Woe to Hypocrites, Matthew 23

I think I'll do something a little different this week. I'm going to read the first 12 verses, which kind of make our own section, and then

I'm going to leave the rest to read after the message. Matthew 23, starting in verse 1,

Hear the word of the Lord. Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses's seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what 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 feast, 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 on earth father, 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.

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. What's the worst thing you can be?

Okay, if it's not an Auburn fan, in case you're wondering. Last week we said what's the greatest, this time it's the worst thing you can be.

Last week we said what's the greatest thing in life, which is love God, which I guess would mean the greatest thing you can be is a lover of God.

Now what's the worst you could be? The world might answer.

The worst thing, I guess, is like a mass murderer, a serial killer, something like that. But the

Lord Jesus said in his first message, this is the last message in Matthew that we're starting, in his first message in the

Gospel of Matthew, called the Sermon on the Mount, he already showed us that you can be killers in God's sight, even if you never act on it.

What's the worst that you can be? Some preachers, at least by implication, might say a drinker of alcohol.

One preacher I heard in Alabama is a young believer, never dedicated a whole sermon to any one sin, except to drinking.

Made a special point to focus on that, drinking, in Birmingham. And I remember, this is still a fairly young believer, noticing the

Bible doesn't really seem to back him up. What's the worst thing that you can be?

Some Christians might say, well, an atheist. But I heard a comment recently,

I kind of agreed with, about the late, prominent atheist Christopher Hitchens, that he clearly, overtly hated the

God of the Bible. Just teaching against him. But he was at least open and honest about that.

And really, how much better that is, to be at least, you gotta hate God, at least be honest about it, than about these frauds, that really call themselves

Christians, and then say, well, you can come to God in your own way, or not come at all, if you feel like, you don't want to do that either.

It's God's kingdom, I heard one say, kin, like relatives. Not kingdom, with a king, but it's

God's kingdom. Because we're all kin, and there's no need for any king. And if the homosexuals want to be married, well, we'll celebrate diversity, and have the ceremony right here.

And have a seance in church, maybe, or some kind of harmonic convergence, just all sitting in circles, cross -legged on the floor, around the universal spirit, and chant some

Buddhist slogan, or cite some verse from the Koran, or what's the latest poetry that you read in your favorite literary magazine, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That's really just so deceitful, to call yourself a Christian, and then do that.

Be honest. You know, an honest atheist is better than that kind of fraudulence.

But the modern kind of conservative evangelical, people like me, would say, what is fraudulent about that, is that it is unbelief.

It's what's called theological liberalism. It's just whatever new thing, really, that people feel like doing, and just kind of dressing it up, hypocritically, as Christian.

And that's true. That's what's wrong with it. That's what they're doing. But then they'll often assume, well, that's the bad.

But if your theology is basically sound, you say you believe the Bible, you have a doctrine of inerrancy, kind of like what we learned in Sunday school, and you sing the right songs, you give sermons from the

Bible, well, then you're all right. Right? But what if you only read certain verses, kind of pick and choose here and there?

You claim to believe in the Bible, but you really don't follow it. I mean, come on, singing psalms? That was a long psalm, four verses of that?

And church discipline, and all that kind of stuff? Come on, no one does that. What if you're really loud against some sins, like drinking, but totally fail to even comment on others that are widespread all around you?

I mean, how do you miss racism in the South? Really, and you claim to be following the one who said love your neighbor as yourself?

How do you do that? What's the worst thing you can be? I've heard

Christians say, at least by implication, at least, anyway, well, it's not being a hypocrite. Come on, everyone, everyone is a hypocrite, right?

Hypocrisy is to sin what speeding is to crime, right?

Everybody does it a little. Just when you see the police, you slow down to the speed limit, and you act like that's the way you always drive, right?

In Matthew 23, we come to a very different idea. Whether being a hypocrite is the worst thing that you can be or not, it really doesn't say, but at least hypocrisy is attacked in the worst way.

Matthew 23 is probably the harshest chapter in the Bible. There are lots of chapters, particularly in the prophets, you know,

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, of them denouncing sin and describing judgment, but I don't think there's anything in all of Scripture that is as sharp, as fiery, as devastating as this.

Particularly we get to that latter part, we haven't read yet. And the sin that is getting that condemnation, it isn't murder, or adultery, or greed, or even atheism.

It's the one I've heard Christians kind of, it's hypocrisy.

The chapter comes in three parts, from verses 1 -12 that we've already read, what

I call the warning given to his people. Second, from verses 13 -36, the bulk of the chapter, the woes, and then from verses 37 -39, the witness.

The Lord Jesus begins by speaking, you notice that, verse 1, speaking to the crowds, and among a lot of people in those crowds were people who believed in him, at least in some level, and followed him.

And it also says though, and to his disciples, which hopefully would include us.

And he gives a warning, to them, against hypocrisy. First, he gives the condition, described what it is, it's condition, and then he gives the contrast.

Describes how we should be different. The condition is hypocrisy. That's being different in your behavior than in what you really are in your heart.

Projecting an image of something that's not really you, on the inside.

And so these Bible teachers, most of them called here scribes, and they're teachers of the Bible, that's their profession. These Bible teachers, it says in verse 2, they have authority, and they have orthodoxy.

Notice that. Their position and their doctrine is sound. Jesus tells the crowd, tells us, practice and observe what they tell you.

Do what they say. Their problem is not doctrinal. They have all their I's dotted and their

T's crossed. They talk a good game. Okay? You heard them, if you ever heard them on the radio, most of what they say is good.

And so people would come to think, well, there can't be anything seriously wrong with them, but Jesus says their condition is that they preach, but do not practice.

That's a common phrase, and it became common because of this verse right here. They know to preach, for example, that we should all walk in love, but they will be totally unforgiving if their will is not done.

They'll know how to defend and attack maybe the inerrancy of Scripture, but if it says do something, like submit, or admit your sins, confess your sins to one another, if it says to be faithful to your commitments, if they don't feel like doing that, they won't do it.

Their doctrine is great. They don't do it. Tell me, if you believe the

Bible is inspired, it's inerrant, without error, and then you turn around and disobey it? Oh, it's not that they don't love duties.

You can say, well, they're just not legalistic. They don't want to be burdened. In verse 4, it says they create all kinds of duties for others.

Jesus says about them, 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.

I think of a church, at least I have some experience with it, it was always whipping their people.

Give! Give! Give! Almost every Sunday it was something to do with that. But then when some members have needs, do they meet them?

If they can? Is there giving a burden hard to bear?

It's kind of a law of, you know, tie the legalism like that, or is it generosity of the heart moving them to share?

Hypocrites love duties, because, you know, if you have a duty then you can do the duty, and you can do it ostentatiously, and then maybe even they'll challenge others to do their duty, and so everyone will be oppressed, but how dutiful they are!

Look at this guy, he gives so much and he tells others to give, he's so, he must be so godly.

I once saw a man passionately advocate for how parents of small children should keep their children in the service with them, have no children's church, so that they can use that as an opportunity to show their child how important worship is.

Teach them to be quiet, teach them to pay attention, teach them to listen to the sermon, teach them to listen to the word. He sounded, oh, he sounded so good and so persuasive as he was making his appeal, and then when it came to actually practice it,

I remember so clearly, he sat on the back row, right next to, I think it was about a five -year -old kid, and I'm not kidding, he played with that boy through the whole service, giving him toys and talking through the sermon, and I watched,

I had a hard time not being distracted myself. I was the only one that could see him, because I was the preacher.

And, you know, he's a total hypocrite. Now, the condition of hypocrisy,

Jesus warns us, is the desire to be seen by others, right? The guy, oh, he could be seen passionately telling people to have their kids in service, but, you know, you don't want to actually do it.

The true child of God loves God and wants to live for Him, and to hear those words from the

Lord, well done, good and faithful servant. The hypocrites want to hear that from other people, and that's the key difference.

The hypocrite is a functional atheist. Now, he says he believes in God, he may never even have taken time to really think about whether there's a

God, or he thinks there's a God, and he'll certainly say he believes in God, but he doesn't care what God sees, or what

God says about him. He only cares what people see. In their day, the hypocrites, Jesus said, made their phylacteries broad, that's a funny word to us, phylacteries.

These are little leather boxes with scripture verses in them that they would put on their forehead, so that they could say they literally obey the command to put the word of God on their foreheads.

And, of course, once somebody begins doing that a little bit, somebody else has got to do it a lot more to be, you know, more prominent, sticks out more, and they would make theirs even bigger so they could be more easily seen.

Today, it could be, of course, we say, well, that's ridiculous, boy, we don't do anything like that.

Today, it could be the person who has to put a Bible verse on everything. Ever know anybody like that? Every plaque on their wall, every bumper sticker on their car, every status update on their

Facebook account is either a Bible verse, or some kind of pious saying, showing how much, oh, they love the

Bible, and they love God, and all that, how truly spiritual they are. They love to be seen.

But it's all about self -promotion. And they especially love being honored. Which would mean, being honored for being spiritual and godly and religious and all that stuff, which would mean that hypocrites want positions where they can be recognized for being spiritual.

You know, positions in church. Positions like mine. Paul says that the man desiring to be an overseer, and I think it's

Titus, I believe, another word for pastor or elder, no, it's 1 Timothy. He says,

Paul says, man desiring to be an overseer desires a noble thing. Right? It is a noble thing.

So don't, you know, someone, if a man wants to be in that position, don't think, well, he's just a hypocrite out to be recognized. That's not always the case.

But it's noble only if he desires it for the right reason. To serve God and God's people.

To build up the church. Somewhat that noble thing for an un -noble reason.

The wrong reason. Just to be seen. For the esteem that they think goes with being the big man in church.

And so they'll want to speak to the, you know, they'll like this. You get to speak to the nicely dressed people who sit there quietly listening respectfully to you.

This is great. On Sunday morning, but, you know, I don't want to clean the place. That's a drag.

Push that broom and mop on the floor. Come on. They don't want to give a lesson to a bunch of kids.

What's up with that? Drive a vehicle with those noisy brats jumping around the bus.

They aren't interested in impressing that. That's not impressive to the kids. They don't care about impressing.

The kids aren't impressed anyway. The hypocrite is all about rank. About recognition.

In verse 6 it says they want the best seats they had reserved in their meeting places. The best, the best particular seats.

Probably most people would sit on benches but they had some good seats for the really godly people to sit in. And today we have the same thing.

I looked it up this week. I found out it's interesting. Did you know that some churches you know, in case we want a pulpit, you think we need a pulpit?

You know there's such a thing called pulpit chairs. You think we need one of those? Put it like right here. So I could sit in it like a throne.

You can get one on sale for $639. Is that money well spent, you think? So you can sit up on the platform, be seen by others prior to preaching.

Or maybe you love the titles. In verse 7 it's Rabbi. It's not a title we use but it means my great one. That sounds good.

I like to be called that. Or father in verse 9. By those who aren't your children.

My son's called me that. That's fine. Other people get that as a term of respect for a religious, a spiritual position.

Father. That sounds great, doesn't it? Or teacher. Should mean my master. Today it could be, and this just drives me crazy, reverend.

Which means someone to be revered. Where in the world do we get off calling ourselves someone to be revered? Hypocrites love those kinds of titles.

That's the condition. The contrast. Jesus begins in verse 8.

But you. Notice how verse 8 begins. That's the condition of the hypocrites.

All of those things. Rank. Recognition. Titles. All that nonsense.

That's their condition. But you. In verse 8. This is the contrast.

But you. Still speaking to his disciples. We are to be different. We are to have different condition.

Different motives. Not about being seen. But about serving.

Jesus here warns us against this. This whole culture. It just comes so natural to the sinful person.

Of craving recognition. He warns us against this. Craving these titles.

I think it's a good thing. It's a sign of good training. For you. To give.

Particularly for the children. You've been raised well. If you give respect to others. You give honor when honor is due.

You say ma 'am and sir. I like all that stuff. Give titles of respect when they're earned.

But never demand it. In verse 8. You are not to be called Rabbi. Don't seek that kind of title.

Don't call a spiritual leader Father. Because that's not an earned title. Some spiritual leaders may be like fathers or mothers to you.

As Paul says he was like a father to the Corinthians. We should have a family like environment of affection and respect.

Not a military like culture. Of rank and recognition. Salutes and that kind of stuff.

He tells us why in verses 8 -10. You are all brothers and sisters.

So neither be called instructors or masters. For you have one instructor.

The Christ. Now it's not that God doesn't work through certain people to instruct you. He does.

Now don't read that verse. You have one instructor. Don't read it so individualistically. I don't need anyone else.

I just learned directly from Jesus myself. That's not what he means here.

God has, you see in other parts of the Bible, appointed and trained teachers in the body to help teach you.

But ultimately if they are able to teach you it's because Christ was teaching you through them.

So honor that. Honor him. Christ. Finally Jesus ends this warning against the culture of hypocrisy.

It's really just so natural to us with the command the greatest among you. It's a command, right?

The greatest among you shall be your servant. The man who only wants to be the big man in church.

Doesn't want to help with the little things that are necessary. You know, the cleaning, the driving, the looking after the kids.

Such a man probably shouldn't be a teacher or an elder. And those who do serve, who do those things, we should recognize them, honor them, and respect them.

That's the command. Make your servants your greatest.

The principle behind it in verse 12, whoever exalts himself craving these titles and this rank and this recognition, whoever does that will be humbled.

And the implication is he will be humbled by God. God will come and judge them by humbling them.

And whoever humbles himself, the one serving, will be exalted. God will see that he lifts them up.

God will see that because God hates hypocrisy. And that truth is shouted to us.

In verses 13 to 36, the woes. Here are seven woes.

They're directed now, you notice, no longer at the crowds and the disciples and us, but at the hypocrites themselves.

He's changing now his audience who he's speaking to. Seven times

Jesus says woe to you hypocrites.

That is a judgment, a punishment, a catastrophe is coming down on you hypocrites.

So that you will wail woe. In other words, you will cry out in suffering.

Seven times. Symbolic number, seven times. It's a fullness of corruption and a fullness of judgment, disaster is coming on you because of these things.

Why? Because they're liberal? No. Because they're homosexual?

No. Because they're atheist? No. Because they're actors.

They're frauds. They're fakes. They're phonies. Here God himself expresses this fullness of judgment, seven woes building up to the conclusion that they cannot escape being sentenced to hell.

And if you want to know the real Jesus, you have to listen to these words.

And let them soak in. Now yes, in Matthew Jesus is the one who says, blessed are the meek, who describes himself as gentle and lowly in heart, who gives rest to weary people's souls.

He had compassion on the crowds and he fed the hungry. And that's all vitally important.

But if you fully want to know Jesus, hear him say seven times, woe to you hypocrites.

Woe number one. Woe on the door slammers. Verse 13, hypocrites, they shut the door in the faces of the people seeking to go into the kingdom of God.

In other words, these hypocrites, they have the word, they have the church, today they have baptism, they have the

Lord's Supper, and instead of offering it to people and inviting them to serve God as king, they obscure all that.

They obscure it with rules and distractions, maybe obsessed with just silly, trivial things, maybe with what's their favorite

Bible version, you must read this, and here's all the reasons why. And maybe it's they're obsessed with their ideas about the end of the world, the rapture, here's how it's going to transpire, here's

Gog and Magog and all this kind of stuff, and they'll argue and argue about it. Or maybe they're obsessed with politics, if you're really

Christian, you ought to vote for this guy or that guy or this party or that, and they'll go on and on about that, our environmental concern, the nature is suffering under our, you know, because you drove a car that pollutes too much.

The life of living as part of God's kingdom, living for the

Lord in relation to Him, that's what it means, there are people who are seeking to come into God's kingdom, to live as as His servant, making

Him king of their life. They don't care about that. They'd rather argue about Gog and Magog or what foods to eat or what not and what kind of politics, how to vote.

They're so concerned about that, when people come to them really caring about God, they slam the door in their face, distract them, lead them off elsewhere.

They're acting like doormen into the kingdom of God. They should be opening and letting people in, inviting them in, but in reality they slam the door, leading into religion, here's rules, here's politics, here's just trivia.

To such people Jesus says, whoa. Whoa. Whoa number two, woe to the missionaries from hell.

In verse 15, these hypocrites can even be missionaries. Never underestimate how much people are willing to sacrifice for their hypocrisy.

They'll leave home, they'll travel at great cost to themselves, they'll get in some rickety sailboat, travel a long way, risk their lives, they'll learn a new language, they'll do something that appears as noble, as self -sacrificial, as leading all for the purpose they think of leading someone to the truth about God, making them a proselyte, means a convert.

Now, what could possibly be wrong with that? Well, Jesus said, we'll know a tree by its fruit.

And what kind of fruit are these new converts? Oh, they'll be zealous often.

Sometimes they'll even out do their original scribes and pharisees, these missionaries from hell.

They'll out do them for their zeal. They'll make even more burdens, more laws, and they'll shut the door on even more people's faces and are even stricter and even more passionate than those who converted them.

Maybe even more obsessed with more trivial things. Now maybe they'll even score in those who led them to religion.

They'll score in those lukewarm as compromisers. They didn't know what I know. They are,

Jesus says in verse 15, twice as much a child of hell that is a product of that place where their rebellious nature comes from, the place of the damned where they belong and where they are going.

They are twice as hellish as those who converted them. Woe to them.

Woe number three. Woe to the blind guides. Now this one in verse 16 is different from all the other seven, and it's the only one not addressed by name to the scribes, the

Bible scholars, and the pharisees, but to the spiritual leaders. Just call it right out. Blind guides.

Okay? You're blind, you shouldn't go in the guide business. Well, they are blind in that they are unable to see.

Physical blindness, you can't see. And they are spiritually blind.

So they are incapable then of discerning what is the right direction. They lack a spiritual sense to know what's true and what's false and what's light and what's dark.

All of which is very essential if you're going to be a guide. They lack it completely, and yet they try to be guides.

They try to lead and teach people. Let me say today, the internet has got to be the greatest help for such people.

They can with confidence say anything they want with no evidence whatsoever, putting out videos or essays and websites and speeches and so forth out there competing with real

Bible scholars. And, you know, they'll tell you they know which Bible versions are of the devil. Now why the devil would want to put out any

Bible versions, I have no idea. But they do and they will tell you with great confidence. They will tell you which

Reformation leaders were murderers and torturers, even though they don't know that they are accusing people who did no such thing.

But they think they have a right to make up any accusation to suit their purposes because, after all, they're guides to the truth.

And if they have to lie to get you to the truth, well, that's just what they have to do. They are blind guides.

You can go on and on with the things you find out there. Well, especially on those who make commitments. And this is where Jesus really applies it in their day about whether you win and how you have to keep your promises, keep your oaths.

You know, the hypocrites in Jesus' day thought they were being sophisticated and this is the kind of things they actually discussed. They were being sophisticated spiritual and ethical leaders by seriously discussing when exactly you could make a commitment and then break the commitment and it not really be wrong.

When do you have to do what you say and when can you not do what you say and no guilt?

I mean, if you swear by the temple, that's not binding, right? Everybody knows that, right? You can break that without any guilt.

Ah, but if you swear by the gold of the temple, then you have to keep your word.

Ah, I got it. And if you swear by the altar, it's right there in the temple. You know,

I swear on the altar that I will clean my room. Oh, that's kind of like crossing your fingers, you know, behind your back.

It doesn't count. You're free. You got by with it. But if you swear by the gift on the altar, then you better get the broom and the mop and get to work.

Now, people who reason like that, twice Jesus calls them blind. Blind fools.

Strong term, isn't it? Then blind men. Of course, we would never do such a thing, right?

I've heard Christians seriously say that church covenants in which we say we most solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant with one another, then it really doesn't mean much of anything.

I guess it's kind of like the temple or the altar, making an oath on that, I guess. We can walk away from it for little or really no reason just because we feel like it, and that's fine.

Hypocrites, you know, you think they, hypocrites really like oaths and commitments and fancy covenants and words.

They like those kind of things because they can say them and look good saying them because they, you know, they can look like they mean them.

They actually want ways so they can say things that look and sound impressive, but then of course they have no intention of keeping them because it's not really what's in their heart.

So, you know, they'll like sometimes it will look and sound good to say I most solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant to walk together in Christian love.

Doesn't that sound, that's good sounding words, isn't it? Oh, man, you're spiritual to say that. But of course, you aren't really bound by it.

Of course, others will say, well, you know, who needs a church covenant anyway? Let's just be a, let's just be what they call a community church.

Coming together, as long as we're together, no need for formalities, you know, intentional commitments, or obligations, or any of that, that's all legalistic, that's man -made stuff.

And if you apply the same reasoning to marriage, you know, we don't need any formalities, any formal commitments.

You know what it's called? It's called living together. And so, I wonder, did the world learn it from us, or did we learn it from the world?

I'm not sure. And when we say on the one hand, you know, we really don't need a covenant and a commitment and membership to be a church, and then we turn around and immediately tell those who are living together without marriage, you know, you're living in sin.

Do you know what we are? We're hypocrites. We're blind guides.

We're guiding ourselves by the very same self -centered, self -determined principles that we condemn in others.

Well, here Jesus says, scorning their sophistication is foolish, that all our oaths and our commitments, all our words, for that matter, are said before God, and so we had better keep them.

Woe number four. Woe on the nitpickers. These hypocrites, you know, they took tithing seriously.

They liked that. They even made sure to tithe even the produce from their herb gardens.

Okay? You know, the little mint plant growing in a pot over there in their kitchen windowsill? They would keep track of how many mint leaves that thing is producing, and every tenth mint leaf it comes out, they would cut it off and give it as a tithe.

Yeah, they're meticulous. Right? You don't want to rob God. Right? You people not tithing, you're robbing

God. They would go in and tell everyone else. So they don't want to do it. Every little plant, tithe right from it.

So, they'll avoid these minute, tiny problems. But for all their nitpicking, they totally missed the most important things.

And here's a very important verse, verse 23, because here you have Jesus himself telling us what are the most important things in the

Bible. What he calls the weightier matters, heavier matters of the law.

Justice, and mercy, and faithfulness. Justice is giving people what are their rights.

Mercy is giving people what they need. Even if they don't have a right to it from you, but you should be merciful.

Faithfulness is you being a person whose word is your bond, a person of integrity. These are the weightier, heavy matters.

The enormously important things that God is most concerned about. But people thought that they could impress

God by making sure, you know, you tithe every corn plant, gets every corn kernel,

I give ten. You know, how it works. Ten corn kernels, I give one. Something like that.

They think that would impress impress God. But he had already told them in Micah chapter 6 verse 8, has he told you, oh man, what is good, and what does the

Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your

God? The obvious example, to me anyway, which was all around me growing up as a child in Alabama, which

I never heard once spoken about in church, was racism. I remember a message on why you should never drink a drop of alcohol, right in Birmingham, or it could be called

Bombingham, Alabama, named after when three African American girls were killed there when someone planted a bomb in their church.

You are living right where things like that are happening, and you never seem to, you never occurs to you to talk about it.

Drinking, not having a beer, you'll talk about that, but not killing other people, you could care less.

How could you not see how much more important justice is than just tea?

How? Because you're a blind guide, that's how. Jesus gives us the picture in verse 24, how ludicrous it is.

It's like someone straining out a little, getting a fine mesh and straining out a tiny gnat out of his cup.

You wouldn't want to drink that when a camel is floating in it. Woe number five.

Woe to the clean looking. Hypocrites are all about the outside.

They want to look clean, but they don't really care about being clean. So it's about nice dress, and nice manners, should have worn a tie for this message,

I guess. Proper conduct on a sunny morning. Not about whether on Monday morning you are just as greedy and selfish as everyone else out in the rat race.

Again, how can they not see that all their attention on the exterior, on dress and manners and propriety isn't as important as dealing with the uncleanness within?

How can they not see that only cleaning the outside of a filthy cup or plate isn't sufficient?

Because in verse 26, they're blind. Instead, Jesus tells us to clean the inside.

Work on the inside. The heart. Get a new heart, which we know from elsewhere in the

Bible it means be born again. Then, with a new heart, start to grow.

Be sanctified by the word of God in prayer, dealing with the root of your sins, that's inside.

With the lust and the greed and the selfishness. Jesus says, first, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate that the outside also may be clean.

Woe number six. Woe to the beautiful appearing. The hypocrite puts appearance over substance.

There, like he says, a well -painted tomb. It might look pretty on the outside, right?

See a tomb, nicely painted and decorated, but inside it's full of dead people's bones, and then you've got the maggots and the spiders and the rats and the filth.

The hypocrite, Jesus says in verse 28, appears religious and moral.

You know, he has the suit. He has the properly oversized Bible tucked under his arm. He has the look.

But within, Jesus says, you are full of hypocrisy. In other words, you're just acting like something you're not.

And, he says, lawlessness. That is, you know, no law. They are a rebellion against any restraints on what they really want to be.

These people, they look religious, but inside they refuse to submit to God.

To actually obey his word. They'll use it against others, like a club sometimes, beat them over the head with it, but they won't actually obey it in their own life.

You're all about, he tells them, you're all about appearing as something you are not.

Woe number seven. Woe to the memorializers. You know, the hypocrite, in his quest to appear to be something that he is not, he'll actually memorialize, he'll celebrate people that he wants you to think he is like.

In other words, he is a conservative. He likes remembering and preserving the past, the best of the past.

And here it describes in the Pharisees, they preserve the tombs of the prophets. It set up monuments to the great saints of the past, people like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Zechariah.

And they said at their memorial ceremonies, you probably have some ceremony and you can see some guy coming up on the platform as we now are remembering the great saint

Zechariah. I never would have joined with the crowds and hounding and killing those great men like our fathers did.

Never me. And Jesus says that the only thing about that statement that is true is that you are your father's sons and you will do exactly what they did.

And so, and look at this verse 32. Jesus commands them.

Here it's a command. He's not just describing. He's telling them what to do. Fill up.

Imperative. Fill up then the measure of your fathers. Here's the decree of God himself to do exactly what their fathers did.

What they had started. You're building memorials to what your fathers did.

Now finish their work. Now they've had their command and they will obey it.

They will finish the work of the world. Hypocritically dressed up as God's people.

They will finish that work that was begun in killing those sent from God. Imagine this.

Jesus commands them. Fill up. Finish what your fathers started.

And they will. They will. In just a few days. They will fill it up by killing the one all those prophets that they memorialized came to bear witness to that being the case.

They are doomed. In verse 33. You serpents.

That's who they are. That's their nature on the inside. You brood of vipers.

How will you escape being sentenced to hell? A shudder should have gone through them with that.

Jesus is the one who has authority to sentence people to hell.

And here he rhetorically asked them how can they possibly escape hell?

Therefore, Jesus says in verse 34. Because interesting connection of ideas here.

Verse 34. Because you are serpents doomed to hell. Because of that I send you prophets and wise men and scribes.

Some people insist that God gives people an invitation. That means they have a perfect freedom either to do the good or the bad accept it or reject it.

But here Jesus tells them in a rhetorical question, you are sentenced to hell.

And because of that, I send messengers to you and you will reject them.

Because that's who you are. You're serpents. What you do reveals what you are.

You will crucify. You will flog. You will kill. You will persecute.

Here, thankfully, now in our day, the government won't let hypocrites do what they would like to do.

And so they'll do whatever they can. They'll defame. They'll lie.

They'll press the truth. Jesus says in verse 34 that he is sending prophets to them.

Did you catch that? Who sends prophets? God sends prophets. Jesus is speaking as God.

And they'll kill and they'll crucify and hound those prophets so that that generation of hypocritical religious leaders that Jesus is speaking to here, who were so blind that they could not see the truth when he was speaking to them.

They will be guilty, he says, of all the blood of the righteous, beginning from Abel at the beginning of the

Old Testament to Zechariah at the end. They will be judged for it all.

Now, like actors, they build memorials to all those men. But those prophets who they memorialized, they spoke so well of, they all pointed to Jesus, and yet when

Jesus came, they crucified him. The fullness of woe will come upon them.

Finally, there is the witness. Jesus witnesses at the end of this message to his longing for his people in those last three verses.

Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. The longing of Jesus here is preserved, as Matthew writes it in Greek, with Jerusalem actually being transcribed, transliterated from Hebrew, as if Matthew, remembering probably several decades later, poignantly just remembers those words, the very sound of Jesus' voice, just still rung in his head as he's crying out, oh,

Jerusalem, Jerusalem. After such a passionate, seven -layered attack on the hideousness of hypocrisy,

Jesus concludes with a compassionate lament for the victims of it.

Yes, it's Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those God sends to them, but Jesus would have gathered his people from them, like a hen gathers her brood under her wings.

But they, the hypocrites, they would not. They wouldn't tolerate that.

They would do everything they can to interfere with that, to get in the way. Notice how

I misread this, to say that God can want someone to be saved, inviting them, be longing for them to come, but if they choose not to come, then they can stay away.

They will often misquote this as saying, you know, how I longed to gather you, but you would not.

He doesn't say that. Notice how he carefully, what he says, how I longed to gather your children, and you, you hypocrites, would not.

He's saying here that he has often longed to gather your children, the followers, that's the harassed and the helpless sheep of Israel, but the religious leaders, they got in the way.

And so here at the end, Jesus ends in the same way he began that first woe, back in verse 13, that the hypocrites, instead of helping

God, being, wanting to be used by God to gather his people, instead of being like a doorman who opens the door for others and helps them come into the kingdom of God, instead of that, they shut the door, like the one who comes to church honestly seeking

God, but all he gets from church, as he sees after a while, it's a social club, it's people trying to be first, it's people obsessed with, with dress and with recognition, and so he goes away, thinking maybe there's nothing to it then.

And woe to the one who causes one of the little ones, your children, who want to come into God's kingdom, who want finally to live for God, woe to the one who causes them to stumble.

Jesus says elsewhere that it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea.

The witness against them is that God wanted better for his people than these religious leaders were doing, and so they will be completely desolate.

The facade of religion that they've built up for rank and respectability and recognition, that will be torn down.

That is this house, he calls it here, this nation that they use for themselves for their money, for their glory, for their just love of people standing up before them and greeting them with respect as they walk down the road, all of that will be destroyed.

And the last words Jesus says to them as he ends his teaching ministry to them, he says, you won't see me again until you say, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the

Lord. That is until the end. What's the worst thing you can be?

I don't know if it's a hypocrite or not. He doesn't really say that. But he says so much, so fiery, so frightening, that we'll see that that easy appearing way of hypocrisy, that kind of counterfeit godliness, the dishonest life of looking like someone we're not, you know, the way we learn to hide our sins and our problems and pretend like we got it all under control.

That is a lie. It's a lie that denies that we really do need

Christ. The warning is that we don't buy into that lie and build these fake religious facades about appearance and rank and recognition.

The woes will come on us if we make the same mistake. And in the end, the witness will be against us that there were people, his lambs, his chicks, his children, his little ones, that he would have gathered to himself through us, but we were too concerned about our fancy chairs, our titles, our suits, our success.

Whoa! The worst thing we could be is someone so wrapped up in himself that we fail to see

Jesus, that it takes the destruction of the world until we finally give up all our fakery and say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the

Lord. Here is Jesus on fire, and at the end, perhaps in tears, the real one with all his passion and his power calling us to follow him, to be gathered to him, to not be concerned about whether we're getting our due, our recognition, our glory, about whether we look good, but to be good, to be brothers and sisters, to have one teacher, one

Lord, him. Hear him now.

Yes, continue. Verse 13. The 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 cummin, 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 plate, but inside you 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 appear outwardly 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 the shedding of the blood of the prophets. Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered 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 the earth, from the blood of innocent

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. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it, how often would

I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not.

See, your house is left to you desolate, for I tell you, you will not see me again until you say,

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word.