"Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister (serve to bring up) questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith " (1Tim. 1:4)

What's the Background - April 1, 2023 - Dr. David Antion

What's the background? What characterized all of Jesus teachings and actions?What characterized it? Here in the book of Mark, chapter twelve, he was arguing with the Sadducees, and Jesus said god is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And then Mark, chapter twelve, verse 28 one of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that he had answered them well, jesus answered the Sadducees well. So he asked Jesus another question what commandment is the foremost of all? And Jesus answered the foremost of all is here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.

In other words, our God is one. YHWH one lord. Okay, the Lord our God is echad Ekhad.

That's the Hebrew word Ekad means one, but it doesn't mean always one single, because it can mean one group, one group of grapes, one group of people as well. And you shall love. So here's the second and you shall love the eternal.

This is the commandment, the other was not the commandment. What is the foremost of all? You shall love the eternal, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. Now Jesus went beyond what the book of Deuteronomy says, but he put strength and mind and so on.

So Jesus, that's the first and foremost. The second is this you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus then made the statement there is no other commandment greater than these.

Well, when the scribe heard that, he said this is verse now 32 describe said to him, right teacher, you have truly stated that he is one and that there is no one else beside him. And to love him with all the heart, with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as himself is now listen to his statement is more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. When Jesus heard that, when Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, he said to him you are not far from the kingdom of God.

After that, no one dared ask him any more questions. That's Mark chapter 12:28 through 34 so you're not far from the kingdom of God. And he said to love God with all your heart, to love your neighbor as yourself.

Listen to this is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrament. All the rituals, all rituals fade into nothing. Compared to what? To the love of God and the love of your fellow man.

Remember in Luke somebody asked well, who's my neighbor? I mean, how am I going to know who my neighbor is? And then Jesus gave this story of the Good Samaritan, which one was the neighbor? To the man who fell among thieves, the one who helped him. Sure, the neighbor. Now I want to drop down into the book of Matthew, matthew chapter 16.

So I just want to set that that's Jesus basic themes love of god and love for your fellow man. That's his basic theme. Matthew, chapter 16.

Now now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he was asking his disciples. Now, I want to tell you, you read that and you pass right by it, as I have many, many times. When he came into the district of Caesarea Philip.

Now, where was he coming from? Well, he lived in Nazareth. He often stayed with people in Capernum. Now, we drove from Capernum in that area all the way up to Caesarea Philippi.

It took us driving at 40, 50, 60 miles an hour on nice paved highways all the way up to and north to Caesarea Philippi. It took us an hour and a half or more to driving on a bus at 60 miles an hour. Now, you imagine there's no paved streets.

You're going in the wilderness, you're going over rocks, you're going up the mountain, you're going over here. It must have taken Jesus and his disciples about four days. Go so far, have to camp.

Go so far, have to camp. Go so far, have to camp. Now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesaria, Philippines, now, Caesaria Philippi was Philip the Tetrarch's flattering to Caesar the Herods all wanted to flatter Caesar.

They want to get in trouble with Caesar, keep Caesar happy, okay? Keep troubles down in Israel, keep Caesar happy. So Jesus was saying he was saying to his disciples, who do people say that the Son of man is? Now, he's referring to himself as the Son of man. There's no doubt about that.

Who do people say the Son of man is? They said. Some say John the Baptist. You're resurrected john.

Others say Elijah, days of Elijah. Here it is. Others say Jeremiah.

Yeah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets, he said to them, but who do you say that I am? And immediately Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ. Now, when you use the word Christ, it is the Greek word for anointed one. The Hebrew word for anointed one is the Messiah.

Messiah is anointed one. Now, what was the Messiah? What was a king? What was King Saul? David said, I will not raise my hand against the Lord's anointed. By the way, we went to Ngeti.

Ngeti is where David was fleeing from Saul. Beautiful area. Beautiful area.

And there's a spring there and a waterfall that comes down. It's one of the wonderful places, what you do in Israel if you're walking if you're going to various places, you're looking for water all the time. Where are we camping? Where's good water? And we saw people this spring coming down out of a mountain there and making a little waterfall.

And there were some young people that walk way down in there. And I took a picture of them where the waterfall was coming down. Now, where David and his men were hiding out were up higher in and among the caves and stuff.

Saul's men were searching for him there. And if you remember the story, saul had to relieve himself. And so he went into a cave.

David was way back in the cave. Saul came into the cave, took his coat and threw it back. And he relieved himself.

And David snuck up and cut a part of the cloth from his coat. But his men said, this is your chance right here. God has delivered him into your hands.

Why don't take him? Take him right here. Kill him. David said, I will not raise my hand against the Lord's anointed.

He is the king. He was the anointed. So Simon Peter said, you are the Christ, the anointed, the son of the living God.

Not only are you the Messiah, you're the son of the living God. That's the y hwh, the ever living God. And Jesus said to them blessed, said to him, blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, that is son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you.

But my Father who is in heaven, I also say to you that you are Peter. And upon this rock I will build my church. And the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

Now, the word Peter here is the Greek word petros. So people now try to make a big change on this. You are petros.

And upon this Petra I will build my church. So people say, well, see, Peter is petros like a stone. And then Petra is a rock and so on.

Well, here's the problem. Peter is a masculine. Petros is masculine.

Petra is feminine. They would not call Peter Petra. He cannot be called Petra because that's a feminine word for him.

He's a man. He has to be called a petros. And upon this Petra, now the Petra was all over here.

This was a big rock area, Caesaria Philippi, huge rock area, out of which comes the stream beginning the Jordan River. So he says to him, you're the Christ, the son of the living God. And he says, I say to you that you are petros.

You're Rocky. What does that word mean? Rocky Marciano. Rocky Graciano.

Rocky Balboa. What does that mean? The word Rocky is like you're tough, you're strong, you're something to stand by and so on. And upon this pitch, Petra, this rock here, I'm going to build my church.

Then we drop down a few verses, okay? And then in chapter 16 of Matthew, verses 1818 through 23, I also say to you that you are Peter. And upon this rock and now in verse 19, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth shall have been have already been bound in heaven.

Whatever you bind on earth shall have been loose. Whatever you loose on Earth will be loosed in heaven have already been loosed. Then he warned the disciples that they should tell no one that he was the Messiah, the Anointed one, the Christ.

Don't tell anybody I'm the Messiah, okay? You would think that would be good news. No, he did not want that out. From that time, Jesus began to show the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes.

Going to suffer a lot of things and be killed and raised up on the third day. Let me tell you what's going to happen to me. I'm going to go to Jerusalem.

They're going to arrest me. They're going to do this. Now, here's what Peter says in verse 22.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. God forbid it, Lord, this shall never happen to you. What are you talking about? You're going to go there and they're going to arrest you.

What are you talking about? How? Get it out of your head. This is not going to happen. Now, Jesus turned to him, now, let me ask you a question.

Can you blame Peter for saying that? Here's a man who's teaching love, here's a man who heals people. Here's a man who tells his disciples to yield and don't resist. And if Roman soldier asks you to go 1 mile, go 2 miles.

If they ask you to do this, be there. And we're not fighting. We're not being hateful.

We're not going to do this. So we're law abiding. But he turned to Peter and said, get behind me, Satan.

You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on God's interest, but on man. You just want to think in terms of this is going to continue. I'm going to be here all the time, and I'm not going to die, and all that.

Now, if we analyze this, we ask the question, why should he be killed? Why? What did Jesus Christ ever do that would come to a crime worthy worthy of death? What did he do that would be such a crime? Why would the Pharisees and the Sadducees and so on want to kill him? For what? Why could they get the Romans to try to kill him? Romans don't care. Romans don't care if he healed on the Sabbath. They don't care.

Let's your Jewish law just see to it yourselves. Or is he going to be killed because he called the Pharisees hypocrites white encephalkers hypocrites actors, even called the Sadducees? You're nothing but actors. You're a bunch of actors.

Hypocrites actors. You're playing a part. You're not really there.

You're not care. You don't even lift one little finger to help people. You won't even lift your little finger to help the burdens of people.

That's not punishable by death to say that there's nothing there. He accused the Sadducees of laying heavy burdens on people. Okay, so that's fine.

By the way, when many of the Jews argued, they called each other names. What did they call Jesus? Jesus called him white and sepulchurs. Jesus called them hypocrites.

What did they call Jesus? They called him a bastard. We're not born to fornication. They called him crazy demon possessed.

You do it by a demon, you must be demon possessed. And so this was par for the course. They had an argument and they called each other these various names.

This was not anything different. The Essenes left Jerusalem. They called that temple where the Sadducees were, the evil temple.

They got away and went into the desert. Okay? Now he was a man who preached love and forgiveness. He healed people.

He preached a higher form of morality. Name calling and accusations were very common among the Jews and various sects. Okay, what's the crime that they could commit? It'd be like one of you being arrested for something and charged with a crime that would be worthy of death.

None of you will ever do that. That would never happen to any of you. Why? Because you're law abiding, you're caring, you're loving people.

So from Galilee he gathered, yes, quite a number of followers and people who accepted him as the Messiah. Now, when you say Messiah, there's a different concept for the Jews than there are for what you and I think about Messiah. To the Jews, Messiah meant a king.

He meant a cosmic judge, somebody who's coming, somebody who's a king, who's going to lead against the evil powers over us, who's going to rescue us from slavery and take us into freedom. They believed that, they saw that, and that's the strong man who's going to come out and do something against these terrible things that we have. Okay, so what could they possibly have on Jesus that would be worthy of death? Okay? Now, he sent out his disciples.

This is Matthew Ten. I'm going to read Matthew Ten. Jesus summoned the twelve disciples and he gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.

Now, the names of the twelve apostles were first, Simon, who was called Peter. Andrew, his brother, james, the son of Zebedee. John, his brother Philip, and Bartholomew.

Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector. James, the son of Elphaus and Thaddeus. Then there was Simon, the Zealot, and Judas, Escariot, the one who betrayed him.

These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, do not go by way of the Gentiles, and they'll go to any city of the Samaritans, but preach to the lost sheep of the house of Israel as you go. Preach saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.

Freely you received, freely give, do not acquire gold or silver or copper for your money belts or a bag for your journey, or even two coats or sandals of staff for the worker is worthy of his support. And whatever city or village you enter into, say, whether it's worthy of you and stay at that. If it's worthy, stay there.

As you enter the house, give it your blessing, your greeting. If the house is worthy, give it your blessing of peace. But if it's not, just take back your blessing at peace and move on.

Whoever does receive you does not receive you, does not receive your words. As you go out of that house of that city, shake the dust off your feet. Truly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable in the Day of Sodom and Gomorrah than the Day of Judgment for that city.

Okay. It says, Judas is the one who's going to betray him. Here's the question.

How did Judas betray him? What is he going to say? Oh, he's a bad man. He steals? He does this? No, I think we think that the betrayal was the fact that he went up and kissed Jesus on the cheek. That's the one.

Arrest him. Let me ask you. 30 pieces of silver was quite a sum of money.

Would you pay 30 pieces of silver to have somebody identify a man that was well known? All the pharisees saw him. He argued with them. They asked him questions.

The sadducees questioned him. They argued about things. They all saw him.

Why would you pay somebody 30 pieces of silver to find what almost anybody could have pointed out? We know who he is. We see where he is. Why would you do that? So what could? Judas.

Escariot. What was his crime? Saying he was the messiah. Well, there were many people that did that.

What did Jesus say in Mark, chapter 13, verse 22? For false Christs. That means false messiahs. And false prophets will arise and show signs and wonders in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect.

But take heed and behold, I have told you everything in advance. Then, in those days after the initiation, the sun will be dark and the moon will not give its light and the stars will be falling from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great glory.

But people ask him, when is it going to happen? He said, Only the Father knows the day or the hour. So why did Jesus choose twelve? Why didn't he choose six people? Shorter, easier, more compatible? He chose twelve disciples. Why? Matthew 19, verse 27 then Peter said to him, behold, we have left everything and followed you.

What then will there be for us? What good is it? Jesus said to them, truly I say to you that you who have followed me in the regeneration when the Son of man sits on his glorious throne, you shall sit upon the twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Each one of you. Can you imagine hearing this? You're a fisherman.

You're a tax collector. You're a worker of some sort. You're not any professional.

You're just common people and somebody's telling you you're going to see when I get on my throne, you're going to be a ruler. That's hard to believe it. As it is for you and me now.

Hard to believe it. We're not going to sit on one of those thrones. Those are reserved for his twelve apostles, twelve disciples, and everyone, he says, who have left houses and brothers and sisters and fathers or mothers or children or farms for my sake, will receive many times more and inherit eternal life.

But many who are first will be last and the last will be first. These are people who were generally last in the society. They were not elite, they were not royalty, they were not anything.

They were just fishermen and farmers and people who worked hard and so on. So here's in Luke, chapter 22, verse 28, you are those who have stood by me in my trials. And just as my father has granted me a kingdom, I will grant you that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you shall sit on the thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Simon. Simon. Behold, Satan has demanded possession to sift you like a wheat.

But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail and that you have turned against, pardon me. And once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. But he said to him, lord, Lord, with you I'm ready to go both to prison and to death.

He was ready to go and he said, I say to you, Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied me three times. Denied that you know me. That's pretty stuff for the man of rock.

All of a sudden he becomes a man of sand. Really? So what, they paid Judas 30 pieces of silver to what? To just say that's the guy that's Jesus, everybody knew, most people knew who he was. So what did they have to tell the Sadducees? Because you remember Judas went back and threw the coins back in the temple.

What did the Sadducees want to know that they could use to get Rome to crucify him? Just what we read. Judas went to the chief priest and he said, you know, he doesn't say this, he doesn't preach this. He tells us secretly that he's going to be the king.

Each of us are going to be over one of the twelve tribes of Israel ruling he is going to be the Messiah and the King. Okay? Now that the Sadducees have that, what they want is to tell, you know, to, to tell the, the authorities, get him to admit he's the Messiah and that he's going to be the king. So here in the Book of John, chapter 18, therefore Pilate entered again into the Praetorium and summoned Jesus and said to him, are you the King of Jews? Jesus said, Are you saying this on your own? Or did other people tell you? Don't tell this about me.

Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? But the last thing Pilate would ever want to be. He hated Jews. He hated Jews, and he was cruel to them.

Cruel. Remember that one? The people were coming to sacrifice, and he mixed them in with their sacrifices. Well, you like the burn stuff? We'll throw you in there, too.

I am not a Jew. Am I a Jew? I'm not a Jew. Am I? Your own nation? And the chief priest delivered you to me.

Now, Pilate was an emissary from Rome. He had to keep track and make things right. And what was Rome always, always on the alert.

Almost every single year at Passover time or any of the major festivals, rome was on the alert. And Pilate had to come, leave his one place and come into Jerusalem, bring troops in there and have some Roman troops. Because there was always somebody who was claiming to be a messiah, claiming to lead a revolt against the Roman Empire and so on.

And they would catch them, and they would crucify them, and they would put them to death. You're not allowed to do that. And they would stop this.

And so every year at Passover, they were always alert of what was going to happen. So, Pilate, answer. I'm not a Jew.

Your own nation delivered, Jesus answered. So he said, delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from this realm. Therefore, Pilate said to him, So you are a king.

What are you telling me? You're claiming to be a king? And Jesus answered, you said correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.

Pilate said, well, what is the truth here? And when he had said this, he went out and began and again to the Jews and said to them, I find no guilt in him. He's like a crazy person. He's making statements like it's not of he's a king, but not of this world.

I know, I know. But you have a custom that I release someone at Passover. Who do you want me to release for you? This King of the Jews.

And it's a mockery, this king of the Jews or somebody else. And they cried out again, not this man, but Barabbas. Barabbas.

Now, Barabbas was a robber. He was a criminal. The drainage had the criminal.

So Pilate then chapter 19, verse one. Pilate then took Jesus and scourged him. Let's beat him up real good.

That's make him bloody. And the soldiers twisted crown of thorns and put it on his head and put a purple robe on him. And they began to come upon him to say, Hail, King of the Jews, and to give him slaps in the face.

Pilate came out again and said to him, look, behold, I'm bringing him out to you so that you may know that I don't find that much guilt in him. I know he's labor to be a king. But Jesus then came out wearing that crying of thorns, purple robe.

Pilate said, Behold the man, look, it's pathetic here. And when the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, Crucify him, crucify. And Pilate said to them, well, take him yourself and crucify him, for I don't find a guilt.

And the Jews answered, we have a law and that he is broken and you have to do it. He made himself out the Son of God. Now, chapter 19 dropping down to 14 we have no king but Caesar.

Now, it was the day of the preparation. By the way, they remember they said to him, if you don't do this, you're no friend to Caesar. We only have the king Caesar.

And if you let this guy get away with saying he's king, you're no friend to Caesar. So we have no king but Caesar. This is John 19, verse 14.

Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover and it was about the 6th hour. And he said to the Jews, behold your king. And they cried out, away with him, away with him.

Crucify him. Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priest said, we have no king but Caesar. So they handed him over to be crucified.

That was it. He was handing him over. Crucifixion was one of the worst, horrible it was designed there are a lot of ways crucifixion was designed to, what should I say, make you suffer as long as possible in, excruciating, absolutely, almost impossible to endure ways.

And you would just be there and be there. And people started thinking that they had to nail you through the wrist here. But they did find bones of people where the nail was driven through the hand.

And evidently the hand does have enough ligaments and strength that you were nailed up with the hand. You could hang, you could hold yourself up. Then they put a little bit of a place to sit.

And by the way, crucifixion was not pretty by any means and there was no loincloth. You were meant to be embarrassed. You were meant to be looked on and laughed at.

And so here was Jesus being going to be crucified. So if if each of the disciples were going to be ruling over a tribe, that would make Jesus the king. Okay? So Judas told them what Jesus was saying to them, that he didn't preach this.

By the way, I'm preaching that I'm going to be the king. And they're going to be over the twelve. That was something he only told the disciples in private.

He didn't tell that. That was not part of his preaching. Judas must have told them, get him to admit he's the king.

He has told us that he's going to rule and we're going to be sitting on the twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes. That's why he chose twelve disciples. But that's what got him killed.

That's what allowed Rome to think we got to do it now. You think Pilate was not I don't find it that big a deal here. He hated, he hated the Pharaoh and Sadducees, he he hated most Jews.

Pilate was cruel as he could be. So it wasn't that. Pilot is a nice guy, doesn't want to hurt anybody.

That's not true. Pilate hurt a lot of people. He killed a lot of Jews.

Any excuse to do so would have made him very happy. But in this case he saw that this would aggravate the Sadducees if he didn't kill Jesus. So he was going to say, well, I don't see he should be killed and they want him.

Yes, crucify him. Crucify him. They demanded it.

So they sent him away to be crucified. And he walked up to the Mount of Olives from the Judgment Hall, which I saw the area where both Ernest Martin and Dr. Tabor believe was the Judgment Hall, where he pronounced Jesus and took him up and he had to walk with his parabellum.

They had permanent steaks in. They didn't have to put a new steak in for every time. But if they had to, they did.

They had some steaks up there and then they came out of there and hung him on that steak. And by the way, Jesus is not the only one that suffered like that. Every person was crucified, suffered and suffered and suffered until they just expired and the pain was excruciating.

Romans didn't want anybody even mentioning in polite society in Rome you were not supposed to mention the word crucifixion or crucify. It was that horrible. And people it upset people.

If you were at a banquet or something somebody mentioned about crucifixion, it was not good. That's what God Jesus killed. None of the other actions that he ever did, only Judas betrayal.

And I believe that was the betrayal, not kissing him on the cheek. The betrayal was he told them the inner circle talk about him being a king and once they could get Pilate to admit he was a king then they could just yell and if you don't kill him, you're no friend of Caesar. We only have one king.

Caesar is our king. And so he hung him. And then of course the greatest mockery of all.

Here's a man thorns on his head, bloody and beaten. You could see bones on his back and through ribs and then naked on the cross. And then the words King of the.

Jews above his, and that's nothing but mockery. Here he is, the King of the Jews. Here's the King of the Jews.

He's dying. The Jews could not accept that as the Messiah. Never.

They could not. That's not the way. Their Messiah has to be a king who's coming with strong and powerful and is going to overthrow all these governments that hold Israel as slaves.

That's how it ended. Well, we know it didn't end because Jesus was resurrected. If he didn't get resurrected, all his teachings, all that would have been just mere.

It would have just kind of faded. His whole movement would have stopped because Peter said I'm going back to fishing, I'm going to go back to do my work. Others were going to leave and scattered.

But once they found out that he had been resurrected and he appeared to them, as Paul said, he appeared first to Sephas. And by the way, let me just say this about Peter. Peter was a linchpin and a rock.

On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached and told people he converted 3000 people. Then with that other miracle in the temple and so on, there was no other name among where men may be saved or healed. They had about 5000 more.

And it was Peter who stood up and took the beatings and told them no, we cannot stop saying what we saw. Yes, it was Peter who took the church into the Gentile world that God chose to show that he was wanting to convert Gentiles. And Peter was the one who saw them before they were baptized.

Receive the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. It was Peter that did all that. Yes, I know he had weaknesses, but it was Peter who did these things.

He was definitely the lead apostle, definitely the rock, definitely Mr. Strong, a strong man, and he was instrumental in building the Christian church, no doubt about it.

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