IN A PICKLE

Radio Message / Tract #14-M

Have you ever been "in a pickle"?  Trapped?  No matter which choice you make, it's wrong.  You're doomed if you do, and you're doomed if you don't. Even Jesus Christ was caught "in a pickle" once -- over a tax question!

During the time of Christ, Rome ruled over the Jewish nation.  According to Roman law, the Jews were required to pay them taxes, called "tribute".  But what was required by Roman law was forbidden by Jewish law, in some minds.  The Jewish leaders planned to take advantage of that pickle to trap Jesus into breaking either one law or the other.

In Matthew 22, verse 17, the leaders flattered and complimented Jesus, and then said, "Tell us therefore, what you think? Is it lawful", [that is, according to Jewish law, the Law of Moses], "Is it lawful to give tribute [pay taxes] unto Caesar, or not?" The Ten Commandments were the basis of Jewish law.  In the very First Commandment God said, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." (Exodus 20:3).  To honor or acknowledge any god other than the one, true God was idolatry and was punishable by death.  The Romans considered Caesar (the oppressor of the Jews) to be a god.  If Jesus said, "Yes, pay tribute to Caesar", he would be honoring a false god, and would be worthy of death according to Jewish law.  If he said, "No, don't pay tribute to Caesar", he would be a rebel, and worthy of death according to Roman law.  Either way, he was trapped!  The Jewish leaders finally had him!

Verse 18 says, "But Jesus perceived their wickedness and said 'Why do you tempt me, you hypocrites? Show me the tribute money." And they brought unto him a penny" (or denarius).  As on most coins, there was a face and a name stamped on it.  Jesus said, "Whose is this image and inscription?" Whose face and name? "They said unto him, 'Caesar's'. Then said he unto them, 'Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things which are God's'." At that answer they shut their mouths and walked away humiliated.

Jesus said, "It's got Caesar's picture on it.  It's got Caesar's name on it.  So give Caesar what belongs to him.  But give God what belongs to him, too." Jesus' answer helped them realize it was they themselves who were in the most serious "pickle" of all. Are you, friend, in that same "pickle"? What do I mean?

Caesar is dead and gone.  Jesus does not expect us to pay him anything.  But he does require that we pay our lawful taxes to whatever government we are ruled by.  If a person is holding back tax money that they truly owe, they are in big trouble with the government.  But if a person is holding back from God things they truly owe HIM, they are in BIGGER trouble with God!  Most people on earth are in very serious trouble with God.  Why?

Do we owe God something?  Jesus told us to "render unto God the things that are God's."  "Render," or surrender, does not mean just to give up something that is ours.  "Render", in this verse, means to give back something that is not ours.  Jesus implied that we are all holding and using something that was never ours, something that has always belonged to God.  Now he is telling us to give back to God the things that are God's.  What things are God's?  The Bible says, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein". (Psalm 24:1). This world and everything in it (including you and I) are God's personal property.

If you make something for yourself, in your own home, at your own expense, on your own time, with your own labor and your own materials; who would it belong to?  It is completely yours.  What would you call someone who used what you made for their own purposes without your permission?  You'd call him a thief!

God made this world and everyone in it.  He made it all BY himself.  He made it all FOR himself.  He never sold it to anyone.  He is still the absolute owner of everything.  Psalm 100, verse 3 still says, "Know that the Lord, he is God: it is he that has made us and not we ourselves.  We are his people and the sheep of his pasture." God made mankind.  We did not make ourselves.  Our parents did not make themselves.  We should not act like we own ourselves.  We are HIS people.  God is the full legal owner of every person's body, mind, and spirit.  God says, "Behold, all souls are mine." (Ezekiel 18:4).  We are his, not our own, and he can easily remind us of that any time he wishes to.  God owns us because he made us for himself.

Not only did God make us, but he also sustains us.  He keeps us alive.  Do you have to wake yourself up at night to remind yourself to keep breathing?  Does your heart continue beating even while you're asleep?  It's not our own air that we breathe.  God mixed it and made it and loans it to us breath by breath.  If your heart were to stop beating, you could not, by yourself, make it start beating again.  All day and all night, with no assistance from us, God himself supplies those little electrical impulses that cause our lungs and hearts to breathe and pump.  King David confessed in Ps. 73:26, "God is the strength of my heart....".  Acts 17:25 says, "He [God] gives to all life, and breath, and all things...." Job 12:10 says that in God's "hand is...the breath of all mankind."

God actually owns us because he gave us our life and keeps us alive, no matter how often we forget that fact.  But now Jesus Christ commands us to "Render unto God the things that are God's."  Caesar's tribute money was rightfully his, Jesus said, because it had Caesar's picture, or image, on it.  Do you know whose image is on you? Genesis 1:27 says, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

Friend, God created you in his own image.  His likeness was stamped on you at conception, and you are his own personal property.  Have you surrendered -- given back -- to God the things that are God's?  Are you living your life for him? Or are you trapped "in a pickle", trying to live your own way, when you know you should be living God's way...?!

You can't have peace when you're in a pickle. What will you do about it? Will you use your body and mind to love God and do what he tells you?  Or will you, like a thief, keep doing whatever you please with a life that is not even your own?  1Cor 6:19-20 says, "You are not your own...you are bought with a price:  therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."

Bought with a price?  What's that mean?  Why should God have to buy us if he already owns us? Because we rejected God's ownership of us.  We lived like we were our own property.  We behaved as if we had made ourselves and kept ourselves alive.  We ignored God's plans for us, and made our own plans.  We forgot about God's commandments and lived by our own rules.  If God were just, he really should have destroyed such proud, ungrateful creatures as us.  God IS just.  Yet, "God is love" (1 John 4:8).  He came to earth in human form.  We nailed him to a cross to die.  With his own death and shed blood, he willingly paid for all of our ungrateful arrogance.  "Christ died for our sins."  Friend, have you been ignoring God as your maker and owner?  Are you ready now to give back to God what you've always owed him?  Bow your head and make this your prayer:

"Dear Lord, forgive me!  I've lived like I was my own god.  Yet you made me.  You loved me.  You died for me.  Today I give my life back to you.  I'll live as your Word tells me to.  For Jesus' sake.  Amen."

If you've meant that prayer with all your heart, you are not only God's -- He is yours!  Pray everyday.  Read your Bible everyday.  Find a Bible believing church and attend there regularly.   BT