When my little brother and I were kids, we used to do stuff that you're not supposed to do. We'd make a mess, we'd break things, we'd disobey mom and dad, uh, uh, whatever kids do, right? And every now and then, we would sense socially some kind of subtle cue that mom or dad could be broken in that moment and that we could avoid punishment with humor. And we had this one joke that we would always run, and it was not funny. It's not a clever joke, it's not good at all, but it's sort of this, ah, shucks you caught me kind of joke, where they would be like, Hey, who made that mess out there? And in unison, my brother and I would look at each other and then we'd look back at them and shrug and be like, pirates? And sometimes mom and dad would be like, No, not this time, pals. You guys get out there and you clean up that mess and don't hit me with that pirate stuff anymore. But other times they'd be like, nah, okay, just don't make messes. Go clean it or something. I don't know, just whatever. And it would work. And obviously what we were doing there is acknowledging, like, look, your eyes aren't lying, Dad. Clearly we did the thing, but maybe it was somebody else. And it was so laughable and absurd that occasionally it would work. But what's funny is that likewise in Matthew chapter 9, we see the same technique being employed, but it's being employed with a straight face. The religious leaders, the teachers of the law, the Pharisees can't deny that stuff is happening, and it's inarguable stuff that seems to break the laws of time and space. Nobody has any counter proposal or explanation for the things having happened. I mean, there's no hoax argument that could be made based on how Matthew is describing it to you and me, at least. And so if something supernatural has occurred, kind of got two options for who you can credit that to, right? Option number one would be God, that is clearly what Jesus is doing. And if that real estate is already taken intellectually, that claim is already taken intellectually, and you want to disagree, I guess you have to go with the forces of darkness, the prince of evil, Satan, I suppose. And that is the play that the Pharisees, after putting their heads together, decide to go with. Here's where we're at in Matthew chapter 9, verses 32 through 34. We just finished with the healing of the two blind guys who were real pushy and broke into the house where Jesus was staying to be like, hey, have mercy on a son of David, and then Jesus heals them. And just as they were going out, those two blind guys who aren't blind anymore, a demon-possessed man who was unable to speak was brought to him, to Jesus. When the demon had been driven out, the man spoke, and the crowds were amazed, saying, Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel. But the Pharisees said, He drives out demons by the ruler of demons. In our first conversation about this passage a little while back, we put our attention on the fact that two different groups of people are looking at the exact same data and coming to different conclusions. That is one phenomenon that needed to be unpacked here. But the other phenomenon is this pirates technique, this deflection technique. So obviously, everybody's blown away by this thing. You've got a guy who everybody knows has been mute. People associated that with demon possession. Matthew seems to affirm that. Matthew seems to affirm Jesus affirming that, even if in our 21st century brains we don't really know what to do with the whole demon aspect of the equation. What we do know what to do with is the mute part of the equation. Either somebody can talk or they can't talk. And this guy couldn't talk for a really long time, and now he can talk. So maybe Jesus and the mute guy put their heads together years and years earlier, and we're like, okay, we're just gonna run this real long con, and it's only gonna get like one little blip when they write about this. I'm sorry that it can't be more. But then when I do these gestures and say these things, you start talking again. Maybe people considered that, but probably everybody came to the more logical conclusion that the guy was mute and then he wasn't mute anymore after this encounter with Jesus. So they are very impressed. But the Pharisees have got to make a play. Everybody sees the kind of things that are happening, and these aren't the kind of things that, at least according to the way we're having the story relayed to us, can be easily written off. You've got a leper who has his leprosy go away in front of a bunch of people. You have got a storm on the sea that goes away in front of everybody who's around that sea. You have got a dead kid who professional mourners are already on the scene mourning for, and then she comes back to life. You've got a guy whose legs are busted up, get dropped in front of Jesus, and then right when he says, get up and take your mat and walk, his legs get better. Everybody probably knew who that kid was. So please don't confuse this stuff with things that you see on TV or stuff that you hear about today. I mean, maybe there's credible, miraculous stuff today. I don't know. I don't have time to go and look at all of that. But what I do know is there's a lot of not credible miraculous stuff being claimed today. We're not talking about Jesus pulling somebody aside in secret and then a few days later being like, Yeah, I went and visited Jesus. I had like a real nasty headache. And then he prayed some stuff, and now it feels it does feel better. I think I'm doing a lot better. That's not really compelling. That doesn't merit trying to find some kind of blame Satan defense for the whole thing. This isn't the kind of scenario where somebody came to Jesus and Jesus had them lay on a table and they're like, What's wrong? And the guy was like, I think one of my legs is slightly shorter than the other. And Jesus was like, that's cool. I'll just pray over that real quick and then we'll lengthen that leg. And the guy was like, I think I feel better. Those things are not credible. They are not testable, and they're the sort of things that hucksters and scam artists use in many different expressions of religion to trick people into believing their thing. Jesus very intentionally is trying to demonstrate his authority, coming off of very authoritative claims in the Sermon on the Mount. He can't go and demonstrate that authority by doing easily debunked crap that anybody can quickly see through as a trick that'll only work on stupid people. Instead, he's doing stuff that, at least according to how the story is relayed to us, would be compelling to everyone in the area. And in fact, the text keeps saying that news about this spread all over the region. So the Pharisees are under tremendous pressure. What are they going to do about this? They can't give up the ground where they've set up their intellectual defenses by acknowledging that these things are from God. But much like we couldn't really deny the fact that that mess was there to my parents, they also can't pretend that that guy isn't walking around right now. They also can't look all of their neighbors in the eye with a straight face and be like, no, that mute guy isn't talking. Well, actually, I am. It's me, it's right here. I'm Tony, and I'm talking. No, you're not. No, he's not talking. Ignore that. That's somebody else. That's puppetry. That is not like they can't deny that this stuff is going on. Clearly, something supernatural has happened. Again, you only got two options for where that's coming from. So weirdly, they go to this strange accusation that Jesus is driving out these demons by the ruler of demons. And this gets us into a sad commentary on ourselves. It'd be very easy at this point to just talk about how bad the Pharisees are, and maybe that's what I've done so far. But we all have this capacity, and not just in a joking, maybe pirates kind of way. We have this capacity to create whatever narrative we need to create to uphold the narrative we already created, the one we're already loyal to. And this demonstrates what lengths humans will go to to craft such false narratives that defies exactly what is happening right in front of our faces, exactly what our eyes are seeing and our ears are hearing. Look how hard they're working intellectually to deny what they're seeing and hearing. Think about how hard maybe at times you and I or people from our tribe work to deny what we are clearly seeing or hearing. Thus, the metaphor we've been talking about the last few days with the five senses, blind, deaf. What is it to really see? What is it to really hear? Now what's happening here is they're using a formula that is very common to all of us at one point or another, and that is to begin with the assumption that everything I already think is right. Everything I already do is right, everything my team does is right. So obviously I can't be wrong, like what we've been fighting for is right, and my whole world and mind would break if what I was fighting for was wrong. Therefore, because I'm definitely right, whatever they're doing, no matter how good it looks, must be a dirty trick that is born out of evil. And I'm lingering on the end of this little anecdote for two reasons. One, as as we've just been discussing, I think it does hold up a mirror to our own souls and our own practices and our own potential for intellectual dishonesty. But two, because narratively, this is a jump the shark moment for the enemies of Jesus. At this point, in front of God and everyone who's seen these beautiful, inarguably good things happen. I mean, who wouldn't want these good things to happen, even to their worst enemies? Well, these guys, apparently. They are going to make this moral, ethical leap with their reputations and their names to say, no, nope, we are declaring it right now. He is from Satan. This verse just slides by so quick, like, oh yeah, well, that's right. We know the Pharisees are bad. But think about the flag they just put in the ground. You got to double down on that stuff. You say somebody's from Satan. You don't come out the next day and be like, well, maybe not. I mean, that thing he did there was pretty good. I just have some No, you have made your bed. But in chapter 12, which we will break down when we get there, we get the same accusation, except this time around, they're associating Jesus with Beelzebub, the ruler of demons. And then by the time we get toward the end of Jesus' life in Jerusalem in Luke chapter 20, this same crowd is having this showdown with Jesus, and the debate is the same. It can't be from God, it's got to be from somewhere else. I'm just gonna, do we have time? Who cares? I'm reading it to you. It's Luke 20, starting in verse 1. One day he was teaching, that's Jesus, the people in the temple complex and proclaiming the good news, and the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up to him and said, Hey, tell us by what authority you're doing these things. Who is it that gave you this authority? Jesus answered them, I will also ask you a question. Tell me, was the baptism of John from heaven or from men? And they discussed it among themselves, if we say from heaven, he'll say, Well, then why didn't you believe him? But if we say from men, all the people stone us because they're convinced that John was a prophet. So they answered that they did not know its origin. And Jesus said to them, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. There's a narrative arc here that is going to play out. The divide between Jesus and the Pharisees, at its core, at the beginning, might have been about theology or how a Messiah should look. But once these guys planted their flag on the idea that Jesus was a demon, that was their talking point. Their allies picked up the talking point. They needed people in the squishy middle to join them in picking up that talking point. They drew that line in the sand, and anybody who wasn't reading this the same way as them was problematic. So something is definitely happening, but pirates? Something is definitely happening. Satan, and Jesus outduls them here in Matthew. Jesus outdoels them later on in Luke chapter 20. So once again, what I take away from this little chunk of Matthew chapter 9 is twofold. One, intellectual honesty is important and it's really easy to lie to ourselves and try to bring other people into our lives because we like being right. We like assuming that what we've always thought is right, and it can be really threatening when we find something that's inarguable that maybe suggests we're not. Intellectual honesty is beautiful, intellectual dishonesty is really, really gross. We tend to be great at detecting it in other people and not quite as great at noticing it when we're doing it. The second reason, once again, that we touch on this is because there is a narrative trajectory that is initiated with this one little passing comment they make that the enemies of Jesus are never able to dial back, and instead they have to double down on again and again, and we'll see that play out as we move further along. I'm Matt, this is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.