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were the supporters of the king and of the Roman government along that they might hear what Jesus said when they Jiad trap ped Him into saying that they should not give tribute to Caesar. But their plot failed utterly and our Lord instead of be ing entrapped, gave an answer, which not merely filled them with confusion, but sets forth the Christian’s conduct toward civil government for the whole present dispen sation. He made it clear that paying trib ute to the government was simply paying back what was received from the govern ment, for if we take Caesar’s money, we must pay back to Caesar what belonged to him add that there was no conflict between duty to our rulers and duty to God. The Pharisees and Herodians having failed in their attempt to entrap Jesus, the Sadducees now try their hand. The ob ject of their question was to perplex Jesus, but it did not perplex Him at all. Instead of being at a loss for an answer, He ex poses their utter ignorance and error. Their whole question showed that they had no proper conception of the resurrection life, the root out of which the error sprang was ignorance of the Scripture and ignor ance of the power of God. We do well to ponder our Lord’s words, “Ye do err not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.” Herein is the source of all error. All error in the world today comes from ignorance of, or unbelief in the Scriptures (cf. Luke 24:25-27, 44-46 ; 2 Tim. 3:13-16) The Church, as well as the world, is full of error through neglect of and ignorance of God’s Book. No amount of study of any other book or books than the Bible will safeguard one against error, but Bible study conducted in the right spirit, a spirit of absolute- surrender to the will of God (John 7 :17) and humble dependence upon the Holy Spirit in answer to prayer will save us from all error. Saturday, April 3. Matt. 22:23-33.
accept God’s invitation and do not make ready, we are despising both Him and His invitation.
Friday, April 2. Matt. 22:15-22.
The Pharisees and the Herodians were sworn and bitter enemies of one another but they had one thing in common, that was their hatred of Christ. The present instance was not the first one in which these two opposing parties conspired to gether against the object of their common hate (Mark 3:6). The Pharisees sought to entangle our Lord in His talk, the same thing is attempted by not a few in our own day; but the Pharisees did not suc ceed and those who today attempt it will not succeed. Before' the conference was over, the Pharisees themselves were very badly entangled in their talk. If any one today attempts to make a tangle of the words of Christ, he is sure to get badly entangled himself before he gets through. When our Lord had controversies with men, He always came out ahead and so it always will be.' It is best then not tp have any controversies with Him. The wise thing to do with Him and His words is simply to believe and obey. It is often said that if a man shows wisdom in his utterances and goodness in his conduct, he will escape the hatred in& plots of men, but no one ever showed such wisdom in His utterances and such goodness in His character and conduct as our Lord Jesus, but He did not escape the hatred and plots of men, no other man was ever so bit terly hated as He; and no amount of good ness and wisdom on our part will enable us to escape the hatred and plots of men (John 15:18-20). The counsel which the Pharisees took at this time against Jesus was a partial fulfillment of the prediction in Psalms 2:2 and a more complete ful fillment was soon to come (cf. Acts 4:24- 28). The Pharisees laid their plot very skilfully; they took the Herodians, who
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