Set The Bar
“And Jesus answered and said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at Him.”
You see, the Pharisees were trying to catch the Lord out. They said: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Shall we pay or shall we not pay?” That is verses 14 - 15. And Jesus said that we need to pay. You see, Caesar was the oppressor. They were oppressing the jews and yet the Lord said, “Obey the law.” We cannot each do our own thing, otherwise, we will be faced with total anarchy. It will be a complete state of disorder.
As Christians, we must set the bar, we must set the standard. If we disregard authority then chaos will rule and that is exactly what the devil wants to happen. For example, breaking the speed limit... You say, “But everybody else does, Angus.” - That doesn’t make it right. We need to pay our income taxes. We need to obey the law.
We have seen with our own eyes, just recently, what happens when people disregard the law... Violence, looting, and arson take place. Every man for himself - Greed, selfishness... No respect for our fellow man, complete disaster! But you and I, we shall obey the law. We shall be good examples and uphold the law, not for any other reason but because God said so.
Many years ago, I was preaching in a rural community amongst a group of farmers on a Saturday night with moms, dads, boys and girls, all together in the farm hall... But there had been unrest and breaking of the law in that district. One angry farmer stood up and said, “Doesn’t it say in the Bible, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? I would like some of that sweet revenge.” I looked at him and I said to him in front of everybody, “Sir, you are a very selfish man, aren’t you? For a little bit of self-revenge, you are prepared to put the lives of your family on the altar.” He became very quiet.
We must obey the law, we must pray and we must love one another and we must let God deal with revenge. Jesus says:
“Vengeance is Mine. I will repay.” Romans 12:19
Go out today and be a good follower of Jesus Christ.
God bless you and goodbye.