A Tale of Two Men

It wasn’t that long ago that I was having coffee with a young man as he was seeking the Lord on his next step. He had come up knowing the Lord from the faith of his mother and father and from there went to the mission field in his early 20s, after serving the Lord there for a number of years he had found himself kind-of burnt out. I shared with him this tale of two men, two roads; hoping maybe he would take the road less traveled.

These two men were both very zealous, one for a cause and one for life; one which was seemingly unconcerned by the high cost to others as he served his cause, the other unconcerned of the cost to himself. One was fiercely devoted to doctrine, tradition, morality and religion and the other was chronically devoted to a Person. Both were products of their training, both went to school. One studied the scriptures, while one got to know the Word. One followed tradition, one followed the Spirit. One endeavored to be separated unto his beliefs, doctrines and conscience, the other was separated unto God himself. Now you could be talking about a few different men here, but I’m talking about Saul of Tarsus and Paul the Apostle: two completely different men.

As you know when you are born again you are no longer that person anymore; you are completely made new. It’s hard today for many people to experience new creation fully because we are in a Lazarus state, when God resurrects us and we come out of the tomb, we’re covered in grave-cloths and they’re never taken off. Death still hangs upon us way too much. Listen to Paul speaking of himself here and how zealous he was for God, so much that Saul persecuted.

I am verily a man who am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day. I persecuted this Way to the death. Acts 22:3 KJV

Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. Philippians 3:5-6 (emphasis added)

We don’t have the proper view of Saul; we picture an angry young man on his way to Damascus with letters filled with anger and hate. We fail to see he was filled with zeal and purpose, with vision; although misplaced. Sometimes when we go to look at the Pharisees we need to take a broader view. I know that whenever someone mentions a Pharisee, we immediately conjure up a hypocrite, something evil we should distance ourselves from. All of the Pharisees weren’t like that. If we paint them all as hypocrites, we excuse ourselves too easily. They were a sect, with separate beliefs from even many other Jews. They brought it upon themselves to protect their beliefs and traditions, in the pursuit of being zealous for God. Josephus described them as extremely virtuous and sober, despising luxuries, living a life of privation, saying that the ethics of the Pharisees were based on the principle of: be ye holy as I am holy as they strived to imitate god. It is too easy to write them all off as hypocrites, if we do that we miss the reasons why so many people, even today trapped in religion and –isms, stumble. Even maybe missing the things that try and make us stumble even in our own Christianity.

Jesus stood before the cross and said Be ye holy.

Feeling as though God is putting more on us than we can do, to some this statement is disturbing and causes us to pull away; striving, moreover, in our own strength. Everything that Jesus said, He did so knowing He was coming to the cross. Jesus didn’t come just to bring peace and to heal, or only to bring the good news, He came with this one purpose in view: to die, to give the Father what He always wanted. All the rest were just parts of the Father’s heart. Jesus had a singular purpose, which is why He was so misunderstood, why people rejected him. His purpose was to please the Father, and even the sons of thunder didn’t understand that. The Pharisees also set out to please God, they didn’t set out to be harsh or to be hypocritical, they set out to be perfect as He is perfect.

Yet that will never happen through imitation, it is always through identification.

All religion has its roots here: “I can do this, I’ll be better.” We become hypocritical, hyper-religious and legalistic, this was certainly true of some sects of the Pharisees but I believe others were sincere, sincerely misguided and wrong. Nicodemus, Gamaliel and Joseph of Arimathea were some. Nicodemus of the Sanhedrin was ruling over the Jews at the time, a kind of ruling that was far from the times of Moses, where there were righteous men who would watch over God’s people. By the time Jesus came these men were not watching over the law according to the Word that came from God, they were watching over their oral traditions and all that had been added along the way. Nicodemus said to Jesus “We know that you come from God what shall we do?” Jesus replied: You must be born again.

Nicodemus couldn’t see it.

What of Gamaliel? When they had the disciples, he stood up and said “Wait if they are of God you’ll find yourself fighting against God” so they just beat them and released them. Of course he was wrong, he wasn’t on the right side but he doesn’t appear to be just a hypocrite. Joseph of Arimathea, secretly a believer, had the boldness to go and ask for the body of Jesus. When we paint them with a broad brush we miss some of the real error; hypocrites take a conscious effort to self-deceive at its worst or at its best, present a favorable impression. Is that what Christianity is all about: hoping to be seen that you are doing alright? Paul didn’t care about his impression; he was a prisoner, treated as though he were the dregs of the earth. Ministry in the New Testament was not something men sought after as a good way to make some money, where the church provides you with a nice salary, a nice car and where people hang on your every word. He had to be free of caring what people thought and having a reputation. Paul says in Romans 10 that they are “ignorant of God’s righteousness.” It’s important to see that we easily excuse ourselves and fall into the same trap they fell into when we seek to establish our own righteousness instead of the righteousness God established through Jesus Christ. It is true that Jesus exposed the hypocrisy: Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also; which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones. We read that and say “Go get ‘em” in our hearts but it was the love of God speaking to them. Jesus is always bringing things to the heart of man, taking the law to perfection. I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. He brings it right down to the heart of the matter. Today we have such an outward, even in our society fighting for justice saying lives are important but we can take the most vulnerable life there is and throw it in a trash can, threatening people if you don’t wear a mask you’re in trouble, it’s all backwards because we have set up our own righteousness. Our response should be “Lord you are correct and I am not.”

It takes us to our knees; He goes to the heart of the matter.

Paul tells the Galatians: I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ…even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. This is an amazing portion of scripture: Paul’s defense here, not just of holiness or pet doctrine, but the very basis of the gospel: which is by the grace of God you are saved. He was amazed how easily they were taken away from Him, from Christ. Paul’s words are bold and sure: if anyone, even he himself, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As if Paul is saying ‘Now who am I trying to please?’ There is only one gospel. In America there are lots of different gospels being preached. Paul was not trying to be controversial; he was trying to have the gospel on the right ground. In Romans, Paul says that his heart is broken for his own people, praying for their salvation: “For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.” They did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. Here in the Bible-Belt we like to pride ourselves on the mantra that we are not religious. Yet some of the edifices being built look like old European churches, testaments to the religiosity of Europe from 500 years ago.

Many people have a zeal for God without a knowledge of Him.

As were some Pharisees, some religious leaders today are downright evil. Many have started to forget about the righteousness that is in Christ. It isn’t enough to say Jesus did it all, to doctrinally understand and then go on and try to establish our own righteousness. Come back to wanting to know JESUS and Him crucified. Others might say “That’s too simple, we’ve got to go deeper, broader, more than just sitting around talking about Jesus.” If that were your case, I’d say we’ve lost our spiritual minds. How much ‘knowledge’ did John on the Isle of Patmos have? What did he know? What did he know about the church and the word? Still, the revelation starts, as in Isaiah the sixth chapter, with “I saw the Lord.” Moses with all his knowledge and experience said “Lord we won’t go forward without You.” He didn’t say we won’t go forward without Your book or Your signs but not without the presence of God. This is what is needed more than ever today. Yes, there were those Pharisees that were wrong and it’s so easy for us to get behind the Lord and say “Go get ‘em Jesus.” Yet we fail to see the real error in their zeal to please God, to be good. They upheld all of their oral history and eventually established the Mishna, writing down the oral traditions on marriage and cleanliness, etc.

They had the law but they did not have the spirit of the law;

they lost the heart of God.

For instance when they came to Jesus about divorce, the law had already taken care of that. The law never said a man can just put away his wife, if you read the Old Testament law it was about whether she was honest to him when she married him but they said “for any reason,” for they had already built up all their traditions on the matter. For Christians today we need to be asking: who is ministering to us through these church classes? Are they taking you deeper into the Living Word or are they adding stuff on top of it to make life more acceptable? I don’t understand, my mama taught me to read, so why are we arguing this matter? It’s more than just the legality of the law from the beginning, rather what is the heart of God? When He brings two people together don’t let anybody take them apart. Well, you may say, “we live in a world where people make mistakes.” I understand. It is not about our righteousness and there is, of course, the grace of God. I am shocked at the plethora of church teachings on how to survive a divorce. At some point, someone has to put a stake in the ground and say we have to get back to Jesus. He said to the Pharisees, “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” Matthew 15:3. We also have Christian traditions, they’re not all wrong but we do have them. Do we have to have communion every Sunday? Do we need to dedicate babies? There’s nothing wrong with praying for a baby, but do we really need the ritual? What about Sunday School, Children’s Church, Youth Group? Traditions are not wrong, in my house growing up every Sunday it was tradition to sit around the table as a family and have spaghetti and meatballs, yet in that tradition there was life in the home and at the table. We lose the heart of it.

Jesus continues: “For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.” Now here He is exposing true hypocrisy with these Pharisees, right to the very root and heart of it. Honoring your parents is the first commandment with a promise, such basic things we do not do. We sing like there is no tomorrow, have budgets that are huge, put scriptures all over Facebook yet the very basic things, to forgive your brother and honor your parents, they would not do, adding unnecessary tradition to the word when the Word stood before them. The Word said “for this reason a man will leave his mother and father.” In response, even the apostles said it’s better not to get married. I used to think about that when I’d be travelling, the apostles must have been married while they were traveling with Jesus, thinking “was it better not to get married and take a chance?” Not with Jesus, amen, you don’t have to be afraid; you don’t need this based on your own righteousness. How many marriages could be saved by two people on their knees, surrendered to Jesus? Here they were questioning Jesus about marriage, about brothers and family. These guys studied the scriptures and the Lord says, “you do err, not knowing the scriptures.” Have you ever met anyone like that? Many are too sophisticated for the simple truths- “what would we do in our meetings if we can’t pontificate on and on about stuff with a plethora of examples?” Is His Word too simple? But, oh…it is so profound.

We educate ourselves right out of the right place.

I am not advocating for us to be lazy or not study and pray. Still, we stumble over the simplicity of the Word because we are trying to establish our own righteousness. You say “not me brother Frank!” I can tell you are trying to establish something of your own. “You do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” Was the law wrong? Never. Jesus came and was perfect and perfectly fulfilled it and he wants us to follow in that perfection? How can we? Through identification. Christ I see you, I love you, I worship you. Why was Saul so angry? He was zealous; he wanted so much to be right, to be holy and to get it all right. The law will drive you to despair, to anger. When you put that law in yourself, how harsh you are to others. When I find myself being too harsh, I remember it’s because I’m demanding too much of myself. The root of our anger is that we expect better of ourselves. That’s what brokenness is, God’s not in destruction but construction…simply realizing “I can’t do this.” We must look to Jesus. When I first got saved I would practice being still in his presence, I’d tell the Lord- “I’m going to make sure I’m going to stay focused in prayer for this long but I’m going to focus on You Jesus and I know time will go by if I’m looking to You.” Have you ever been reading in Leviticus or Numbers through all the ritual washing and sacrifice and become bored? “Can I skip this part Lord or at least the begats?” Nope, the Holy Ghost put it in there; therefore there is life in it. Imagine if you were a David, Moses, Aaron, Joseph they had the Spirit upon them and they were living and looking for the kingdom and Christ to come. These men were not going through ritualism. When they saw the lamb slain, the consecration, blood, through the shadows they saw Christ. Simeon was “waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him” Luke 2:25. Joseph of Arimathea, even though he was a Pharisee he was looking for Christ.

What are we to do today? Constantly look back to the cross and to JESUS.

Look at these two men: one studied Gamliel and was carrying letters in authority and anger, knew the scrip, look at how he describes himself. Paul had studied under Gamliel, carrying letters of authority but see how he describes himself in I Timothy 1:15. Paul says he was a sinner, he didn’t say that he was a dirty rotten sinner committing great sin. He knew what his sin was, he was living to establish his own righteousness; the roof of the humanism we have today. Humanism says that humanity says what is right and wrong and that should be imposed on you. Yet the world is trying to figure it out themselves. Leaders that say there is no god above and no devil below put themself in place of deity. They can’t get us to bow, I’m already bowing to Jesus. Paul knew all the traditions, he was incensed: people aren’t washing properly; he was probably so upset believers were gathering in homes, lifting up their voices and singing to God. When Paul was on that road, God got a hold of him and he was blind for 3 days; God made the point very clearly, you have been blind. Now Ananias could talk to God, not irreverently but honestly. He goes and prays for Paul and the scales fall of his eyes. That’s how I felt when I got saved, the next day the sky was brighter and could see clearly. Paul is prayed for and then spends three years in Arabia, we have to be glad they didn’t take Paul and put him in bible school right away. I can just imagine “listen with that testimony you could be a great preacher, we can take you from Paul the Pharisee to Paul the Superstar.” Time shows that in five or six years those star’s lives are on the rocks. Then it says he was fourteen years in Antioch. What was Paul’s training for that? In Antioch, we have a church birthed out of heathens, what is more glorious than that? What happened?

When I was overseas, most people who got saved just never knew anything about God, they were like blank pieces of paper, and they would ask “what do we do now?” Love Jesus. “When?” All day. “How?” However you want, just lift your hands if you want and praise God? “What do we study?” Read the bible. “Brother Frank, I read to lay hands on believers, lay your hands on me.” Gladly. At that time, I didn’t talk about tithing much at all because of the popular prosperity gospel, but beautifully, they would come to me and say “Brother Frank, I don’t know if you believe this or not but I read about tithing and I’m going to start.” That’s good, start tithing.

Paul tells us in Galatians 2:1 that it was “fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also. And I went up by revelation” I’m sure at times he was just sitting there, then as time went on, God began to use the gift He put inside of him. Paul didn’t say let me take all that I have learned, all of my schooling on the law and use it; he says in Philippians 3: 8 “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but dung, that I may win Christ.” Now, God did use his knowledge of the law yet it was all filtered through the grace of God. I believe men can be raised up in church life. When I was coming up, there were so many church ministries, it was an exciting time. At the time, we didn’t know all that God was doing but He was showing us that is was through organic church life that people were raised up; you don’t have to start a separate church group to do that. One brother found his way to the church in England by walking into a Christian book store and asking the owner where he could find a good church. The man told him well you can go to The Well but they’re radicals. That brother was at our next meeting. Of course, we are not radicals; we are just Christians who love God! Some might say if you want to be radical, you have to be a para-church, is the church just a broad thing? Is the church where some are asleep and some are not? We don’t want to condemn anybody, but we are always inviting people to get lost in Jesus. Amen.

Not just sign in, sign up or to prove anything; just come and

press in with Jesus.

“Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord” Acts 13:1. Do you want to see the call, to see true missions? Acts 13 is a great place to start. The Moravians gave us the modern missionary campaign, the only problem is that two-hundred years later we are still imitating things as they were. I heard this brother once, Arthur Blessed, he said “If God calls you to New York then get on a plane and fly there, if you can’t fly take a train. If there are no trains, drive. If you can’t drive, walk. If you can’t walk, fall in the direction of New York. That was all I needed to hear as a young man, God I’m ready to go but I think I need a plane ticket, I don’t need a return ticket, just enough to get me over there. We must start with the epicenter: while the apostles were praying and fasting, they were told to go. There was no signing up, mission-training or raising money. They were speaking of Jesus and while there were speaking God said to separate Paul and Barnabas out (Acts 13). I am open to modern aspects of mission work but you have to hear the call. People get confused, “Well, I don’t hear the call, I mean I feel as though God wants me to be a welder but…” Than you are called to get up every morning and do what He has asked you to do. Or what of the woman who sits at home and says “Well, I’m only a mother and a house-wife…” Just a mother? Was Hannah just a mother who gave us Samuel? Or Mary, in her obedience, was she just a mother? Don’t you think God knew the kind of women he was choosing? This doesn’t mean John the Baptist was in diapers screaming at people to repent, God knew his mother and father were going to be a part of that time in John’s journey. There’s no “well I’m just a…” God had them separated to the call they were called to.

We come back to these two men? Who were they? They seem so different, but they were actually very similar. They were moved by zeal and lived by righteous. For us today we are also quite similar, many strive for holiness like the Pharisees. On the other hand, there are those who throw it all off and say that all is fine as long as we are Christian and because Christians are free we can smoke, drink and live our own lives. That’s not what it’s about, Paul preached: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus” in Hebrews 12:2. As believers, if we walk in the wrong place we’ll know it and not because of the law but by the Spirit inside of us. Now do you understand how many Christian traditions today are in place to somehow keep everyone in line? Even selling ‘How to live the best Christian Life’ books on it.

Are you saved and do you have the Spirit inside of you?

Then listen to the Spirit.

“But Brother Frank that’s hard to do.” Of course it’s hard, because your flesh and everything else gets in the way. It would be easiest to say “give me the law of give me zero-restraint,” living as so many do. I lived both those lives to the full. I knew the catechism backwards and forwards since the time I was six years old, I had a statue by my bed and I prayed to my statue every night, all which just led me to death. Then later, I threw all the rules and religion out the window and I still found death. At twenty-one I found life in Jesus, amen. The chasm between these two men was so deep, indeed impassable. We get excited when people are close to god, I don’t want to condemn them but I don’t want to pat them on the back and say it’s okay you know God you just don’t know Jesus. That is wrong. Jesus never put his arms around a Sadducee and a Pharisee and said “It’s alright, we’re all one.”

In Acts 19, Paul asks “Unto what then were ye baptized?” And they said, “Unto John’s baptism.” He didn’t try and correct them here; he just asked. I can just image the scene: “Just unto John’s baptism? Great, todays your day!” We need the Holy Ghost. When you go into your prayer closet is He there? When you lift your hands in church is He there?

Today is your day, lift your hands and your hearts and be filled.

The chasm between Saul and Paul was so deep. Here was the difference “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him” Galatians 1:15-16. Jesus was revealed in Paul, not to him. When I got saved I didn’t just see something, or discover something; something happened inside of me. There was a well opened up by the Spirit of God, now I could drink from something different. When I would ask “Lord how I can forgive this person, you know that they deserve to have me angry at them…I know what the law says, even Jesus said to forgive seventy times seven.” How can we obey? We have to drink from the epicenter; there was a completely different nature inside of me. Every day, I have to drink from that. There’s times I’ll be frustrated, three feet up a ladder I shouldn’t be on and the Lord convicts me, correction is always good, good for the climb down. This is why we must love and forgive everybody, amen.

“I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” Philippians 3:8.

Alternatively, Saul’s life was based on achievement, rather than faith. He rebukes Israel in Romans 10 “For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” He preaches in the following verses from Deuteronomy, “The Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart,” that is, the word of faith which we preach” I hope you can see faith in a different way, not faith for a bigger parking lot, but trusting in Jesus. “Lord, how can I get through this day?” Look to Jesus. If you purpose in your heart not to be angry but you are again and again, you’re just weak and that’s a beautiful thing; but now, you can come to the end of yourself and look to Jesus. We pray today “Lord bring this nation to the end of themselves.” We do not condemn, as this world is already condemned, but may they come to a place where they acknowledge not morality or God but Jesus Himself. The chasm between these two men was unsurmountable but through Jesus; that is the beauty of the cross, amen. The tragedy of man’s heart is that they try so hard. Much of Christianity today is based on either striving or giving up, living one’s own life and asking God to bless it. We must hang on to Jesus, we need Him. It’s what brings us through correction and disappointments. It takes courage and faith to lift your eyes to the Lord. There have been times I’ve felt like giving up, but in those times of brokenness I realize that He is all I need. To the wife who is unloved, those struggling financially, people who’ve lost everything, kids that won’t be able to have graduation, look to Jesus.

That’s what we’ve been missing in the church, she tries to just convince enough when the truth is that He fills you to the uttermost and you don’t need anything else. At times, she teams up with the world saying we need happiness and quality, a world where everyone is afraid to make mistakes or to say the wrong thing; when we just need to get a hold of Jesus.

It is time for faith to rise up, amen.

Over the last century God has given us so much. Through the 1940s and 50s there was the power of His healing, in the 1960s His Spirit, and in the last few decades the teaching of the Word. Take all that you have been given and say “I want to see Jesus!” Amen. We need to take another road and that road needs to be Jesus. What kind of men are we raising in the church today, are we raising up men who will forsake all for Christendom or for Jesus? One path will produce greater religion and one will produce life. Which road are you on today? Can we see that we have been trying to establish a righteousness of our own: presenting how we feel, and what others think of us? The discouragement and disappointment in your heart is all rooted in the fact that you are trying to establish your own righteousness. If you are upset at yourself, remember that we are not established by our own righteousness. God wants to bring His Son back into view. We haven’t yet heard the trumpet but judgment is falling all over America. I think it’s quite simple, God’s laws have been broken but He is holding out His hand. He wants every single soul to be saved. He does not want destruction, just as he didn’t want that for these Pharisees; every word He spoke was in love. Not for any other reason but to say “look to Me.” Amen.

Thank you Jesus.

F.Tallerine