Woe, Woe, Woe Luke 11:37-54

So it's great to see everybody here this morning, some new faces and visitors, and it's always good to be with folks, to be with the

Lord together and to celebrate and to worship his name. That's why we gather. As I've shared before, it's kind of a time to practice before we get to heaven, and it's going to be about a thousand times better than we can ever imagine here on this earth.

So it's something really to look forward to. Just some announcements, prayer meeting tonight at 6 o 'clock.

Men's breakfast and Bible study will be this Saturday, November 4th at 9 o 'clock.

The next day, next Sunday, time change, so this is fall, so set your clock back.

Bible study will be twice a month on the second and fourth

Wednesday of each month. The next one will be November 8th, and we'll be studying the book of Ruth, and all are welcome to join that, and there will be an online option, and the pastor leads that.

There will be no biblical counseling. It'll start again Saturday the 9th at 9, to accommodate the ladies' women's tea later that morning, and December 23rd, we'll go back to Saturday at 9 .30

at the new regular meeting time, and again, women's tea is at the 9th at 10 o 'clock, and missionary months are

Jack and Bev McMahon, so I think that's it today. I know we have heavy hearts for the people of Israel and all that's gone on, and to me, it's a, to see the depth and the depravity of what, how far, how deep a human heart can go without the

Lord, and without his presence, and so we need to pray for the folks in Israel, of all that's gone on there, for the missing, the people that are still in, being held hostage, and just, it's brutal to concede.

We can't comprehend it. We have the blessing of living in this country, but we thank the

Lord that we can be here together, but let's always remember them in prayer, okay?

And with that, I'm gonna open in a word of prayer. Please join me. Lord God, we thank you, Father, that we can gather together as believers, that we can come before you as we sing songs, as we're edified,

Father, by your word, we pray for the pastor, Father, as we can hear scriptures taught and preached, and may we, may it strike a chord in our own hearts,

Father, as we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us and to convict us of things that are important for us in our growth, in our walk with you,

Father. God, we pray for folks that aren't here today, Lord, that we know there are many that cannot come in because of health issues and concerns,

Father, we just thank you for them. Father, we also pray for comfort and for your healing hand on them,

Lord, that they would be encouraged if they're watching this service, Father, but that they would be encouraged in their own walk with you in the quietness of their heart,

Father, as they pray to you. So God bless them, we pray, Father, we pray for the body of this church,

Lord, that we know people come with many hurts and difficult things happening in their lives,

Father, but you can comfort them, you can shepherd them, and Lord, we pray that you would just watch over them,

Father, as they go through some difficult trials, Lord, but Father, you are present, you are always there with us, we never are alone, and we thank you,

Father. So God, today we pray for the folks in Israel and all the travesties and the atrocities that have gone down there,

Father, and the war that continues on now, Lord, we pray that you would bring peace to that region,

Father, that your name would be proclaimed in the midst of even all of this, the things that are going on there,

Father, because we know that you are aware of every little detail that's going on,

Father, but you can save and you can redirect, and so God, we pray for peace, we pray for your son's name to be proclaimed,

Father, ultimately. So we thank you for this morning, we thank you that you've brought us together here today,

Lord, may we honor you and give you glory in everything that we do. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. So the first song we're going to sing is To God Be the Glory, and this was written 150 years ago, but then it was brought back in the 50s by the

Billy Graham Crusades. It became popularized again, and kind of had a rebirth in the 50s in those

Crusades to bless that ministry. So let's stand together, we're going to sing To God Be the

Glory. I wanted to thank

Alan and Eliezer, who's been gracious in sharing the piano music with us today, so praise

God for you gentlemen, thank you. The next song is I Surrender, and when we surrender, we are submitting to the will of God, we are giving ourselves to Him, and we just, that should be our focus as we worship together, that we are giving

God our all, and we want to do things according to His purpose, His ways, and not our ways.

Morning. This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. Amen. The reading of Scripture today is

Ezekiel 34, verses 1 through 6. Ezekiel 34, 1 through 6.

And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them,

Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds, Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves, should not the shepherds feed the flocks.

Yet ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed, but ye feed not the flock.

The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost, but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them.

And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd, and they became meat to all the beasts of the field when they were scattered.

My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill, yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.

May the Lord add his blessing to the reading and hearing of his holy word. For our next piece, there is a redeemer, and it's always interesting to look back at some of the history of some of these songs and hymns.

And Keith and Melody Green composed this back in the late 70s, early 80s, and they called themselves

Converted Hippies, I thought that was kind of interesting. She was of Jewish background and converted Jew, Christian Jew, and so it's, and later in their life,

Keith, in 82, the year we were married, died in a plane crash with both his children with him, two of his children of the four.

So it's quite a tragic event, but Melody went on to kind of commandeer, kind of lead the pro -life movement.

I was not aware of that, and she carried the torch to churches all over the country. So, anyway, there is a redeemer, he is our redeemer, and praise

God that he is. Let's stand together and sing, There is a Redeemer. Please turn to the book of Luke, the gospel according to Luke chapter 11, verses 37 through 54.

The gospel according to Luke chapter 11, verses 37 to 54.

And he spoke, a certain Pharisee asked him to dine with him. So he went in and sat down to eat.

When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that he had not first washed before dinner. Then the

Lord said to him, now you Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness.

Foolish ones, did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But rather give alms of such things as you have, then indeed all things are clean to you.

But woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs and pass by justice and the love of God.

These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. Woe to you

Pharisees, for you love the best seats in the synagogues and greeting in the marketplaces.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like graves which are not seen and the men who walk over them are not aware of them.

Then one of the lawyers answered and said to him, teacher, by saying these things you reproach us also.

And he said, woe to you also lawyers, for you load men with burdens hard to bear and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.

Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the prophets that your fathers killed. In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers, for they indeed killed them and you build their tombs.

Therefore the wisdom of God also said, I will send them prophets and apostles and some of them they will kill and persecute.

That the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundations of the world may be required of this generation.

From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.

Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves and those who were entering in you hindered.

And as he said these things to them, the scribes and Pharisees began to assail him vehemently and to Christ examined him about many things.

Lying in wait for him and seeking to catch him in something he might say, that they might accuse him.

This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray. Father, we come before you knowing that even those who appear to be holy outside may be filthy wicked on the inside.

And we pray that we would not become one of those who would care more about the outward holiness to ignore the inward purity which matters even more.

And Father, we pray that you would prevent any of these false teachers from guiding your sheep away from your son

Jesus. In his name we pray, amen. So, after establishing the importance of responding to Jesus in the last passage, we see that the very people we may expect to respond faithfully to Jesus, failing to do so.

This is a big irony here. We have a very negative notion of the

Pharisees because you have grown up reading the Bible. The Pharisees are the ones that Jesus often condemned, and rightfully so.

He's the judge. However, in ancient Judaism, the Pharisees were very popular among the

Israelites because they were very devoted to the whole Old Testament, right? The whole Old Testament, the same

Old Testament that we have. The Pharisees were very devoted to them. And even though they were a minority in the

Sanhedrin, that's the ruling council, the religious leaders of Israel, and they would decide very important things, even though they were a minority, they had a huge influence because the people loved them so much, right?

They were the holy teachers. The scribes or lawyers, it goes back and forth in this text, right?

Scribes and lawyers are interchangeable, and they're not lawyers of this day, right?

We have no respect for our lawyers, right? There are jokes about lawyers. But back then, lawyers or scribes were highly regarded because they were copying down Scripture, right, over and over again, and they knew

Scripture very well, right? So we need to actually refocus who they are, right?

Imagine you have never heard about the Pharisees or scribes before. They were very well respected, and Jesus comes to their dinner and says those things, right?

It was a shocking dinner. Now, to Israelites, if anyone was right with God, it would have been a

Pharisee or a scribe, right? In our days, we might be thinking, just plug in pastor and elder, or a deacon and elder, right?

And you'll get the same message here. Now, this passage, however, paints a starkly different portrait.

The Pharisees and scribes' word are now painted as the unfaithful responders to God's message because they don't receive

Jesus and His word. Now, Luke divides this passage by showing us three woes to the

Pharisees and three woes to the scribes very evenly. A woe is the most powerful prophetic declaration of doom.

It was the highest level of condemnation you could possibly say. I wouldn't even say the modern equivalence in the pulpit lest it gets misunderstood, right?

It's that bad. For those who receive woes have only most torturous and excruciating pain to look forward to on the judgment day.

It was that bad. As this passage shows the lack of response to Jesus, it also provides a pivot point for the future passages we read.

Luke makes a distinction between following Jesus and following the existing religious establishment, namely

Pharisees and the scribes here. This is crucial because a Jew at this point, during Jesus' ministry, would have thought

Jesus and the Pharisees were on the same side, right? They both know

Scripture well. Jesus is quoting Scripture like all the time. Well, so are the Pharisees.

And they talk about God. They both talk about God. They both talk about the importance of holiness and purity, repentance, right?

And through this encounter, however, Luke will show that following Jesus is no way close to following the

Pharisees. In fact, following Jesus will lead you to God, but following the

Pharisees will lead you to hell. The modern comparison, as I mentioned, are really the pastors, leaders, teachers, deacons, elders, longtime members, and even cults who claim to follow

Jesus. Yet, they hide Jesus from their followers, and they build up their public image at the cost of their inner purity.

That is one of the most heinous forms of spiritual abuse.

Instead of presenting Christ as the most important and relevant being in everyone's life, a pastor may narrate an interesting story about himself and give a life advice on how to live a happy life.

Now, the audience, the people, actually leave feeling good instead of experiencing a transformation in the heart.

They had the thousands, had the privilege, almost an opportunity to repent and be right with God by believing in Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice.

Yet, the pastor or so -called pastor talks about himself and just tickles the ears of the audience to give them an inspirational message that has no power to transform.

The scribes, think of them as the cults or certain Christians who push regulations that are beyond the scope of the

Bible. While Scripture verses may roll off their tongues, they portray following Jesus as following strict rules that they have been themselves following for decades.

Maybe they might not have been following them that strictly either, but they will push it upon someone else to do so.

For these people, despite the appearance of religiosity and holiness, not rewards but only condemnation awaits.

They're putting extra burden on God's people that's preventing them from actually truly knowing God because they are depicting

God in the wrong light. Now, the main question of this text is, who will be condemned on the judgment day for rejecting

Christ? Who will be condemned on the judgment day for rejecting Christ? First, Jesus condemns all who chase the perception of purity while their inside is filled with wickedness.

Now, this is not a comprehensive list of who will be condemned, but what's important is, and shocking, is that these people are precisely the ones that everyone thought would be rewarded by God.

But what Jesus is saying, even they are condemned. So, this passage starts with a dinner invitation.

And we will see on that it's not a private dinner, but there are many in audience, right?

They're watching. It seems friendly at first, but Jesus will pronounce woes to those in attendance.

Verses 37 and 38 introduce the context of the condemning passage. As Jesus is teaching, a certain

Pharisee asks to dine with him. Jesus accepts the invitation. However, the focus is, of course, not the dinner.

We don't know what they're eating because that doesn't matter. Scripture doesn't tell us. But what will soon follow, the words of Jesus' mouth, will be the focus.

The conflict arises in verse 38. When the Pharisees saw it, he marveled that he had not first watched before dinner.

You can tell the Pharisees were already watching carefully. For example, when you have someone over for dinner, you don't really look for whether they're washing their hands before dinner or not.

It really doesn't matter. It's none of your business, right? But the Pharisees, they were watching closely every move that Jesus was doing because they wanted to see what kind of person he was.

Is he on our side? Can he be controlled? Now, you can tell, right, the

Pharisees' amazement at the Jesus' lack of washing is actually that of a judgment, right?

Amazement here is not a, oh, wow, what a great thing to do. No, this amazement is a shock.

How could he? It's to say that Jesus is not all that holy and pure because he didn't wash his hands or wash his body, right?

And in the Jewish tradition, people did wash before eating. This was not out of the ordinary to expect someone to wash.

For example, in Genesis 18, Abraham brought out water for the three special guests to wash before that great feast.

However, it is important to know that washing before a meal was not a command from God.

Jesus did not break God's law by not washing before the meal. Jesus didn't sin.

That would be preposterous. He merely broke their existing tradition.

By doing this, he directly challenged their tradition. Although the

Pharisees did not speak up, right? Their amazement was, you know, not verbal. Jesus responds to his silent reaction.

Then the Lord said to him, now you Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward parts are full of greed and wickedness.

Jesus' first response is an illustration of kitchenware. It is problematic to have dishes and cups that are filthy on the inside yet shiny on the outside.

The moment you pick it up to use it, you will put it down into the sink. You picked it up because you thought it was good, it was washed.

Yeah, it is shiny on the outside, I don't see any gunk. But the moment you look, you don't dare to use it.

That's the illustration. Now, because the

Pharisees were only concerned with the external cleanliness, how they are viewed,

Jesus shows that they're actually truly lacking what's more important, inward purity. Just as a cup that is dirty on the inside but clean on the outside is just useless for its purpose.

The Pharisees who appear to be squeaky clean on the outside yet are filled with wickedness and greed on the inside are useless to God.

There are two significant points here to Jesus' comment. First, Jesus knew their inward thought to speak up like this.

Second, because Jesus was able to know their inward thought, he could see their inward heart that was full of greed and wickedness.

And I guess third, Jesus is not just a normal human here. He has access to knowledge that's beyond human capability.

He's divine. Now, verse 40 rebukes them for not caring for both of which

God has made, the inside and the outside. That's what verse 40 means. God has made the inside and outside.

Why are you only taking care of the outside? Why are you ignoring God's command? And Jesus charges them with hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is the inconsistency between their inner life and their external life, their public life.

They seem to be holy by others, yet Jesus can clearly see and smell the gunk inside that's putrid.

To the Pharisees, the appearance of purity was more important than the reality of purity.

They cared more about how they are viewed rather than who they truly are.

After the general rebuke, Jesus exhorts them with an example of unhypocritical life.

What would it look like if you lived correctly? But rather give alms of such things as you have.

Then, indeed, all things are clean to you. Alms here are the financial giving to the poor.

This may be odd to us, but giving to the poor was a great example of inward kindness in Judaism.

After all, when you give to the poor, you don't expect a return. It's not about selfish gain.

It's not by the external profit here. Second, it has to be intentional, which means it comes from the heart.

Giving to the poor starts from the heart, the inside. It is also non -transactional.

You didn't give to the poor to earn something back. It wasn't about you in the first place. It was about the poor who were getting helped.

And concern for the poor was notable because that is where God's heart is according to the

Old Testament. All throughout the Old Testament, God's inner being cares for the poor, the widows, the orphans, and the foreigners, the ones who can't take care of themselves, so God will.

And even through the law, God will, such as gleaning. Don't pick off everything.

Leave something for the poor. That's God's heart for the poor. Hence, giving alms was a tangible example of an inner purity heart, heart that's pure.

By doing so, the giver reflected the loving kindness and mercy, which are

God's characters. So according to Jesus, kindness and generosity toward those who can't repay is the palpable picture of purity inside.

Therefore, if the Pharisees actually got their inner life together, all things would be clean to them.

They have no problem with the external cleanliness. Not gonna lecture you on that. You're fine. But inner, hmm.

Jesus declares that the inner purity is far superior to the external appearance. This rebuke is astounding, right?

Because if anyone is acceptable to God, if anyone is clean before God, it would have been the Pharisees.

Yet, Jesus is saying even the Pharisees are part of the evil generation from the previous passage.

The evil generation that rejected Jesus even though someone greater than Jonah is here and is preaching.

And someone greater than Solomon is here and he's the wisest being of all.

And you've rejected him. That evil generation are those who need to respond in repentance, right?

That's the given command. What this shows that even the holiest or seemingly holiest of Israel stood guilty before God.

In fact, those who publicly appeared to be the purest were the most condemned of them all.

What that means is there's no one who is not, no one who is scot -free before God.

Everyone has to repent. Everyone has to come before God with their inner wickedness.

The following three woes concern the Pharisees' misplaced emphasis on the external cleanliness while they neglected what's truly more important, the inner purity.

The first woe condemns their external obedience at the cost of the internal obedience.

But woe to you, Pharisees. But you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, right?

Here, tithing was actually part of the Old Testament where you give 10 % to God.

This is not true for those of you who are in the church because you're a new covenant people. You're under a different covenant.

You give generously according to how God leads you. You don't have to stick to the law here, right?

The law has been fulfilled by Christ. So you obey Him. Now, the

Jewish tradition went beyond just the money and livestock. When I say tradition, it's not in Scripture.

Tithing mint and rue and all sort of herbs is not found in Scripture. Herbs and plants are included too according to the

Pharisees. When they tithed, it would have been public. So all who were watching would be amazed by their faithfulness as they bring all these greens, right?

Oh, they brought the livestock, but they're bringing the greens? Yeah, they are. Wow, they even tithe plants too.

They're going above and beyond the law. They're so holy. While they meticulously coordinated how they are viewed,

Jesus shows that what they missed. And pass by justice and the love of God.

These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. While they painted a rosy picture of the purity on the outside, they missed the truly important part of the law, justice and love of God.

In fact, that's what God says right in Micah 6. You've missed it all. It's about justice, mercy, love.

They pass by it. What this means is they're just walking away from God's command, right?

They're walking away from God's justice and love, the critical part of the law.

In order to keep up their public image by keeping man's traditions, they abandoned to follow the core of God's law, love and justice.

The Pharisees were the opposite of the good Samaritan that we saw in chapter 10. The good

Samaritan, a Jewish apostate, right? Samaritans were not really the squeaky clean Jews. They were mixed blood.

A Jewish apostate, the good Samaritan, ignored the proper poise of not dealing with the

Jews to follow justice and love to save the one who is dying on the road.

The Pharisees, the pinnacle of Judaism, clung unto the proper poise to abandon justice and love, according to Jesus.

That is a huge pronouncement of woe.

The second woe condemns their wicked desire for public recognition. Woe to you,

Pharisees, for you love your best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Notice their love is for how they're viewed by others.

It's really narcissistic to want to control how others view you. And that's what the

Pharisees are. I want to be regarded as the best. The best seats in the synagogues were reserved for them, right?

And when they come for their seat, it would have been noticeable. Oh, that seat's going to be taken.

Or if someone else tried to sit down, oh, no, that's saved. That's not for you. That's for the

Pharisees. They're coming. Greetings here were not just a simple hello, but rather a long, lengthy conversation because they were that important.

Everyone who saw them had to stop. And I would say, waste their time in greeting the

Pharisees. Their presence made others drop whatever they were doing to greet these

Pharisees. This narcissistic desire for worship is specifically what was despicable to Jesus.

To the Pharisees, the synagogues no longer existed to worship God, to love

God. That's the core of gathering together God's people, to worship

God, to focus on God, to love God. But notice what they love instead, the seats, their recognition.

They are the center of worship, not God. The fact that they love even the greetings rather than the people they meet in the marketplace shows that they have gone against the greatest commandment.

The two parts, love the Lord and love others. Love your neighbors. Because their love, their desire is pointed elsewhere.

It's pointed to themselves. The third woe condemns how their appearance of purity is ironically defiling.

Woe to you, Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them.

This may be confusing at first, but let me explain. Jesus is calling the

Pharisees an unmarked grave. An unmarked grave would mean that there was a dead person inside.

An unmarked grave with a dead person inside means that it's both unclean and unnoticed, both of the traits which the

Pharisees tried to cover with their public image.

An unmarked grave would actually, unfortunately, make anyone in contact with it impure. You walk over that, you just became unclean.

And remember in the Old Testament, anything that resembled or connected to death made you unclean before the

God of life, right? What this was, it was a teaching lesson for the

Jews. The holy, pure God of life, right? God is the God of life because he's the one who gives life.

He's the one who spoke everything into creation, right? He's the one who raises life. Well, if you're going to be coming before the holy and pure God of life, well, that God cannot dwell among unclean people who are constantly in contact with the dead.

And the dead could be so many things. It wasn't just the dead person literally.

Of course, it counted. But it could have been pork because pigs eat dead things.

That's really close to death. You have to be more than one degree away from death, right?

That's why they mainly ate herbivores. They don't eat dead things. They don't eat plants. They don't eat dead blood animals, right?

So what they're saying, what Jesus is saying, now, for someone unknowingly walking over the unmarked grave would still be defiled even if it had been an accident.

Jesus is telling them that the traditions of Pharisees that purport to make followers clean and pure in reality defile them.

Pharisees, you're telling your followers that if you want to be pure, follow me. No, you're an unmarked grave.

You're actually, anyone in contact with you is defiled because of you. Following them is like touching dead people.

That's what Jesus is saying. But you're also unmarked because you know what?

You're not that special. You think you're all special with that external concern for purity.

You're an unmarked grave. No one remembers you. Ultimately, Jesus is showing that the way of the

Pharisees led to death. The Pharisees believed their teaching guided others to life.

In reality, they were leading others closer to death. And people who are in the church, and they do not know the gospel, right?

And when those people, so they're not actually saved, when those people tell others how to be close to Jesus, they often in error tell them, just be good, just be good.

Avoid drugs, sexually immorality, and you're right with God. Don't watch these shows and avoid these people who do, and you're good with God.

Now, these are not bad advice, right? But yeah, avoid drugs, right? Don't commit sexual immorality. However, if they're the only things that are taught and talked about in the local church, people will go to hell because they're not hearing the true saving message of the gospel, right?

They're not hearing that you're not good, and in order to be right with God, it's not about what you do, but what

Jesus has done on the cross, what he has done to take your sin, all of it, not part of it, all of it, and he suffered

God's wrath on your behalf so that when

God sees you, he doesn't see the record of sin that you've committed because it's been paid for and he's risen.

Now, if they don't hear that message and they only hear just be good, just a list of things to avoid, things to pursue, people will go to hell, and they are pharisaical if they do that.

Commands without God's grace is pharisaism, and on the last days, these people will stand before Jesus during their exit interview, and they will list out the wicked things they avoided and the good things they pursued.

However, they will still stand in their own sin unjustified and impure because they did not actually believe the

Savior who took away their sin by dying on their behalf and rising from the dead. In the end, all these appearances of purity were not pure enough to cleanse away their sin inside because only

Jesus can do that. The second type of people that Jesus condemns are all who create obstacle for others in following God in order to keep up their appearance of purity.

Jesus condemns all who create obstacles for others in following God in order to keep up their appearance of purity.

After hearing these condemning words from Jesus, a lawyer jumps up in protest, teacher, by saying these things, you reproach us also.

This lawyer knew that they were not off the hook because the lawyers or scribes, depending on your translation, supported the same people.

They were the followers of Pharisees. Well, you condemn the Pharisees, they're condemning us. They were also on the chopping block.

Now, Jesus does not hesitate to pronounce the woes against them. In fact, he just starts. First, woe to you also, lawyers, for you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burden with one of your fingers.

The word burden here in other texts is actually used to describe a ship's cargo in Acts 27.

That's heavy, a ship's cargo. I don't know how many of you have seen a massive transportation ship that's transporting the goods.

Cargo ships, their cargos are heavy. Humans can't lift them.

They have to be lifted by machines. And what Jesus is saying, that burden's really heavy.

They're adding difficult religious duties to the law and making it harder for people to actually obey the core of the law, love and justice.

And what's more evil is that they put the burdens on the people who are already struggling, but they themselves don't even help out.

They don't put a finger on it. By keeping up their external appearance of purity, they were making it harder for God's people to actually encounter

God. These rules became a checkmark and a badge of honor rather than the exercise of mercy and justice, reflecting the compassionate heart of God.

Instead, the failure to follow these rules disheartened the people who feel that God is now unreachable.

They could not see how God could ever accept them if they couldn't quite follow the traditions of the scribes.

For example, in Roman Catholicism, the doctrine is that sins are only forgiven when they are confessed to priests.

And this is because they, like the Pharisees and lawyers, hold traditions equal to Scripture.

Now, this practice is nowhere found in Scripture. There is no text in which you have to confess to priests.

In fact, I can give you texts in which you don't confess to priests and you confess to Jesus. Right? 1

John 1, 9. If you confess your sin to Jesus, He is righteous and faithful to forgive your sin and cleanse you of all unrighteousness.

There's no footnote or any text, existing manuscripts that says priests.

If you confess to Jesus through the priests, that's not there. Second, this is an undue burden of God's people.

All of a sudden, people who want to know God, people who want to be close to God, have to seek out priests whenever they sin.

The Catholic priests are adding themselves into the equation to the person's relationship with God.

Now it's all of a sudden you, priest, God, no longer you and God.

That's an undue burden. After all, what if the people are not available to see priests?

Are they just living in that guilt and sin until the next time they see a priest?

Well, what if they are on their deathbed and the priest does not make it on time? Their last thought is that their sin is not forgiven and they're going to hell or purgatory to suffer?

The feeling of guilt on the Catholic Church followers is actually tremendous.

There are some of the people who hold on to shame and guilt like no other. They're like magnets to guilt and shame.

That's a burden. That's a huge burden that the

Catholic Church is putting on them. The second woe is they appear to honor

God's messengers, yet they hate them instead. Verse 47,

Woe to you for you build the tombs of the prophets and your fathers killed them.

In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers for they indeed killed them and you build their tombs.

Therefore, the wisdom of God also said, I will send them prophets and apostles and some of them they will kill and persecute.

That the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation.

From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple, yes,

I say to you, it shall be required of this generation. This woe is at first confusing.

After all, why is building a tomb for the prophets a bad thing? Isn't that honoring?

Right? Build tombs for people who were God's people. Why not?

This is actually a rhetorical argument. This is not a literal argument like, ah, the tombs are just really bad, right?

You could have built better. That's not the argument. It's rhetorical. Jesus is saying, because you're actually not honoring the words of the prophets by putting on all these undue burdens on the people because the prophets were against that, right?

You are just like those who killed them. Your belief, your belief system, and your practice, and your words are just like the ones who killed the prophets.

So, they're your fathers. Now, this is not a biological lineage, right?

Jesus is not looking at their family tree and saying, yep, your father killed Micah, right? No, right?

Your father killed Isaiah. Your father killed Jeremiah, right? No, that's not what he's saying at all.

What he's saying is the similarity in the religious lineage, your belief, the similarity of rejecting

God's messengers is prominent here with you just as was present in the past when all these prophets of God were killed.

The religious lineage, in fact, goes all the way to the beginning. He says, Abel. Abel, Genesis 4?

Yes, Abel. Abel, one of the two sons of Adam and Eve, the first one, the first two sons, right?

One of the first two sons. He was killed for doing what's righteous, offering sacrifice that were pleasing to God.

And one says, he's a prophet too. After all, when he died and was hidden by Cain, his blood spoke.

He's a prophet who speaks. Now, Zechariah is likely the prophet that the

Lord sent in the last days of Judah in 2 Chronicles 24, 20 -25.

When he condemned Judah for forsaking the Lord, they killed him in the temple court by stoning him to death.

So I think that's what it means that he died between the altar and the temple. There's the altar outside.

Just as the Jewish apostates killed the prophets in the past because they refused

God's word, and the lawyers and Pharisees are just as equally refusing

God's word through their practices. Well, if you're adding to God's word, you're refusing God's word.

If you're adding traditions to God's law, you're saying that it's not enough. It's insufficient, right?

You're just like those who killed the prophets. You didn't want just God's word. You wanted something else.

So they added. Ultimately, when the

Pharisees and scribes, lawyers, reject Jesus, they're also rejecting all the prophets because all the prophets of God pointed toward Jesus.

So in that sense, building tombs for the prophet is like putting the cherry on top of the work of the unfaithful

Jews in the past did by killing the prophets. They're just guilty of rejecting the prophets as their fathers did.

For that, their generation will be accountable on the judgment day. The shed blood, all those who have died will speak against them, and they will be charged and punished.

Now, the last woe is particularly heinous. Woe to you, lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge.

You did not enter it yourselves, and those who are entering in you hindered. They are obstacles to knowing

God. These people are acting, living as obstacles to knowing

God. They have the access to knowing God because they have Scripture, right? They know Scripture.

Yet they choose not to follow God. Not only that, they prevent others who want to follow

God by holding the keys but not letting them have it.

Right? The key is access to God. It's relationship with God. It's blessing from God.

Yet what they're doing is they're not giving it to the people who want them. They're holding it for themselves, but they don't want it either because if they worship

God truly, they can't control others. Right? They can't look like the best in the seat.

They can't look the best in the synagogue because God's the best. So they don't enter, but they know

Scripture. Right? They know Scripture really well. They know how to have correct relationship with God.

They just don't want others to go in either because they can't control them. The moment you believe in the God that you're saved by grace alone, by believing in Him alone, you're free.

No one comes between you and God. That's the most important relationship. You can't be controlled by religious authorities.

Now, after Jesus pronounced these woes, Luke tells us that the Pharisees responded, actually, not in repentance, but in further rebellion.

And as he said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees begin to assail him vehemently and cross -examine him about many things, lying in wait for him and seeking to catch him in something he might say that they might accuse him instead of repenting and changing of their ways, they've actually doubled down.

And now their target is Jesus. Before the dinner, they might have said, let's figure him out.

Maybe he could be on our side. Now, after what he said about them, their public enemy, number one, is

Jesus, right? They cannot stand him. And these verbs here are very vicious.

Look at this. They're questioning him, not to find answers, but to trip him. It's extremely manipulative, right?

Putting aside a facade, but then internally, it's not for what it seems.

It's to trap him. But not only that, lying in wait, that's like, they're like lions, they're predators.

Who lies in wait for anyone? Well, the Pharisees do. The response makes it clear that Jesus' path and the

Pharisees' path are not the same. In fact, the latter leads to death, while Jesus' way leads to life.

And Luke shows us that only Jesus' way leads to God. The other way, they only stop short, and they won't let anyone else go in.

There are two examples of setting up obstacles, religious authority setting up obstacles in front of people who actually want to know

God. One is actually Judaism. According to One for Israel, a

Christian ministry to Israel so that they share the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Jews living there, they actually say the synagogues now skip over Isaiah 53.

They have a scheduled reading, right, unlike us where we decide as a church, like, okay, let's go over this series, this book.

They actually have a scheduled reading that they keep. So after they read

Isaiah 52, Isaiah 54 is the next one. And it's actually important to note that the

Protestants, us and the Jews, share all the same books of the Old Testament. We're actually going with God's history and revelation.

We're not adding more books than the Jews have to the Old Testament. And that actually goes along with what

Paul says in Romans 3, that the Jews had the oracles of God.

So we just received the oracles of God as the new covenant people.

We're not adding apocryphal books. Now, what that means,

Isaiah 53 is in their Old Testament book. It's in the Hebrew text. It's not missing. And what's really sad is that Isaiah 53 is one of the clearest

Old Testament passages that prophesies Jesus suffering death, an accomplishment of his substitutionary atonement, that Jesus died for you, that he suffered for your sin.

And I'll give you, and what's astonishing is that this was written 700 years before Christ.

700 years before Christ means, well, if Christ showed up and did the things that the chapter 53,

Isaiah 53 prophesies, well, then he's gotta be the Messiah. Well, let's hide that.

Let's prevent them from seeing their Messiah. Let me read some verses from that.

And some of you might think this is from the New Testament. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our pains, yet we esteemed him stricken, struck by God, and afflicted.

This verse really foreshadows the substitutionary atonement of Christ, that what would fulfill.

Just as Christ faced the wrath of God, he was stricken, he was afflicted for our sin. The suffering servant suffered in the place of his people.

It was not his own suffering as a punishment, but on behalf of his people.

The substitutionary atonement, it gets even clearer here. But he was pierced because of our transgressions, our rebellion, our sins, crushed because of our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.

How are you restored, spiritually? By his stripes. Because he was suffering for your sake.

He died, he was pierced. And through his death, there is healing, there's restoration.

Many Jews have, in fact, encountered their Messiah, Jesus, through Isaiah 53.

And now it has become more difficult as the synagogues have removed that chapter from their reading schedule.

And this is a modern -day example of prohibiting others from accessing God, because Jesus is the only way to God.

If you prevent people from seeing Jesus clearly from Scripture, that is an obstacle to God.

Another example is found in Catholicism. In fact, holding on to traditions as equal to Scripture is what those two religions have in common.

Catholicism holds on to tradition as equal to Scripture. That means Scripture, God's very word, is equal to human words, human traditions.

Very folly view of God, because God speaks and He doesn't err. When we speak, we err all the time.

Now, here's the crucial thing. Their lay people are forbidden to interpret

Scripture on their own. Their lay people are forbidden to interpret Scripture on their own. They do have the

New Testament, right, like us. They have the Old Testament plus some other books that are false, right?

They have the access to the Gospel, but what are they supposed to do? Listen to what the

Church does in interpretation. There's an official interpretation of the passage, and they must follow it.

I do jokingly say that because the Catholic Church has access to the Gospel, they have the

Bible, they have the New Testament. I jokingly say, the only saved Catholics are those who go against their doctrines.

The only saved Catholics are those who believe what the Bible says and reject the traditions of that church.

What this means is it has prevented a lot of Catholics from learning about Jesus, the true

Jesus. They miss out on His grace as they have to work for their salvation. You can't be justified by faith alone.

It's faith and works. What's hard is that if you're working, it's no longer grace.

Grace is freely given. Work is earning. You can't earn grace.

Grace cannot be earned by works, and they miss out on the freedom of forgiveness as they have to earn indulgences to save some time, shave some time off of purgatory.

Yes, they do still have indulgences. They don't sell them like in the

Martin Luther's Day, but you visit a prominent, a famous Catholic building.

They'll write out, they have an indulgence printed out for you, and the indulgence is that, well, yes,

Jesus, He died for your sin, but you know guilt remains. You gotta still have some punishment to, you know, because you gotta pay off, right?

So there's no freedom of forgiveness for the Catholics. In fact, when the current

Pope, Pope Francis, got elected by the Cardinals, you could have gotten indulgences yourselves by following him on Twitter, now called

X. They give out indulgences for those following Pope Francis, and they miss out on the assurance of salvation because they condemn the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

How can anyone be sure that you're saved, that you're right with God? If your salvation depends on your good works too, you might be working well now, but you could stumble tomorrow.

Oh, then you're not saved. The Catholic traditions, despite having

Scripture that shares the gospel, it does share the gospel, right? They have all the New Testament books that we have, have prevented millions, if not billions, from having a relationship with the true

God through Jesus Christ. They themselves became the obstacles to the people who crave, desire, hunger to know the true

God because they want to control. If you've got to keep doing good works, let the church help you because your salvation depends on it.

If you've got to keep confessing to the priests, better come back to church. Come to the

Mass. You don't get the Eucharist? Hmm, your soul's in trouble.

On the judgment day, those who have prevented others from coming to Christ will face an unimaginably painful punishment for all eternity, more so than those who have been deceived by them.

Although they had access to God through Christ, they not only chose not to see God, but they also locked the door behind so the others can't go in.

If you talk to Victor and Barb sitting right there, they do have experience working with Catholics who've converted to Jews.

And I will end with what they have said, what the Catholics who converted to Protestantism, what they have said.

They've said that the Catholic Church had been hiding Jesus from us.

The Catholic Church had been hiding Jesus from us. It is so close. They have the

New Testament, yet the church successfully hides from most of the Catholic practitioners.

And on that day, the priests, archbishops, cardinals, the

Pope, will not have a taste of heaven.

They will be condemned. That's not my word, that's Jesus' word. Let us pray.

Father, we are thankful that we do have freedom in Christ and that we can read Scripture for our own, knowing that Scripture interprets

Scripture, and then the Holy Spirit helps each person on his and her own journey of faith.

And Father, we pray that you would ward off any false teachers in this church so that the freedom in Christ may never be taken away by your sheep here.