Hey, man, glory to God. Welcome to the program. Welcome to the cafe pastor Clark Covington. Here are the another episode of KJV Cafe. If you're new to the program, check out kjv cafe.com. Look us up on your favorite podcast app. You can subscribe there. And yeah, we've got a couple other podcasts, KJV Cafe weekend edition and truck drivers hour. So check those out as well. All right, so here we are going into Genesis 23. And yeah, we're going to really, we're just going to read this chapter again together and look at a couple more principles, two of them. I've got left one of them is this idea of doing as like the culture suggests at the time, you know, not offending, and Jesus teaches us that in the New Testament and in the other one of biblical humility. So with that said, I'm just going to read Genesis 23 here. It's only 20 verses. So here we go. And Sarah was 107 and 20 years old. These were the years of the life of Sarah and Sarah died in Kerjith Arba. The same is Hebron in the land of Canaan and Abraham came the mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. And Abraham stood up before his dad and spake under the sons of heth saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me a possession of a burying place with you that I may bury my dead out of my sight. And the children of heth answered Abraham saying unto him, hear us, my Lord, thou art a mighty prince among us in the choice of our sepulchres, bury thy dead. None of us shall withhold from the his sepulcher, but that thou mayest bury thy dead. And Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of heth. And he communed with them saying, if it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat from me to Ephron the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Macpeliah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field, for as much money as it is worth, he shall give it me for possession of a burying place among you. And Ephron dwelt among the children of heth, and Ephron the hitite answered Abraham in the audience of the children of heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying, name, my Lord, hear me, the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee, in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee, bury thy dead. And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land, and he spanked unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, but if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me, I will give thee money for the field, take it of me, and I will bury my dead there. And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, my Lord, harken, or listen unto me, the land is worth 400 shekels of silver, what is that betwixt me and thee, bury therefore thy dead? And Abraham harkened unto Ephron, and Abraham weighed the Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of heth, 400 shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. And the field of Ephron, which was in Macpilia, which was before Mamrie, the field in the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field that were in all the borders round about were made sure. And unto Abraham for possession, in the presence of the children of heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city, and after this Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Macpilia before Mamrie, the same as Hebron in the land of Canaan. And the field of the cave that is therein were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying place by the sons of heth. That is chapter 23, and it's just fascinating the detail here of what he paid, you know, hey, Ephron says it's 400 shekels of silver, and then Abraham pays 400 shekels of silver, current money, and he pays it with the merchant, right? And they all see it, and then it's very detailed, the cave that's there, the field that's there, the trees in the border round about, they were made sure. In front of the children of heth, the people there, they were all there seeing it. Okay, so with this said, we're going to see one reason why it's important to follow the customs of the culture to do as they would have us to do so that we would then be right in God's sight. Stay tuned. Hey, it's break time around here. Thank you for listening to KJV Cafe. If you haven't already, visit kjvcafe.com for more information. So a new testament example here, Matthew 22, 15 through 22, very familiar passage here. Then what the Pharisees and took counsel, how they might entangle him in his talk, this is the Pharisees are trying to entangle Jesus here. Okay, verse 16. And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians saying, "Master, we know that thou art true and teach us the way of God and truth. Neither carest thou for any man, for thou regardest not the person of men." Tell us therefore, what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness and said, "Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money, and they brought unto him a penny." And he saith unto them, "Who is this image and superscription?" They said unto him, "It's Caesars." Then saith he unto them, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesars and unto God the things that are gods." When they heard these words, they marveled and left him and went their way. Okay, so we see here this fantastic lesson from Jesus that I think many people probably reflect on a lot more than Abraham's buying of the cave of Macbealia is that we are to give to Caesar what's due to Caesar. Like a tribute, by the way, that's taxes, okay? So Christians that don't want to pay taxes might need to look in Matthew 22. It's really hard to get around that. You just got to do what the culture requires so that you live peaceably in the culture. And that is rooted in the concept of not offending. Jesus throughout the New Testament speaks of not, let's do this so we don't offend, right? Pay the taxes so you're not offending. And then secondly, the idea that God puts people in power for a reason. God, you know, whose plan is it to have people in power? God's plan. And they're there not for evil, but to protect us from evil, the Bible says. And so we see Jesus explaining this truth, right? That we pay our taxes, we do what we're supposed to do. We essentially are good citizens, okay? Now, what if the laws go against the ways of God? That right there is a whole other discussion. I believe and God helped me to say it, that is kind of the red line, the dividing line. So if the law of the country is you never can read the Bible, then you got to break that law, okay? So that's the dividing line, right? There were a lot of laws that Jesus probably could have brought up to save his own life, but he allowed himself to be crucified so that we could be saved, right? And Pilate is dumbfounded, you know, you have the power to like convince me, because I have the power to do this and this and Jesus said, now you have only the power that God's given you. And so Jesus understood this principle that there's one above these leaders and that is sovereign God. And so we follow God first, of course, but within reason, we, you know, we live as the culture, we buckle our seat belts, you know, we, whatever it is, you know, we, again, we are civically active. We vote, you know, we pay our taxes, you know, I have a business, you register the business, you know, you fill out the forms, right? We're just good citizens, like that's one way we witness to being God's own is that we're loving and caring and we're not causing, we're not offending, we're not causing all kinds of problems. And this, I really goes against some facets of Christianity that become very radical and don't want to live that way, but, you know, the Bible speaks to it. And biblically speaking, I believe we are to do this. And so how does it relate to Abraham? He says, how much I'm paying, right? Now, let's give it to the merchant, right? Let's give it to the merchant. And by the way, let's, let's have everybody here be witnesses, right? It's no different. I mean, years ago, my wife and I, we bought a foreclosure, we went into do a closing or whatever it may be, and you sit there and there's witnesses when you sign the documents and so forth. Well, we bought a, again, it was a, it was land, it was land with an old, old dirty dusty house on it. But it was land, right? And so we bought made a purchase in front of witnesses. That's what was happening here. And so this is a great example, again, for us, the modern application is that, again, we should, we should live as good citizens. You know, like, it's so easy, I think, as Christians to get caught up in how evil the government is or how bureaucratic it is or how wicked it is or how stifling it is. But there also is more to it. It's not always that black and white. You know, there's, a lot of times, you know, the government's here to protect us, you know, and, and whatever laws and rules that are there, if you really look behind them, oftentimes there's a reason why they're there. You know, like, there's a reason why the speed limit is like 20 in a school zone because, you know, kids are crossing the street, you know, like there's a reason for that, you know, whatever the rules are. So we are as Christians to abide by the rules, right? And we're also, by the way, to pray for our leaders that we can have a peaceful life. That's another great scripture that I should bring up. Let's see here. It's 1 Timothy 2, verse 1, "I exhort therefore the first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men," verse 2, "for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life and all godliness and honesty." And there you kind of have another beautiful way to explain this principle that Paul writes here to Timothy that we are to pray for those in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life. That sounds beautiful, doesn't it? That's what I want, amen. That's what I often pray for is peace, not just out there, but in here, both in the house and in my heart, all of it, but certainly in the house, right? In all godliness and honesty. And so when we live godly, we are living honest. And when we live honest, that means there's no accusation, right? There's no optics of our doing anything wrong. And so if Abraham said, "Fine, you said you'll give me the land, I'll take the land," now it's kind of hearsay and there's no contract and he just gave it to him, quote unquote, and he may later on say, "Well, I didn't mean the trees of the land, I didn't mean this over here, but you could have this little part." No, he said, "The merchant sought, I bought it, it's mine, this is an honest transaction," right? And that is, I believe, why Abraham as well didn't take all of the spoils after he went and rescued the sodomites, including a lot. The king of Sodom wanted to give him a reward, he said, "Nope, other than what the men came with me and ate, but other than that, we're not taking anything, so you can't say you made Abraham rich," right? And also too, so that he couldn't accuse Abraham of misdoing, right? Or that it wouldn't be written of Abraham that he just did that for this, this, and this, right? It's honesty, one reason why Paul himself would not take money from the churches, wouldn't require money from the churches, though he writes that he would more than be eligible for it, that he fit all the qualifications to request it, he never would take money from them asking them. Now, of course, they may give gifts and so forth, and they did, but he would never ask them because he was going to work with his two hands, he was a tent maker, and the reason why was that nobody would then question why he was preaching this gospel, right? Our ministry, we don't have any kind of organization to receive money, we don't ask for money, we're funded by the Lord, right? But the reason why is so that nobody could say, "Oh, they're just on air for money," or, "No, no, we're not," you know? We don't have anything to sell other than God's word, amen? Nothing. Amen, it is God that powers this ministry, it is by his divine sovereign power that it's here today, that you're listening to it and so forth, and it's by him that one day he'll stop it, right, whenever he wants to. It is all of God by God for God, right? And when you have, whether it's getting land for free, whether it's something else, all of a sudden it becomes compromised, right? And then we can't live peacefully because of the lack of potential honesty, right, where we're honest, where we're not. Whereas we can live peaceably when we're honest and we're living godly, which is what Abraham was doing here, which is what Paul was doing in his ministry and what Jesus was doing, as he said, give Caesar to Caesar what is due to Caesar, and give to God what is due to God. And by the way, what is due to God? What does God want from us? A whole lot, friend. He wants our whole mind, body, spirit, everything on him, thinking of him, praying to him, seeking him, living for him. It's funny, people might take that part and say, okay, I guess I'll pay my taxes, but they forget about God. Hey, just because we're supposed to live by the law, doesn't mean we're supposed to forget about grace and Jesus and all these other things, you know? And that's the truth is that God desires from us a whole lot more, a whole lot harder gift. That's called the sacrifice of praise. That's called living for him in this broken world and being set apart from all the wickedness of this world, not being perfect, not being sinless. We can't, Paul writes, you can't depart sin unless you were to leave the world, but to do our level best to live for him, to do our level best to depart from the unclean thing, to go ahead and cancel the Netflix subscription, to get rid of all these bad things, right? To get rid, to throw the beer out of the fridge, right? To stop all the, to get rid of the bad apps, to get, to stop looking at the bad pictures, to stop saying the bad words, to stop lying, cheating, gambling, gossiping, right? We can do these things if through the Holy Spirit, God allows, so let's pray to him that he allows us to live godly, peaceable, and we follow the rules and customs as we see, see, fit. Thank you so much for listening. Tune in next time. Take care. God bless, and amen. Thanks for listening to KJV Cafe and we'll see you at the cafe tomorrow.
