Clever Traps

1960 My Grandfather’s Word

[Lawyer tries to trap Jesus with a quote, but Jesus turns tables. Sometimes our friends try to trap us. If we try to invite people to church, we may hear a lot of excuses. Only real way to attract others to Christ is by loving deeds. A life lived for Christ is more beautiful than one that might have more material successes.]

The lawyer in this text is a rather interesting man to me. Perhaps he had followed Jesus for many days and had seen some of the mighty works wrought by Christ. He had seen the deaf cured, the sight of the blind restored and the lame made sound of body. But this was not enough; the times of Jesus were times of the strange things and miracles had been wrought by others. No, miracles or simple parts could not convince this clever lawyer. He had studied all of the wisdom of the Jewish figures; he had sat at the feet of some of the most religious leaders of the mystic Colts, and the lawyer had probably delved deeply into Greek philosophy. This lawyer was indeed a well learned man who could not be easily fooled.

Thus, this lawyer, this man of culture, this man who believed in Jewish law put Jesus to the test. For you see this lawyer was a man of importance; he was well educated, and Jesus was only a simple carpenter, Jesus was only the son of God. The lawyer hoped to trip Jesus up; he hoped that Jesus would say something that would contradict Jewish tradition. But as a clever swordsman Jesus deftly turns the tables on the lawyer and knocks his sword right out of his hand, the reply of Jesus was, “Since you are an expert in Jewish law what does the law say?” The answer was simple: "Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."

And this is the straw that broke the lawyers back. It was impossible for the lawyer to love God or his neighbor with all his strength, mind, soul, or heart. The lawyer's clever question was punctured like a balloon, and it fell flat as a pancake.

Well, the lawyer had tried a clever trap on Jesus, but he was not so clever in Jesus easily made the lawyers wisdom look ridiculous. In defense the lawyer quickly tried to justify himself by the question, "Who is my neighbor?"

I think this is the crux of the matter. Man, like the lawyer, are eternally trying to justify himself, man is forever trying to post clever traps to outwit God. The lawyer can be taken as a symbol of man or as a whole.

What is a common answer we get when we try to approach people regarding eternal life? Well, a clever man of the street might say to us, listen Christian, ”You fellows can talk about religion all you wish, but it seems rather silly. You know if you take a group of people and keep telling them how happy they are, if you keep pointing out all the good things that have one, pretty soon they will believe you.” The psychologist say you can get people to believe black is white if you tell them so long enough. Look at the heathen Hindus. They think a cow is sacred or the African sometimes think some old tree is sacred. No, your religion is just a product of mass conviction. It is purely a psychological process. How do you know the Bible is true? Who can prove Jesus wasn't a fake? Mohammed convinced plenty of people he was right, and Buddha has about 300 million followers in this world. This is a clever trap which we have heard often, and we find ourselves hard put to give a good reply. But I wonder how clever these people will be on judgment day when the Lord says, "depart from me you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels."

And after we have talked to such a person we sit and ponder and then go home, read our Bibles and pray for more wisdom in our Christian witness. Two weeks later as we find ourselves out on the golf fairways, we find ourselves with three very pleasant and congenial friends. The subject of religion is brought up and immediately our friends pounce upon us like a playful cat pounces upon the cottontail. "Church! Bah!" Say our pleasant friends. "Why go to church? Church people are all a bunch of hypocrites. They talk big and have pious phrases, but they back bite, and are crabby old killjoys. I'll get my religion out here on the fairways, close to God in nature. Those church people all act like they have been baptized in vinegar. In fact, they act like they drink it every day. "Well, as we stop and ponder this we may agree because we know that the very nature of our own selves. We know of our jealousies; we know how we don't like some of our friends because they have more money or influence. We know how we treat our families at times. But then we remember how Christ forgave those who crucified him, and we thank him that he forgives us.

Yes, the rather worldly man on the golf courses have set a clever trap for us. Their hedonistic philosophy of pleasure is hard to counter their analysis of the nature of Christian and preachers is really correct. Only they didn't realize that Christians are ordinary men washed by the blood of the Lamb. Christians are perfect people. A little boy was asked his aides and the boy’s rather clever remark was, "well sir, I ain't completed yet." And this was the nature of the Christian; perfect doesn't come to the judgment day. But we realize that this is rather useless to argue this with our self-sufficient golf partners, but we know that they are just looking for excuses that will allow them to run their lives. Following Christ takes dedication, and time, and sacrifices. And this is not the natural nature of man. But I wonder what good the ability to shoot in the low 80s is going to do for golfers when the sheep are separated from the goats.

We sit and ponder our ability to convince others of Christianity we feel about as capable as the farmer who thought his new lawn mower wasn't so good. He kept swinging it back and forth just like he always did with the sickle, but it just wouldn't cut. But we aren’t quitters, and we remember that Christ also met opposition as he preached. So, we whistle a happy tune and try again., There is our target, our neighbor down the block. So, we take aim and close and like Joe Lewis ready for the kill as we talked to this neighbor we beat around the bush for a while and talk of clever nothing and finally we sum up enough courage to invite our neighbor to church. And we get our answer, "well, you know we thought about it, but were kind of new here. We've only been here three years. And we have a family of three children and it's kind of hard to get the church on Sunday morning. We also have to work on the yard because the weeds grow fast. And Sunday morning is the only time available to wash the car. Besides, the church is always asking for too much money and weekends are the only chance one can relax after working hard all week." While we scratch our heads and don't bother to answer for we know this is all excuse. But the comments some people make you would think that everyone who has a family, a car, the art, the job is going to automatically inherit salvation because they were so busy God is not going to require that they accept Christ and dedicate their lives to him. Yes, this is an interesting new gospel. What must I do to inherit eternal life? "Ye shall have a house, a car, a yard, a job, a family. And if he possesses these things ye shall automatically inherit eternal life." While this trap is not very clever, and we won't waste refuting it.

Christianity can't be proved; people can say our church people are hypocrites. All people can answer that they are too busy for religion. We get many answers when we talk to people about eternal life. Most men can pose as the lawyer here in our text and they can confound us. But they can't confound God. Modern man is no more successful at confounding God than was the lawyer here in our text.

I have said that the average man is not able to confound God, to set a trap for God and neither are the intellects of our age able to confound God. The literary giants are aides attempt to weave philosophies of existence for us. They tried to find meaning in life they try to give us reasons and rules to live by. Let us examine a few of these modern culture’s viewpoints. Ernest Hemingway seems to weave in existence that consist of a strong man who fight bulls, conquers women, and get killed fighting national causes and dies a lonely death. Hart Crane, a recent poet saw life as an attempt to make a utopia out of modern America. But he jumped off a boat ending his life in despair. Arthur Miller, the husband of Marilyn Monroe, seems to believe that life has meaning in some sort of an attachment to art and the creative process. In Tennessee Williams, author of "on a hot tin roof" seems to find some sort of meaning for life in the conquering of the female by male. Well, all of this may seem rather heroic, but it doesn't give much of an answer to existence. You can go off and chase bulls, or women or art or make a God out of America. But none of this gives the answer to how a man can inherit eternal life. Modern literature does not give the answers concerning man's destiny. Only the Bible gives the answer to man's destiny. Neither the lawyer, the man on the street, or our neighbor, our golf partners, or modern literary giants are able to confound or outwit God. Man must simply accept the revelation that God has provided.

But the story of the good Samaritan here in our text. Why did Jesus answer the lawyer with this story? It is because Jesus wished us to have a practical faith. A faith that is active in works. A fellow can tell a girl that he loves her, but if he only goes over to see her once a month, calls her on the phone once a month, and never puts forth any real effort to see her, well, I think he is going to have a hard time convincing her no matter how much moonlight and roses may have gone into the first confession of love. Only a Christian that helps in charitable causes, babysits for the lady next door, and helps with scouts or Sunday school is going to do much convincing. We also won't do much convincing if we raise Cain when our neighbors’ children run across our lawns or if we angrily shout at our neighbor from playing his radio too loud. Luther said concerning true faith: "It does not ask whether there are good works to do, but before the question arises it has already done them and is always at the doing of them."

Years ago, there lived an old deacon whose Christian life had stagnated. Yet he still maintained that he was a Christian. He said, "yes, brethren, I might not make much progress, but I am firmly established." One day some of his church members found him out on a muddy road with his body firmly stuck in the mud. He pushed and tugged but he made no headway. Finally, one of his fellow church members said to him, "sell, Deacon, you're not making much headway, but you're firmly established." Only a faith that worked hardest, a faith active in works is going to convince people of our Christianity. Only the faith of a good Samaritan is any witness to our un-Christian neighbors, the wise men in our community who would try to set clever traps regarding eternal life.

"Blessed are the eyes which see what you see!" Many people hear the Christian gospel, many people have been approached by the gospel, but few accept it. I was rather interested that one of my high school leaders made the observation that few people really believe or accept the Christian gospel for if they did crime statistics would go down. Things will happen in the church. People would have the zeal of the early apostles. This leader made the comment that people are more concerned about their homes, their lawns and their cars than they are about the church. This is a comment by 13-year-old boy, and I found a few adult descriptions that better analyze the situation of man.

The history of man can be written in two different ways. One way to write the history of man is: he was born of good stock. He was brought up in a nice family. He went to the best of colleges, and he received a fine education. He married a living doll and had four children. He acquired an excellent job in an aircraft company, bought a nice home, and saved the modest sum of $50,000. He fought diabetes and heart trouble and he died at the ripe old age of 82. This is a rather matter-of-fact account of what could be the history of any American.

The history of man, however, could be written in another way. You can leave out the story of being born of good stock, of having a fine college education, and of acquiring a sum of money. Instead, you could tell the story in terms of an event, a saving event, a changing even, a redeeming event. At 17 years of age, he accepted Jesus Christ as a Savior. In his college years he was sorely tempted to follow the smart sophisticated set and reject his Savior. But he kept hearing the words, "no temptation has overtaken you, but which is common to man." After his marriage he was sorely tempted to follow the influential people in the community and belong to the crowd who are supposed to count in a community. But he saw that the crowd simply made Christianity into a set of rules instead of the saving event, an active witness for Christ. On the job he was offered an advancement through pole, but he turned it down after reading the Bible. He acquired some property and success, but he tried to not act cocky and overbearing. He taught Sunday school for 20 years and by then he had led 12th youth to Jesus Christ who in turn led a total of 144 others to Christ. He helped support a missionary on the foreign field he founded a church in a non-Christian land. Finally, he died and received his crown of life.

Compare this type of life with the life of the non-Christian who although he may be very pleasant, may still use pole, may still walk out on his family. And he may still tell the man that gets in his way to take a flying leap. He may still say "me first" and the devil take the hindmost. Just for yourself.

Life is a great act as Shakespeare has said. We can limit in many ways. We can be ruthless Iog's driven by jealousies and bent on destruction. We can be Insane Romeos who let our feelings and emotions drive us to despair. We can be moody, melancholy Hamlets who brood over the past and attempt to take justice into our own hands. We can be proud Macbeth's bent on glorifying our own egos and driven by a lust after power and fame. We can be John Doe, average citizen who lives a rather average life and dies. Or we can be Christians, good Samaritans, men who do not set clever traps to oppose God, men who live according to the eternal purposes of God.

There are two figures involved in this plot regarding your eternal soul, you and God. Golgotha stands as the place which determines whether we meet the end like "a quarry slave at night scourged to his dungeon," or as a Paul who said: "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Only at Golgotha only at the cross where God died, only by an acceptance of Jesus Christ as personal Savior will the drama of our souls end in eternal life.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.