https://www.drycreekbiblechurch.com/sermons/gospel-first-things

Great sermon yesterday by Pastor Carlson. It made me realize that Jesus wasn’t the only one claiming to be the Son of God, the Jewish leaders were as well. The thing about arrogance is that it’s not arrogant if you can do it. Jesus was the Christ, they were just arrogant. And the war begins over the Old Testament. We should not listen to the Jews, especially today on their views of the OT, because they were wrong Jesus says those scriptures speak of him, and they missed it. And they have defined this new Judaism on this rejection. The old Judaism became Christianity.

Jesus quotes from Psalm 82, “God said to certain leaders of the people, ‘I say, you are gods!” And you know they loved this verse, they thought of themselves as gods. They all claimed to be gods in their heart, they were the chosen people. But Jesus claimed it in public and he backed it up. The whole Psalm is contrasting good rulers from bad. The Pharisees claimed this as their book so here is what their book actually says, it says good rulers hear the cases of the poor and helpless, rather than profiting off of them. These people had been wronged and needed a judge to hear their case and give them justice, this is the last thing the Pharisees would do, and so they proved to be unjust rulers. They favored the wicked. And they also judged Jesus wrongly, while Jesus judged the people fairly, he showed them compassion. He also judged the Old Testament rightly and gave this teaching to the people so that they would not be ignorant and oppressed.

Many Psalms and other ancient poems are written in chiasm a sort of mirrored pattern. And what’s in the middle is usually the focus:

 

Also we have the idea that God made the world so he could communicate to us. He made the lilies of the field so he could say “consider the lilies of the field” And he put this Psalm in the Bible so he could speak of the Pharisees.

 

I don’t think I have ever heard anything more disturbing than a rabbi trying to explain away the clear Biblical teaching against sodomy.  It’s his book he says, trust him.  Here we have Dennis Prager doing the same thing with pornography.  Is it any wonder that the world’s pornographers are Jewish?  They don’t see a problem with it.  They read the OT just like the arrogant Jews of Jesus’ day.  It’s a set of rules they can mostly follow.  They don’t need Jesus, they just need a Jew who can give them their rightful place as kings of the world.   Because they are better than everyone.  But take heed lest we fall. You see the same arrogance among the Mohammedans, the Chinese, or even the Catholics.  But it’s also here, many Americans think we deserve to rule the world.  But it doesn’t work like that Jesus rules the world, we just work for him.  Or in our nation’s case, we stand in his way and so he cuts off the tree and grafts in . . . Africa? China?