But beginning in verse number one, the Bible reads,
After two days was the feast of the Passover,
and of unleavened bread.
And the chief priests and the scribes sought
how they might take him by craft and put him to death.
But they said, Not on the feast day
lest there be an uproar of the people.
And being in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,
as he sat at meat, there came a woman,
having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious.
And she braked the box and poured it on his head,
and there were some that had indignation within themselves,
and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made?
For it might have been sold for more than 300 pence,
and have been given to the poor.
And they murmured against her.
And Jesus said, Let her alone, why trouble ye her?
She hath wrought a good work on me,
for ye have the poor with you always.
And whensoever ye will, you may do them good,
but me ye have not always.
She hath done what she could,
she has come beforehand to anoint my body to the burying.
If we read all four gospels,
and we get the different angles of this story,
we understand that it was Judas Iscariot,
who was the one who was really piping up,
and getting the other people to say,
that this was a waste of the ointment by anointing Jesus head,
which is what the woman did.
Now, when Jesus is done rebuking that mentality,
of saying, Oh, let's not do it for Jesus,
let's give that to the poor instead.
It says in verse 10,
and Judas Iscariot, one of the 12,
went under the chief priests to betray him under them.
So notice, Judas going to betray Jesus,
is a direct result of this interaction over the ointment.
Okay, because if we read it in other gospels,
we get different details and kind of put it all together,
and see that that was something that made Judas angry.
Now, the Bible says that Judas brought this up,
not because he cared for the poor,
but because he was a thief,
and he had the bag,
and he had the power over what was put there in,
and so he wanted that money to be something
that he could get his hands on,
and he would get some of it to the poor,
but a lot of it would just end up in his own pockets.
Now, this mentality exists today,
and I'll hear things like this all the time.
When you try to preach God's word,
and you try to go out and knock a lot of doors,
and just give people the gospel of Jesus Christ,
just getting them the plan of salvation,
how to go to heaven,
you know, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ,
and a lot of people will say,
you know, that we need to be out feeding the poor.
You know, what are you doing preaching the Bible,
and giving the gospel, and doing all this?
What you really ought to be doing is, you know,
fixing the community of Tempe by feeding the poor,
and you know, don't preach against fornication.
You know, instead, you need to just open up a hotline
and a help center for every single mom,
and you know, don't preach on the homos,
just open up an AIDS clinic, you know, is what they'll say.
You need to basically just do all this social good,
and today, there are many churches
that believe in what's called a social gospel.
Instead of a gospel of the death, burial,
and resurrection of Christ,
it's a gospel of just do good, just help people,
just feed the poor,
just, you know, heal the sick, and that's it,
but is that really what the Bible teaches
that our primary objective is as the church
to just better society, to just feed people?
Now look, of course we believe in helping the poor,
and the Bible says here that Jesus told them,
you know, whenever you want to,
you can do good unto the poor,
and the Bible does teach that if we help the poor,
we're lending unto the Lord,
and that which we have paid, you know,
we will receive again, and so forth,
and we know that it is good to help people
and help our community and help society,
but at the same time,
that is not our primary mission as a church.
Our church's primary objective is to go ye therefore
into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
and teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever Christ commanded us.
Not just certain parts,
but all things that are commanded in the Bible,
we're supposed to teach those things.
So we're supposed to win people to Christ,
baptize them, and then teach them all things
that Christ taught, all of them.
Now that is our mission as a church,
but a lot of people will say,
well, what good is that gonna do?
But you know who's saying that?
A bunch of atheists and unbelievers today,
because they can't see the spiritual kingdom.
They don't believe in heaven and hell.
All they believe in is the here and now.
So they sit there and think,
well, what good is that gonna do somebody
to give them the gospel?
You know, you need to feed and clothe and house
and mentor and everything else.
But the bottom line is,
we look at their social gospel and say,
what good are you doing spooning moto meal
into that kid's mouth unless you're gonna tell him
about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ?
Because what is he profiting if he gains the whole world
and loses his own soul?
Now, we as Christians should be good people
and benevolent, and we should be helpful to people,
and we should help those that we know that are in need.
First of all, the Bible tells us
that we should do good unto all men,
especially those that are of the household of faith.
So we should always give preference
to first helping our brothers and sisters in Christ
that are in need.
I mean, if I had brothers and sisters in Christ
that were in need,
and then I saw people outside of the faith
that are in need,
I would help my brothers and sisters in Christ first.
You know, whether you like that or not,
that's what the Bible teaches,
that we should first do it for the household of faith.
You know, first do it for those that are in Jesus Christ.
But our job and our goal as a church is a spiritual goal,
not just a carnal goal of doing social good.
Now, first of all, in the United States of America, 2014,
there is no need for us to open up a food pantry
and a soup kitchen and all these different things,
because we're already having huge amounts of money
extorted by Judas Iscariot, also known as our government,
who's gonna take our money away
and give it to the poor for us.
Isn't it true?
But here's the thing that our government
and Judas Iscariot have in common.
They have the bag, they bear what is put there in,
and they take a little bit for themselves.
Okay, they take a lot for themselves.
You know, these charitable organizations today,
a lot of them don't get very much of the money
that you donate to the actual need in question.