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THE NORTHERN KENTUCKY SEARCHER VOLUME 1, NUMBER 41, NOVEMBER 11, 2001 IT IS ALMOST OVER
I don’t know if you have given it a moment’s thought, but 2001 will
be over in just seven weeks and one day from today.
Fifty days from today another year will be over.
It seems to me that I have just gotten used to writing 2001 on checks and
other dated material. To tell the
truth, it seems like only yesterday that all we were hearing about was the
terrible problems that were likely to occur from R2K – a false alarm if there
ever was one. But the point I am
trying to make is that time is flying by and here we are, less than two months
away from the conclusion of another year.
Did you make any resolutions at the start of this year?
How are you doing with them? If
you determined to lose weight, have you done it?
If you determined to go back to school, what kind of grades are you
getting? Did you resolve to get a
new job in 2001? Did you do it?
Maybe you were going to read one of the classics that you always wanted
to read. Did you read it?
Folks make all kinds of New Year’s resolutions and time is running out
for the completion of those 2001 goals.
Every single day of 2001 that has passed will never come back.
It is a time of our lives that we can never reclaim.
That is the thing about time, once it is gone – it is gone.
The scriptures urge us to make wise use of the time that we have.
In Ephesians
People will also make spiritual resolutions at the beginning of a new
year. Did you make any for 2001?
Perhaps you said, “I’m going to read my bible more, a few chapters
every day”. Have you stuck with
it? Maybe you determined to see to
it that your children had their bible lessons ready every Wednesday evening and
Sunday morning. How did that turn
out?
When 2001 started, did you resolve to teach someone the gospel before the
year was out? Have you done that?
If not, you still have 50 days before the year is over.
You can still do it. Did
you decide to make it a point to invite people to services or to give out tracts
to folks you know? How have you done
with that?
Maybe you resolved to make your life right in 2001 if you have been
unfaithful. Many times folks will
say, “This year I am going to do it.” The
year is rapidly coming to a close. Was
that resolution in the form of a promise to the Lord?
I think of the statement made in Numbers 30:2, “If a man vow a vow
unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break
his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.”
At the start of 2001, did you say, “I am going to become a Christian
this year”? Lots of people do
that. Isn’t it amazing how quickly
time can get away from us? Here we
are, just 50 days from the end of 2001. Did
you obey the Lord this year and become a child of His?
Did you say that you would? Whatever your spiritual resolutions were as 2001 began to unfold, have you fulfilled them? Have you done what you wanted to do? If the Lord does not return before then, there is still time. Fulfill your resolutions starting today.
WHO WERE THESE PEOPLE?
In the New Testament we frequently read of two groups of people, the
Pharisees and the Sadducees. Less
frequently we read of another group called the Herodians.
Who were these people and what made a Pharisee a Pharisee, a Sadducee a
Sadducee, and a Herodian a Herodian?
The Pharisees were the strictest sect of the Jews.
In Acts 26, as Paul was presenting his defense before Agrippa, he said in
verses 4 & 5, “My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first
among mine own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews; which knew me from the
beginning, if they would testify, that after the most straitest sect of our
religion I lived a Pharisee.”
The word itself comes from the Hebrew word, “pharash”, meaning to set
apart, separate. In the case of the
Pharisees, that would be from anything that would hinder exact obedience to the
Law of Moses.
They made their appearance in the time between the testaments, probably
in the period before the Maccabean War. The
Jews were beginning to adopt Hellenistic practices, showing a willingness to
accept Greek customs and beliefs. The
Pharisees arose as a reaction to this move away from the Law.
They were first called Pharisees sometime between 135 – 105 B.C.
At first, the Pharisees were men of the strongest religious
character. It could be argued that
they were the best people in the Jewish nation.
As the years passed the overall quality decreased and by the time of
Jesus they were noted for their self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and their
inattention to the weightier matters of the Law.
The Sadducees were comparatively few in number, but they were educated
men, mostly wealthy, and of good position. They
stood in opposition to the Pharisees and while the Pharisees exercised a great
deal of influence in the synagogues, the Sadducees controlled the temple.
Their name comes from Sadok (Zadok), a pupil of Antigonus Sochaeus, who
was president of the Sanhedrin 260 years before Christ.
Sochaeus taught that man had a duty to serve God without any hope of
reward or fear of punishment. Sadok
took his views even further and ended up denying the existence of heaven or hell
– teaching that the soul dies with the body.
The Sadducees also denied that there were angels and interestingly, they
taught that God was not concerned with man doing good or with man not doing
evil. They taught that all the good
man received was a result of man himself and that all the evil man received was
the result of man’s own folly.
The Herodians were a Jewish party in the time of Jesus who were evidently
supporters of the Herod family. It
is important to remember that the Herods were not of proper Jewish descent, and
they had supplanted a royal family that was not merely Jewish, but of priestly
blood and rank. Additionally, the Herods took great pains to appease the Romans.
The Herodians were Jews who supported this usurping family.
This made them natural enemies of the Pharisees, and to a lesser extent,
of the Sadducees as well. The interesting thing is that all three of these groups, as antagonistic to each other as they were, could and did united in their opposition to Jesus. Each in their own way perceived Jesus as a threat to their position. In Matt. 22, we read of all three groups attacking Jesus. In verses 15 & 16, we find, “Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle Him in His talk. And they sent out unto Him their disciples with the Herodians…” In verse 23, we read, “The same day came to Him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked Him…” In verse 34, we find, “But when the Pharisees had heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.”
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