables.

Now, as the host circulated among the guests, he observed Bar Kamsa sitting at one of the tables, and he was incredibly upset. He was angry at a servant, you know, he headed to the table where Bar Kamsa was seated, and he demanded, in front of all the men gathered at that table, that Bar Kamsa leave. Get out of this feast. You are not supposed to be here. Bar Kamsa, as you might imagine, was incredibly embarrassed, and he pleaded with the host. He said, look, I understand that you've made a mistake.

I get it. You made a mistake. But since I'm already here, please let me stay. Save me the embarrassment of being removed from this feast. I will pay personally for anything that I eat and that I drink. Just let's not do this here, in front of all these people. The host refused. The host said, no, absolutely not. He said, well, okay, listen, I will pay for half of the feast. I mean, I will pay for half of everybody's meals here, to which the host also declined.

Bar Kamsa then offered to pay the entirety of the cost of the feast, if the host would spare him the embarrassment and the disrespect of being thrown out into the streets. In response to his last offer, the host had him drugged from the feast, in front of all of its attendees, and had him thrown out into the gutter. Bar Kamsa stood, embarrassed and upset at the disrespect and the, you know, hate that was shown to him. And he thought to himself, since the rabbis who were present at the feast didn't stop him, they didn't stand up and say that what this man was doing was unjust, then they must agree with him in the treatment that I have received.

And so they said that because they agreed with him, that he was going to slander the rabbis and this man to the emperor. So Bar Kamsa travels to Rome, and he sought an audience with the then emperor Nero. He informed Nero the Jews were planning a rebellion against him. Nero was doubtful, and he asked Bar Kamsa how he knew it was true, and Bar Kamsa told Nero, send an offering to the temple to see if it's accepted.

So Nero decided to send a choice calf with Bar Kamsa, along with a delegation of Roman officials. And during the journey, as the story goes, Bar Kamsa secretly marked the animal with a blemish, which would disqualify the sacrifice, and the animal would not be accepted.

Ultimately, that's exactly what happened. He got there, the animal was blemished, could not be offered in accordance with the law, and was returned to the Romans and sent back to the emperor. And that Roman delegation returned to Rome and told the emperor that his offering had been refused.

Nero was furious, and the ramifications of that fury led to military action, and ultimately the destruction of Jerusalem and the burning of the temple. Now we have no way of verifying the historical authenticity of the story. Often stories, commentaries that are found in the Midrash, they can be allegorical, they can be figurative, they can be embellished, sometimes they can even be true. So we're going to take it for what it is. We're going to take it as an allegorical description of the concept of Sinach Hanam.

Why did the man hate Bar Kamsa? What was it about their relationship that was such an issue? It doesn't say. It just says that they were enemies. It seems at least that Bar Kamsa hoped for reconciliation and was happy that maybe this time has finally come. Me and this man can bury the hatchet, so to speak.

We can get over this, we can work it out between us, and we no longer have to be enemies. Bar Kamsa at least seemed to be excited about that possibility and tried to be reasonable throughout the process. But at the end, as a result of the treatment that he received and the approval of that treatment by the rabbis, he brought the Romans down on everybody's head in his attempt at revenge against this man and the rabbis. Let's turn over to Luke 6, if you would please.

Luke 6. Luke 6 is a parallel account to the Sermon on the Mount. And in this particular section, Christ is providing those who are gathered with instruction on how to live the kingdom of God now in their lives. How to live right now the kingdom of God. Now, there's a parallel account to this in Matthew 5, in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5. And the account that's in Matthew 5 starts with, you have heard it said of old... or you have heard it said... Luke 6 doesn't reflect these things, but keep in mind, you put the two Gospel accounts together, and Christ is essentially showing individuals, both in Matthew 5 and Luke 6, that there were a series of teachings at that time, things that the rabbis were teaching the people.

And one of those things happened to be, love your neighbors and hate your enemies. Because he said it's been said, or you've heard it said, love your neighbors and hate your enemies. So as a result of this mindset, this teaching, the Jewish people defined a great deal of people over the years as enemies. The Samaritans, the Gentiles... essentially anyone who wasn't them, or wasn't like them, didn't think like them, didn't look like them, didn't act like them. But we'll see shortly that it wasn't just the Samaritans, it wasn't just the Gentiles, no.

Even their own people weren't immune from the enemy status that was bestowed upon others that didn't look, think, or say the things that were similar to them. Instead, what do we see Jesus Christ say? Let's go to Luke 6, and we'll pick it up in verse 27. Luke 6 and verse 27. And this is just again the parallel passage to the account in Matthew 5. We've been in and around Matthew 5 the last little bit. I'd like to be in Luke 6 here today. Luke 6 and verse 27 says, Verse 29.

Now we call this concept today's day and age, we call it the Golden Rule, right? We do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Now this is written in the opposite, it's that as you would want men to do to you, then you do to them likewise. I think most people wouldn't treat themselves with hatred and spite. And so Christ says, don't treat others with the same. He goes on in verse 32, and he says, For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. Verse 35.

You know, Christ makes the point, if you love those who love you, or you do good to those who do good to you, what, really, what credit is it? You know, Matthew 5 verses 46 to 48, we won't turn there, but you can reference it, is the parallel in the, uh, in the Sermon on the Mount. Says, He goes on in verse 47 in Matthew 5, he says, Do not even the tax collectors do so. Therefore, verse 48, you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. You know, the point that Christ is making to those who are hearing His teachings is that it's really easy to treat people well when you like them.

It's easy to be willing to lend to them. It's easy, you know, to show love to them, to do good to them. And he makes the point that that doesn't make someone godly. Everyone does that. Even sinners.

So we can't judge our godliness or our righteousness based upon what we do to those who love us.

Christ says, look, that's the human default setting, is that you do good to those who do good to you. And if you think back over your own life, and you don't have to, you know, admit it in front of the people you're gathered with, but if you think back over your own life, we do tend to give, as humans, the benefit of the doubt. We tend to give kindness, trust, faith, love and charity to those who are like us. Either they look like us, they act like us, maybe they think like us. You know, we might say in today's vernacular, your squad or your tribe, your people, the ones who just get you and understand you. And unfortunately, those are the ones we, you know, treat with all of these wonderful positives, but unfortunately we tend to act with distrust, with doubt, and frankly sometimes even maliciousness toward those that are outside of that circle. You know, we saw that example in the article from ice.com on the hate game in the last message. Christ's point was no more human default setting.

It's time to think differently. It's time to act differently. He says, do good to those who persecute you or who spite and mistreat you. Don't respond, he says, in kind. As he discusses earlier in this account in Luke, in the, ultimately the parallel account in Matthew 5, he says, if they strike you on the right cheek to humiliate you, don't take them to court and have them fined for the offense, which you could do legally at that point in time. He says, no, offer the other cheek for them to strike. They take away your cloak in a lawsuit for a debt. Give them your tunic, too. Give them your inner garment and your outer garment. Give them your garments.

According to the law, the outer garment was the only possession a creditor could not legally seize from a debtor. It had to be returned before nightfall. And Christ is telling them, volunteer to give that up, too. It says, if they compel you to walk one mile with you, go with them, too. You know, in those days, it was Roman law that centurions could compel a Jewish citizen to carry their pack for a distance of one mile along the road. Romans had set up all sorts of milestones, so they actually had a pretty good idea, literally a stone, every mile or so along the roads that enabled them to know what a mile was. And they could compel a citizen to haul their gear for them while they marched from place to place for one mile's distance. It didn't matter whether you were going the same direction they were going. You could be walking along the road going the other way when that centurion says, you, over here, put this backpack on, hand you this pack that weighed anywhere between 60 and 80 pounds, full of all sorts of gear. Again, it didn't matter if you were walking in the direction they were walking or not. It didn't matter if you liked this particular occupying army and their mistreatment of your people. It didn't matter if you liked the incredibly high taxes that they levied. They could pick you out of a crowd at the side of the road and hand you their pack and make you walk with them in the direction they were going and you had, as a Jewish citizen, no recourse. None.

What did Christ say? Christ said, don't complain about it. Don't refuse them. Don't make a big scene. Instead, go two miles instead of one with them. Hand them their pack back at the end of two miles instead of one. He said, go beyond their demands. Now, these teachings of Jesus Christ, we've mentioned this before, they were radical teachings then. Frankly, brethren, they're radical teachings even today because they are completely contrary and in many ways absolute opposition to the teachings of various groups within Jerusalem and its surrounding region at that time, and frankly today.

You know, when Christ came on the scene in the early first century, there were five primary groups of Jews that were operating in Judea. There were more than five, ultimately. There were quite a bit more, but we're going to really only spend the time to take a look at some of the biggest ones. It estimates that at the time that Christ's ministry was going on and kind of leading into the 40 years following, that there were approximately 500,000 Jews in Judea in that early to mid-first century. And, frankly, the vast majority of those individuals weren't a part of any of these various sects. S-E-C-T-S.

The Pharisees, as the largest group, for example, numbered only about 6,000. But, interestingly enough, the lives of this majority of people that were not a Pharisee, were not a Sadducee, were not an Essene, etc., their lives were significantly influenced by these groups religiously, socially, and politically. Even though, the vast majority of those 500,000 Jews were not in any one of these particular groups. There's a handout for this particular piece. It can be found at tinyurl.com forward slash ucgsalembiblestudies, all one word, ucgsalembiblestudies, tinyurl.com forward slash ucgsalembiblestudies, and it's entitled, Judaism Groups Chart. You can look it up now, you can look it up later, that's fine, but it is a chart that shows you the differences between these different groups over time. We're going to take some time to look at these groups today, because these groups had their roots in events that happened several hundred years before Christ's birth during the intertestamental period, and they were instrumental in the understanding of what the sages meant by Sennach-Hannam as it led up to the destruction of the Second Temple. A brief, just a brief bit of history. When the Jews returned to the Levantine region in the 6th century BC, they were coming home from captivity, they were returning to their ancestral homeland, they were returning to a place they hadn't seen in nearly a century.

The reasons for Judah's destruction was fresh in their minds, and as they settled in these areas again, as they finally settled down in these places, various political, social, and religious opinions were present. Some of them desired to see Israel rise to the power that they had during the time of David and Solomon. To make Israel great again, we might say. They desired to see Israel come back to this place of power that David and Solomon had in the kingdom at that time. Others thought it might be better to stay under the radar, because you saw what happened the last time, we got wiped out. Maybe if we stay under the radar a little bit to avoid persecution and being conquered again, well, you know, then we'd be in a better place. Other groups believed that if they became exceedingly righteous, then God would deliver them glory, honor, and power, and bless them exceedingly. All these ideas began to meld in the time during the inter-testamental period. Some of these competing ideologies started to take hold, and people started aligning themselves with the ideology that spoke to them the most. Fast forward a few hundred years, these groups are defined. They're now known by their beliefs, their actions. In some cases, they're able to be recognized on sight based on their uniform or what they wear. These movements were not just purely religious or social or political. They often had aspects of each thing in these particular movements. It could be both religious and political, or it could be socially religious, or it could be political-social. Sociopolitical, I guess, would be the term. But it's important to recognize that these groups, by and large, held many of the same core beliefs. They were monotheistic. They believed in one God. They believed in the covenant that God had brought or had established with Israel. They believed in the law that he gave them. They all rested and assembled on the Sabbath. They kept the food laws. Where they differed, quite frequently, was in the how? In the application piece. Now, that's not to say that there weren't differences of belief among these groups. There absolutely were differences among these groups. But at the end of the day, all of the individuals that belonged to these groups were Abraham's descendants and were the children of Israel. Yet, despite that common thread, there existed significant animosity between these groups. In fact, such animosity that it took the coming of Messiah to unite them against this common, quote-unquote, enemy.

They had to put fighting with each other aside to focus on fighting who they saw as a threat to their livelihood. And to who and what they were and what Israel was at that time. I want to take a look at some of these groups today. Just kind of go through these guys a little bit to understand where they came from and understand how this concept of Sennach and Am was present in and amongst these groups. So please, keep that concept in mind as we examine these groups of people. The first group that we're going to look at are the Pharisees. And we're going to start there because they were the largest of the groups that existed at the time of Christ. They are numbered based on Josephus's numbering at approximately 6,000. You'll notice in the handout there is a typo at the bottom of the handout. There's one too many zeros on it. It wasn't 60,000. They were approximately 6,000. He records that in the Antiquities of the Jews. And he states that that number, 6,000, was actually a couple thousand more than the next closest group, the Essenes. The Pharisees were a populist movement. They were made up of lay people. They were not of the priestly class. They held themselves to a stricter interpretation of the law than the other groups that were present in Israel at that time. They placed a very strong emphasis on the oral law and on its interpretations. And because of their desire to protect the law of God, they instituted a number of additional laws to protect a person from getting to the point where they could break God's law. The idea being the person would hit the fence, so to speak, and be prevented from going any further. And that the fence would prevent them from getting in there and breaking God's law, because they felt that the righteousness of keeping that Torah perfectly would deliver Israel ultimately in the long run. But it's interesting, even within this group, even within the Pharisees, interpretations of the law varied. Some rabbis believed in one thing, other rabbis believed in the other, some rabbis were a little more liberal, others were a little more conservative.

And so you did have various interpretations of the law, even amongst those who identified as being Pharisees. Now scripture seems to indicate from a couple of different places that there were Pharisees among the Sanhedrin. One of those places is when Paul was brought before the Sanhedrin in Acts 23. We're not going to turn there yet, we'll turn there towards the end. We don't exactly know the percentage of the makeup, we don't know if they were a majority or a minority, but it is believed by most scholars that they were in the minority in the Sanhedrin. They were not involved in the temple service, that was the Sadducees' role, but they were involved in the synagogues, and the administration of the synagogues throughout Judea were operated by the Pharisees. And the reason for that was because they believed that the people and the holiness was not just for the priesthood.

They believed that every Jew could achieve holiness by exacting observation of Torah. That they could achieve holiness by observing these things perfectly to the letter. Pharisees believed in free will, they believed in the resurrection, they believed that the oral law was equivalent to, and in some cases, more binding than the written Torah that was provided in Scripture. But they believed all of those priestly requirements in the Torah, all the purity and cleanliness laws applied to all Jews. That included the ritual washings, the clean and unclean regulations. They believed that holiness, or lack of holiness, came as a result of these things. And that resulted in a great deal of fasting, a very rigid structure in prayer and in tithing, and in ritual washings. And we see these are places where Christ and His disciples had conflicts with the Pharisees throughout the New Testament. Let's go ahead and turn over to Matthew 23. Let's go ahead and turn to Matthew 23, and we're going to kind of take a look here at Christ and His address of the Pharisees at large. Matthew 23. And we'll take a look at Christ's thought process here with regards to the Pharisees themselves. At this point in Matthew 23, He's addressing the Jewish multitude at large. And we'll pick it up in verse 5. Verse 5 of Matthew 23.

Christ says, But all their works they do, referring here to the Pharisees, to be seen by men. They make their flakteries broad, and they enlarge the borders of their garments. They love the best places at the feasts, the best seats at the synagogues. Kind of talking more about the things they enjoy. They enjoy greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, Rabbi. He says, But you do not be called Rabbi. For one is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brothers, all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your Father, for one is your Father, he who is in Heaven. And do not be called Teachers, for one is your Teacher, the Christ. But he who is the greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

And so Christ describes the issue with the Pharisees.

While their intentions were good, they reached a point where it was done in a prideful way. It was largely done for show. It was done to be seen. They wanted to be spotted among the crowd, and to be thought of as a holy man, a man who was separated from the rest, who was holier than the rest of those in the crowd that were around them. They loved the preeminence, they loved the greetings, they loved to be called Teacher.

And once again, while they may have been sincere, you know, the vast majority of them, in their desire to keep the law, Christ's point was, why do you have to blow the trumpet when you do these things? Why announce it? Why the pretense? Just quietly go about your faith. Serve others. Be humble. It doesn't need a trumpet blast to accompany your good deeds.

The Pharisees as a group largely disappeared after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, but their interpretation of the law and their teachings survived history, largely making up the basis of Judaism, the basis of Judaism today, particularly some of the more orthodox branches of the faith. When you go to New York and you, you know, go and see orthodox Jews, you're seeing a continuation of the teaching and the instruction, essentially, of the Pharisees on down through time, even though the branch of the Pharisees disappeared. So while Rome was successful in destroying the temple, while they were successful in even breaking up the Pharisees in many ways in 70 AD, the teachings of those Pharisees continued on through time and are found in the more orthodox applications of the Jewish faith today.

Somebody just texted. It was pointed out that I unsuccessfully gave you the tiny URL link for the chart. If you're looking for it and you realize that it's not working, swap UCG Salem. It needs to be tinyurl.com forward slash UCG Salem Bible Studies. UCG Salem Bible Studies. So my apologies for giving you the wrong address. Hopefully you're able to find it. Hopefully you're able to kind of take a look at the chart as we go here. Talk a little bit about the scribes, because there was another group of people that were found in Judea at the time of Christ who had a strong connection to the law.

And for the scribes, it was in many ways more of a profession than a group, so to speak. But they had a degree of authority which came as a result of their role. These were individuals who throughout Jewish history were responsible for maintaining the accuracy of the Hebrew texts. The Old Testament, they were known as Safarim. They maintained the accuracy of the Hebrew texts. They made sure that copies were made without mistakes. They made sure that the documents were maintained and preserved throughout history. They were educated. They could read. They could write, frankly, more than many people could at that point in time.

And that was their role. That was their job. They essentially served as the secretaries of the Jewish people. And because they spent so much time in Scripture making copies of the texts, they were seen as being authoritative in the Scripture. In fact, by many, they were used as spiritual and legal counselors. They were kind of, for lack of a better description, they were really the lawyers of the world at that time. They copied the law. They interpreted the law. And so there was a little bit of overlap into some of the other groupings.

For example, Mark's Gospel records the primary antagonists of Christ as the scribes. So Mark says the scribes were the ones giving him so much grief, but Matthew records that it's the Pharisees. Is that a discrepancy? No. They were in a mixed group attacking Christ throughout. The scribes were getting after him, and so were the Pharisees. So it's likely that both of those groups were giving Christ grief and challenging him on his interpretation of the law. Kind of like the World War, WWF, the Rasslin tag team. You know, Pharisees go in and get beat up a little bit and slap the hands of the scribes.

The scribes go in and do their thing. They get beat up a little bit, come back out, slap the Pharisees to go back in. And that was likely kind of what was going on throughout much of Christ's ministry. Mark 2, verse 6, we'll just reference it. You can jot it in your notes.

Mark 2 and verse 6 records that after Christ healed the paralytic and tells him, Son, your sins are forgiven you. It says the scribes sat there and they reasoned in their hearts. So they're going back in their head. Just picture this for a minute. He says, Son, your sins are forgiven you. You can hear the scribes go, oh, wait a second, and they're circling it in their head, going back through all the scriptures that they've written and all the things that they know about the law. And they ask, why does this man speak blasphemies like this?

Who can forgive but God alone? Because they didn't make the connection. They didn't make the connection of Jesus Christ as being divine. So they're sitting there reasoning in their own minds, going back over their understanding of the law. How, in accordance with the law, that this man, Christ, in their eyes, this man, could forgive sin.

So these guys had an extensive understanding of the law, and because of that knowledge of the law, they were involved in drafting legal documents, marriage contracts, certificates of divorce, sales of land, mortgage agreements, etc. Really, truly, they were the lawyers, so to speak, of the first century. There was another group, too, the Sadducees, that was in existence at this time. The Sadducees are one of the groups where, honestly, less is ultimately known, and a lot of the information we do have about the Sadducees comes from the histories of their detractors. So much of what we have are written from people who didn't agree with them. Josephus actually records that there weren't many Sadducees around at the time of his writing. He's just a comparative to the 6,000 Pharisees and the 4,000 Essenes. He kind of makes the point that they were like a handful. So there weren't, you know, hundreds of thousands of Sadducees running around. There was a smaller group. The Sadducees were of an upper class, an upper echelon of society. They were wealthy, they were elite, and they desired to preserve the social order that maintained that priestly caste and its benefits. They liked being in charge. They liked dominating that temple for a period of a couple centuries while they had power. They liked that they were born into the priestly caste and therefore were important and therefore were looked up to by the Jewish people. Now, the Sadducees tended to represent the more conservative viewpoint of Judaism. However, in a weird way, they were also influenced at times by Greek thought. So yes, they were conservative. They tended to look more towards the law being very literal, very specific. But they were also allowed themselves at times to be influenced by Greek thought. And they were a whole lot more willing to work with Rome and with Herod, which caused a lot of friction with many of the other groups of the Jews in that period. In fact, there were a number of high priests that were installed from the group of the Sadducees, but they were installed with the blessing of Rome and Herod. And so, in some ways, even some of those high priests at the time were more of a puppet for Rome and for Herod, even. But they were of that Sadducees class. So as a result of that conservatism, they rejected entirely the oral law that the Pharisees really felt was important and sometimes more important than the written law.

And they insisted on interpreting that written law literally. They felt that if it wasn't there, it wasn't to be believed or to be taught. For example, we know they didn't believe in an afterlife or a resurrection, but the reason is because they didn't see it explicitly written in the first five books of the Bible.

They also denied the spirit world. They denied the existence of free will as well. Their focus remained on the rituals that were associated with the temple, and in that temple existed their power. It was because of their position that they had the power that they had. And their willingness to kind of work with Rome and with Herod enabled them to maintain that power. When the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, the source of their influence was gone. And ultimately, the Sadducees as a group really disappeared into history. And not much of their teachings remained. Not many of their writings exist today. Most of what we know about them comes from their detractors, comes from their enemies, so to speak, and what they wrote about them. Another group that was in existence at that time was the Essenes. Some of you may have heard of the Essenes because of the Dead Sea Scrolls. But they were estimated to be the second largest group of individuals in a sect in Judea at the time of Christ. They had an estimated number of about 4,000. The Essenes were a monastic group. They were like monks in many ways. That lived in a location known as Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. And the Essenes believed themselves to be the Holy Ones. Now, it's really interesting, because when you take a look at the Pharisees, the word Pharisee means separated ones. Greek means separated ones, holy ones. When you take a look at the Sadducees, the Sadducees, the word comes from Sadeq, which is righteous. They were the righteous ones. The Essenes believed themselves to be the Holy Ones. It came from the Syriac language. Because as a result of all the pollutions, all the corruptions, all the horrible things that they saw in Jewish culture at that time, the disgust that they had with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the Essenes advocated very strongly for a complete withdrawal from Jewish society. But not only that, from the world at large.

They saw the city of Jerusalem as having been corrupted by the Pharisees, and they saw the temple as having been corrupted by the Sadducees. And so their solution was, we are leaving, we are establishing a settlement in the wilderness, we are going to adhere to this incredibly strict moral code, and we're going to go and serve God in that way. Doctrineally, what's been preserved seems to kind of put their doctrine in between the Sadducees and the Pharisees.

But they lived a largely aesthetic life, meaning they valued manual labor, they valued seclusion. They did not own property, they didn't have private property within the community of Qumran. Instead, all of their belongings were communalistic. They adhered to a very strict system of values and regulations to govern behavior. They had a leader, which was called the Teacher of Righteousness, and that person was the authority within that group. There was a council as well. A year's probation was required before a person could become an Essene.

But interestingly enough, even after that year's probation, they were not allowed to participate in common meals with the other members of that community for another two to three years. When a person qualified for membership, the Encyclopedia Britannica records that individuals swore piety to God, justice toward men, hatred of falsehood, love of truth, and a faithful observance of all the other tenets of the Essene sect.

He said, then and only then could they take their noon and their evening meals with the others in the community in silence, as they sat in silence and they ate. The Essenes believed the temple priesthood was invalid, they believed the sacrifices, the calendar was invalid, and so they developed their own. They operated on their own, and it was different than the rest of the Jews. They believed that only they, only the Essenes, had a place in the age to come. Only the Essenes would be saved, and that God would wipe the rest of the community out.

Or the Jewish society out. Baptism was ultimately involved as an initiation into the community, which is probably as a result of the proximity of John the Baptist's work to Qumran. He did a lot of his work in his baptisms only a few miles from Qumran on the Jordan River. But they were very strongly against Greek influence into Jewish culture. They were very much believed and inspired exegesis from Scripture as the authority, overwritten in oral law.

So they believed that God would inspire something to be taken from the Scriptures, and that would have authority over the written and the oral law. Few of the Essenes married. In fact, some sources record that they were celibate. We don't know 100% for sure, but much of what we kind of know about them comes from more historical sources and less Scripture. But there was some evidence that the women in the community lived outside of the walls of the main monastic community at Qumran. We do know historically the Qumran community was destroyed by the Romans in 68 AD during the Jewish war against Rome.

The last group that we see involved at the time of Christ were the Zealots. The Zealots were a revolutionary nationalistic group. They were largely centered in and around Galilee. They believed that Rome should be overthrown. They advocated very strongly that the Roman Emperor should not be acknowledged. Taxes should not be paid. Roman laws should be disobeyed. In fact, they actively plotted the overthrow of Rome, and some of the more nationalistic among them became what were known as Sicari.

Sicari, which means dagger men in Latin. These men carried small daggers concealed in their cloaks. And at public gatherings, when the crowd was all thronged around, they would draw their dagger. They'd make attacks of opportunity on Roman soldiers, on politicians, and on Jewish sympathizers, and then disappeared into the crowd afterwards to escape being caught. They were essentially guerilla fighters that were centered in the area of Galilee. These guys made their last stand, kind of the final stand, at the fortress of Masada in 73 AD, ultimately being defeated by Roman forces.

Many of you are familiar with Masada, the big fortress in the middle of one of Herod's big things in the middle of the desert. But one of Christ's disciples, Simon, was a zealot. There are a few interactions recorded in the scripture, though not specifically. One thing that's kind of interesting to look at is when Christ healed the blind man in Masada, he warned the blind man not to tell anyone. And when you look through some of the different miracles that Christ did in the area of Galilee, he frequently says, what? Don't tell anyone.

Why does he tell them that? Well, brethren, I would submit to you that it is because Galilee was a stronghold of the zealot movement. Let's go over to John 6 real quick. I want to illustrate this. John 6, again, looking into this background, looking into these histories, into this context, helps us understand this concept of sinnach chanam. Helps us to understand what the time prior to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem was like, what the ministry of Jesus Christ and the time of the ministry of Jesus Christ was like. And in doing so, we can learn lessons from these things that these individuals experienced. John 6, if you go ahead and turn to John 6, we see in verse 14, just the area prior to 14, really 1 through kind of 1213, is reciting this incredible miracle that Christ works of feeding the 5,000. You know, those gathered on that hillside in Galilee, they ate to their fill, and there were scraps left over. I mean, they're filling baskets afterwards, and there are scraps all just left over. And it's an incredible miracle. 5,000 people fed on very little to begin with. And this is not the first time that Christ has done this, or it's not the only time, I should say, that Christ has done this. But at the end, they ate to their fill, and there were scraps left over. And John 6, in verse 14, records the people's response to this miracle. Verse 14, then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, this is truly the prophet who is to come into the world. Verse 15, we'll notice, well, just stop there for a second. You know, you look, the people basically say, look, this is the Messiah. This is the one they've spoken of. This is the person that is to come. This is the Messiah. We found him, right? This is the one that they've spoken of. But what does he say in verse 15? He says, therefore, when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he departed again to the mountain by himself alone. The people see this miracle. They come to the conclusion that this is the Messiah. This is happening in Galilee, the stronghold of the zealot movement. And he says, they were to come and take him by force to make him king. And when he thought about that, he departed to the mountain. Who are they?

Think about this for a second. Christ has shown to this point that he can heal, that he can raise from the dead, that he can feed thousands on scraps. I think, personally, Book of Ben here, that Christ perceived that they, the zealots, were going to show up and crown him by force. What better king could you ask for? He's clearly the Messiah, so he has the political and the religious claim to power over the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He can do all these incredible miracles. He can heal any soldier on the battlefield. He can feed an entire army on nothing. And if anybody died, he could raise him from the dead afterwards. He is the perfect general to take out the Roman occupiers.

But Christ understood that there was a time, there was an order, there was a process.

So he got out of there before they came and forcibly crowned him king. So you've got your zealots in this area who are so fed up with the Romans and their oppression and their injustice that they are willing to arm themselves and take attacks of opportunity on Roman officials in the public places of Jerusalem to throw off the chains of Roman rule. These zealots are disgusted with the Sadducees because the Sadducees are in bed with the Romans and the Herodians, who are governing on behalf of the Romans. Sadducees control the temple. They're the true power in Jerusalem. And yet they're too comfortable with their power. They don't want to get in the middle of an armed insurrection. So the zealots are frustrated with that. It finally came to a head in the late 50s AD when a number of scholars theorized that the Sicari assassinated the high priest Jonathan in 58 AD. Took an attack of opportunity on even the Sadducees. Now this is much later in time here, 58 AD, we're getting further into the history. But Sadducees and the Pharisees had a tenuous relationship which was founded in conflict. They were bitter rivals. The Sadducees on one hand said, Holiness is only for the priestly class. The Pharisees said, No, it's for the people. And if the people adhere to this level of oral law and written law, then they can achieve holiness as well. And the Sadducees said, This is by birth. You rely upon us to minister on your behalf.

These guys were bitter rivals. The only time we see anywhere in Scripture where the Pharisees and Sadducees are united is in their pursuit against Christ or his followers. That's the only time we see and put aside their differences to pay attention to a more common enemy. In fact, let's go over to Acts 23. We mentioned this earlier. Acts 23. Acts 23 and verse 6. Paul exploits this bitter rivalry in Acts 23 and verse 6. I have to admit, I love this account. Because it shows the just sheer genius of Paul in knowing thine enemy, so to speak, or knowing the individuals that he was up against. Acts 23 and verse 6. We see Paul has been brought before the council, before the Sanhedrin. He's explaining his situation. The high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. Paul gets lippy with Ananias, the high priest, to which he then humbly comes back and says, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were the high priest. You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people. Verse 6. But when Paul perceived that one part of the group, the Sanhedrin, were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he exploited this bitter rivalry. And he says, men and brethren! He cries out to the people gathered in this council. Men and brethren! I'm a Pharisee! I'm the son of a Pharisee! And concerning the hope and the resurrection of the dead, I am being judged. So he appeals to the Pharisees in the crowd. They're not, this is only happening because I'm a Pharisee! These Sadducees are trying to put us down again. And when he said this, verse 7, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Imagine everybody coming out of their seats. It's like a bench clearing Major League Baseball brawl. Everybody comes up and starts yelling. There might be sandals waving in the air. Everybody's upset. The assembly's all divided. Everybody's screaming at everybody else. It says, when he said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, verse 7, and the assembly was divided. For Sadducees say, and Luke provides some context here, for Sadducees say that there is no resurrection and no angel or spirit, but the Pharisees confess both. Then, verse 9, there arose a loud outcry. The scribes of the Pharisees party, so we notice here the scribes are involved with the Pharisees a bit, the scribes of the Pharisees party arose and protested, saying, We find no evil in this man, but if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him, let us not fight against God. Now, the Sadducees don't believe in a spirit or angels. So this is now just throwing wood on this fire, throwing wood on this situation. Verse 10, we see now when there arose a great dissension, the commander, fearing less Paul might be pulled to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him by force from among them, and bring him into the barracks. I want you to read that one more time. The dissension was so great that the commander feared that Paul might be pulled to pieces.

Have you ever seen an argument that might literally result in a person being torn limb from limb? Me either. I haven't. But I think this example right here shows that this relationship between the Pharisees and the Sadducees was tenuous at best. In some ways, almost open warfare at worst. They were in opposition to one another in many, many ways. So the zealots were upset with the Sadducees. The Sadducees were upset with the Pharisees. The Essenes looked at both of these groups, and they were disgusted enough to move to the wilderness and establish their own community. One in which they denied the authority that the Pharisees had and the Sadducees had, establishing their own authority, their own calendars, their own systems of belief, their own ruling council, basically said, Y'all don't exist! We're gonna do our own thing over here. Removing themselves from Jewish society and the world entirely. The scribes were a bit more opportunistic. You know, they worked their way. Typical lawyers, right? They worked their way in and around these groups. But you had five different groups of individuals, all founded on the same God, the same covenant, the same promises. They differed in their interpretation, but they were brothers. Literally brothers, related to one another as children of Israel. And you had all of these groups of people operating from positions of extreme distrust, sometimes outright disgust.

And we've said it before, you know, it's really easy sometimes to read through these accounts and not assign a degree of humanity to the characters that we read about. Not providing for human motives. They seem larger than life, and so we don't see them as real people doing real people things.

There needs to be a degree of care that is done in doing this. But based on the history, imagine this for a moment. You're a fisherman in Galilee. You're selling your catch at your booth in the marketplace, and you look up and you see two men, clearly Pharisees, enter the market. You hear a few of those gathered in the market shout, Rabbi, Rabbi! And they greet them. And you can tell they're Pharisees because of their broad phylacteries, the enlarged fringe of their garments. And you notice two men gathered over at the next booth over wearing priestly robes. You hear one of the men in that booth whisper to his companion kind of loudly, look at them, strutting in here like they own the place. They're not even the priestly class, yet they think they're superior to us. It's disgusting. The other one shakes his head and disgust and quickly takes out a big fat purse of money, pays the merchant. You notice that when that happens, there's a quiet man over on the side, leaning up against the wall, that sees him pull this big, large money purse from his robes to pay the merchant. You can see the anger on his face, the disgust at the profiteering that occurred with the priesthood, who he knew was in league with the Roman occupiers. And he reaches under his robe and starts to draw closer to the two men. He suddenly pulls away at the sight of a centurion, a lone centurion, who entered the marketplace.

A large caravan comes into the marketplace, the crowd begins to swell, and the man in the robes against the wall disappears into the crowd. Suddenly the centurion cries out and falls, and the crowd begins to scream. Pharisees hurriedly leave the market, as do the priests, and as the crowd scatters, the centurion lay dead in the dust. You know, this kind of fictional scenario would have been more likely in the late 60s AD, as opposed to the time of Christ's ministry. But in the 40 years following Christ's ministry, leading up to the years of the Jewish revolt, the destruction of the temple, these positions in these groups only galvanized further.

These groups naturally distrusted one another, and they became more polarized. They drew more distinct dividing lines around themselves, and they focused on caring more for those who were like them than those who were not. Love was shown to those who looked like them, who talked like them, who thought like them. Regular folks, they placed heavy burdens on, either as a result of tradition, as a result of, you know, taxes, taxation, temple taxes even. Houses were devoured, oaths were broken, oppression and injustice were the norm, and at this time, Sennach and Am ruled.

The zealots hated the Sadducees. The Sadducees hated the Pharisees. The Essenes hated everybody. The scribes were in opposition to the Pharisees and the Sadducees as the authority, as teachers of the law, but they allied with them when it suited them, such as when it came time to betray and execute Jesus Christ. His teachings and His presence posed such a threat to the way of life of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes that they plotted to have Him killed. Now, through it all, there was another group of people who arose. A group of people who believed differently, who acted differently, who were in opposition doctrinally, but instead of showing hatred toward the other groups, who were in the position of love, both to one another and to their enemies. They weren't trying to overthrow the Romans, no. Instead, they taught submission to the authorities, provided the authorities didn't conflict with the law of God. They were willing to go the extra mile. They weren't trying to add extra laws to what God had provided that had been the traditions of man, no. Instead, they focused on living the laws He did provide with a greater degree of understanding and obedience. And while they believed that they were not to be of this world, they didn't believe in completely removing themselves from it. No, they believed that they needed to be a light to the world around them, allowing their example to speak for them. They didn't believe that a person had to be of a certain social order to come to God. It wasn't by birth. God called whom He called, and through a yielding of themselves to Him, He would bless and guide their lives, bringing them into a new order of priesthood. In the third and the final message, we'll explore this group more fully as it relates to the concept of Sinach Hanam and bring it forward in time to the point of the modern day, because I want to consider some points of caution for spiritual Israel today, so that we, as the people of God, do not end up in a similar place. Brother, we're going to wrap it up there for today. If you would, please, we have opportunity to sing and praise our God.