Matthew 12:24……….Working

Matthew 12:24……….Working

12:24 But when the Pharisees heard this, (Feeling jealousy and envy. Or Fearing they would lose their authority, they offer a quick alternative explanation.-(V. 23) they said, “It is only by Beelzebub,-(954-Lord of flies or dung. A pagan Canaanite god of Ekron. A euphemism for Satan.) the prince of demons, that this fellow (mere man, not Messiah. Or pest) drives out demons. (Unable to deny Jesus’ miracle they attribute to the power of Satan .)

Continued From Book

“Teaches those who are backed into a corner will combad the truth no matter how absurd & ridiculous it sounds.” ⇒ Underneath every intellectual argument is  hardened heart that does not want to know the answer. Just like the Pharisees we mask a rebellious heart under intellectual skepticism. Those who have already made up their minds about Jesus will build an explanation for their lack of faith. They decide what they believed to be true and then they chose arguments to fit what they already decided to disbelieve.

“Warns as we follow Jesus and do good, people will find something to criticize and complain about.” ⇒ We find this same kind of propaganda played out on the news. We see it on social websites where people will attack our character and motives. That there’s got to be more to the story. They just can’t be doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. If were going to make a difference in the times and places where we live, we have to expect opposition and ridicule………(To be Continued)

“Teaches those who can’t argue with our wisdom and truth, will attack our character and motivation instead.“ ⇒  There is nothing a sinful souls hate more than to feel that someone is better than us. Not necessarily more successful, nor more capable, but better, more righteous.There are people who think they are Christians, who might be outwardly religious – but when they come across the spiritual, Christ-centred Gospel believer they hate and reject it. …….(To be Continued)

“Even today, people will explain away Jesus’ miracles as a natural occurrence, slight-of-hand. Dying on the cross becomes fainting. Raising from the dead, becomes recovery from a coma. Empty tomb becomes, body stolen. Walking on water becomes, low tied. Feeding the 5000 becomes, food stashed away. ” ⇒ Moses parting the Red Sea, becomes people walked through a shallow, marshy area. Jonah swallowed by a big fish,  becomes a boat named ‘”Big Fish’ plucked Jonah from the sea. Still, others will try to explain way miracles to the ancient writers’ poor understanding of science or were simply natural explanations. That illnesses were psychological rather than physical. For many, it’s tempting to go the route of Thomas Jefferson and cut out all supernatural events from the Bible. It’s easy to treat God’s word as a collection of moral lessons from an ancient culture, explaining away the weird stuff as superstition. With that mentality, we can start explaining away miracles all throughout the Bible. Things like the sun standing still or God using Moses to turn the river into blood didn’t really happen, they just seemed that way. Jairus’s daughter wasn’t resurrected by Christ, her fever just happened to break. Jesus’ miraculous birth was borrowed from pagan mythology. Or the Hebrew word for “Virgin” (almah) actually means young woman/maid and not a virgin. Others will argue that if miracles did occur long ago, we should expect them to occur today. Therefore Jesus’ miracles should be duplicated by His followers today.

Additional Notes & Applications

Teaches how many will look for any excuse in order to silence the convictions of their own consciences.

Warns how many people will try to shatter our faith and draw us away from Jesus. That what happened to us was not real, that we’ve been brainwashed by some preacher or taken in by a cult.

Displays how those who fear losing power & control, will go into damage control.

Teaches those who fear the rope slipping out of their hands will try to squash any budding faith we might have in Jesus.

Teaches how people will resort to slandering the good done by others because of their own feelings of insecurity and inferiority complex.

Teaches how people will try to draw attention away from their own spiritual failures by pooh-pooh somebody else’s achievements. The way you get the monkey off your own back is to make excuses and dismiss as worthless what others have done. The first thing we do is run down other people’s styles of witnessing. We don’t like the televangelists; they are always after money. We don’t like the megachurches; they are all about numbers. We don’t like the tract-passers at the subway and bus stops; they invade our space.

Teaches people do not reject Jesus based on the evidence. The Pharisees didn’t deny the miracle, only the means in which the miracle was produced. In the same way we shouldn’t think that if we can just put together another logical argument or have some winning piece of evidence that this will cause all people to fall down and become worshipers of God. Jesus just healed a person who was blind and mute. And the response is that Jesus must be doing this by Satan’s power.