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Aug. 27, 2024 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
27:08
Sermon #030 - Mark 11 - Christ reveals Caesar's fake currency and false authority...
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Welcome to today's sermon.
I'm Mike Adams, and we're picking up in chapter 11 of the Gospel According to Mark.
And the reason that this chapter is so special to me, I want to share this with you, is because I have a donkey named Hosanna.
And this donkey was named by our readers, perhaps some of you listening today.
We had this donkey, it was born on our ranch, the Health Ranger Ranch in Texas.
This was the first donkey born there, and we asked our viewers and readers, what should we name the donkey?
And there are a lot of different name ideas, and ultimately, the name that won out was Hosanna.
And of course, chapter 11 of Mark talks about Hosanna, and I'll read some of that for you here in a second.
But then Hosanna later had a daughter, and we named the daughter Basil.
So we have a donkey named Hosanna out of the Bible, and then we have a donkey named for an herb, which is also well known in ancient times and the Mediterranean area.
So kind of an interesting match, isn't it?
So let's just read from chapter 11, verse 1.
And now when they drew near Jerusalem to Bethphage and Bethany, and I apologize if I'm not pronouncing all these cities correctly, at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and he said to them, go into the village opposite you.
And as soon as you have entered it, you'll find a colt tied on which no one has sat.
Loose it and bring it.
And if anyone says to you, Why are you doing this?
Say, The Lord has need of it, and immediately he will send it here.
So, this is a little unusual.
They're basically borrowing a colt, well...
A donkey, as it turns out to be.
So I don't know, is it a donkey colt?
Well, let's continue.
So they went their way and found the colt tied by the door outside on the street, and they loosed it.
But some of those who stood there said to them, what are you doing loosing the colt?
Like, you're letting a donkey go.
And they spoke to them just as Jesus has commanded, so they let them go.
You know, saying, Now,
what's interesting about this verse is that nowhere does it say donkey.
It just talks about a cult.
But then, in other renditions of this, it has always been a donkey.
So, I don't know, you tell me, is this a donkey or is there a different interpretation?
Anyway, my donkey is named Hosanna, and the kind of donkey that it is, sometimes they're called Jesus donkeys.
You know why? Because if you look down on them from above, they have a black cross in their fur.
It's a very common type of donkey, at least as I understand it, but anyway...
So this black stripe runs all the way down their back from their neck to their tail and then another stripe crosses that kind of roughly where their shoulders are.
So there's a cross on the back of the donkey named Hosanna at my ranch.
Kind of interesting.
And guess how many donkeys I ended up with at the ranch?
Seven. Seven donkeys.
None of this was by design.
This was obviously years before I even thought about teaching scripture, but I ended up with seven donkeys and the firstborn donkey named Hosanna.
Now then, let's talk about Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers, because that's also in the same chapter.
It's in verse 15.
So they came to Jerusalem.
Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.
Now you've probably heard a lot about Jesus...
Getting righteous with the money changers.
Why? Because the money changers were known as the cheaters of that day.
They would overcharge people.
Or, possibly, they would loan people money and then charge interest on the loans, and they would overcharge interest.
Well, Jesus didn't get mad at very many people in his days.
But the money changers, or as we would call them today, the banksters, he got mad at the banksters.
And he threw their tables over.
You know, like you do when you're a kid and you're playing a game of Monopoly with your siblings.
And then you were losing badly because your brother or your sister got boardwalk and park place.
And then at some point you're like, I'm not playing.
And you just threw the table over.
Yeah. Little temper tantrum there from Jesus, but justified.
He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.
And verse 16, Then he taught, saying to them, is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of thieves?
Basically, this is Jesus saying, this is a place of worship, not a place of commerce, and certainly not a place of cheating people out of their money by functioning as money changers, right?
So... Lots of references, obviously, to greed and money throughout the Bible.
I will do a sermon focused on that.
We've covered a few verses before, but that's not my primary focus, being someone focused on nutrition and herbs and so on.
But we will get to a sermon specifically about gold and silver.
Sometime here in the 100.
And then later as he's walking through Jerusalem, well, let me just read it.
Verse 27. So this is the institution of the church of the day.
Not happy with Jesus.
Not happy that he's healing people, well, or accelerating their healing, as we say.
Not happy that he's teaching people to have a direct relationship with God.
Not happy that he's empowering people.
Not happy at all.
Remember, throughout the Bible, in Old and New Testaments, the church is corrupt.
In many cases, the church is corrupt, and a lot of the teachings of the prophets is trying to correct the corruption of the church, which never seems to last.
So the priests become corrupt and the scribes, the elders, as mentioned here.
And then verse 28, they said to him, by what authority are you doing these things?
And who gave you this authority to do these things?
So Jesus answers them with a riddle that they can't answer themselves.
And so ultimately he says, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.
Because his authority, of course, is from God.
And I'm wondering if his question was, what have I got in my pockets?
No. Oh, wait. That's Lord of the Rings.
Sorry. Wrong chapter.
So now we get to chapter 12 about paying taxes to Caesar.
Yeah, this brings up a lot of, well, a lot of emotion and a lot of people.
Let's jump in here.
Verse 13. Then they sent to him some of the Pharisees and the Herodians to catch him in his words.
Again, they were trying to set traps for Jesus.
They wanted to arrest him. Ultimately, of course, they wanted to kill him, and they did.
Verse 14. We know that you are true and care about no one, for you do not regard the person of men, but teach the way of God in truth.
You can hear I'm kind of acting out the sinister nature of their trap.
They're trying to set a trap for him.
They say, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?
Shall we pay or shall we not pay?
But he, referring to Christ, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, why do you test me?
Bring me a denarius so that I may see it.
That's the coin of the realm, of course.
So they brought it, verse 16.
And he said to them, whose image and inscription is this?
They said to him, Caesar's.
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 marveled at him.
But this is a really clever answer of Jesus, and this has been misinterpreted by many churches today.
Because what Jesus was really saying is that this currency is a fictional creation of man.
And yes, man can lay claim to its own creations of fictional currencies, but man cannot lay claim to those things which are God's.
And so in man's world of synthetic things and false things and made-up things like your modern-day money, your dollars, you know, what are your dollars?
Nothing but debt. It's a piece of debt.
Paper money or currency.
It's not even really money because it doesn't qualify as money.
It doesn't hold value. So it's currency.
Can your modern government, which is most likely rooted in Satanism, can it lay claim to its own creations rooted in debt and destruction and suffering and Satanism, which is the dollar?
Let's be honest. That's what the dollar is.
It's an instrument of control, an instrument of debt, an instrument of weaponization.
So can Caesar lay claim to the domain of things that Caesar created or that man created?
Yes. Jesus said, yeah, that's mankind's domain.
He seems to be implying that that's got nothing to do with real currency, currency with God, currency with the Lord's grace, the Lord's recognition of who you are and the things that you have earned morally with integrity in this life.
You see, Jesus assigns no value to currency.
In fact, later on in this chapter, he rails against those who try to collect currency, thinking that it is wealth, because currency is not wealth.
This is in Matthew chapter 19, verse, I think it's 23.
Yes, Jesus said to his disciples,"'Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.'" And again, I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
And that's the way Jesus looks at people who accumulate greed and wealth.
And there are many, many examples of that.
We've covered them in some of the other sermons.
Now, I think one of the best descriptions of this is found in 1 Timothy 1.
And we covered 1 Timothy in another sermon, but let me bring you back to chapter 6, verse 3.
Now, remember, this was Timothy sent out to help correct the churches.
Because again, churches become corrupt and their priests become corrupt and they get all into greed and popularity and all their rich robes and all their collections of material wealth.
So here we are in verse 3.
If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words from which come envy, strife, reviling, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain from
See, don't use the church as your little, you know, material wealth pyramid scheme or whatever.
That's not going to get you anywhere with God.
And it goes on in verse 6.
See? Godliness with contentment is great gain.
Great gain. Because that's worth more than any stock values and money in your online accounts that you log in.
Clickety-clack, I logged in.
Look at the numbers on the screen.
I'm so rich. No, you're not.
Not necessarily. Not from numbers on the screen.
Verse 7, for we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
So all those numbers on your screens, are you taking those with you?
Nope. Nope, they don't count for anything in the eyes of God.
Verse 8, and having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.
You know, to have enough to eat, to have clothing and shelter.
Verse 9, So, the love of money is the root of all kinds,
all kinds of evil. The love of money turning into foolish and harmful lusts.
You know, what do people do with money in society today?
Think about it. If somebody, let's say somebody who's not spiritually mature, somebody who has lived their lives either in poverty or maybe middle class, they've never seen real money.
And then, for whatever reason, maybe they win the lottery and they get a billion dollars.
What do a lot of these people do with a billion dollars?
Um, I've seen videos online where, like, a lottery winner guy's like, cocaine and hookers, you know, and he's like, jet skis and private jets, mansions, and more cocaine and hookers, and it's like, yeah, you're just making the point.
That's what Timothy was talking about.
You can't have cocaine and hookers all over the church.
That's obviously not godly.
But, I mean, they didn't have cocaine back in the day of Timothy.
But if they did, you can bet, you can bet, Jesus would have, like, walked into the church in Jerusalem and overturned the cocaine table.
Like, what are you doing? So, yeah, the love of money is the root of all evil.
And this is why.
This is why Jesus says...
Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.
Your fake money goes to your fake authority, fake government.
You know, you're fake gods, you're fake men of authority, fake authority, whatever.
But render to God the things that are God's.
That is morality, loyalty, integrity, spirituality, maturity, and so on.
Now, this verse 17 here, the render to Caesar verse, this is Mark 12, verse 17.
This has been misinterpreted and mistaught by a lot of churches saying that, yeah, you should obey government.
So when government goes to a church and says, well, you have to have a vaccine mandate and a lockdown mandate.
You have to tell all your people they have to take the jabs and wear the masks and lock down their children from school and all this.
And the priests or the ministers, they sit there and they cite verse 17.
Well, you must render to Caesar all the things that are Caesar's.
Oh, they misinterpret the words of Christ.
They grossly misinterpret what Christ said.
Christ wasn't saying obey government.
He was saying that the world of government authority is fake and false.
Not even real.
The real world is the world of God and spirituality and your eternal life with God.
This world that we live in right now is a shallow simulation compared to the real eternal world with God.
That's what Jesus was saying.
It's very clear.
And also, he wasn't going to fall into the trap that the local priests were setting for him, trying to get him to say, you know, to have an insurrection against Caesar.
You know, we've seen that in modern times.
Oh, are you causing an insurrection?
You know, it'd be like January 6th for Jesus.
That would be called like JJ6, right?
Or J6J. They were trying to arrest him in a January 6th type of event.
Jesus the insurrectionist!
Jesus didn't fall for it.
He spoke in a way of higher truth that they couldn't catch him saying, do not obey Caesar.
But he also said, the greater, the transcendent obedience is to God.
And that's why the next line says, and they marveled at him.
I think they marveled at his wisdom, right?
His cleverness in being able to evade this trap.
Now next, we're going to see in verse 18, we'll hear about the Sadducees who were, it was a Jewish group that hated Jesus.
They never believed in the resurrection and they wanted to see Jesus killed.
So verse 18, Now there were seven brothers, they said, and they go on.
This is a riddle. It's like, I once met a man from St.
Ives, and on his way to St.
Ives, he had seven wives, and seven wives had seven cats, or whatever.
It's that kind of riddle. It's like, you had seven brothers, and then he took her, and he died, and they died, and should he have children with that wife, and this one, and then blah, blah, blah.
And they're trying to trap Jesus, is the bottom line here.
Therefore, in the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be?
So... This is a Jesus trap riddle from the Jews, essentially.
And in verse 24, Jesus answered and said to them, See, Jesus is always transcendent.
Just like with the answer about Rome, like, yeah, rendered to Caesar all Caesar's fake money.
But that doesn't matter when you go to heaven.
He's saying the same thing here.
Marriage doesn't matter when you go to heaven because you're going to be like angels in heaven.
It's a different dimension.
You know, marriage is a contract with the state between two people here on earth in this simulation.
In heaven, you're going to look at this.
That was a very interesting simulation.
We had little pieces of paper talking about contracts with the state.
It doesn't matter in the eyes of God when you become angels in heaven.
What matters is whether you acted with integrity and morality.
Were you loyal to your husband or wife in this world?
And did you do your best to move forward in this world with positive intentions for humanity and closeness with God?
And did you ask for forgiveness for your sins?
And did you forgive others? Issues like that, right?
So verse 26...
But concerning the dead that they arise, have you not read in the book of Moses, this is Jesus saying this, in the burning bush passage how God spoke to him saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.
You are therefore greatly mistaken.
And then another scribe comes forward and asks another question.
He asks Jesus, which is the first commandment of all?
And Jesus replies...
The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
This is the first commandment.
And the second, like it, is this.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There are no other commandment greater than these.
And the scribe said, Yep, that's the right answer, basically.
And... Christ said, yeah, you're not far from the kingdom of God.
And then after that, nobody had any more questions for him.
They could not out-quiz Jesus, it turns out.
They tried, but they couldn't stump him with riddles.
But of course, they did not try the riddle that you have one canoe, you have to cross the river, and you have a fox, a chicken, and a bag of grain.
And the fox wants to eat a chicken, the chicken wants to eat the bag of grain.
And... But you can only carry like one animal at a time or one thing at a time across the river.
How do you go back and forth with the canoe and still end up with the fox, the chicken, and the grain?
They did not ask Jesus that question.
Although Jesus' answer probably would have been, I would ditch the canoe, I would pick up the fox, the chicken, and the grain, and I would walk across the river with my bare feet.
Boom! I'm Jesus. That's what I can do.
So he would have transcended their question no matter what.
And then Jesus, he says, you should beware of the scribes.
Watch out for the scribes.
This is verse 38.
Then he said to them in his teaching, beware of the scribes who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts, who devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers.
These will receive greater condemnation.
I love this passage because this is Jesus taking issue with the flowery, overzealous, religious, the religiosity formalities of the scribes who are just preying upon the population like stage magicians, basically. They're not people of Christ.
They're not people of the Lord.
They don't live the life that Christ taught.
Or even that the Lord taught before Christ.
What these scribes do is they run around and they're all pretentious.
They pretend to be really, really important people so they can get all the VIP tickets, basically.
Oh, there's going to be a feast?
Well, I'm an important scribe.
Make sure I have the first plate and they load up at the buffet.
You know, you've seen people like this.
Man, leave some for everybody else, huh?
They run around and get the best seats at the concerts, you know.
It's like, watch out for the scribes.
Watch out for the scribes.
Well, of course, a few centuries later, they would be replaced with the Gutenberg Press.
But that would take a while.
All right, we're going to wrap it up here because the next chapter, of course, is Mark 13, and that deserves a whole discussion by itself.
So, we will get to that.
I have just a quick note.
I've also recorded a really fun sermon about turmeric, which you may wonder, is turmeric mentioned in the Bible?
According to scholars, indeed it is, but not by the name turmeric.
You actually have to go to the Hebrew name for curcumin, which we'll get to in the upcoming sermon.
And it's mentioned, by the way, in Song of Solomon.
And so, since I was teaching Song of Solomon and I was reading the lines, the lyrics of the Song of Solomon, I was like, wow, this is some flowery stuff.
You know, the king and this woman, this young woman, describing each other in the most flowery terms possible.
And I thought, you know, translated into English, this doesn't rhyme at all.
We need to re-rhyme this.
And we need to make a song out of it.
So... I did.
So I made a song.
I recorded the song.
It's called The Song of Solomon.
And we're busy right now putting animated lyrics to it.
And as soon as I have that done, I'll release the sermon about turmeric with the song.
It's a rap song, by the way.
The Song of Solomon rap, which is very funny.
It's hilarious.
If you read The Song of Solomon...
It's crazy. There are lines in there that are like, they're supposed to be complimentary.
Like your navel is as round as a goblet and your waist is like a heap of wheat.
And then the woman saying to the king, your neck is like the Tower of David.
Like, is that a compliment?
Your hair is like a flock of goats, he says back.
And it's hilarious.
So I could not resist.
I had to make a whole song out of that.
At one point he says to her too, he says, your nose is like Lebanon.
I didn't know what to make of that.
I mean, today, if you tweeted that out to somebody, could you get banned for that?
It's right out of the Bible.
Your nose is like Lebanon.
Is that a compliment?
Is it a suggestion for cosmetic surgery?
What does that mean?
How big was Lebanon in those days?
Was it like the shape of Lebanon on a map?
Your nose looks like this section of the map right here?
The rest of your face, we haven't yet assigned nations to it, but we'll get around to that.
Like, your cheeks are like Syria.
You know, your lips are like Jordan.
It's like, I'm not sure how this works, but anyway, it's pretty funny.
And then again, I have a little bit of a twisted sense of humor, so I couldn't resist.
But that's coming out.
Maybe a couple sermons down the road here.
You'll definitely want to stay tuned for that.
That's going to be the turmeric sermon with Song of Solomon.
So thank you for listening. Many more sermons yet to come.
I'm Mike Adams. God bless you all.
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