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Important Observations From Zacchaeus

The Bible is from God (II Timothy 3:16). Each event which is recorded has importance attached to it because it is from God.  We read from the Old Testament to learn about God and to establish with power the truthfulness of the New Testament (Romans 15:4; Acts 17:11).  We do injustice at times by referring to some events as stories as if they are not true.  Zacchaeus is a case in point.  It was an actual event which occurred in the life of Jesus.  It is not some story or allegory, but rather a factual event which took place in human history.

We learn from Luke 19:2, that this man Zacchaeus was rich.  How did he reach this level of financial security?  One might argue that the ones who collected taxes for Rome were dishonest and always took more than they should have.  This is the same kind of false reasoning people use regarding Pharisees. Some today use the word “Pharisee” to mean anyone today who does not give in to liberal thinking.  It is prejudice of the highest order to read the New Testament and assert that all Pharisees were self centered, self righteous people who judged others.  Once you make such an assertion, you run in to a Nicodemus (John 3).

Contrast this, which is speculation on our part, with what we can know about this man.  Based on verse 3, he was little of stature and hence could not see over the crowd. What if I told you he was like Saul, the first king of Israel who was a tall man by the standard of the day?  You would rightly conclude such would be false because the evidence does not back up such a statement.  Zacchaeus was a man of small stature because that is what the Bible states.

Zacchaeus knew which way Jesus was coming.  How do I assert such?  The Bible states through Luke that Jesus “…was to pass that way”. What if I said, Zacchaeus went home and Jesus happened by?  Oh, that would be incorrect?  Why is that the case?  Because the Bible shows us that Zacchaeus knew which way Jesus was going and ran ahead to position himself to see the Lord.

This rich man went ahead of the crowd and climbed up in a sycamore tree (verse 3).  Whatever logic one uses, if you have Zacchaeus up in some kind of tree other than a sycamore tree you would prove that you are not reading your Bible.  What possible difference could it make?  This is an actual event in history and, therefore, because it is in the Bible, which is from God, the statement must be accurate.  Luke had to write which tree it was and if I teach from God’s Word, I must tell anyone who will listen that Zacchaeus climbed up in a sycamore tree.  By the way, what kind of wood did Noah use to build the ark?

The religious world wants to point to the book of Genesis wherein God declares that Abraham believed and it was imputed to him for righteousness.  Likewise they go to the book of Romans for the same purpose.  Zacchaeus was a “child of Abraham”.  Did he believe in God?  The evidence shows that yes, he believed in God.  Was he therefore a righteous man?

Surely if this man was a child of Abraham, he must have been righteous just like Abraham?  We come then to a very strange statement on the part of Jesus.  Jesus said, this day is salvation come to this house (verse 9).  If salvation comes then it was not already there.  What this case of Zacchaeus teaches us is that being declared righteous by God is not without conditions.  Who is a wise man?  Jesus says it is the man who hears and keeps the sayings of Jesus.  This will no doubt offend some today but keeping what Jesus says means doing what Jesus said (Matthew 7:24).

Men today are declared to be righteous if they obey the Son of God (Hebrews 2:9). They are obligated to so live that Jesus could be in their homes.

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What does it mean when the Bible says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness”(Romans 4:3)?

This statement goes back to the life of Abraham as recorded in Genesis 15:6. Moses says it was counted for righteousness.  The religious world has a “field day” on this passage.  They come to Romans 4:3 and they state if a man tries to save himself by works, he discards the idea of grace.  They move quickly to say that baptism is a work.  Hence you cannot be saved by being baptized.  Break down the statement in the book of Genesis.  Abraham believed in God (Genesis 15:6).  If God declares by such a belief that a man is righteous, then the religious world asserts, that one can never lose that.

Let us try this out.  Abraham and God are discussing the same subject two chapters later. What do we find Abraham doing in chapter 17:17?  He was on his face laughing and said in his heart the following: “Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? And shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?”  Back in chapter 15, God tells Abraham that he and Sarah would have a child.  Abraham believes what God says and it was counted to him for righteousness.  When God states the same thing again in chapter 17, Abraham is laughing.  Does this sound like a man who believes in what God said?  Being declared righteous is not a one time thing as the life of Abraham shows.  One must continue to be righteous as per chapter 17.

The meaning from Romans 4 is that when a person’s sins are forgiven, God declares the person to be righteous.  It is now up to the person to continue to live a righteous life.  The example used by James was that when Abraham offered up Isaac, God declared him to be righteous (James 2:23).  God says Abraham was righteous in Genesis 15 and then it states that God declared him righteous in chapter 22.  Both events signal the same idea.  Obeying God places one in a right relationship with God.  One must continue to live righteous as shown in Genesis 22. (Titus 2:12).

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What is meant by “Live by the sword, die by the sword” in Matthew 26:52?

This incident occurred in the garden when Jesus was taken prisoner.  When the multitude came, Peter attempted to save Jesus by taking a sword and trying to kill the closest one to them, being Malchus.  Peter did manage to cut off his ear with the blow from the sword.  Jesus prevented it from going any further by telling Peter to put up his sword.  He healed the ear of the soldier and made it plain that if He wanted to, He could call for 10,000 angels and they would come.  Jesus was willing to go to the cross.

One thing should be clear from the record of scriptures and of life itself.  Those who are violent do not always die a violent death.  There must therefore be another meaning to the words used by Jesus on this occasion.  What Jesus was speaking about was two different approaches to life.  On one hand you have the way of violence.  When God looked down on the world of Noah’s day, it was a world filled with violence (Genesis 6:11).  Did it mean that every person in the earth was violent?  It did not.  What it did mean was that when two cultures began to emerge in Genesis 4:26, one went after God and the other did not.  The culture that did not filled the earth with violence.

Jesus was telling Peter, in light of all scriptures, that men must in their life make a choice about whom they will follow.  The earth was filled with violence in Noah’s day.  Our world today suffers the same problem.  Men who think the answer to life is power over others often times result in violence.  Paul described the way of Jesus Christ to be a more excellent way (I Corinthians 12:31).  Mohammad was the way of the sword.  Jesus Christ is the way of the cross.  Each person must make a decision of who to follow and what represents the best way for mankind.  We answer, Jesus: our Lord and our God (John 20:28).

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How can we help those whose loved ones have died?

The Bible does not give us much information as to the specifics of how we can help.  It therefore falls back on using Christian principles which sustains our lives and therefore use them as we face death together.  By way of example,  James the beloved brother of John was killed by the government.  We are not given information on how John dealt with the loss of his brother under such violent conditions.  When Stephen was killed by the Jewish authorities, the Bible tells us that devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him (Acts 8:2).

The Bible reveals to us the death of Aaron in Numbers 20.  He died and the whole congregation mourned for him for some thirty days (verse 29).  How did Moses feel about Aaron’s death? Miriam had died earlier and therefore Moses was the last one of the family (Numbers 20:1).  How they grieved or how they felt is not revealed to us.  There are two words which sometimes comes about under these circumstances.  One is sympathy and the other is empathy.  Sympathy means I grieve with you while empathy implies I have gone through the same thing.  When trying to help people we do not need to focus on us but rather them.  I may have the experience of having lost both my parents but when striving to help someone else it does not necessarily follow that I understand exactly how they feel.

The issue is not about being eloquent in our wording.  The issue is opening our heart to assist someone with the pain in their heart. Taking time to be at someone’s home, or visiting at a funeral home sends messages about our caring. Flowers or cards likewise send a message.  What we try to teach is that prayer is for the most part a private matter.  We therefore should pray for those in sorrow.  At times that is all we need to say. Reminding ourselves of our need for God and being there to help carry the burdens of those who are suffering. We should all be there for all those who pass away whether they were important or not.  If we omit some families for that reason, we become guilty of James 2:4.

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Out of Sight

The twenty third chapter of Genesis relates the death of Sarah.  She reached the age of 127 (Genesis 23:1).  She spent the majority of those years with Abraham.  She indeed had a full and good life.  As Abraham prepared to leave behind his wife of all those years, he went to purchase a field from the sons of Heth. The land he found which he desired belonged to one Ephron, who was a Hittite.  Abraham made a distinction between himself and the sons of Heth.  Abraham said, I am a stranger.  Earlier in the book of Genesis when he went to rescue Lot, he was called “Abram, the Hebrew” (Genesis 14:13).  There was therefore a difference between the Hittites and Abraham’s people called Hebrews.

Ephron offers to give the land with the cave on it in which Abraham wanted to bury Sarah.  Abraham would not settle for that kind of deal.  He wanted to buy the land with the cave on it.  Both men agreed the value of the land was 400 shekels of silver. In front of witnesses, the transaction was made and Abraham bought the land with the cave of the field Machpelah. The chapter closes by showing the deal was sealed, and it properly belonged to Abraham.

Throughout the chapter the issue is, of course, a burying place for Sarah.  Moses writes this about what Abraham said.  Abraham said he wanted a place to bury my dead out of sight (Genesis 23:4). Realizing how many years they had together, death could not have been easy for such a righteous man.  Whether death comes suddenly or over a period of time, there is no way to fully prepare the heart for such an exodus of those we love. Jesus spoke of His coming death and the apostles were greatly concerned.  His solution for them and thereby for us was to teach them to not allow their heart to be troubled (John 14:1).  They could not have understood then the full implications of His coming death. The great truth is that each of us as we follow the Lord must control our own hearts.

A discussion of the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5, concerns what the Spirit of God achieves in the heart of the Christian.  I have met (and I know you have) people who were loving or caring for others.  The passage in Galatians, however, deals with the Christian and the power of God’s Word in their hearts (Galatians 5:22,23).  The one listed in verse 23 is temperance. Temperance in that setting means “self control”.  The Christian learns through study of and application of the Word of God to control his life for Jesus the Christ.  When Jesus taught the apostles to not let their heart be trouble it is in view of the fact that we learn over life’s journey to control how we think and, therefore, how we act (II Corinthians 10:5).

Abraham burying Sarah out of sight was not a derogatory statement.  Instead it leaves us with a great truth about facing the reality of losing those we love. What is that truth?  We grieve, we mourn and then we go on.  Hence the bodily remains of Sarah would be out of the sight of Abraham.  The memories of their lives together would not be buried with her.  The truth is that Abraham could not remain at the cave for the rest of his life.  He had to move on and so do we.

No one can declare how long our mourning should take nor what we do to deal with our grief.  The wisdom from God by such a chapter in Genesis is that we mourn, pay honor and then go on.  Death is never easy, nor is it necessarily someone going to a better place.  We do not sorrow as those who have no hope (I Thessalonians 4:13).  Even those who leave with no hope, we still must place them out of sight and go on.