all right so here we are continuing our introduction to the book of Luke and last week we looked at the Social and economic environment and we well we kind of continued looking at the social and economic environment After looking at like historical context all of these things now, we're gonna look at the political environment. I know this is very similar to social and economic, and when we get into religious, we're gonna cover some things again on that. And so, in terms of the political environment, now, before we start on that, everybody remember last week? What? Maybe we did, I don't know. But that wasn't, I don't think a lot about it. I think I did probably a little. No, that was Sunday morning. That was the morning sermon. The Roman taxation system. Yeah, we talked about taxes. Yes, and when we talked about taxes, it brought up a few other things that were related and so. So we are today looking at politics. Not today's politics. We're not going to talk about our president or the Congress or any of that kind of stuff unless you guys get me. Talking about those things so be good. All right We're looking at we're talking about Bible days politics, okay, so Roman rule the in Judea or what people call Palestine today, but it's Judea the area That Israel was living in It was under Roman occupation governed by local rulers like Herod the Great and his successors and Roman prefects such as Pontius Pilate enforced Imperial control and so that's just just the basics there. We're going to look at some detail here. So during that time. There was a pretty complex and heavily influenced, and it was rather the political environment, it was pretty complex, and it was heavily influenced by Roman imperial rule, sorry. and it's local client kings, as we already mentioned, as well as religious authorities in Judea, and so we're gonna try to understand the landscape here politically, and it's gonna help us, I believe, in seeing the context for tensions that exist between the Jewish people, their leaders, the Roman Empire, and it's gonna shed light on challenges that Jesus and his followers faced. There are several specific things that if you don't recognize the political environment of the day when you read the Gospels, there are several specific things that people misapply. you know, the response that Jesus gave to certain things that when people brought him certain concerns or issues, things about taxes, things about the law, the woman taking an adultery, all these things, they all are in, what's that? Yeah, the Sabbath. All of these things are within the context of the context. I keep saying that wrong. It's within the context of the political environment in which they lived. And so let's look here real quick at the Roman rule and imperial power. So Roman. empire I know it I know some of you are you're looking for where we're looking in the Bible a lot of this is historical okay so you can get your pens and your paper out and you can write notes of these things so looking at the Roman Empire so by the time of Jesus ministry Judea was under the Roman Empire, which had expanded throughout the Mediterranean world. The empire was ruled by an emperor. That's how that works. And the political power was concentrated in the hands of Roman officials. So before we talk about the emperor names and such here, does anybody know how long The Roman Empire had been running things in the area. The Roman Empire began, I've read anyways, that it began about 63 B.C. About 63 BC. It's only 63 years before. Jesus, yeah, I mean, you know, give or take four years or so, but so basically by the time Jesus started his ministry, you're around 90 some years. that in that time, around 90 some years, by the time, or from the time that the Roman Empire had really kind of started spreading and taking over things. And so like 90 some years, I think that, that's a pretty young nation, or a pretty young empire, isn't it? Travis, you find something different? Oh, okay. All right. So what'd you say? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, as they started to expand. I mean, their form of government, that's a whole other discussion. I don't think we're gonna get into that because it doesn't directly affect Luke or the book of Luke. It just indirectly affects him. So anyhow, Emperor Augustus, Augustus is where we get our month, August, the eighth month, the eighth month in our calendar. He lived from 27 B.C. to A.D. 14. He was the emperor during the birth of Jesus and his reign marked the beginning of the Pax Romana. Pax Romana, no, no, that's Augustus. And so Pax Romana means Roman peace, a period of time or a period that's relative, rather, a period that had relative stability and prosperity across the empire. That was a peaceful time at that time. However, this peace was maintained through military power, oppression, and heavy taxation. The Roman Empire exercised, what's it? Yeah. Hey, you know, the Roman Empire exercised direct control over its provinces and demanded loyalty from the conquered peoples. Yeah. You know, Peace isn't always what you think. It all depends on how you define it. Peace simply means that there's not currently war. But sometimes, sometimes peace is maintained through fear. So you have military power that's, that's forcing, enforcing the peace, keeping it from becoming, honestly, that's the thing, you know, when, whenever you see like, whenever you see, I mean, I'm trying to be careful about how close I get it to today, but but certain certain national leaders because of their because of the lack of fear that the rest of the world has for them. it can cause war because other people can be emboldened to go ahead and do whatever they want to do. But whenever you have a strong leader that everybody kind of thinks is a little bit crazy, they're going to stop for a second and think about it before they go jumping into a war because they're concerned about... I've got my commentator here. But just let me hint towards stuff without saying names. It's okay, you all know what we're talking about. But the idea though, and I'm not giving an endorsement one way or the other on that at this moment. But the idea is that when there is relative fear, it can cause an appearance of peace. Now, there might be in the background some uprisings that are quietly getting ready for a time when the crazy guy is gone, or when the strong guy is gone, or the guy that they're afraid of is gone. And you'll find that it wasn't very long before, I mean it wasn't maybe 30 years after Christ ascended. I mean, maybe 40 years before you already have like fighting going on and stuff you had the the Jewish. Like they kicked them out the Jewish expelling from Rome in the fifties in the in the eighty fifties. So I mean it's not even very as like twenty five years twenty three years somewhere around there or twenty two something like that from Christ's ascension to like there's there's some turmoil there's some stuff going on politically people are being removed from whole cities get out you know and and then not very much longer seventy I mean Jerusalem was sacked the temple was torn to the ground completely and all of the Jews were scattered everywhere so Considering that we're kind of encased in these. In these brackets here of. A little bit of peace and coming war. This is what we're looking at as far as the political situation, so the Roman Roman provincial. Governance was a common thing there, so Judea was part of the Roman province. I'm sorry, yeah. It's funny that it says Judea was part of the Roman province of Judea. I know that may sound really, like, very similar. So there may be, well, there may be a larger area that's considered Judea by Rome. But like, for example, Samaria may have also been included in the Roman province of Judea. but it was considered by Israel to be a different place. It was Samaria, right? And so, it was governed by a Roman procurator or prefect And this procurator was responsible for maintaining order, collecting taxes, and administering justice. Just like we talked about when we talk about social and economic environment, they would pass that down to other people within that hierarchy and have tax collectors handling that. It wasn't the prefect or the procurator that was actually taking the money in himself. So the procurator had the authority to appoint and remove Jewish leaders and high priests. That's a big deal for Israel. like a really big deal and so when you think about politics in that time you have to think about that aspect that the roman procurator uh which maybe would be who Pontius Pilate would have the ability to say hi priest You're out. You're in. That's like blasphemy to Israel. Because that's not the process by which high priests are chosen. That's not how that's supposed to go. But that's how it was going during the Roman occupation. We'll talk more about religion as we get into that section. yeah so there was that influence but there was also that there was also both sides of that political thing in in word and in their doctrinal statements we would say Other than a couple of things, they were pretty similar. And a lot of a lot of things they they they strongly held to the word of God as far as their doctrinal statement. Now, were they living it? Maybe not so much. So the Sadducees would hold to a specific portion, the first five books, and they recognized the rest of them, but they didn't see them as literal like the first five books. But the Pharisees would take the whole of the Law and the Prophets. And they would recognize all of that as scripture, and they would recognize it all as literal. And so, that's where you get that major difference between the two of them. Because in the first five books, you don't have a whole lot mentioned about, like, afterlife. And that was the main difference between the two. Paul. Paul was a Pharisee. So the most well-known procurator during the time of Jesus was Pontius Pilate, who served from 26 to 36. So that would have put him right in that time frame that Jesus was ministering, okay? So he played a key role in the trial and crucifixion of Jesus Pontius Pilate all was known for his harsh rule and his occasional conflicts with the Jewish population. And so this is this is something that that you have to take into consideration as well you're going to find as you go through the Gospels that Pilot does some things that people don't usually catch on to and I'll give you one for example In Luke 23 38 It's really easy to find when you get to the page that it's on because it's in all caps and Says and a superscription was written over him in letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew. This is the king of the Jews. That is 100% a political sign. This is the king of the Jews. That was put there by a pilot. Pilate had that order to be put there over top of Jesus when he was crucified. He had it ordered to be put there and the Jews came to him and said, no, no, no. In another passage, they came to him and said, hey, don't write king of the Jews or this is the king of the Jews, right? He said he was the king of the Jews. And he said, what I have written, I have written. Why? It was political. There was a political reason to put that there. No, it was political. It was political because if Pilate had now he washed his hands of it and said he was innocent. But then and he kept messing with the Jews. Remember, he brings them out and says, behold, your king. And they're like, we have no king but Caesar, right, and then he and he he's he says, I found no fault in this man, you know, and then in another in another passage, he says, who shall I release unto you? Barabbas or Jesus Whom you say are you is your king or whom has said is your king? He said and they say give unto us Barabbas, right? But again, he's kind of He's kind of following that there's like this two-sided thing going on for Pilate on the one hand. He's not really wanting to condemn Jesus because he's He's innocent. On the other hand, he wants to condemn Jesus or condemn someone who can take the title King of the Jews because if Pilate, as a procurator of Rome, can take the king of the group that he's ruling, someone who's risen up and was called king, If he can take him and have him executed publicly, it looks good for the Romans, that's why it was in Latin. It squashes any Jewish rebellion, that's why it was in Hebrew. And then it works for the common folk too, as far as like, well, man, don't mess with Pilate. Greek. And so you have that political aspect of it. Could it have other meanings and stuff? Sure. But there's a direct, obvious political aspect of it as you study through, as you see those things. There's a reason for him to put that there. How many of y'all have ever heard that before? Nobody, not a single person. Wow. So this is why we're doing the intro. This is why we're talking about the politics. This is why we're talking about the, you know, the local scenario. So speaking of local scenario, local Jewish leadership and client king. So Herod the Great, who's this Herod the Great? He ruled from 37 BC to 4 BC. OK, so. He was the king of Judea under Roman authority at the time of Jesus birth. He was appointed by the Roman Senate And was known for his ambitious building projects including the renovation of the Second Temple in Jerusalem The Herod dynasty there had quite a good reputation among the Jewish elite because he rebuilt the temple. Now this Herod the Great, his rule was marked by brutality and paranoia. including the infamous Massacre of the Innocents, which is referenced in Matthew 2, verses 16-18. This is where he ordered the killing of all male children under the age of two in Bethlehem, in an attempt to eliminate the newborn King of the Jews. Jesus. Yeah. So this this was a threat to him and because it was a threat to him he had. All of those children executed. After Herod's death which interestingly took place. Real close to the time of Jesus birth. After Herod's death his kingdom was divided among his sons Herod Antipas ruling Galilee, and Philip the Tetrarch ruling Iteria and Trachonitis. So, Herod Antipas. Let's talk about him real quick here. Just trying to introduce these names because you're going to see some of them. Herod Antipas ruled from A.D. 4 until A.D. 39. He was the tetrarch or governor of Galilee and Perea during Jesus' ministry. He is mentioned frequently in the Gospels and was responsible for the execution of John the Baptist. You'd find that in Luke chapter 3 and then he also played a role in the trial of Jesus in Luke 23. Right. I mean he had him imprisoned but But it was under his authority that it took place. Yeah, I think it was daughter in law. I can't remember. Or stepdaughter. Yeah, there was a there was a weird thing going on there, so there was a weird thing going on there because John the Baptist was thrown into prison because. Herod had. Yeah. Herod, Herod had taken his sister-in-law, and yeah, so that was a whole mess there. So, yeah, so Herod, I was just explaining, Herod had taken his sister-in-law to be his wife, and John the Baptist spoke out publicly against that, and that's why he was arrested, and then Her daughter had danced for him or something, did something for him. And he was really happy about what happened. And she said, he said, ask what you will and I'll give it to you. And she said, I want the head of John the Baptist. She asked her mother, and her mother said, get the head of John the Baptist, yeah. So, Antipas was a puppet ruler under Roman authority, and his reign was marked by tension with the Jewish population due to his collaboration with the Romans and his controversial marriages, including marrying his brother's wife, as we already mentioned, which John the Baptist condemned. Now Pontius Pilate... as we mentioned earlier he was a Roman procurator of Judea during the time of Jesus's crucifixion pilots role you see how there could be some friction here because you have you have a Jewish king who Rome sets over the region or over a part of the region and then there's a Roman procurator who is technically kind of over that person. And so if you remember that during Jesus' trial, Herod and Pilate were brought back together. He didn't, he just said, oh, he's part of Pilate's district. Send him back over there. But so, his role was to maintain Roman order and suppress any rebellion. He is most famous for presiding over the trial of Jesus and ordering his crucifixion. Pilate was politically cautious and sought to avoid unrest. Yet, he was willing to execute Jesus to appease the Jewish religious leaders and maintain order. His relationship with Jewish leaders was often strained as they viewed him as a foreign oppressor. And Pilate had little sympathy for Jewish customs and religion. So you're gonna find that kind of friction going on. And like Herod, for example, probably had a little more Jewish culture and background and desire to for his own people. But he also had to answer to Rome. So there was this kind of I don't know, like a teeter-totter going on, you know, of. Yeah. So real quick, we'll look at the religious authorities and political power in relation to that. So the Sanhedrin, the Sanhedrin was the Jewish ruling council or Supreme Court, if you will. consisting of religious leaders such as the chief of the chief the chief of priests yeah the chief priests the elders and the scribes the Sanhedrin had authority over religious matters but their power was limited under Roman rule okay so the Sanhedrin they had they were more of a judicial system that makes sense and Let's see here. They played a crucial role in the trial of Jesus as they sought to have him condemned for blasphemy and handed him over to the Roman authorities for crucifixion. The high priest was the presiding officer of the Sanhedrin. During Jesus time Caiaphas was the high priest and he was instrumental in plotting against Jesus. Now Sanhedrin y'all know what that means. 70. So there were 70. of the of the elders here right and so and and the idea the concept of the sanhedrin came from the um came from exodus remember when moses was They're talking to his father-in-law. And he says to his father-in-law, you know, his father-in-law sees him constantly dealing with problems from the Israelites. They come to him all day long and all day long. They're coming and they're coming day after day after day. And he says, hey, you're going to wear yourself out doing that. He says, you need to appoint some elders that can handle this. And that's what the Sanhedrin is based on. It's based on that delegation. And so that's the idea. Now, Pharisees and Sadducees, from that perspective, they would have both been involved with the Sanhedrin to an extent. The Pharisees and Sadducees were, again, the two most prominent religious sects, or we would call denominations today, but it's not exactly like a denomination, but they were the most prominent religious sects in Judaism during the time of Jesus, and both had political influence, although in different ways. So we'll look at the political aspect now. We'll look at more holistic aspect of who they were in their, they'll get their own Sunday school class, each one. No, we're not gonna have one teach, we're just gonna have, we're gonna talk about it. But the Pharisees, they were a religious group that emphasized strict adherence to the Torah and the oral law. These would have been your fundamentalists of the day. They would have their, they would have the word of God, as their authority, but then they would have all of the things that their fellow preachers over the last few hundred years have said as part of the authority as well. Oral tradition. Does that make sense? So, I saw on Facebook a guy preaching. And he was talking about, he was trying to take the Bible and take there in 1 Corinthians 11 where it talks about, it's a shame for a man to have long hair. He said, I don't care if it's on top of your head or on the bottom of your head. And I'm like, you're misapplying that passage. That is not what it's talking about. But the whole point that he was getting at really had very little to do with the Word of God and more to do with oral tradition of man over the last 50, 60 years because it became a custom, it's become a custom of men to oppose, some men, to oppose beards because there was a matter of American custom. So those types of things Just the same for the Pharisees there were things that were added that were like for example The the you'll find there's not a direct Reference to how far a Sabbath day's journey is in the Bible But there is a reference in the Bible to a Sabbath day's journey And so they would say, well, Rabbi so-and-so says it's this long. And so if you travel longer than this on a Sabbath day, you're working. And so they would have, that would be your cutoff. You cannot travel longer than this on a Sabbath day. On regular days, travel as far as you want. But you can't travel any further than this distance on a Sabbath day. And they had lots of different examples like that. So while they were more focused on religious purity, they also had political influence, particularly among the common people. They were seen as the defenders of the Jewish tradition and often clashed with Roman authorities over issues of religious practice. These Pharisees were also. They would have been probably the. the majority in the Sanhedrin. It's kind of like we see today in various like branches of government. Sometimes you have a particular group that's a majority, another particular group that's majority, just depending on what's going on. These would not have been necessarily elected officials, they would have been appointed. But typically they would be appointed based upon their popularity. So it wouldn't be like an official vote. It'd be an unofficial thing. Oh, so-and-so has risen up the ranks and they're very popular among the people. Let's put them into the Sanhedrin because they're gonna be able to influence these people. Does that make sense? So it was an appointment, but an appointment based upon popularity to a degree. So the Sadducees were more politically aligned with the Roman authorities. They were the aristocratic and priestly class, as we mentioned last time, or a couple weeks ago, and they controlled the temple and its operations. They were more willing to cooperate with the Romans to maintain their power and influence, which led to tension with the Pharisees and the common people. You see how all this struggle could be going on? Lots of struggle going on here, politically. So now, about the role of the Temple. The role of the Temple in that time. The Temple in Jerusalem was not only a religious center, but also a political one. The high priest had significant influence over Jewish society and the temple was seen as a symbol of Jewish autonomy and identity. They they could they kind of felt like they could go to the temple and be safe from Roman control unless unless the Sadducees were exercising Roman control when they were there, but it would in general. It was kind of a safety place, but the Roman authorities were keenly aware of the importance of the temple and its influence Jewish popular on the Jewish population this made the relationship between the Roman rulers and the Jewish religious leaders complex the the Romans allowed the religious leaders to maintain control over the temple but they also intervened when necessary to suppress any potential uprisings you all remember what happened with Paul He was there at the temple and you had a Roman captain, I believe is what it said, that arrested him for his own safety. I know it sounds funny, but they were they were about to I mean the people were about to tear him apart and so to stop the uprising he arrested Paul because Paul was the center central figure of the uprising and it really did probably save him as far as I mean y'all know what happened with Paul over the time of his journeys and his ministry, he got beat up by Jews all the time. Like, literally. And regularly got, I mean, abused. He was a part of that mess, yeah. Yep. So I want to try to quickly cover this last point here in the next four minutes, if possible. So the messianic expectations and political tensions related to that, okay? So again, all of this stuff, we're covering this really to give us that backdrop, to help us to understand what's expected, what's going on, the kind of tensions and the undercurrent and all of that. So, Jewish revolutionary movements that had taken place around that time. So during that period, there were several revolutionary movements that sought to overthrow Roman rule and restore Jewish independence. These movements, including the Zealots, advanced. You'll hear Zealots later, they'll get their own Sunday school class. Advanced for, or rather advocated for armed rebellion against the Roman Empire. Armed rebellion against the Roman Empire. The Zealots were particularly active in Judea and Galilee and their resistance to Roman rule would eventually lead to the Jewish War, which took place in 66 to 73 AD, which we mentioned earlier, right? And interesting, this group is responsible for that, or at least partially, mainly responsible for it. And it culminated in the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70. so Jesus's message of the kingdom of God was seen by some as challenging to the Roman political system however Jesus teachings about peace love and spiritual renewal were radically different from the violent revolution that the Jews expected from the Messiah many Jews expected the Messiah to be a zealot Come along and with the sword, rescue Israel. By the way, there were even Pharisees and Sadducees that likely secretly hoped for the Messiah to rise up among the Zealots. because it would have relieved them. Although, some of them had some pretty cush jobs going on there, so might not have wanted to lose that deal that they had. So Jesus and the Kingdom of God. Jesus' message, by the way, there's a reason that the kingdom, kingdom, kingdom, kingdom is mentioned and brought up over and over and over and you see this going on so much. But His message was often misunderstood in political terms. Many Jews were hoping again for a political messiah who would overthrow the Romans and restore the Davidic kingdom. However, Jesus presented a spiritual kingdom, not to say that he didn't speak of a physical or political kingdom later. But at the time he was there was a spiritual kingdom one that was not of this world as he said in John 1836 right if my Kingdom was of this world than my servants fight This led to tension between Jesus and the Jewish religious authorities on all sides. I mean you think about it. I We didn't even mention the fourth group, which we'll talk about at a later time, but you have Jesus saying doctrinal things that directly relate with the Pharisees against the Sadducees, and then saying doctrinal things against the Pharisees in relation to their oral tradition. And then you see him advocating for peace I know not 100%, so understand that. He wasn't just advocating for peace only, but advocating for peace instead of war, right? Although he did say, I came not to bring peace, but a sword, right? But you think about how, but not a sword in the sense that the zealots wanted him to. But you think about every direction he's being pulled in with these different political systems and things going on, right? And then the Essenes, which we'll mention again, they were a group at that time as well, they are pulling in a totally spiritualistic kind of way as well. And so there's this whole aspect of Jewish society that he's dealing with where, you know, you've got all these different belief systems and all these different things going on. By the way, those are just the four that are prominently known in history. I'm sure that there were probably people that had other belief systems as well. And we're just talking about among the Jews, you know, you also have like Hellenistic Jews that are Jewish by descent, like blood, they're Jews, but they believed in like Greek ways and things like that. And so they would be more of a Greek culture, more of a Greek mentality, spiritual system, all of that kind of stuff. rejecting the God of Israel. That's a whole other aspect that we don't really see on the forefront as far as those things go. So all this stuff going on here, it led to tension between Jesus and the political religious authorities who feared that his growing popularity could lead to Roman intervention and a loss of their power. Jesus' crucifixion was a political act as much as it was a religious one for those that were present. I'm not talking about doctrinally, that can be applied as well but primarily for all those present for all of those concerned at the time of his crucifixion it was just as much political as it was religious so the Jewish leaders saw Jesus as a threat again to their authority while the Roman authorities saw him as a potential revolutionary who could incite unrest so Disliked on both sides as far as that goes We're a couple minutes over, but I want to give folks a moment if you want to say something in terms of These things next week. We'll talk about the Pharisees. We'll talk about the religious Groups, but the Pharisees will be the primary focus for next week Brother Joe The elders. Yeah. Yeah. They had political and religious. Yeah. Yep. Brother Wilhelm. The Sadducees. Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk about them here in a couple of weeks as well. Yeah, they were. They were what later became known as humanist. Humanist is they it's everything is about. Today and now to the humanists, it's it's even well there and then there are some actually over time humanist has had different like. meanings. So, for example, anybody ever hear the name, if I can remember the guy's name, He's responsible for the Textus Receptus. His name, Erasmus, Erasmus. Anybody ever hear the name Erasmus? So he was called, he was considered a humanist. Not because, not the way we would look at a humanist today. From his perspective, or from the perspective of those calling him a humanist, They believed he was a humanist because he did not believe in a very very strong fatalistic concept of God's rule over mankind. He believed that man had free will. And for many theologians of that day, you were either humanist, believing that man has free will, that there's some control that man can exercise over his life, or you believed in the sovereignty of God. but to the extent that man doesn't really have control. It's all God's in control of everything, including your will. So, we would be considered humanist in that sense, from that definition. But we're not humanist from today's definition. Today's definition is more, you know, without God altogether. What's that? Yeah, good works without God altogether. It's all about humanity and, you know, the good of humanity and things like that. And so the the the Sadducees, they. It wasn't just the matter of. You know, what's it all about if there's no life after death? To them it wasn't like that because it was about and some of the things that I'm going to say today in my sermon. Are going to kind of. Call to that concept a little bit. It's the difference when you look at missions philosophy. When you look at missions philosophy, there are two aspects of missions philosophy. You go after the lost because they're going to hell. And you're going to rescue the loss that's humanist. If it's just purely that. And then there's the other aspect of You're going after the lost because and now there's a spiritual aspect to that, but you're going after the loss because it's God's. Will, because it's God's way, it's what God has commanded and it's pleasing to God and it's glorifying to God. Now, do we do it for this reason or for this reason? We do it for both, right? And so my opening illustration is going to appeal to this side, and then hopefully along the way we'll hit this side as well. But the Sadducee, so when you look at the moral non-religious, the non-religious moral people of this world. The Sadducees did believe in God. but how that all worked as far as like how their doctrinal system worked so that they could believe in God but not believe in an afterlife. It's difficult to fully grasp but you know they may have been considered like the deists where they believe that God exists. He created everything and then he just kind of stepped back and said have at it and then there's everything is materialistic and when somebody dies or somebody you know something happens they it's just it's just gone there's it's just over that's their concept but for those that were moral like Sadducees they didn't it wasn't eat and drink be married for tomorrow we die it was what about our children what about the next generation what about the generation after that what are we leaving them it didn't matter for us because we're going to die and we're going to be gone that's what they believe we're just going to be gone and it doesn't matter for us but they had a A certain level of care for the next generation that they they still had the religious model. They still had they were still trying. They were still teaching them the first five books of the Bible. They were still emphasizing the law of God and the responsibility of man to God. It's just that the consequence wasn't looked at. From the from the long term eternal perspective, it was more looked at for the earthly perspective. The consequence for them was if I don't live the life that I'm supposed to live, and I give you guys this, by the way, all the time. I preach this all the time. An aspect of this. It's as far as our salvation. It isn't just about me going to heaven. Because if I get my ticket punched and I just go, what good does that do anybody else? And so I mentioned those things. I'm not saying I'm a Sadducee. I believe in the things that they don't believe in. OK, so, but there's the aspect, though, that in a sense that they were right about. And that is, it isn't just about me and eternity. It's about everybody else too. And so that, I'm not trying to like stand up for the Sadducees necessarily, but when I present them here in a couple of weeks, I'm gonna stand up for them from that perspective, to try to point out to you that they weren't, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, They had their faults and they had their wrongs, but they also had their correct areas where they stood so we try to give the Sadducees a hard time because they didn't believe in angels and they didn't believe in spirits and they didn't believe in afterlife and resurrection and all of that But understand that they weren't just completely Unreasonable in their in their belief system their belief system was based on the Bible But they left a lot out So I'm not saying that they were right. They were definitely wrong. But there were parts. I would say that they probably that there probably are Jewish people that believe like the Sadducees still. But there were parts of their belief system that weren't all wrong. And the reason that Rome put them in control of things was because Rome could see by generation after generation that they did, typically they would do what's best for the next generation. And so Rome would say, we want a solid social environment in that area so that we don't have uprising and things like that. We're going to put the Sadducees in charge because they're going to make decisions based on how it's gonna affect the next generation, and how it's gonna affect the neighbor, and how it's gonna, you know, those kinds of things, to a degree. Whereas the Pharisees, they would stand on principle, and I don't care if you die in front of my face, I'm gonna do what's right, and that's all it is, and it doesn't matter how it affects the next generation, it doesn't matter how, and then the Zealots would go a step further and say, you know what, we're gonna do what's right, and we're gonna do what's right, all the way to the extent of, I declare war. You know, so it's whereas the Pharisees will say, well, we're going to stand and we're going to tell you what's right. And then you take it from there. And a lot of times the zealots were where they would follow the Pharisees in terms of doctrine. And then they would go after, you know, putting it to action in war. So, anyhow, all that political stuff. By the way, in terms of politics, y'all, I understand that our society likes to shun politics, especially in church. But politics is reality. It has to do with the structure of the people. And so how we, you can't stick your head in the sand and ignore the people around you and deal with those things. I don't like the political stuff, you know, things that go on and how polarizing things are and all that. I don't like that. But understanding where they're coming from and the things that they're trying to say and do, helps you to understand how you can better minister. And I say that from the perspective of it doesn't matter whether you're, I can give you, and you may think it's crazy, but I can give you positive points on both the Republican and Democrat side and the Libertarians and whatever, and I can give you negative points on all of them too.