2017-02-26 Luke 20:27-40 The Naivete of Naturalism (2): Underestimating God's Message

THE NAIVETE OF NATURALISM (2): UNDERESTIMATING GOD’S MESSAGE (Luke 20:27-40) February 26, 2017 Read Luke 20:27-40 –Mark returned from a scouting trip and said, “The scoutmaster says he won’t take me along on anymore camping trips.” Dad asked, “Why? What did you do?” Mark said, “He’s mad because I lost the compass crossing a creek.” Dad said, “He’s mad because a little compass got lost?” Mark replied, “Well, it wasn’t just the compass. We all got lost!” Lose your compass and you’re lost. That’s what this passage is all about. I. A Diabolical Ruse The Sads of Jesus’ day had lost their compass. They claimed allegiance to the OT, especially Torah, but their real compass was their own reason. Bad choice. It caused them to miss their Messiah standing right in front of their face – and set out to kill Him. But first they had to discredit Him with the crowds. They are the last of Jesus’ enemies to try in these last 3 days of His life. All went away devastated by His answers. Since they didn’t believe in resurrection, they pose a question about a woman who married 7 successive brothers as each previous husband died. They ask, “33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.” II. A Dazzling Response A. You Don’t Know God’s Might Jesus’ response was quick and pointed. To the highest echelon of religionists of His day – the priestly class – He said in Mt 22:29, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” No beating around the bush. Too late for that. They erred in two ways – they didn’t understand God’s power nor the Scriptures. They knew neither God’s might nor His message. Last week we saw they didn’t know God power – power to save, to raise and to change. Today, we’ll see how these theology experts missed the message. B. You Don’t Know God’s Message Message and might are related. They didn’t know God’s power because they didn’t know God’s Word. They should have. People thought they did. But human reason was their real Bible. They were practicing naturalists. Naturalism is a worldview that excludes God. No supernatural. An atheist is a 1 naturalist. But so are many people who claim to believe in God but live as tho He did not matter. Practicing naturalists. In the end, naturalism destroys because it does not know God’s might or message. It’s a dead end street. Naturalists have lost their way because they have lost their compass. Human reason is their guide, but human reason is flawed; it does not know true north. Whether it is a 1st century Sad or a 21st century humanist, the result is the same bc it ignores God’s revelation. It’s our moral and theological compass. Without it we are more lost than we can imagine. So, to answer the diabolical question, Jesus turns to Scripture. And along the way He shows why it must be our compass. He shows us it’s Flawless; Foundational and Final. 1. It’s Flawless Late in his own career, Paul wrote to his young protégé, Timothy, in II Tim 3:16, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” That is a high view of Scripture. It is not a human product God breathes life into (inspires). Rather it’s a divine message emanating from God, and recorded thru human instruments. Peter describes the process in II Pet 1: 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Men wrote – sometimes at God’s dictation as many OT prophets – more often at their own initiative and reflecting their individual personalities, like the psalms of David or the epistles of Paul – but always born along by, overseen by, rendered flawless by the literal breath of God – the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Scripture is claiming for itself to be the inerrant, infallible Word of God as originally written. People nit-pick small issues, but there is no proven discrepancy. Jesus surely believed in the infallibility of Scripture. He saw it as flawless – and therefore, infinitely dependable. And He uses the Word here to demolish the Sadducees. 37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed.” Stop there for a moment. Why reference Moses specifically? Because the Sads accepted the Torah, Moses first five books of the OT, as authoritative. Scholars vary about their acceptance of the rest of the OT. Most believe they accepted only the Torah as Scripture. At the very least they held a low view of the rest, because while the concept of resurrection is not prominent in the OT, it is clearly stated in places like Psa 16 and Dan 12:2: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” The Sads rejected that teaching. And in their study of 2 Moses, they found no reference to resurrection. That’s why Jesus starts with Moses. He is now on common ground with them, but He is about to rock their world with His next statement. 37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush [Jesus refers to Exod 3:1-6, but there were no chapt and verse divisions then, so He calls it the passage about the burning bush. Then He unloads His bombshell], where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” What exactly is His point? His point is, “Go read Exod 3:6 where God tells Moses, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Look carefully. See what you’ve missed all your life. Those patriarchs died hundreds of years before God spoke to Moses. But notice God doesn’t say, ‘I was the God of Abe, Isaac and Jacob.’ He says, ‘I am the God of those dead guys.’ That’s not possible unless they were preserved alive against a day of resurrection. He is not the God of the dead but of the living. It was there all the time – hidden in plain sight – and you missed it. You don’t know your Scriptures.” Talk about a show-stopper, that was it! The Sads were dead in the water. Proven wrong out of their own Scripture. And Jesus argument turned on the tense of one verb. You can’t turn your whole argument on the tense of one verb unless it is flawless – dependable not just to the word level, but to the tense of verbs level. Jesus believed in inerrancy. Mt 5:18, “18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” Iota is the Gr term for the smallest Heb letter (yod) – looks like an apostrophe. Dot is the smallest part of a Hebrew letter, like the “dot” above an English “i". Jesus believed Scripture flawless down to individual letters. He says in John 10:35, “Scripture cannot be broken.” You can’t undo it. It is truth written with a capital “T”. This is why we give such prominence to Scripture in our church. It is our only authority. It is truth to commit to – truth to live by and truth to stake your life on. John MacArthur used to do the Larry King show a lot. People would ask, “How do you prepare for that? Do you get advance questions?” He said, “No, they don’t do any advanced interview. I just show up. I don’t know who else is going to be there. It might be a rabbi, a priest, or a confused evangelical. I don’t know who it’s going to be.” So how did he prepare? “It’s very easy. I want to say two things. I want to say that the Bible is the only source of divine truth and Jesus is the only Savior. I don’t care what the questions are. Those are going to be the answers. I have said to Larry so 3 many times, ‘I don’t know about that, but I do know that Jesus is the only Savior and the Bible is the only authority.’” He said, “Off camera Larry said to me, ‘I wish I believed what you believe.’ I would always say to him, ‘It’s not private. It doesn’t belong to me.’” Where’s that authority come from? It comes from God’s flawless, errorless revelation. It really is God’s Word! 2. It’s Foundational It’s something you can build your life on. Here’s how foundational the Bible is. Jesus could have simply appealed to His authority as God’s Son to say to the Sads, “You guys are wrong. I have personally come from heaven. I know what you cannot know. I have personally seen Abraham, Isaac and Jacob alive and well even after they died.” That would have been true and right. But instead, what did He do? He referred them to a passage of Scripture that irrefutably taught the truth they so clearly denied. To Jesus, the Word was fundamental, foundational – it was the thing He built everything on. What was Jesus doing when his parents lost Him during a trip to Jerusalem? Lu 2: 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.” At age 12 He knew the Word so well, the rabbis were amazed. That’s how foundational it was to Him. When He was tested by Satan in Mt 4 and Luke 4 – 3 of those great tests are recorded for our benefit. And how does Jesus meet each one? By quoting Scripture -- Deuteronomy. It was His foundation for life. On the day of his resurrection He joined 2 disciples who were dejectedly heading home. They’d heard, but did not believe, that He was alive. So what did He do? “Look fellows. Don’t you see? It’s me. I am alive. Take heart, the worst is over.” That would have been a logical thing to do, wouldn’t it? Just prove it by showing Himself. Instead, what did He do? Lu 24:27, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” The Scriptures were absolutely foundational to Jesus’ life and ministry. And if He needed that kind of immersion in the Word to survive, how is it we think we don’t? Why is that? It’s because we don’t really believe, right? I can assure you this morning that to the extent you are not building your life on the foundation of God’s Word, you are going to have trouble. I have never yet had a counseling situation where someone(s) was not being disobedient to some command of God – but would not admit it. Thought their situation was different, unique – thought 4 they knew better than God. Had rationalized that God’s command didn’t apply to them. Every time. The Word is foundational, and to the extent you’re not asking the HS to teach and apply it to you, you’re going to have issues. Ken Mansfield was US manager for Apple Records (Beatles’ label). He wrote The Beatles, the Bible and Bodega Bay in 2000. He tells of some raucously good times early on. But the Beatles broke up. The good times stopped. By the mid-1980’s Ken had hit rock bottom – heavily in debt, no money, and no prospects. About that time he fell in love with Connie who became his wife and introduced him to Christ. He says that before Jesus, Billboard Magazine was his Bible, record charts his God, and prestige his purpose. That all changed when he came to Christ. He says, “I needed a chart, a journal with clear directions, a log to refer to—a guidebook wherein their commands could speak to my wandering spirit. I needed a book so powerful that its very words could burn a living message into the absolute heart of my heart. I needed the irrefutable, holy Word of God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of the very seas I was lost upon!” While some celebrity conversions are suspect after people get back on their feet, not Ken’s. He continues a speaking and writing ministry that glorifies the God He met thru the Book that became his compass. If Jesus found the Bible foundational, how much more we. 3. It’s Final 39 Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” [Remember the scribes were mostly Pharisees. After having been regularly beaten like a drum by Jesus’ answers to their questions, they were only too happy to see the Sadducees go down in flames. But note the next verse] 40 For they no longer dared to ask him any question.” In Luke’s gospel this is the last verbal challenge to Jesus. He’s left all of His enemies bloodied and beaten. And Jesus has the last word. God’s message always has the last Word. It is truth and in the end, truth prevails. Our relativistic society will be surprised one day to find out there is such a thing as absolute truth. They will be amazed to find out that Jesus really is the way, and the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except thru Him.” God’s revelation in His written Word and in the living Word – Jesus Christ – is final. Jesus makes an amazing statement in Mt 24:35 that has lost its impact through familiarity. But listen as tho you’ve never heard it before: “35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Look around today, Beloved. Take a hard look. Only two things are going to survive in eternity. 5 Your existence and God’s Word. Everything else you see? Temporary. Here today, gone tomorrow. But you and God’s Word? Eternal. Better pay attention, don’t you think? Lose your compass and you’ll lose yourself. Jer 23:29: "’Is not My word like fire?’ declares the Lord, ‘and like a hammer which shatters a rock?’” If you don’t do anything else with your life – study the Word. Otherwise you may follow the Sads into a Christless eternity. David said in Psa 119:127 Therefore I love your commandments above gold, above fine gold.” Can you say that? You can’t find perfection very many places, but you can find it in God’s Word. I love the quote by Simone Weil: “To be always relevant, you have to say things which are eternal.” You won’t find those things in those who mock the Bible. Their books are all replaced within a generation. You won’t find it in the philosophy books, nor in the psychology books. You can find it in only one place – the Word of God. After all has been said and done, the last Word belongs to God. Conc – Don’t make the mistake of the Sads who underestimated both God’s Might and God’s Message. “Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith’s door / And heard the anvil ring the evening chime; / Then looking in, I saw upon the floor / Old hammers, worn with beating years of time. / “How many anvils have you had,” said I, / “To wear and batter all these hammers so?” / “Just one,” he answered with a twinkling eye, / “The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.” / And so, thought I, the Anvil of God’s Word, / For ages skeptic blows have beat upon; / Yet, though the noise of infidels was heard, / The Anvil is unworn—the hammers -- gone!” Philosophies will be gone. Scientific theories – gone. Human objections to the Word – gone. What will be left standing? The Word – only God’s Word. I Pet 1:25, “But the word of the Lord remains forever.” It’s the only compass you’ll ever need, but it’s lost to you if it just sits on the shelf, unused, unwanted, unappreciated. At one point in Jesus’ ministry when the crowds were deserting in droves, Jesus asked the disciples if they were leaving, too. Peter wisely answered, “You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68). Do you love His Word? Let’s give Jesus the last Word today: Jn 12:48, “The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.” It’s the one thing that will last forever – as your condemnation – or your eternal life. Let’s pray. 6