Please open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 23.
For those of you who are new,
this is a very hard-hitting passage.
I didn't just decide one day, you know,
I really want to preach this passage to my church.
We've been going through,
although it has great things in there for us,
we go through the entire book of Matthew.
We've been going through it in order.
And this is where we are.
And we do it that way because
I believe, we believe as an eldership
that God knows better than we do what we need to hear.
So we don't skip passages, we go through the whole thing.
And we're in chapter 23, verses 1 to 36.
Let me pray
for the reading and preaching of God's word.
Heavenly Father,
even when it comes to following you,
worshiping you, obeying you,
left to our own devices,
we turn our obedience
into idolatry,
self-worship,
self-promotion,
self-advancement.
And we need your grace.
we need Christ
and your spirit
to renew us
and transform us
from the inside out
so we can offer you true worship.
So we ask for your help this morning.
Turn all,
everyone here
who finds
your commands
burdensome.
Everyone here
who has been religious
without
the freeing power
of the Holy Spirit
that you would make this a day
when it changes for them,
a turning point
where they live
in light of the power
of the gospel,
in the freedom
of the spirit.
Meet with us,
we ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Please stand,
if you are able,
to honor God
as we read from his word.
Matthew chapter 23,
verses 1 to 36.
Then Jesus said
to the crowds
and to his disciples,
the scribes and the Pharisees
sit on Moses' seat.
So do and observe
whatever they tell you,
but not the works they do,
for they preach
but do not practice.
They tie up heavy burdens,
hard to bear,
and lay them on people's shoulders.
But they themselves
are not willing
to move them
with their finger.
They do all their deeds
to be seen by others,
for they make
their phylacteries broad
and their fringes long.
And they love
the place of honor
at feasts
and the best seats
in the synagogues
and greetings
in the marketplaces
and being called
rabbi by others.
But you are not
to be called rabbi,
for you have
one teacher,
and you are all brothers.
And call no man
your father on earth,
for you have one father
who is in heaven.
Neither be called instructors,
for you have one instructor,
the Christ.
The greatest among you
shall be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself
will be humbled,
and whoever humbles himself
will be exalted.
But woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites,
for you shut the kingdom
of heaven
in people's faces,
for you neither enter
yourselves
nor allow those
who would enter
to go in.
Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites,
for you travel
across sea and land
to make a single proselyte,
and when he becomes
a proselyte,
you make him twice
as much a child
of hell as yourselves.
Woe to you,
blind guides,
who say,
if anyone swears
by the temple,
it is nothing.
But if anyone swears
by the gold of the temple,
he is bound by his oath.
You blind fools,
for which is greater,
the gold or the temple
that has made
the gold sacred?
And you say,
if anyone swears
by the altar,
it is nothing.
But if anyone swears
by the gift
that is on the altar,
he is bound by his oath.
You blind men,
for which is greater,
the gift or the altar
that makes the gift sacred.
So whoever swears
by the altar,
swears by it
and by everything on it.
And whoever swears
by the temple,
swears by it
and by him
who dwells in it.
And whoever swears
by heaven,
swears by the throne of God
and by him
who sits upon it.
Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites,
for you tithe mint
and dill and cumin
and have neglected
the weightier matters
of the law,
justice and mercy
and faithfulness.
These you ought
to have done
without neglecting
the others.
You blind guides,
straining out a gnat
and swallowing a camel.
Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites,
for you clean
the outside of the cup
and the plate,
but inside they are full
of greed
and self-indulgence.
You blind Pharisee,
first clean the inside
of the cup
and the plate,
then that outside
also may be clean.
Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites,
for you are like
whitewashed tombs,
which outwardly
appear beautiful,
but within are full
of dead people's bones
and all uncleanness.
So you also
outwardly appear
righteous to others,
but within you
are full of hypocrisy
and lawlessness.
Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites,
for you build
the tombs of the prophets
and decorate the monuments
of the righteous,
saying,
if we had lived
in the days of our fathers,
we would not have
taken part with them
in shedding the blood
of the prophets.
Thus you witness
against yourselves
that you are sons
of those who murder
the prophets.
Fill up, then,
the measure
of your fathers.
You serpents,
you brood of vipers,
how are you to escape
being sentenced to hell?
Therefore,
I send you prophets
and wise men
and scribes,
some of whom you will kill
and crucify,
and some you will flog
in your synagogues
and persecute
from town to town,
so that on you
may come
all the righteous blood
shed on earth,
from the blood
of righteous Abel
to the blood
of Zechariah,
the son of Berechiah,
whom you murdered
between the sanctuary
and the altar.
Truly,
I say to you,
all these things
will come upon
this generation.
This is God's holy
and authoritative word.
Please be seated.
I'm sure you've heard
the critics of religion
say that religion
makes people
insufferably overbearing,
self-righteous,
legalistic,
sectarian,
persecutory,
to the point
of religious violence.
Think of the Crusades
or the Islamic terrorism.
Of course,
they're wrong
in thinking that
religion
is the root issue.
Think of the aggressively
atheistic
Khmer Rouge regime
that caused
the Cambodian genocide,
killing up to
three million people.
Humans of all stripes,
regardless of religion,
are capable
of such atrocities.
And that's because
at the core,
at the root,
in our hearts,
we are sinners.
However,
what these critics
do get right
is that sometimes
when people
are fully convinced
of the absolute
truth claims
of religion,
they do become
sometimes
insufferably
overbearing,
self-righteous,
legalistic,
sectarian,
and persecutory
to the point
of religious violence.
Jesus says
to himself
in this very passage,
and sometimes
this charge
is true
even of
self-professing
Christians.
But shouldn't
religion
and Christianity
in particular,
whose greatest
commandment,
as we talked
about last week,
is to love God
with all our hearts
and to love our
neighbors as ourselves,
shouldn't that
make us more humble
and more loving people?
Yes,
of course,
it should.
The problem
is not
that these
professing Christians
are too religious
or too Christian.
The problem
is that they
are not religious
enough,
not Christian
enough.
They emulate
Christ's authority,
but not his
humility.
They emulate
Christ's zeal,
but not his
compassion
and forgiveness.
They are
halfway Christians.
They're not
Christian enough.
religion without
Christ
leads to
hypocrisy
because only
Christ has
the power
to give us
new hearts
and transform
us from the
inside out.
This passage
contains Jesus'
most severe
critique and
denunciation of
the Jewish
religious leaders
of his day
and it warns
us against
the pitfalls
of religion
where religions
without Christ
inevitably end up.
So first
we're going to
talk about
blindness,
spiritual blindness,
then about
legalism,
hypocrisy,
hubris,
and finally
bloodshed.
What an
exciting slate
of main points
here.
Dreadful,
really,
but may the
spirit convict
us.
Throughout
chapter 22,
Jesus passed
all the tests
of the Sadducees,
Pharisees,
and scribes
with flying colors
and the
conclusion of
it was in
chapter 22
verse 46,
no one was
able to answer
Jesus a word
nor from that
day did anyone
dare to ask him
any more questions.
Here in
chapter 23,
Jesus turns the
tables on his
interrogators
and then he
shares his
unflinching critique
of them.
In verses 1 to
12, Jesus says
to the crowds
and his disciples,
he warns the
crowds and the
disciples about
the various vices
of these scribes
and the Pharisees
and then in
verses 13 to
36, he pivots
to addressing
the scribes
and the Pharisees
directly and
denouncing them
by pronouncing
seven woes
against them
with specific
examples of
the vices that
he summarized
to the crowds
and the disciples
in verses 1 to
12.
The main theme
is the Pharisees'
pride, self-exaltation
and hypocrisy
but before he
launches into his
rebuke of the
scribes and the
Pharisees, Jesus
affirms their
teaching authority
in verses 2 to
3, which
is odd but
important.
He says,
the scribes and
the Pharisees sit
on Moses' seat,
so do and observe
whatever they tell
you, but not the
works they do, for
they preach but do
not practice.
In light of the
rest of the chapter
that we just read,
it's really shocking
that Jesus says this
at the onset of
this chapter.
The scribes and
the Pharisees are
guilty as charged
of overweening pride
and spiritual
blindness and
back-breaking
legalism and
two-faced hypocrisy
and murder.
And yet, Jesus
affirms their
teaching authority.
They sit on
Moses' seat.
People in those
days usually sat
down to teach.
Sometimes when I go
along, I think it'd
be nice to switch
that, bring that
back, right?
Jesus does this.
He sits down to
teach.
And so a seat
came to represent
teaching authority
or teaching office.
And this is true
in our day,
department heads
of various higher
education institutions
are called what?
They're called
chairs.
It's a vestige of
medieval times when
the universities,
the lecturers,
actually taught from
an elevated chair.
That's how they
came to be known
as chairs.
The chair represents
the authoritative
teaching office.
And it's an example
of a figure of
speech called
metonymy where a
closely related object
or a concept is
used to represent
something.
The idea of
Moses' seat functions
in the same way.
Ever since Moses
received the law of
God from the Lord
and then related to
the people of Israel,
it says in
Nehemiah 8.8
that there were
people who read
from the law of
God clearly and
gave the sense so
that people understood
the reading.
In every generation
of God's people,
there have been
people who read
the law of God
to his people and
explained and gave
the sense so people
understood it.
And the scribes
and the Pharisees
occupied that
teaching office.
For this reason,
despite their rampant
hypocrisy, Jesus
says, do and
observe whatever
they tell you,
but not the works
they do, for they
preach but do not
practice.
Do as they say,
not as they do.
Don't follow their
example because they
don't practice what
they preach.
Jesus is showing
remarkable restraint
here by expressing
deference to their
teaching authority.
It's an extension of
the principle that
Jesus taught earlier
in Matthew 22,
verse 21.
Therefore, render to
Caesar the things
that are Caesar's
and to God the
things that are
God's.
Why?
Because there is no
authority except from
God and those that
exist, the authorities
that exist have been
instituted by God.
So God's word teaches
us to be subject to
our human governing
authorities even when
they are unjust and
hypocritical.
That's why in 1 Samuel
24 to 26, David
refuses to kill King
Saul who's a murderer
after him, trying to
kill him because he
says, I will not
raise my hand up
against the Lord's
anointed.
In 1 Peter 2.13,
Apostle Peter tells
Christians to be
subject for the Lord's
sake to every human
institution including
even to a corrupt
emperor like Nero who
was reigning at the
time the letter was
written.
Jesus is not dismissive
of the Pharisees'
teaching office and we
should learn from his
example.
Jesus' acknowledgement
here that there are
people who do the
wrong things and yet
teach the right things
is helpful for us.
Maybe you've learned
valuable truths from a
pastor or a teacher
who is now disgraced
or disqualified from
ministry because of
some glaring sin.
It probably would be
wise for you to
double check what you
learned from that
person and their
hypocrisy probably did
color their perspective
and created some
distorted emphasis so
you should double
check that.
But don't dismiss
everything they taught
you outright because
sometimes people do the
wrong things but still
say the right things.
If God can speak through
Balaam's donkey then he
can speak even through
hypocrites.
Likewise if we are
teachers if any of you
aspire to be teachers
then this is a
solitary warning.
Just because you teach
God's word correctly
does not mean that you
are living your life
rightly.
The fact that you are
acclaimed as a preacher
or a teacher does not
necessarily mean that
you are approved by
God.
That's why 1 Timothy 4
16 says keep a close
watch on yourself and
on the teaching.
Persist in this for by
so doing you will save
both yourself and your
hearers.
It's possible for those
who preach to others to
themselves be disqualified.
The scribes and the
Pharisees were just such
people.
They did not keep a close
watch on themselves and
for that reason they fail
to save both themselves and
their hearers.
Notwithstanding their office
and authority and status
the scribes and the
Pharisees were spiritually
blind.
They were armchair
quarterbacks or backseat
drivers who judged and
offered much advice and
much critique to the people
of God and yet had never
actually done the thing.
They didn't have any real
life experience because
they didn't practice what
they preached.
In one of his sermons
18th century American
pastor Jonathan Edwards
talks about the difference
between knowing rationally
that honey is sweet and
having an actual sense of
honey sweetness.
That explosion of sweetness
that coats your tongue with
its viscosity and leaves
floral notes of lavender and
earthly molasses.
If you've tasted it you
know it.
There's a big difference
between knowing that honey
is sweet and having tasted
its sweetness.
Likewise there's a big
difference between knowing
that God is holy in your head
and having an actual sense of
the holiness of God so you
fear him and tremble before
him.
These scribes and the
Pharisees were theorists not
practitioners.
They did not practice what
they preached.
19th century Spurgeon,
Charles Spurgeon,
pastor,
compares such religious leaders
to a blind man elected to a
profession of optics.
philosophizing upon light and
vision,
distinguishing to others the
nice shades and delicate
blending of the prismatic
colors while he himself is in
absolute darkness.
He is a dumb man elevated to
the chair of music,
a deaf man fluent upon
symphonies and harmonies.
But you see,
it's much easier to learn
optometry and philosophize
about light and vision than
than to make people see.
Because only God can open the
eyes of the blind.
That's why religion without
Christ leads to hypocrisy.
The first pair of woes that
Jesus promises in verses 13
to 15 are related to this,
the spiritual blindness.
But woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites,
for you shut the kingdom of
heaven in people's faces.
For you neither enter yourselves
nor allow those who would
enter to go in.
The word woe is an
interjection of pain,
of grief,
and displeasure.
It means something like,
how dreadful,
how unfortunate,
how dreadful for you,
scribes and Pharisees,
that you shut the kingdom of
heaven in people's faces.
They didn't do this
intentionally.
They didn't do this because
they're selfish and want to
keep the kingdom of heaven to
themselves.
Jesus tells us why they shut
the doors to the kingdom of
heaven in people's faces.
For,
because,
you neither enter yourselves
nor allow those who would
enter to go in.
They shut the door on people's
faces because they themselves
don't know how to get in.
They've never been there.
They don't know the way to the
kingdom of heaven.
The second woe is similar.
Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites,
for you travel across sea and
land to make a single
proselyte,
and when he becomes a
proselyte,
you make him twice as much a
child of hell as yourselves.
In their zeal,
they're not lacking in zeal.
In their zeal,
they'll go as cross-cultural
missionaries.
They'll go and travel across
sea and land to make one
single proselyte.
They'll dedicate their life
journey and go through those
arduous journeys to make one
proselyte.
Proselyte.
And when they get one convert,
that convert does not become a
child of heaven.
Alas,
they make him twice as much a
child of hell as themselves.
Why do they do that?
Because they themselves are
children of hell.
Jesus says later in verse 33,
you serpents,
you brood of vipers,
how are you to escape being
sentenced to hell?
That's what child of hell means.
Someone who is sentenced to
hell, destined for hell.
They are children of the
serpent, Satan,
rather than children of God.
Brood of vipers.
It's harsh language, right?
How many times have you heard
me call people that?
How many of you guys have
called people that?
Brood of vipers.
But it's not unduly harsh.
Why?
Because the scribes and
Pharisees are leaders.
And their spiritual blindness
is leading people who follow
them to the doorsteps of hell.
Jesus said of the Pharisees early
in Matthew 15, 14,
they are blind guides.
And if the blind lead the blind,
both will fall into the pit.
And these scribes and Pharisees
were literally leading people
to the pit of hell.
No wonder Jesus is upset.
The level of Jesus' righteous
indignation toward the scribes
and the Pharisees is directly
proportional to the depth
of Jesus' love and compassion
for the people that they are
leading astray.
Throughout the Gospels,
Jesus reserves his severest
rebukes for the leaders
among the people
because of their outsized
influence on the eternal fate
of people.
As an old proverb says,
a fish rots from the head down.
I think technically they start
rotting from the gut,
but you don't see that first.
The first rotting you see
is the eyes, the gills.
That's when you first,
the stink comes out of it.
The cloudy, sunken eyes,
discolored gills of the fish.
The fish rots from the head down.
Similarly, unsaved,
graceless leaders
produce an unsaved
and graceless people.
This is what Jeremiah 5.31 observed.
The prophets prophesy falsely
and the priests rule
at their direction
and my people love to have it so.
False prophets lead to false priests
to lead them in the wrong direction
and the people gladly follow them.
Spiritual corruption trickles downward.
This is why God warns us
in James 3 verse 1,
not many of you should become teachers
for you know that we who teach
will be judged with greater strictness.
It's a fearful thing
to teach the people of God.
If you teach or disciple anyone,
whether you're a parent
with young kids
or a children's ministry volunteer
or a Sunday school teacher
or if you're on the pastoral staff
in our church
or you're a lay member
discipling a fellow member,
ask yourself,
am I a child of heaven?
a true Christian?
Am I speaking of God
in the abstract,
in theory?
Or do I actually know him personally?
Do I have a sense,
a taste of his holiness,
his love,
his grace,
his mercy?
If your children followed
your priorities in life,
would they turn out
to be children of heaven?
If people in the church
studied scripture
the way you do,
would they know God better
or worse than they do now?
If people in the church
pray the way you do,
would they have a deeper
or shallower relationship
with God
than they do now?
The second thing
that Jesus denounces
the scribes and Pharisees for
is their legalism.
He says in verse 4,
they tie up heavy burdens,
hard to bear,
and lay them on people's shoulders,
but they themselves
are not willing
to move them
with their finger.
One of the clearest
instances of this
was their Sabbath regulations
that I've talked about
in the past.
Exodus 28, 10
commands us
to observe the Sabbath,
remember the Sabbath day,
and to keep it holy.
Work six days,
rest on the Sabbath day.
But the scribes
and the Pharisees
took this simple command
and then attached
dozens of other
prickly rules to it.
For example,
on the Sabbath,
they said,
if you carry your pack
in your hand,
if you have a bag,
a handbag,
a backpack,
you carry it in your hand
on the Sabbath day,
then you've broken
the Sabbath.
But if you carry your pack
on the back of your hand
or on your elbow,
you did not violate
the Sabbath.
You can literally find that
in the Mishnah,
in the rabbinical commentary
on the Torah.
And remember the fuss
that the Jewish leaders
made in chapter 12.
When they saw Jesus' disciples
picking heads of grain
as they were walking
through a grain field
and they started eating it,
they're just poor
itinerant preachers.
They're not farmers
coming with a sickle
and trying to steal people's
or work on the Sabbath day
for some extra income.
They're hungry.
They're just taking
a few grains
and eating them
on the Sabbath.
And they're like,
oh, you picked the grain.
You're reaping.
And then they'd rub the grain
to get the chaff up
so they could eat the grain.
They're like,
oh, I saw you doing that.
You're threshing.
You're harvesting.
That's forbidden.
It was harvest,
the reaping,
and threshing
were two of the 39
forbidden activities
on the Sabbath.
But how is that,
I mean,
eating that on the,
how does that constitute
harvesting?
That's like accusing
a person who picked up
a lost penny
from the ground
of stealing.
Jesus' disciples
were not breaking
the Sabbath.
moreover,
Deuteronomy 23
specified
that poor people
are allowed
to eat grains
from other people's fields
as long as they're not
putting a sickle to it.
That's why Jesus
cited the example
of David,
King David,
when he was fleeing
from King Saul
who was trying to kill him,
entered the tabernacle
and ate
the bread of presence,
not the current,
the fresh one,
but the used one
that was moved
out of the table.
But only priests
were allowed
to eat that.
But an exception
was made
for David
and his men
because of their
dire,
extraordinary circumstances
and their hunger.
And Jesus,
basically,
Charles describes
the Pharisees
of being legalistic
and too rigoristic,
and so he rebuked them
saying,
if you had known
what this means,
I desire mercy
and not sacrifice,
you would not have
condemned the guiltless.
These leaders forgot
that the Sabbath
was made for man,
not man for the Sabbath.
They turned a commandment
that was intended
to give people
rest and refreshment
and turned it
into a most onerous
and heavy
and burdensome commandment.
They cared more
about external conformity
to the law
than about internal transformation.
They cared more
about the letter
of the law
than the spirit
of the law,
so they tied up
heavy burdens,
hard to bear,
and then they lay them
on people's shoulders
while they would not
lift a finger
to help them.
The Greek word
behind that word,
burden,
only occurs twice
in all of Matthew.
You can probably guess
the other time
it was used.
Matthew 11,
28 to 30,
where Jesus says,
come to me,
all who labor
and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you
and learn from me,
for I am gentle
and lowly in heart,
and you will find rest
for your souls,
for my yoke is easy
and my burden
is light.
Jesus is the compassionate
teacher and master
who assigns to people
a light burden
because he himself
carries the heavy burden
of the law
that we can never bear
by dying on the cross
for our sins.
But these scribes
and the Pharisees
are not willing
to lift the finger
to help people
carry their heavy burdens
that they themselves
have tied upon
their shoulders.
Jesus provides
specific examples
of this in the third
and fourth woes
in verses 16 to 22.
Woe to you blind guides
who say,
if anyone swears
by the temple,
it is nothing,
but if anyone swears
by the gold of the temple,
he is bound by his oath.
You blind fools,
for which is greater,
the gold or the temple
that has made
the gold sacred?
And you say,
if anyone swears
by the altar,
it is nothing,
but if anyone swears
by the gift
that is on the altar,
he is bound by his oath.
You blind men,
for which is greater,
the gift or the altar
that makes the gift sacred?
So whoever swears
by the altar,
swears by it
and by everything on it.
And whoever swears
by the temple,
swears by it
and by him
who dwells in it.
And whoever swears
by heaven,
swears by the throne of God
and by him
who sits upon it.
Jesus addressed
this issue of oaths
earlier in chapter 5
in the Sermon on the Mount.
And because the Jews
rightly took taking oaths
very seriously
because they didn't want
to take God's name in vain,
invoke God's name
and swear by God,
his name,
they were very hesitant
to do that.
However,
they wrongly believed
that by taking oaths
of sacred things
that are not quiet,
the same as the name
of God himself,
that they could get themselves
off the hook
without consequences
of breaking the oaths
they've made.
They would say,
I swear by heaven
that I did not steal
your fattened cow
and slaughter it
for my birthday
the other week.
I swear to heaven.
And then,
they'll be caught later,
be exposed
that they did indeed
steal that neighbor's
fattened calf
and slaughtered it
for his birthday.
And then they'll say,
you swore to God.
God's gonna hold you
to account for that.
You swore to God
that you didn't do that.
Oh, no, no.
I never swore to God.
I swore to heaven.
That's very different.
That's the dwelling place
of God.
That's not God.
It's legalistic
casuistry.
And it's specious,
deceptive,
over-subtle reasoning.
Whoever swears by heaven
swears by the throne of God
and by him who sits upon it.
The other two examples
are like further downstream
from that,
in chapter 23.
They would swear by the temple
and then circumstances
would change
and it would be
no longer advantageous
for them to keep
the oaths that they made.
And then they would say,
oh, you know,
if you swear by the temple,
it doesn't really work.
If you swear by the gold
that's in the temple,
then you're bound by your oath
and I didn't do that.
That's ridiculous.
Why is the gold
inside the temple sacred?
Because of the temple.
The temple is sacred
because,
and why is the temple sacred?
Because it's the dwelling place
of God.
And why were the scribes
and the Pharisees
engaging in this kind of
over-subtle reasoning?
If you've ever played
tag with kids,
you know exactly
what I'm talking about.
They have a tendency
to modify the rules
on the fly.
I've done this.
I've heard this
from kids in our church.
I'll be chasing them
for tag
and then they'll say,
oh, this is my home base.
You can't tag me
while I'm here.
They'll say it,
of course,
they'll say it
right after I tag them.
And then after patient waiting,
when they finally come out
of their home base
and I'm about to tag them again,
they'll say,
time out.
If I do time out,
you can't tag me.
They keep changing
the rules of the game
to ensure that they always win
and you always lose.
That's essentially
how the Pharisees
and the scribes
were gaming
the system of oaths.
Much like the social swearing
of our day
where people say,
I swear to God,
I saw a UFO.
Why do people say that?
Because they want you
to really believe them
that they saw a UFO.
It's a form of manipulation
to enhance their credibility
and to make their claims
more believable.
But when time comes
for people
to cash their checks
and the checks bounce,
then they would use
this kind of
over-subtle specification
to free themselves
from the oath.
Oh, I swore by the altar
but I didn't swear
by the gift
that's on the altar
so this is,
no, it doesn't work.
It's nothing.
Oaths in the Old Testament
used to be simple.
You'd make an oath
by the name of God,
you'd make a vow to God
and then you'd have to keep it.
But now,
because of the legalism
of the scribes
and the Pharisees,
every time people
wanted to make an oath,
they had to consult
a long oath-making handbook.
What was I supposed
to swear by again?
Oh, here we go,
page 92.
I can't swear by God.
It's by God's temple.
Oh, no, no,
that's not,
the altar within the temple,
no, no, no,
that's not,
that was 10 years ago.
Oh, now you have to swear
by the gift
that's on top of the altar
that's inside the temple
where God dwells in.
Whew,
I almost got that wrong again.
Contrast this superficial teaching
of the scribes and the Pharisees
with the substantive teaching
of Jesus early in Matthew 5,
34 to 37.
But I say to you,
do not take an oath at all,
either by heaven,
for it is the throne of God,
or by the earth,
for it is his footstool,
or by Jerusalem,
for it is the city
of the great king.
And do not take an oath
by your head,
for you cannot make
one hair white or black.
Let what you say
be simply yes or no,
anything more than this
comes from evil.
Vows and oaths
are concessions
to the hardness
of the human heart.
There are ways
to mitigate and contain
human evil
and wickedness
and lies,
deception.
If all of humanity
practiced complete transparency
and honesty
in all their speech,
then vows and oaths
would become
immediately unnecessary.
That is God's ideal,
ultimate standard.
Christians ought to be known
for their integrity
and honesty
so that people believe them
when they say something
without having to resort
to oaths.
Weighty words
that land with an oomph
like heavy dumbbells
instead of flighty,
fleety words
like feathers.
But you see,
that requires a heart
that fears God.
And cultivating a heart
that fears God
is way harder
than making
a hundred page
oath making handbook.
Because only God
can give us new hearts
and transform us
from the inside out.
And this is why
religion without Christ
leads to hypocrisy.
You can't change the heart,
so you focus on changing
what you can change,
external behavior.
And that always leads
to a really long list
of do's and don'ts.
And when the rule book
gets too long,
it inevitably leads
to imbalances
and disproportionate emphases.
Jesus pronounces
the fourth woe
in verse 23.
Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites,
for you tithe mint
and dill and cumin
and have neglected
the weightier matters
of the law,
justice and mercy
and faithfulness.
These you ought to have done
without neglecting
the others.
Following the Old Testament law,
the Pharisees gave
a tenth of all
their material possessions
to God
to be used for the worship
of God
and the ministry
of God's people.
However,
as they did
to everything else,
they took this
to the nth degree,
to the extreme.
They would measure
and cut
an exact tenth
of the smallest herbs
like mint and dill.
Have you used dill before?
You see how small that is?
They'd count
every tiny seed
of cumin
to tie the exact amount
to the decimal point,
the last penny.
But even as they
obeyed this commandment
to the minutest detail,
they neglected
the weightier matters
of the law,
justice and mercy
and faithfulness.
It's essentially
the great command.
Love God,
love your neighbor.
Jesus says in verse 24,
you blind guides
straining out a gnat
and swallowing a camel.
A gnat is the smallest
of unclean insects
that cause ceremonial uncleanness
in the Old Testament
and a camel
is the largest
animal
that causes
uncleanness
in the Bible
that was readily available
in Palestine.
So Jesus is using
a humorous illustration
to drive home his point,
not that they were
actually swallowing a camel.
Imagine the Pharisees
and the scribes
using a fine sieve
to filter out
a gnat from their water
because they,
oh,
that's unclean animal,
we can't have that.
Use a sieve
to filter out the gnat.
Only to realize
that their next course,
their main meal
is a camel.
Eating the whole camel.
The biggest unclean animal.
Tidying mint and dill
and cumin is easy.
It's doable.
It's manageable.
It's a smart goal.
S-M-A-R-T.
You guys have heard that before?
Yeah.
Specific,
measurable,
achievable,
relevant,
and time-bound.
Your work managers
would be proud.
But what about
justice and mercy
and faithfulness?
Jesus,
that's so broad.
That's a sprawling,
unmeasurable,
comprehensive,
unachievable,
and not time-bound
standard.
When can you ever say
of yourself,
let's look at,
catalog my date today,
justice and mercy
and faithfulness.
Oh,
I did that.
Check.
Finished.
You can now see
the appeal of legalism.
It's measurable.
It's manageable.
It's easier
to evaluate
the performance
and assign grades.
No wonder
the scribes
and the Pharisees
loved it.
Tithing 10%
to church
is easy.
It's measurable
and manageable.
But making sure
that everything
you do
and every penny
you spend
is for the love
of God
and for the love
of neighbor,
for justice
and mercy
and faithfulness,
that's hard.
That requires
total,
comprehensive,
never-ending
commitment.
Don't neglect
tithing,
knowledge,
but don't
reduce your
stewardship
to that
by-size law
either.
Make sure
that you're
loving God
with all
that you have.
Perhaps you're
extremely concerned
with theological
minutiae
or overly eager
to point out
people's sins
and in the name
of theological
precision
and holiness
you sinfully
judge
and tear down
your brother
or sister
in Christ.
Don't neglect
knowledge.
Fine-tune
your theology
about the nature
of God.
Get the details
right,
but don't
stop there.
Make sure
that you
love God
with all
your heart
and soul
and mind.
Make sure
that you
love your
neighbor
as yourself
and make
sure that
that love
is communicated
when you
bring any
kind of
correction.
Getting the
theology
right in
your head
is way
easier than
getting the
theology
right in
your heart.
And it's
impossible
to get it
right in
your heart
unless God
makes you
a new
creation
in Christ
Jesus.
That's why
religion without
Christ leads
to hypocrisy.
The scribes
and the Pharisees
spiritual blindness
and legalism,
their focus
on outward
conformity
rather than
inward
transformation
naturally
produced
hypocrisy
and produced
imposters.
Jesus says
in verse 5,
they do all
their deeds
to be seen
by others
for they
make their
philacteries
broad
and their
fringes
long.
They are
true hypocrites
which comes
from the
Greek word
for actors.
Actors
only act
like they
do when
they are
on the
screen,
when they
know people
are watching
them.
They pretend
to be
something that
they are
not in
real life.
Jesus
detailed what
hypocrites are
like in the
Sermon on the
Mount in
chapter 6.
They're the
ones who
give to
the poor
but only
when they're
sure that
their charitable
giving will
be noticed
by others.
They don't
care a whit
about the
poor.
They care
only about
being thought
of by others
as being
charitable.
The hypocrites
are those who
go to prayer
meetings and
say long
pretentious
prayers when
people are
watching but
people who
never pray in
secret when
no one is
watching.
They couldn't
care less
about praying
to God.
They only
care that
other people
think that
they pray
and that
they are
pious.
This is why
they make
their phylacteries
broad and
their fringes
long.
I mentioned
to you guys
the phylacteries
are these
leather boxes
that the Jews
wear with a
band around
their forehead
on their
arm.
It contained
the Shema
Deuteronomy
6, 4-8.
Hear, O
Israel, the
Lord our
God, the
Lord is
one.
Love the
Lord your
God with
all your
heart and
soul and
strength.
One of the
most important
passages for
Jews, they
tied it.
Even though
the original
command in
Deuteronomy
6-8 was
figurative.
It means
keep the
word of
God always
with you.
Keep the
commandments of
God always
with you.
But they
took it
literally and
put on
parchment the
command and
literally wore
it on their
forehead and
arms.
Likewise, the
tassels, the
fringes, it
refers to these
tassels that
are commanded
in Numbers 15,
38-39.
On the four
corners of their
garments they
would wear these
tassels and
they would attach
these blue
cords to it.
And the
intention was
to remind, to
serve as a
visual reminder
of the
commandments of
God, that
they should
obey the
commandments of
God.
And the
Pharisees in
the scribes,
instead of
using them as
reminders to
obey God's
commands, reminders
for themselves,
they use those
things to remind
other people of
how obedient they
are.
God's
God.
like there's a
joke among the
Greek Orthodox
Christians that
the length of
the priest's
beard corresponds
to how holy he
is.
And there's a
joke among
Reformed
Protestants that
the size of the
preacher's pulpit
corresponds to how
seriously he takes
God's word and how
weighty his
preaching is.
If you don't
have a pulpit at
all, you've
probably abandoned
preaching altogether.
If you use a
cafe table, then
you're a
lightweight preacher
with flimsy
theology.
If you use a
sturdy, imposing
mahogany pulpit,
is this mahogany?
I don't know.
Then you're an
expository preacher
with solid theology.
If you use an
elevated pulpit,
then you're a
five-point
Calvinist with a
high view of
God.
These are all
jokes and
memes, but
there's some
truth to them.
Sometimes
priests and
preachers do
use things like
these to project
holiness, to
showcase their
holiness.
That's what the
scribes and the
Pharisees were
doing with their
broad phylacteries
and long fringes.
They didn't really
care about being
holy for God's
sake.
They cared only
about being
perceived as
holy by men,
for they love
the glory that
comes from men
more than the
glory that
comes from God.
For the same
reason Jesus
says in verse
6 and 7,
they love the
place of honor
at feasts and
the best seats in
the synagogues and
greetings in the
marketplaces and
being called
rabbi by others.
I've shared this
story with some
of you years ago.
In 2010, I
volunteered at
this congress
called the
Third Lausanne
Congress for
World Evangelization.
It was held in
Cape Town,
South Africa.
There were 4,000
Christian leaders
from 198 countries
attending.
I was volunteering.
And one evening
at the conference,
there was a bit of
a stir, some
commotion, because
an Anglican bishop
refused to sit
down.
He protested that
he should not be
sitting on an
ordinary chair like
the rest of the
conference attendees
because he's a
bishop.
And he demanded a
special chair that
befitted his
office.
It's shocking.
How can someone
who has heard
Jesus' teaching in
Luke 14, 8 to 11
ever think to
demand such a
thing?
Jesus expressly
tells his people,
whenever you go to
a place, seek out
the lowest place.
Sit on the lowest
place so that they
tell you to come up
and sit in the
higher place.
Don't go seeking
out the high
place and then be
humiliated when they
tell you, no, you
have to go sit down
there.
For everyone who
exalts himself will
be humbled and who
humbles himself will
be exalted.
And the scribes and
the Pharisees who knew
the Old Testament
should have known
better because Proverbs
25, 67 says this
exact thing.
Do not put yourself
forward in the king's
presence or stand in
the place of the
great.
But how do Christian
leaders get to that
kind of place?
When you are a
hypocrite seeking your
own glory rather than
the glory of God, if
you care more about
man's approval than
God's approval, then
the gravitational pull
of those places of
honor and the seats,
the best seats, are
irresistible.
The scribes and the
Pharisees loved
greetings in the
marketplaces and being
called rabbi by others.
Courtesy greetings in
this culture is very
important.
It would be a grievous
insult to not
acknowledge your social
superior with proper
honorific titles.
And the scribes and
the Pharisees loved to
be called rabbi by
others.
The word rabbi comes
from the Hebrew word
rav, which means
great.
Rabbi means my
great one.
Or it means my
master or my
teacher.
Similar to the
titles we use like
reverend or doctor.
Whenever I ISVP to a
conference, a Christian
conference, usually you
have to fill out your
information.
And there's usually a
section where you are
asked to select your
title.
And I always think for
half a second and then
I just select mister.
As an ordained minister,
technically I can select
reverend.
But that just seems so
like God knows I'm his
servant.
My church congregants know
that I'm their pastor.
Why do all these other
people need to know that
I'm a pastor?
Why do I have to have
reverend in my name
placard at the
conference?
Why?
Because I'm afraid that
people think I'm not
important enough to talk
to?
Isn't that exactly what
James 2 warns against?
That kind of partiality?
Jesus supplies more
examples of this kind of
glory-seeking hypocrisy in
the fifth and sixth woes of
verses 25 to 28.
Woe to you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites, for
you clean the outside of
the cup and the plate, but
inside they are full of
greed and self-indulgence.
You blind Pharisee, first
clean the inside of the
cup and the plate, that
the outside also may be
clean.
Woe to you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites, for
you are like whitewashed
tombs, which outwardly
appear beautiful, but
within are full of dead
people's bones and all
uncleanness.
So you also outwardly
appear righteous to
others, but within you are
full of hypocrisy and
lawlessness.
Pharisees and scribes
took painstaking care
to ritually cleanse the
cups and the plates that
they used so that they
don't contract ceremonial
uncleanness.
And Jesus uses that as
an illustration, as a
starting point to
denounce their
preoccupation with
outward appearance
rather than inward
purity.
He says, for you clean
the outside of the cup
and the plate, but
inside they are full of
greed and self-indulgence.
How can the inside of a
cup be full of self-
indulgence and greed?
They're not physical
things you can pour into
a cup.
He's switching, he's
pivoting from literal to
the figurative.
He's speaking of the
Pharisees themselves.
You clean the outside of
the cup because you're so
concerned about appearing
holy on the outside, but
inside your own heart you
are full of lawlessness and
greed.
And what an offensive thing
to say to a Pharisee and
the scribe who took pride in
keeping the law actually in
your heart is lawlessness.
True purity and true
holiness is from the
inside out, not outside in.
They were like whitewashed
tombs.
Nothing spreads ceremonial
uncleanness like corpses in
the Old Testament.
And the Pharisees avoided
coming into contact with
corpses at all costs.
And yet Jesus tells them,
you yourselves are tombs.
You've probably visited
beautiful cemeteries before.
I like to go to Mount
Auburn Cemetery to walk
around or go birding.
If you haven't been, it's
beautiful in Watertown.
Tombstones are beautiful.
The grass is green and
immaculately manicured.
Trees soar above and
flowers bloom and birds are
chirping with songs.
But then you stop for a
moment and you think about
what's actually underneath
you, rotting flesh and
bones of the dead.
That's what the scribes and
the Pharisees were like.
Beautiful and righteous on
the outside, unclean and
lawless on the inside.
The term whitewash is an
allusion to Ezekiel 13 where
the Lord denounces the false
prophets of Israel who told
the people of God instead of
telling them to repent of
their sins, which is what
they needed to do, they
would falsely prophesy peace.
You have peace.
God's giving you peace.
When there is no peace, says
the Lord.
And he compares them to
smearing a wall with
whitewash.
There are cracks along the
walls that indicate that the
foundation is structurally
unsound.
There's grime and mold growing
on the wall from damage, water
damage.
But then these leaders, they
come to the wall and they
just plaster it over with
whitewash and pretend like
everything is fine and
dandy.
But that's foolish.
That wall is going to
collapse soon.
How many people put on their
Sunday best clothes and hang a
bright smile on their faces
when they are inwardly
crumbling inside?
How many people quote Bible
verses and pray flowery prayers
and have a reputation of being
righteous when inside their
hearts they are full of
unrighteousness?
In verses 8 to 12, Jesus
continues, but you are not to
be called rabbi for you have
one teacher and you are all
brothers and call no man your
father on earth for you have
one father who is in heaven.
Neither be called instructors
for you have one instructor,
the Christ.
Maybe some of you are panicking
because you call me Pastor
Sean and you just feel like you
got called out by Jesus.
If we apply what Jesus says
here too literally, we run
into some contradictions.
For example, in 1 Corinthians 4
15, Paul says to Jesus, not
Jesus, sorry, Paul says to the
Corinthian church that he is
their spiritual father in Christ
Jesus through the gospel.
In 1 Timothy 2 7, he says,
For this I was appointed a
preacher and an apostle, a
teacher of the Gentiles in
faith and truth.
And the fifth commandment of the
Ten Commandments commands us to
honor your father and mother.
So clearly the Bible doesn't have
any trouble with calling actual
fathers fathers and teachers
teachers.
Nonetheless, Jesus says, don't be
called rabbi, father, or
instructor.
What does he then mean by this?
These are all terms that the
scribes and the Pharisees apply
to themselves in a hubristic
way.
Hubris is a Greek word that
describes arrogant people who
believe themselves to be above
human limitations, who dare to
rival or challenge the divine.
That's what the scribes and the
Pharisees were doing.
They called themselves rabbis,
instructors, teachers, but we see
throughout Matthew that Jesus is the
only true teacher.
He taught as one who had
authority unlike the scribes.
They called themselves fathers,
even though there's only one God,
the Father, who is in heaven.
In other words, the scribes and the
Pharisees were inserting themselves
in the place of God and his son.
This is not to say that no one
should have any authority over
another among the people of God.
What Jesus said in verse 2 explicitly
contradicts that.
Jesus is not speaking about formal
hierarchy or church structure.
He's getting at something more
fundamental.
Even pastors, shepherds, must
remember that there's only one good
shepherd, one shepherd of the church,
and that is Jesus Christ.
I am a shepherd, I am a pastor, but I'm
also sheep.
And every Christian leader, pastors,
need to remember that, yes, you are,
as an elder, a spiritual father figure
in the family of God, but you must
always remember that there's only one
true father in heaven above.
We're all brothers and sisters.
There's a radical parity among believers.
And this is one of the many things that
grieves me and concerns me about
some of other denominations or the
Catholic Church.
What's the leader of the Catholic
Church called?
The Pope.
It means father, papa.
The Pope is called the vicar, vicar of
Christ, Jesus.
Meaning that he is the earthly
representative of Christ in a way that
no other Christian is.
He stands for Christ on earth.
Christ vicariously reigns, governs
through the Pope.
But Jesus explicitly says here, call no
man your father on earth.
Neither be called instructors, for you
have one instructor, the Christ.
Jesus explicitly says that no man in
the world should take his place on
earth.
Claiming that kind of privilege and
authority, I think, flies in the face
of Jesus' warning.
The greatest among you shall be your
servant.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled,
and whoever humbles himself will be
exalted.
God delegates authority to people, not so
that they might wield it for their
own benefit and advancement, but so that
they might use it to serve and lift up
others.
Christian leadership is servant
leadership.
The hubris of the Jewish leaders
necessarily and naturally led to
bloodshed.
When you want to be God yourself, you
don't take kindly to the messengers of
God.
The Jewish leaders were not following God,
they were not listening to God, so God
would send the prophets to rebuke them, say
you're doing the wrong thing.
If you're truly a servant of God, and you
hear the prophets of God tell you that you're
doing the wrong thing, then you say, oh,
sorry, master, I'll change it, I'll do
something different.
But when you want to be the master, then you
plot out how you can kill that prophet.
So you can keep doing what you want to do.
If God were to show up in the flesh, people
who want to be God themselves would kill
him.
Well, that's exactly what they did to
Jesus, isn't it?
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, verse
29, hypocrites, for you build the tombs of
the prophets and decorate the monuments of
the righteous, saying, if we had lived in the
days of our fathers, we would not have taken
part with them in shedding the blood of the
prophets.
Does you witness against yourselves that you
are sons of those who murder the prophets?
Fill up then the measure of your fathers.
You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you
to escape being sentenced to hell?
Therefore I send you prophets and wise men
and scribes, some of whom you will kill and
crucify, and some you will flog in your
synagogues and persecute from town to town,
so that on you may come all the righteous
blood shed on earth, from the blood of
righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah,
the son of Berechiah, whom you murder between
the sanctuary and the altar.
Abel was the first martyr, the first righteous
blood shed on earth, because he was more
righteous than Cain.
Cain killed him.
And Zechariah, the son of Berechiah,
it's a little confusing.
It's hard to know who exactly Jesus is talking
about here.
There's three main options.
One is Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada,
mentioned in 2 Chronicles 24, 20-22.
We are told that this Zechariah was stoned
to death in the court of the house
of the Lord.
So he's a leading candidate for being this
Zechariah because he was killed in the temple
like Zechariah that Jesus mentions here.
And also because 2 Chronicles is the last book
in the order of the Hebrew Bible,
the Jewish Bible.
And so then that begins with Abel in Genesis
to Zechariah in the last book,
and it bookends, and so he's talking about
all the blood that was shed in the meanwhile.
So he's one candidate.
The only problem is he says here,
Zechariah, the son of Berechiah,
and that Zechariah is not the son of Berechiah.
He's the son of Jehoiada.
And there is an early reliable manuscript
called Codex Sinaiticus that actually
does not contain the phrase son of Berechiah.
So it's possible that maybe the son of Berechiah
is not originally part of the scriptures.
It might be that Zechariah.
It could also be Zechariah,
the son of Jehoiada in Isaiah 8 verse 2.
Very similar father's name.
He was a contemporary of Uriah,
the priest during Isaiah's day,
and Jewish tradition does say that he was martyred.
Or it could be Zechariah the prophet
who wrote the book of Zechariah,
who is called in Zechariah chapter 1 verse 1
as Zechariah the son of Berechiah.
We just don't,
we're never told that he died as a martyr.
So if that's the case,
then Jesus knows something that we don't know.
But it doesn't really matter.
I'm really not sure which one of those are,
because Zechariah is the right one.
But one of them is the right one.
And the main point of Jesus is that
from the beginning with the blood of Abel
to the blood of Zechariah,
they have consistently been killing off
the prophets of God
because they wanted to be God.
And isn't that what we all have done?
Why do we resist the authority of God,
the commandments of God?
Because ultimately we want to be God.
We want to rebel against him.
We want things to go our way,
not God's way.
We want glory for ourselves.
We have all lived in this way.
And yet,
even though we live like the scribes and the Pharisees,
Jesus comes,
the son of the father,
the greatest of all the messengers
that God has ever sent.
And we kill him.
We crucify him on the cross.
That should be the end of the story.
Divine vengeance,
the judgment.
But it says in Hebrews 12,
verse 24,
that Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant
whose sprinkled blood
speaks a better word
than the blood of Abel.
The blood of Abel
to the blood of,
from the blood of Abel
to the blood of Zechariah,
the righteous blood
has been crying out for vengeance.
The Lord,
Lord,
bring justice.
Shed the blood of these evildoers
who have killed your servants.
But when Jesus dies on the cross,
his blood does not cry out for vengeance.
His blood does not cry out
for our destruction and death.
Instead,
his blood cries out for our atonement,
our cleansing,
our forgiveness,
and our reconciliation.
It speaks a better word
than the blood of Abel.
And it's when you receive that mercy
that God has shown us in Jesus Christ,
that it's his blood
that cleanses of all our sins,
that we can by no way,
no strength of our own,
attain the holiness that is necessary,
but that we must receive it
as a gift from God
in his son,
Jesus Christ.
That's the only way
you have a religion,
you get a religion
that does not lead to hypocrisy.
Because if you have already been told,
you can't meet the standard.
This is the standard
and you're down here.
In fact,
you think you're here,
you're actually here.
And that's why Jesus
had to die for your sins.
Then you don't go around
trying to hide things
when God's word
has already told everybody
that we're worse
than we even think we are.
And when you have been accepted
by God in such a radical way
and have been received
his mercy and grace,
and you have been loved
and accepted,
even though we are unlovable
in that sense,
we are unholy
and defiled,
well then,
we don't need to go around
groveling at the feet of men
for their approval
and their pleasure.
Because we already have
something so much more precious
in God's approval
of us and his son,
Jesus Christ.
That's the only way
you get true religion,
true Christianity,
true gospel.
That's the only salvation.
That's the only path
to holiness.
Let us remember it
and let's pray.
Let us pray.