Woe to the Scribes & Pharisees - Part 2

Let's turn to Matthew chapter 23. We were in Matthew 23 last week.

We're gonna hopefully finish it this week, but last time we saw Jesus rebuking the scribes and Pharisees, so there's gonna be more of that.

And then at the end of the chapter, Jesus is going to, he laments over the city of Jerusalem because of their unbelief.

So the reason why the Jews were not, as a whole, trusting in the good shepherd,

Jesus Christ, is because they had been misled by the bad shepherds, the scribes and Pharisees.

So let's continue reading in Matthew 23. This time we'll start in verse 15.

Jesus says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you travel land and sea to win one proselyte.

And when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

Woe to you blind guides who say, whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing.

But whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obligated to perform it. Fools and blind, for which is greater the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold?

And whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing. But whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is obliged to perform it.

Fools and blind, for which is greater the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift?

Therefore, he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it.

He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by him who sits on it.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith."

So Jesus is saying all of this. I know some people have read Matthew 23 and they say, oh, this is just kind of harsh.

Jesus is being mean or something. No, he's doing this. Yes, he is indignant about what the religious leaders are doing.

You know, they're scamming people. Did you read that word extortion, right?

When we were going through the scripture reading, they were actually practicing extortion. They were con men, they were scam artists.

So yes, Jesus is angry at what they're doing, but Jesus is motivated by his love for the sheep.

Jesus loves the people. He doesn't wanna see them misled and taken advantage of.

So this chapter, Matthew 23, it is admittedly a hard chapter for some people.

It's a rebuke for some, words of caution and instruction to others. And I'll just say this to you.

If you're one of these people, because I realized this, there's some who prefer listening to sermons.

They wanna hear a positive message. Like a lot of the sermons you hear on TV and radio, some of it's all positive all the time.

So that's what a lot of people expect. A sermon should be really positive. And yet we just read through this section and it's kind of negative, right?

So if you're one of these folks who gravitates away from maybe what you perceive is a negative message,

I just wanna tell you this. I personally have learned a lot from chapters like Matthew 23.

I have greatly benefited from reading this chapter and others like it. 2 Peter 2, the book of Jude, 2

John 2, why? Because this information along with the spirit of God, this is what gives us discernment.

So again, if you take notes, write this word down, discernment. We need discernment probably now more than ever.

So when we read passages like this, again, that along with the Holy Spirit, this is what gives the

Christian the ability to discern. Discernment is defined this way, the ability to make righteous judgments.

In other words, you are making a decision between what's right and what's wrong, between what's true and what's false.

But Charles Spurgeon once said that true biblical discernment is not just knowing the difference between what's right and wrong.

Discernment is being able to tell the difference between what's right and what's almost right.

And that's the danger. The Pharisees, the scribes, these people knew the

Old Testament, they knew their Bibles. There are some teachers today, they know the verses, but what, they take them out of context.

And someone else said this, I thought this was really good. If you remove the text, you think of the word context, right?

If you remove the word text from context, so if you actually ignore the true meaning of the text, if you remove text from context, all you got left is what?

A con, right? And that's what these people were doing because they always have a Bible verse, they always have something to say, but it's usually twisted.

So the false teachers of this time period, it was scribes, Pharisees, and then this other group, the

Sadducees that we've talked about before. So this is what Jesus is doing.

He is warning people. He wants to rescue them out of the grips of the false teachers. And Jesus not just calls the bad shepherds, he doesn't just call them wolves, he calls them wolves in sheep's clothing because they present themselves as fellow believers.

Back then, at this time, we're Jews, we believe in Jehovah God, we believe the Old Testament.

Today, they present themselves as Christians, we're telling you the truth, but what they do is they mix the truth with lies.

So no false teacher just preaches straight lies because they wouldn't convince anybody. But it's like the illustration with, okay, you got a glass of water, this is representing the truth, right?

And then if somebody puts a few drops of cyanide or arsenic in the water, well, it's still 99 .9

% water, but do you wanna drink that water? No, it's that point whatever percent that you gotta watch out for.

So that's what these people do, they mix the truth with lies. And then speaking of lies, look at verses 16 through 22.

This is about the altar and the temple and the gold of the temple.

I'll just summarize, instead of reading them again, I'll just summarize this statement because it's kind of hard to discern what, okay, what is

Jesus saying here? He mentions they would swear, so the scribes and Pharisees would swear by the temple, but then they would say, it's nothing.

What does that mean? Let me illustrate it this way. When you were a kid, maybe you never did this, but you certainly knew other kids who did it, they would make you a promise, they would tell you something, oh,

I'll do this, I give you my word. And then when it comes time to do it, they refuse.

And then when you call them on it, they say, well, you know, my fingers were crossed, so it doesn't count, right?

That's sort of what's happening right here, obviously not the exact same thing.

But they would lie, they would make these promises and these oaths, and then they would have some absurd justification of why it didn't count or why they didn't have to follow through with it.

I remember watching whoever saw the TV show Survivor, there's people, they have like alliances and they're sort of lying to people to try to get in with this group and then they double cross this, and it's part of the game, right?

And there was one episode, this just stood out to me, there was a guy, he ended up winning that season or whatever and he told somebody, he was promising them something and I think he said, listen,

I swear on my mother's grave, he says, I'm telling you the truth, I'm on your side and I swear on whatever relative,

I swear on their grave. And then this conversation was had like, well, he wouldn't say that and lie, he wouldn't lie about that, would he?

Well, at the end, it turned, yeah, for a million dollars, people would do a lot, but at the end, he said, well, yes,

I was lying, but his justification was that person isn't even dead, so I didn't really swear on their, like that doesn't, you know, that doesn't make it okay, right, so long story short, the

Jews, the religious leaders would have these ways of getting around things, they would make a promise, but because I swore by the temple and not the gold,

I swore by the temple, then somehow I don't have to keep my word. Like Jesus is saying, this is ridiculous, this is wrong, you're lying, that's a sin against God, period.

So that's, you know, my summary of what Jesus is saying in modern terms.

And then along those lines, you know, they would lie, they would do big things, but they would be real sticklers about the little things.

Look at verses 23 and 24, Jesus says, you know, they strain at a gnat, but they swallow a camel.

Okay, obviously this is hyperbole, but this is something you often hear people talking about, how the

Pharisees would what, major, they would major on the minors. Okay, major on the minors, or different things people say, verse 23,

I'll explain that in a second. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and yet you have neglected the weightier matters of the law, which are justice and mercy and faith.

So they would pay, get this, they would pay a tithe on their herbs. So if they had a garden growing outside and they were growing mint, they,

I mean, they made sure to set aside 10 % to give unto

God. Now in modern days, we don't tithe produce. That's just not what we do. We tithe money, right?

So we, when we give unto God, when we give to God's work, we just give money.

So again, to put things in modern terms, it would be like, if you found a dollar in your couch cushion and you, the first thing you did, you set aside 10 cents to make,

I got to make sure I take a 10th of this to put in the offering plate. Or you're walking down the street and you pick up a dime.

Well, I got to make sure to set aside a penny to put it in the offering plate to get, they were that meticulous about things like that.

So they would major on the minors. But here's the thing, Jesus isn't saying that they were wrong to do that.

It's that they were ignoring the weightier matters of the law. Like you're lying to people, you're scamming people, but then you make a big deal about tithing your mint that's growing outside of your home.

Like this is absurd. So he says, notice what he says in verse 23.

These, that is the little things you ought to have done without leaving the others undone.

Blind guides who strain out a net and swallow a camel.

So today, when someone gets accused of majoring on the minors, sometimes you'll hear

Christians accusing others of this. It's important to point out that Jesus actually, in a sense was commending them for, yeah,

I mean, what you're doing here, it is right, but the problem is ignoring the big things.

So he's not saying that you shouldn't do the little things. And I fear this is a problem with modern evangelical

Christianity, that some people, some churches, some Christians are like, the little things don't matter.

Ignore the little things. Like the only thing that matters is the gospel. Secondary issues don't matter.

Little things, ignore that. Just focus on the gospel. Well, you know what? The gospel is the most important thing.

And we should highlight the gospel of Christ crucified and risen. That's the most important thing.

But sort of today, we do the opposite. We ignore those little things. Oh, God understands, you know?

Oh, well, God doesn't mind this. And we actually have it, I think today in reverse.

But anyways, look at verse 25. Listen, all of God's truth is important and every right thing to do is important.

But yes, the gospel does matter the most. Look at verse 25. He says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self -indulgence.

Okay, people, again, will often say that what's on the outside, who's heard this? You know, don't judge a book by its cover, which, you know, okay, that applies sometimes, but you know,

I hate to be the one to tell you this. Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. Sometimes you can.

But people will say, what's on the outside doesn't matter. All God cares about is what?

The heart. God only cares about the heart, never mind the outward stuff.

Is that true? Well, let's just keep reading. What does Jesus say? Verse 26.

Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup. Like, okay, the heart, yes.

The inside maybe does matter more, but he says first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish that what?

The outside of them may be clean also. So both matter.

Okay, again, one might matter more, but both matter. Again, we have a tendency today of kind of taking what the

Pharisees did and just doing the opposite or bringing it to the opposite extreme.

But with the Pharisees, what Jesus is really getting at here, he's saying these guys, they're superficial.

All of their religiosity, their piety, it's all fake.

It's all just an outward show. And I think verse 27 really sums it up. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs and indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.

Do you realize how big of an insult this is? This is what the

Old Testament prophets did. Who's ever read through the major prophets and the minor prophets?

I mean, they had no problem just telling kings and priests, whoever it was, they would tell them what's up.

Verse 28, he says, even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

And because Jesus says these things to them, what's their response? They wanna kill him.

I mean, they're already plotting to kill Jesus at this point but they wanna kill him even more.

But this again is the problem. It's their religion, their faith, if you will, it really wasn't faith, it was ritualism.

I mean, they're going through the motions, they're performing their duties and their ritualistic displays of religion, but it really wasn't saving faith towards God.

They really didn't have a heart towards God and how do we know that? Because when God shows up to them in human form, they want him dead.

So this is the problem. If you could boil down the issue with the scribes and Pharisees to one thing, what do you think it is?

If you could say it all comes down to one thing, the Pharisees were, what's their major problem?

Hypocrites. Yep, it's very closely tied to that. They were self -righteous.

They really thought that they had a place in the kingdom because we're just such great people.

They didn't think that they needed the grace of God. So that's the problem. And that was their sin.

That was their major sin, self -righteousness. Don't you know that's still the problem with most people today?

It takes different forms, but today the average person, if you ask them, even the average professing

Christian in the world, if you ask them, are you going to heaven? If they say yes, you ask them, why do you think you're going to heaven?

You know what the answer is. I do good, I'm a good person,

I do this, I was baptized, I give money, I help the poor. I do,

I, this, I, that, me, me, I, I. They're not trusting in the gospel of Jesus Christ, that Jesus took all of our sin, died on the cross.

Jesus hasn't died yet, but this is where this is all headed. And they certainly didn't believe in Jesus now, and they don't believe in him after he dies.

But their display is just one big show, one big hypocritical act, and Jesus isn't buying it.

So the scribes and Pharisees do not have faith. Look at verse 29. He says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

So again, Jesus is acting as a prophet here. He's preaching to the leaders, preaching against the priests, telling them what they're doing wrong.

Jesus is acting prophetically, and they want to kill him, right? We all know that, they're plotting his death.

Well, that's the same exact thing that happened in the Old Testament. Prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, okay.

All of the Old Testament prophets, or most of them, what happened to them? How did they go out of this world?

They were martyred, they were killed. And Jesus is pointing this out. You know, you say that if you lived back in the days of Jeremiah, you wouldn't have been one of those people who wanted to throw

Jeremiah in a well, because now you revere Jeremiah. Now you give praise to the prophets, but if you

Pharisees lived back then, you would be among the group that was persecuting them. And the fact that you're hating and persecuting me is the proof, that's what

Jesus is saying. Verse 31, he says, "'Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves, "'that you are sons,' that is you're doing the same things, "'you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.'"

This is the idea that the only good prophet is a dead prophet. So when the prophet's alive, everyone hates him, but 100 years later, 200 years later, oh, he's this great man, we love him, he's a national hero.

Like that's the way it works. And don't you know that still is the way it is right now?

I quoted a guy a few minutes ago, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. You know what people call him today?

The Prince of Preachers. I mean, Spurgeon is one of those guys, Baptists love him,

Presbyterians love him, even Pentecostals like, everyone loves Spurgeon, everyone quotes Spurgeon. Well, when

Spurgeon was alive, I mean, he had his followers, but don't you know people hated the man?

I could mention other people today who are alive that people hate, but I think this is a good example.

I was in Northampton a couple months ago. There's a music store that I like to go to in Northampton.

It's the only reason I go there, but I knew the Jonathan Edwards Church. Who knows

Jonathan Edwards? So probably one of the greatest theologians

America has ever produced. Considered one of the greatest preachers who's ever lived, even secular universities study his sermon,

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God as a great work of literature. Well, Jonathan Edwards was pastor of the church in Northampton.

Okay, so I went to Northampton to this music store and I knew the church was just within walking distance.

So I decided I would go and check out this church. And out front, they had this display.

I think it's named the Jonathan Edwards Church or it's called something like that.

And they had this whole display about Jonathan Edwards. Well, here's the thing. If Jonathan Edwards was alive today, do you think

Northampton would have a church named after him? If Jonathan Edwards was alive today, they would call him a hate -filled bigot, this, that, and the other thing.

They'd run him out of town. And oh yeah, in 1750, guess what happened? They did run him out of town because why?

He wouldn't allow certain people in the congregation to take communion. On Sunday morning when it was time to take the

Lord's supper, he said, you can't take it. I don't know if he did it publicly, but he wouldn't allow people to take communion because he knew how they were living during the week.

So long story short, he was run out of town. They did allow him to come back, but he was despised by the community in the 1700s.

But fast forward to 2025, you go to church named after him and a little shrine out front honoring the man.

See, we do the same. I say we, not like me and you, but apostates and ungodly people do the exact same thing today as they did back then.

So the only good prophet is a dead prophet. Look at verse 33. Jesus says to the

Pharisees and scribes, you serpents, you guys are a bunch of snakes, brood of vipers.

How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed,

I send you prophets, wise men and scribes, and some of them you will kill and crucify.

And some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth from the blood of righteous

Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Burki. And the reason he mentions those two is sort of a span of Old Testament history.

You know, Abel was like one of the first and Zechariah the last. So this happened throughout the

Old Testament, throughout Israel's history. This is what you did. You murdered these people.

And Zechariah, you murdered him between the temple and the altar.

So we have to ask, why are the prophets hated while they are alive, but revered when they're dead?

It's pretty simple to figure out. When they're alive, they can call you out.

When they're alive, they actually preach against their peers. But when they're dead, they're safely off in the ground and we don't have to worry about them anymore.

But when the prophet is alive, or when the preacher is alive, they actually preach against what that generation is doing.

Isn't this why Jesus was hated? In John seven, verse seven,

Jesus says, they hate me because I tell them that what they are doing is evil.

That's the bottom line why the Pharisees hated Jesus. He told them they were doing evil.

Now, again, this is a hard chapter. You might say, well, this is just a lot of condemnation, but it's condemnation against evil men.

Okay, keep that in mind. But Jesus, he's really, it may not seem like it to somebody, but he's really trying to help the average person.

Because before you bring the cure, you first have to diagnose the disease.

So this is what he's doing. He's saying, this is the problem, I'm identifying the problem, and then here's the solution.

Of course, the solution is stop listening to the Pharisees and start following the teachings of Christ.

So sin is the problem, rebellion, self -righteousness, the solution, trusting in Christ.

Jesus wants the children of Israel to choose the path of life.

But because of most people, because they rejected him, look at verse 36, he says, assuredly,

I say to you, all these things, these judgments, in other words, will come upon this generation.

And this is almost certainly a reference to what Jesus is gonna talk about in the next chapter,

Matthew 24, when he talks about the destruction of the Jewish temple. So because Israel had turned away from God, the

Pharisees leading people away from God, and certainly because they rejected Jesus, their whole system of religion embodied by the temple, it will all be destroyed.

And the Roman army did destroy the temple in 70 AD. But before that happens,

Jesus now is going to lament over the city of Jerusalem, and this really shows us the heart of Christ for the people.

Jesus really, really loves the people. Verse 37, he says, oh,

Jerusalem, Jerusalem. And the fact that he repeats that in the Bible, when something is repeated, that's done for not just emphasis, but it shows a tenderness.

Like David, when he said about his son, oh, Absalom, oh, Absalom. David was heartbroken over what his son had done, and Jesus is heartbroken over what the people had done.

He says, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.

How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

Because of that, verse 38, see your house is left to you desolate.

For I say to you, you shall see me no more till you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the

Lord. Now, it might look like that Israel is finished and done for.

And for the time being, that may be true, but the fact that he says, you won't see me until, a little hint that there still is some grace and a future for Israel.

We'll cover that in the next chapter, Matthew 24. But he says, you will see me no more until you learn to say, like, you need to accept

Christ. That's the bottom line. They need to accept Jesus as the Messiah, but they weren't doing that.

So God does give people a choice. And don't you know, he still gives people a choice. They were not willing.

That tells you that it was their decision. Let's turn to the gospel of John chapter one, and we'll close.

We're almost done. But because of their unwillingness, the people of Jerusalem, their house, that is the temple was left desolate.

It will be destroyed. But, you know, thankfully with every end, you know, with every end, there is usually a new beginning.

And now the old covenant is gonna come to an end, the temple gone, but a new covenant is gonna be ushered in.

So there's a lot of bad news. We've been reading about a lot of bad news here. All of the rejection of Jesus.

That's true, it's bad. But the mercy of God is always offered. Whenever there's that bad news, the good news is right there, right beside it to anyone who's willing to take it.

We see this in John chapter one, verse 11. So the bad news, the majority of the

Jews rejected Jesus, but here's the good news. John one, verse 11 says he came unto his own and his own did not receive him.

But as many as what? Received him. As many as received him, to them, he gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name.

In this group, the many, it wasn't most, but it was many. The many who received

Jesus, here's the amazing thing. It now includes not just the Jews, but the

Gentiles. In other words, because Israel rejected the kingdom, the offer of the kingdom and the offer of the gospel now went out to what?

The entire world. This is the amazing truth that the apostle

Paul speaks of in Romans 11, how Israel's disobedience actually caused the gospel to reach even more people.

This demonstrates that that verse is true, that great promise of God in Romans 8, 28, that God is able to cause all things to work together for good to those who love him and those who are the called according to his purpose.

But you have to be willing, you have to love him. So in conclusion, what's the application for us?

Let's just finish this. For God's people, I would say the application for us to go back to the message from last week, we need discernment.

We need to be careful who we listen to. We need to have the discernment to spot false teachers and, okay, most of them aren't on television, but it's a little hint, but not all of them, but we need to know who they are and we need to warn people.

Those who are, we see someone who's starting to listen to a false teacher. If you see that and you know it, you are partially responsible.

You can maybe share this with them. If you don't feel equipped, invite that person to Moores Corner Church, share a link to this sermon.

I don't plant a seed, just say, are you sure what they're teaching is the truth? Just try to reach people.

There's so many today who are just being led astray by the false teachers of this generation.

So that's the application, I think, for us, to have discernment, to warn the people of today.

But the application may be for those who are seeking, those people who haven't really made a decision for Christ.

The application is obvious. Sin is the disease, Christ is the cure, and God's mercy, we see now, is available to anyone who is willing.

So if there's somebody watching today, somebody here this morning, you've never, for whatever reason, you've never been willing to give your heart to Christ.

Anyone who accepts him, Jesus will be like that hen, gathering her chicks.

If you accept Jesus, not only does he give you the forgiveness of sin and everlasting life, he brings you under his wing of protection.

That's what he did for all of the Jews who believed on his name. That's what he will do for you.

But you have to believe, you have to accept Christ. You need to believe in his name, and then if somebody makes that choice to believe in the name of Christ, the next step is to be baptized and to start following Jesus by becoming a member of his body, which is the church.

I mean, it really is that simple, and then God, you know, the Lord will do the rest.

So if there's someone here, you've never been willing, you've never made that commitment. I pray you'd make it today.

Or someone watching later, let's pray for those people right now. Father, we thank you for your mercy.

We thank you for the Holy Spirit who changes hearts and changes lives.

Lord, we pray that you would use your word to help open someone's eyes to the truth of the gospel of Christ, crucified and risen.

We pray, Lord, someone today would make a decision. You would make them willing to give their heart to Christ.

Lord, make them into a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

Lord, we thank you for your grace, which is displayed in the gospel. We know what your word says.

Romans 3 .23 tells us for all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God.

Romans 6 .23 says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our

Lord. Romans 5 .8 tells us that God demonstrates his own love toward us, and that while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us. And then Romans 10 .9, anyone who would confess with their mouth the

Lord Jesus and believe in their heart that God has raised him from the dead, this is the promise that you have made, they will be saved.

For whosoever calleth upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Lord, we pray that you would do that.