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Well, good morning. Everybody doing okay? Good. Good, good. I am uh continuing to love that the fact that we're actually having a little winter this year. Uh it's nice to have uh some cool weather outside, huh? Um so as we are continuing on um this series, The Big Picture, uh I was really excited when we very first started uh the series because I knew that the timing was going to work out just right to prepare us for Christmas. Now, I don't know how many of you are doing anything for Advent. Um my family and I have been doing uh some devotionals daily and just uh talking about the different stories from the Old Testament that lead us to the place of understanding uh who Christ is when he comes on the scene and just how significant it was for the people of Israel, uh for the Jewish people. We've been walking down this storyline in this big picture series saying that the people, from the very beginning, as they struggled with rebellion, uh, they kind of went through these ups and downs and ups and downs and ups and downs, and and it's a lot like our own lives, isn't it? Uh we see ourselves when we look at their lives. Um but as we get close to the end of the Old Testament, um, we are preparing ourselves for this coming Messiah. And that's exactly what Advent is all about. It's like it's helping us prepare for the day we celebrate uh the arrival of the Messiah, the arrival of Jesus. And so um I'm excited to talk today about this period between the testaments. Now, if you um, I don't know what your Bible looks like, but my Bible, when you go to the middle of it, and that's actually not the middle, like as in physically, because the Old Testament has 39 books, and the New Testament has 27 books, uh, so it's actually less on the New Testament side. But when you go there, you get this blank page in the middle. Anybody's Bible look like this? Well, if you're using one of ours, then it looks like this, right? But it looks like this because there's this gap, there's this stopping point that says something happens here. Something is changing, it's transitioning between the Old Testament and the Old Covenant with Moses, which was based on the law, and the New Testament, which is the new covenant based on who? The person and work of Jesus, right? And so when we look at our Bible, even physically, there's a gap here because it's showing us there's a transition, there's a stopping point and then there's a restarting point. Well, if you have your Bible, and if you don't have one, like I said, there's some Bibles scattered around. If you don't own a Bible, take that with you. That's a gift from us to you. We want to make sure everyone has a Bible, because this Bible will change your life as you spend time reading it, uh, reading it. But if you turn with me to the book of Malachi, now Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament, okay, right before my little gap in mind. And it's chapter four. Uh, if you're using one of these Bibles, it's page 621. That'll help you out, okay? And in Malachi chapter 4, I just want to read the last two verses, actually the last three verses. I want to read the last three verses. Verse 4, 5, and 6 in Malachi chapter 4. Okay? Here's what it says. Remember the instruction of Moses, my servant. The statutes and the ordinances I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Now let me stop there for a second. This is the last book of the Old Testament, right? The last prophet to speak on behalf of God before the coming of Christ. And notice what he's doing. He's first talking about Moses. He's talking about the law, which is a big deal because to this point, the relationship that the people of Israel had with God, beginning all the way back at Mount Horeb, when Moses goes up on the mount, right, and he's going to get the law. Whenever that happens, from that point forward, the people have been relating to God through this covenant based on their ability to obey the law, right? You with me? We've been talking through that. And so Malachi is saying, remember the instruction of Moses. It's very, very important. You remember what God gave Moses there, the Ten Commandments on the Mount. But he goes on to say, Look, I am going to send you Elijah, the prophet, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and I will strike the land with a curse. Okay? So he gives us a prophecy that he's going to send a messenger, a front runner, named Elijah. Well, some people would say that maybe we're waiting on Elijah to come. In fact, this is what the Jewish people would say. They're still waiting on Elijah to show up on the scene. Did you know that? If you talk to a Jew, they're waiting for this Elijah to come and to be the front runner for the Messiah. What we understand as Bible-teaching, Bible-believing Christians, is that this Elijah is actually referring to who? John the Baptist. Okay, so I want you to turn your Bible just a couple of pages over to Matthew chapter 3. Matthew chapter 3. And listen to what it says in verse 1 in Matthew chapter 3. In those days, John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent, because what? The kingdom of heaven has come near. For he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said, a voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord. Make his path straight. Now it goes on to tell us a little bit more about John the Baptist. We won't have much time to discuss him this morning, but think about this. We have in the Old Testament this prophet who says there's going to be a messenger, and he's going to come on the scene. He's going to tell you that the Messiah is coming. And then here in Matthew chapter 3, we see this fulfilled as John the Baptist is on the scene. He's kind of a different character all the way around. He lives out in the wilderness. He wears kind of funky clothes. He eats weird food. And he basically begins to proclaim, hey, prepare the way of the Lord. Because the kingdom of heaven has come near. Alright? So we see the fulfillment in that. The question is, is what happens between Malachi chapter 4, verse 4 through 6, and Matthew, when we get this story. What happens between them? Actually, silence. Silence after that. Now, that doesn't mean that the world didn't go on. In fact, 400 years of history occur, and I'm going to tell you a little bit about that here in a second. But during this period of time, God was silent. Now, have you ever given anybody the silent treatment? Anybody ever done that before? Some of you introverts are like, yeah, bring it on. Like I could do that, right? Silent treatment is really ugly. I mean, it's really mean. But you know why the silent treatment works? The silent treatment works because the person who you're giving the silent treatment to, they're asking the question, like, do you care about me? Do I matter? Do I have value? Like, do you even want this relationship anymore? You're just going to treat me like you don't, like I'm not here. And so it does tend to then tend to work, right? But here's the thing. I I think the people of Israel may have felt a little bit of that with God. Um, it wasn't that God was just purely trying to manipulate them for their response, but literally, it's like he'd been speaking through the prophet, he'd been speaking through the king, he'd been speaking through the judges, he'd been speaking through his servants all through the Old Testament, and all of a sudden, it's like the volume is just turned off, the mute button is pushed, and it's nothing. Now, when I think about that, it literally kind of just gives me the it's just kind of it's kind of spooky. It's just kind of this weird thought. Like, what happens when God has been speaking, speaking, speaking, saying, repent, turn away, stop rebelling, come back to me, and all of a sudden he just stops. I know what happened in my household when my dad finally stopped getting on to me? I knew some discipline was coming. It's like no more talking. We're just gonna deal with the issue, right? No more talking, no more noise, we're just gonna deal with it. And then this 400 years of period, 400-year period, uh, the people of Israel, they don't have a prophet. They don't have a judge, they don't have anyone speaking up saying, God's saying this. It was just silent. Now, during that time period, the storyline that we see, as we've said every week there's kind of a storyline of the different sections. And since this week we aren't really covering any books of the Bible, we're just talking about this period. Um, the storyline is this that the Pharisees and others, they entombed the Israelites in legalism for the next 400 years. So legalism was the primary MO of what was going on amongst the Israelites when Jesus comes on the scene in the book of Matthew. Okay? And so it's the Pharisees that are primarily leading that charge, and I'll talk about the Pharisees in just a second. But there were three primary ways or pre three main things that were going on that really set the tone for the culture and for the context for Jesus to arrive. Alright? First, um, during the 400 years of silence, Israel was politically dominated and humiliated. So politically, there were things going on. Now, I'm gonna give you, anybody in here really like history? Okay, we got a few historians. Okay, for those of you that don't like history, I'm sorry. You're just gonna have to indulge me, okay? But here we go. I want to give you a little bit of overview of what's going on during this period of time and see if maybe even in your own, if you can recollect back into your school days, or those you like to read, some of these events that took place. Remember, as I've said before, the Bible is not disconnected from history. The Bible is tracking along with history, all the things that we know going on in the world, like those things were happening as the Bible was being written and as it was unfolding. So, in this politically dominated and humiliated phase, um, remember that we said during the exile period, the Babylonians came in and they took Israel into captivity. This is Dave, this is uh Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Some of you guys remember that story. And so he takes them into captivity and they begin to uh dominate and oppress the people then, and they tried to use people like Daniel, who was a bright young man, uh, to help help them lead the people of Israel through this time. And then the Persians come in and they actually take over the Babylonians. Okay, so so then uh while the Israelites are in captivity, while the Jews are there, um the Persians come in and they take charge. And a man by the name of Nehemiah, you know the book of Nehemiah in the Bible, um, he steps up and he says, uh, can we go back and rebuild our temple? And the king of Persia, Cyrus, he says, Absolutely. He gives them permission because God shows them favor, and he lets them go back and they rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and they rebuild the temple. Okay? And so this is happening in their in the uh of the Old Testament during the prophets. But the Persians get a little bit um cocky, they get a little bit prideful, they get a little bit arrogant, and they decide we're gonna go pick on the Greeks. Not a good idea. Anybody watch the show, the movie 300? Okay, have you ever seen the 300? This is that time period. This is where this shows up on the scene, as the Persians are picking on the Greeks, right? And so what happens from that point is that um we we see throughout the book of Daniel uh the story unfold. Now, uh, anybody who has read or studies studied the book of Daniel much, uh, it can be a little bit of a confusing book. It's got some prophecy in there, and as I said last week, if you did if you weren't here last week, go back and listen because we talked about how that prophecy is difficult in the Old Testament because it will tell you about something that's gonna happen like immediately, something that's gonna happen in a little while, and then something that's gonna happen in a long while. Okay? And it puts it all together. So it sandwiches it all together, and so you're reading it, and it and there's a little bit of confusion about the timeline, how this thing's gonna unfold. Well, if you read the book of Daniel, what's amazing is that we look back here from 2013, we look back, and we can see how Daniel actually is prophesying everything that then happens in that world during this period of silence. If you don't know this, let me just give you a couple of uh examples. First off, in Daniel chapter 9, um, Daniel he predicts that the Messiah would be cut off 483 years from the end of the rebuilding of the temple. So I said they got to rebuild the temple, and he predicts that it'll be 483 years, because God is inspiring Daniel. Daniel didn't come up with this on his own. He wasn't Nostradamus, he wasn't some just God just predicting these things. Daniel hears from God, he writes this down, and guess what? 483 years to the week, Jesus was crucified. Coincidence? Think not, right? Another prophecy that we get to see and say, hey, that builds confidence to know that God's word tells us what's gonna happen, and we get to see this come to fruition. So this is Daniel chapter 9, but I want you to jump over to Daniel chapter 11. If you have your Bible and you want to turn with me there, it'd be it'd be great because you're gonna want to see this for yourself. Daniel chapter 11. We can't, just because I love history, we could spend the rest of the morning right here and just camp out, but I want to I want you to at least hear a few things that are really significant here. First off, uh, remember what I said where uh the Persians pick on the Greeks. It actually tells us that there. It says that in the year of Darius the Mead, I stood up to strengthen and protect him. This is verse 1. Now I will tell you the truth. Three more kings will arise in Persia, and the fourth will be far richer than the others. This is the fourth Persian king. And by the power he gains, he's gonna get really cocky, he's gonna get really arrogant, and he will stir up everyone against the kingdom of Greece. Not a good idea, okay? So it's telling us ahead of time this is what's gonna happen. Then a warrior king will arise, and he will rule a vast realm and do whatever he wants. Any idea who that is? Greek, warrior king, vast realm? History? Alexander the Great, right? So it's telling us that Alexander the Great's gonna come on the scene, and he's gonna rule the empire. Pretty cool, huh? And so then it goes on from there because it tells us, and if you know anything about history, Alexander the Great Great, when he dies, his family doesn't inherit the empire. Who inherits the empire? His four generals. So it says in the text, catch this, uh, verse 4, but as soon as he is established, his kingdom will be broken up and divided to the four winds of heaven. Four. Four generals. They're gonna take over, but not to his descendants. That's not his family, right? It will not be the same kingdom that he ruled, because his kingdom will be uprooted and will go to others besides him. This is when the Ptolemies and the Seleucids take over. And they begin to fight one another, the north and the south part of this empire. And so this goes on now. And the Bible tells us ahead of time, this is gonna happen. It's unfolding just exactly like God says. And so in verse 29, I want you to jump ahead all the way down to verse 29. It says this that at the appointed time, he, this is Antiochus Epiphanes, just to give you a little background. Antiochus Epiphanes, he will come against the south. This is the northern, so the the uh Seleucids that he's gonna come. This is the king of the Seleucids, he's gonna come against the colonies, he's gonna come against those in the south. But when this happens, notice what notice what he says, it this time it will not be like the first. The ships of Kidam, these ships from the west, will come against him, and being intimidated, he will withdraw. Now let me just tell you really quickly what's what's really really fascinating here. Literally, as Antichus Epiphanes is going to attack the south, he's on his way, and up from the west comes these ships on the Mediterranean Sea. And these ships are, guess what? Guess who they are? The Romans. The Romans show up, and they literally dock the ships, they walk onto the shore, and the Roman emissary draws a circle around Antiochus Epiphanes and says to him, Before you leave this circle, you will tell us what you're gonna do. And before he left the circle, Antichus Epiphanes said, I surrender, I'm gone, I'm going back home. So he leaves because it says that it literally tells us in there that he's gonna lose heart. And he does. He loses heart. He sees them, he's like, there's no way we can defeat them, so he goes back home. Now here's what's wild. He took the anger and the frustration, and he goes back to Israel, goes back to Jerusalem, and he just devastates it, kills 20 to 40,000 of the Jews that are there. He decimates their temple, he actually builds an altar to Zeus in their temple, and he sacrifices a pig. It's called the abomination of desolation. And literally the people of Israel, the people of Israel, who were this once proud people, chosen by God, the envy of all the other nations, is now this nation of just dogs, of people who really, literally don't have anything to their name. They have no power, they have no control, they are literally being just hanging on by a thread. Everything that they had done to build this amazing temple is now destroyed. And they're there just with their heads hanging down and their lives devastated. In the process of that, there was uh, if you know anything about the Apocrypha, or if you know anything about um the intertestal period, you can read the works of Josephus. I know I'm talking a little bit uh, like I've said the last couple weeks, a little bit more on the teaching side here, but but I want you to hear that um there were these two brothers, the Maccabees, and if you ever read the Apocrypha, you've probably seen first and second Maccabees. These are not uh books that we put into our canon of the Bible. Okay, we wouldn't put them on the same level of being inspired by God. There's some historical books that are there. And what you'll find in there is that these two brothers, they rise up, they rebel against Antichus Epiphany, and for three years they fight him. They rebel, they fight. And after the third year, they finally win their independence. And in December 25th of 164 BC, guess what happens? They rededicate the temple. And if you have any Jewish friends at all, this is a huge date on their calendar called Hanukkah. Right? They celebrate the rededication of the temple. And they reflect on God's faithfulness to them. So now can you put all these pieces together? And what's fascinating again is that God tells us way in advance before it ever even happens. That this is gonna happen. So the point being this is that the Israelites were completely devastated. They were completely politically dominated and humiliated. From that point forward, I uh this is a word here. Um the Israelites are the Jewish people, they've never been, they were never independent again as a nation until 1948. 2,000 years before they regained independence as a nation. That tells you that this has not been a good season for the Jewish people. And this is also a reminder of what happens when people ignore God and they walk away from God. Because God is a loving and gracious God, but he will not rescue people from their consequences of their sin and their rebellion. That's what happened. So the next thing that was confusing that really set the tone before Jesus comes on the scene was theological confusion. So if you've got your guy there, that's the next thing. Theologically, they were confused about the Messiah. They were confused. There's really two primary things that they were confused on. Number one, they were confused about Jesus' role as a suffering servant. Number two, they were concerned or confused about Jesus as the reigning king. Now, let me explain what I mean by each one and give you a couple passages that will help. Number one, they were concerned or confused about Jesus as a suffering servant. They under-emphasized this. This is in the Old Testament, right? This is in the prophecy. Isaiah 50, verse 6. It says this. I did not hide my face from scorn and spitting. What is he saying? The Messiah is literally gonna have his beard plucked out. Did that happen? Yes, it did. It did happen to Jesus. Or just a couple pages over there from there, we read this last week, but from Isaiah 53, it says this in verse 4 Yet he himself bore our sickness and he carried our pains, but we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. He was pierced because of our transgressions. He was crushed because of our iniquity. His punishment for our peace was on him. And we are healed by his wounds. Jesus was going to be a suffering servant, right? And Isaiah tells us this in several other passages, but that's just a couple of the passages that were most obvious. Or in Zechariah, you don't even need to turn there, but in Zechariah chapter 12, we get this verse in verse 10. Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the house of David and the residents of Jerusalem, and they will look at me, whom they pierced, and they will mourn for him as one who mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly for him as one who weeps for a firstborn. What is Zacharias speaking to? He's speaking to the fact that they are going to pierce the Messiah. They are going to pierce the one who Christ, who God sends, this Christ, this anointed one. God's going to send him and they're going to kill him. So did this come to fruition? Did this come to be? Absolutely it did, because in the book of Acts, you remember the first sermon that Peter preached? He stands up and he preaches and he says, This Jesus, he was the Messiah, and you killed him. I mean, that's about as direct as you can be, right? He didn't hold anything back. He said, This Jesus, the one who God sent, God's son, the Savior of the world, you killed him. And it says in the text that they were cut to the heart, and they asked the question, What can we do? And he says, Repent and be baptized. This is prophecy from Zechariah, which is fulfilled in the book of Acts. But not only were they confused, like I said, about him being a suffering servant, but they were confused about him being a reigning king. They over-emphasized this. If they underemphasized the servant part, they over-emphasized the king part. Because honestly, I mean, we would probably do the same, right? Who wants to have a leader who's going to suffer and die? We want a leader who's going to reign, who's going to rule, who's going to be in charge, who's going to take out the Romans. If we were on the scene at that time, who takes out the Romans and reestablishes the nation of Israel? And so if you look in Micah, the book of Micah, chapter 5, it says this in verse 2. Bethlehem, Epitaph, you are small among the clans of Judah. One will come from you to be ruler over Israel for me. His origin is from antiquity from eternity. Notice what he says. He says he's going to be born where? In Bethlehem. That's where Jesus was born. In Bethlehem. Notice that he will come and rule. He's going to be the king. He's going to rule over Israel. For who? For the Father. But then notice he also says his origin is from antiquity, from eternity. He's talking about Jesus is eternal. He's God. This is in Micah, chapter 5. Or Zechariah, going back to the book we just were in a while ago. Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9, says this: Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion. Shout in triumph, daughter Jerusalem. Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious. Notice this: humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. You remember the story when Jesus rode on a donkey into the city of Jerusalem shortly before he was killed? Absolutely we do. This is when he comes in, and they wave the palm branches and they say, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And they're praising him shortly before they crucify him. But they misunderstood what it meant when it said he would be the king, he'd be the reigning king. Or Jeremiah, one last one here. And then we'll move on. Jeremiah 23, verse 5. It says, the days are coming, this is the Lord's declaration, when I will raise up a righteous branch of David. In my Bible, that's all capitalized. Because it's referring to who? It's referring to Jesus. This is in Jeremiah. He will reign wisely as a king and administer justice and righteousness in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. This is what he will be named, Yahweh, our righteousness. Great passage. Now, is Jesus the king? Yes, he is the king, isn't he? But did he come like they thought he was going to come? Did he do what they thought he was going to do? No. Because he had a job to do on his first arrival that was very different than his job when he comes back on his second arrival, like we talked about last week. So, these passages all point us to this real reality, and there was a lot of confusion when Jesus comes on the scene because they knew these prophecies. They knew them backwards and forwards. They had read these prophecies, they had heard them read in the temple, and yet they missed it because they were thinking about it through their lens and the way they thought it should play out rather than the way that God had orchestrated it and designed it. The third thing that really made the context that Jesus stepped into challenging one as far as leading the people of Israel to understand who he was and what he was doing was that the culture was spiritually fractured by religious extremes. Now, when I say these two groups of people, y'all are going to all know them. If you've been in church at all, if you've read in your Bible and you've spent some time in the Gospels, there were two primary groups of people that really represented the two main divisions amongst the people of Israel during this window of time. The Sadducees and the Pharisees. Recognize those names? The Sadducees and the Pharisees. Now we sing this little song with my kids about how that we want to be a sheep and we don't want to be a Sadducee and we don't want to be a Pharisee. It's like this old school song that's been around for a long time. And my kids, they don't know what a Sadducee is. They said it just says we don't want to be a Sadducee because they're Sadducee. But that's that's really not true, okay? Let me tell you a little bit about Sadducees. Um, you want to know a little bit about who they are and what they do, so that when you see them in the Gospels, when you see them in Jesus interacting with them, you'll notice that Jesus interacts with the Sadducees different than he interacts with the Pharisees. And the whole point, a big part of this series of understanding this big picture, is so that when you read these passages, you get a little bit more flavor to understand the content, the context behind the content. Does that make sense? So to help you get a better handle on what Jesus is trying to speak to and the heart of the issue. But the Sadducees, I'm going to give you a quick uh synopsis of them. First off, the best way to describe them is that they just wanted to get along with the powers that be. They just wanted to get along with the people that were in charge, and here's why, because they were very wealthy. They had a lot of money. Sadducees were rich, and they didn't want anything to mess with their wealth. They didn't want anything to disrupt that. And so, yes, they were Jews. Yes, they were moral, and I'll talk about that in a sec, but but they were also very wealthy, and they thought, as long as we don't mess with anybody, they won't mess with us. And so maybe a way to say this different is to say they really kind of went along to get along. You know anybody like that? You ever done that yourself? You just kind of say, we're just gonna go along to get along. I don't want to really, I don't want to really uh ruffle any feathers, I don't want to cause any problems, I don't want to disrupt anything. And remember, who's in charge? The Romans. And you just didn't really want to mess with them because they just kill you. That's pretty much how they were. They just take your stuff and kill you. They didn't see you as a fully valued human being. And so that's what the Sadducees did. They they didn't believe in the resurrection. This is really, really important. The Sadducees did not understand that the resurrection was important. This is why the way we understand the Sadducees and their obedience to the Bible, to the scripture, to the law, not the Bible, they didn't have the Bible, to the law, was that they didn't obey the law for spiritual reasons. They obeyed it for moral reasons. Okay? So they were all about being good people because they thought if we're good people, life will be better. And if we're good people, uh, we'll make more money and life will be more comfortable. Okay? And so this is kind of their bent. They wanted to obey the law, but they wanted to obey it for the wrong reasons, or at least what we would believe are the wrong reasons. Now, they might be described by those from the outside as kind of the secularist Jew. They might be considered as a secularist Jew because they really focused on the here and now, the temporary, having a good life right now. That was kind of their bent. And in fact, the the uh the main leader in the synagogue where Jesus was interacting was the Sadducee. So if you see in the Gospels, you're gonna you're gonna hear him come up, and he was a Sadducee. So think about the way he saw life. But the other group I mentioned is the Pharisees. And the word Pharisee, even by its nature, is just a very different concept and connotation than Sadducee. Pharisee meant to be separate. Their whole goal was to be separate from everyone else, to be elite, to be kind of at the top of the pile, so that everyone would see them as the ones who are like, they've got everything together, they're in charge, things are good for them. And so they really didn't care about people. They didn't really care about people. In fact, we know that because um one of the most famous Pharisees in the New Testament is a guy named Paul, who was originally Saul. And when he saw that the Christians, those who were following Jesus, didn't obey the law in the same way that he did, and they saw Jesus as the Messiah, and he thought that was a false Messiah, thought Jesus was not the real Messiah, what did he do? He went and threw these Christians in jail, and many of them they killed. Because they were more concerned about obeying the law than caring about people. And Jesus, think about it, how many times did Jesus really hit at this issue of what was going on in the heart with these Pharisees? Because they were moral. They followed all the law. Not only did they follow the law, but they were really, really, really, really, really into getting the right interpretation of the law. So they were always talking about, okay, do you have the right understanding of the law? And they would divide up and they had different schools of thought. They had different rabbis that you would get under that they were these Pharisees, and they they had their interpretation of the law, and then there was another school of thought, and they had their interpretation of the law, but it was all about getting the right interpretation and being the doing the right things so that at the end of time you would be righteous before God based on what you did. Does it make sense? And so that's who these Pharisees are. What's going on in the world doesn't really matter to them. All that matters is that the kingdom of God is coming and that they're going to stand before him and that they need to be righteous. Now that sounds pretty uh admirable, but it was all about them. It was all about self-righteousness and what they could do. Notice that if the Sadducees were the secularists, the Pharisees would be known as the fundamentalists. In fact, when we look in the Bible, we see in Matthew chapter 23, again, don't turn there, but in Matthew chapter 23, something very interesting to note about the Pharisees. And this gives you a little bit of the flavor of how they approach other people. It says, Whoa, this is Jesus speaking to them. He says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You travel over land and sea to make one convert or proselyte. And when he becomes one, you make him twice as fit for hell as you are. Pretty intense, isn't it? Anybody who thinks that Jesus was just like this really mamby-pamby, uh, really always saying nice things, like, just read a few of the things he says to the Pharisees. They were harsh. They were direct, because they were true, right? And so he just calls them out and he says, Do you make these people uh they may make them twice as sons of hell as you? He also says above that, he talks about how that that um uh in verse 3, therefore do do uh whatever they tell you and observe it, but don't do what they do because they don't practice, they don't they don't practice what they teach. They tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry and put them on people's shoulders, but they themselves aren't willing to lift a finger to move them. Again, you get the idea. Externally they look real pretty, but internally they were rotten. In fact, Jesus even says that. He says they're a whitewashed tomb. They look real religious, they do all the right things in public, but their hearts are wicked. They're evil. And they've missed it. Jesus was much, much, much more harsh with the Pharisees. Now, in both of these groups of people, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, note this, that we can have the tendency to go both directions here, can't we? There's times when you and I in the room, there's times in our lives when we just go along to get along. We don't want to disrupt, we don't want to disrupt anything, we don't want to ruffle any feathers, we don't want to cause ourselves any discomfort. And so we just simply, like someone is is, let me give you a practical thing. Someone is in our neighborhood, or someone is in our lives, and they are kind of speaking to what they believe about Jesus, about the Bible, about God. And you know it's wrong. But instead of challenging their beliefs, you're just sitting there going, or just quiet. One of the statements I used to tell teenagers all the time when we were working with teens is silence equals agreement. Silence equals agreement. When you choose to just be silent, what you're saying is, okay, I agree. Now, on the flip side of that, the Pharisees, they would have been just angry, rude, judgmental, hypercritical, like I don't care about you, harsh. So that's not the goal either, is it? The goal is not to just be a harsh, rude, angry person, but the goal is also not to be a person who just says, I'm not going to tell you the truth, even though what you're saying is wrong, and you're going to end up separated from God forever if you believe that. So asking God to give us a heart of compassion and kindness and grace and mercy to speak the truth when God gives us this opportunity. In fact, if you have, um, I do want you to look at this verse in Scripture, John. The book of John, chapter 5, and verse 39. I want you to underline this verse. I want you to star it. I want you to circle it, unless you don't like to write in your Bible, but it's okay. He's not mad if you write in your Bible. But if you write in your Bible, I want you to underline this verse. I want you to star it, I want you to circle it. This whole passage is so huge. This really gets to the heart of the issue of what's going on with Pharisees and how this shows up in our own life. Notice what he says here. Verse 39. You pour over the scriptures because you think that you have eternal life in them. Yet they testify about me. And you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life. What's he saying? He's saying to the Pharisees that you know the Torah backwards and forwards, inside out. You have scoured that thing, you have poured over it, you have spent tons of time, you have memorized it, you have read it countless, countless times, you've debated it, you've argued about what it says and what it doesn't say and what's interpreted, how you can interpret all those things. And in the midst of all of that, what have they done? They missed Jesus. They overlooked the point of all of the text, which was to point us to Christ, to point us to the person and the work of Jesus. Listen, being a Pharisee, recently I got the opportunity to read a book by a guy named Larry Osborne. He's a pastor out in Northern California, and uh he wrote a book called Accidental Pharisee. It's an amazing book. Uh, so, so good for me personally. Because here's the thing: being a Pharisee, it sneaks in so easily, so subversively. And he says it this way He says that being a Pharisee is kind of like the fact that no one ever sets out to go to Denny's. You know what I'm saying? No one really ever sets out to go to Denny's. They just happen to end up there. And I think that it's so true that in our lives, we are on this path and we just end up in this place because if you do not keep Christ at the center, you will become the center of your life. There's really no other option. It's either going to be Jesus or it's going to be self. And in our lives, when we choose, when we choose to ignore God's instruction, and we when we avoid his word, and we avoid community with other people who are believers, who are pointing us to the gospel, we will drift to worship of self. Because that is who we are. That's why we're bent. That's the messed up part of our humanity. But here's the thing: thankfully, Jesus has come to rescue us from all that. He has come to set us free, he has come to reign in our life, he has come to bring us back to himself. Because both the Sadducee and the Pharisees lived their lives centered on themselves. And that's why they missed Jesus. That's why they couldn't accept Jesus, because Jesus was not putting them at the center, he was putting himself at the center because he was the Son of God, the Savior of the world. So I want to close out with just two quick lessons. Two quick lessons that we can get from the silence. There's a lot more, but these are just two things that stood out to me this week. And this really piggybacks well with what I just said. First is this it is possible to be religious but not have true salvation. It is possible to be religious but not have true salvation. For those of you that spent much time around me, or we've been around Redemption City Church, we periodically will talk about it in these terms that the gospel and religion are opposite. But they're not the same. That it is possible to be religious, to go through the emotions, to do the things that religious people do, and yet not have life in Jesus, that not have been saved by the Son of God. And here's the challenge is that sometimes it's really hard to see that. But the question that really is a diagnostic question for me personally, and I ask you to ask yourself this question today, is when it comes to eternal life and to my relationship with God, do I trust in Christ and His sufficiency and his finished work on the cross, or do I trust in my ability to perform for him? My ability to obey his law. To earn his love, to earn his forgiveness. And can I just tell you, you cannot do it. You can't. He offers it freely. It's a gift. It's a gift. That's why Christmas is awesome. Because it's the greatest gift we could ever get that we can never, ever, ever purchase. We can never buy it. We can never come up with it. He purchased it. It's not a cheap gift, it's a very expensive gift. It's just that he paid the price for it, so it's free for us. And so this morning, may we not just go through the motions of being religious people who go to church and who read our Bible and who raise good moral families. May we not be a Sadducee or a Pharisee. May we rest in the finished work of Jesus and worship Him, and joy will truly flow out of our lives. Like unexplainable joy will come out of our lives because we will recognize that we are a broken, depraved, and messed up people, but He is a gracious and merciful Satan. And it changes everything. There is a form of godliness without power. And there is a way to look for life in religion and not in Jesus. But life is in Jesus. But every time I see the word Christmas, I Think about it in terms of Spanish. Christ and Mos. Which means what? More. And when I think about Christmas, I think what, Jesus, we need is more of you. More of Christ in our lives. More of Christ in every facet of who we are. More of your identity giving us true value and identity. More of your provision and your satisfaction so that we don't chase after the idols of this world that lead to destruction and devastation. But the second thing, the second lesson from the silence before we close out, is that hearing from God requires receptivity. Hearing from God requires receptivity. Did you know that God is always speaking? Like, thankfully, he hasn't just shut it off. Thankfully, it's not like it was during that 400 years of silence between the testaments. Thankfully, he is speaking. He speaks through his word. He's given us this. He is always speaking to us. He speaks through his people. People who love him, who are called by him, who have him living inside of them. He is speaking to us. He's encouraging us. He's challenging us. He's pushing us. He's helping us see him for who he is and what he has done. He speaks through our circumstances. You know God uses our circumstances. And there's times when things are going on in our life and he's trying to get our attention. He's saying, hello, you need me more than you think you need me. You need me. But he also speaks to us through whispers. He also speaks to us through whispers. And this is subjective, and I know I get that. People will struggle with this, but let me tell you, when you get still and you get quiet before God, there are things that He will impress upon our heart that can only happen when we truly humble ourselves and we come before God and we say, God, would you just speak to me? I just need to hear from you. Can I tell you some of those of the most amazing times in my life? And I know I couldn't have just come up with it on my own. In fact, it's usually not what I expect that he would say. But even just when I feel like God is impressing on my heart the truth that he loves me, it helps me get through this hard and difficult life. It reminds me what really matters in the whole scope of eternity. He will speak to us, but we have to be receptive. We have to humble ourselves and listen. We have to be willing to hear what he has to say. Because maybe one of the reasons we're not receptive is because we have selective hearing when it comes to God. Maybe we've already said this is what God's going to say, and if he doesn't say it, well, that's not God. Listen, don't limit what God's going to say to you. Yeah, it may not be what you want to hear. It may not be something that you thought he was going to say, but if you will listen, he will speak to you and he will challenge you and he will give you truth that you could not have come up with on your own, that you could not have arrived at on your own. In your life, your life will not be ordinary. It won't be. There's no way to live an ordinary life as a child of God. Because we have a heavenly Father who is leading us and who is calling us and compelling us to live for something more. So I pray that this is the best Christmas that you ever had as you experience more of Christ, as you hear him speak to you. And know this that once and for all, him showing up on the scene as that little baby in the manger declares to us that he cares deeply about because he didn't stay a baby, he grew up, and he died.