Ezekiel Part 5

Ezekiel, Deuteronomy 28, and the Pattern of Covenant Judgment

Okay, we're going to pray and we're going to get started. We're working our way through the book of Ezekiel. I'm going to point out some things that you may not have ever made the connections before and see how this works.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, again, as we open your word, we pray through your Holy Spirit to help us to rightly understand what you have revealed there. Help us to hold fast to your word, that we would study it, mark it, inwardly digest it, memorize it, meditate on it, that it would be on our lips and that we would speak it to our neighbors.

We pray, Lord, that through your word, you would help us to rightly understand what you have revealed and also through the power of the Holy Spirit, that we would bear fruit in keeping with repentance and in love and in kindness and mercy towards each other.

We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. One of the things you may have noticed about me, I'm prone to bunny trails. It's a thing. And what we've been doing, and let me show you where we are at. We've been looking at Ezekiel.

Hang on a second. Am I even in the right chapter? Probably not. Hang on a second here. We are in Ezekiel chapter 5, if I am not mistaken. And God here is prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem, but he's not merely prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem that will happen under the army of Nebuchadnezzar.

There is kind of a secondary aspect to this, pointing to the destruction of Israel and Jerusalem that will take place in 70 AD. And if you remember in the book of Daniel, there were specifically two things that were kind of mentioned in Daniel's 70 weeks, and one definitely deals with the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, but the other has to do with the final expulsion of the Jews out of Judea.

I think it was Emperor Hadrian who did it, and he kicked them out of Israel, and they were gone for a long time as a result of that. And he changed the name from Israel in Judea. He changed it to Syria, Palestinia.

And so one of the things we have to do as Christians is learn from the Bible how to interpret what's also in the Scriptures. And oftentimes we don't make these connections. And so here's kind of an odd focus, but how many of you have been charged with being a Pharisee?

Okay. That's like a daily problem for me. And when you think back to, you know, some of you have come from some pretty sketchy churches, when they think about Pharisees, they'll say that you have a spirit of religion, and that the problem with the Pharisees is that they were people who were critical.

And they were hypercritical, and negative, and all this kind of stuff. Now, it's true that they absolutely were critical of Christ. That is most certainly true. But what we have to do is we have to use the Scriptures to interpret what was legitimately happening when the New Testament opens up.

Because there's a pattern that occurs in Scripture, and it's clear as a bell. In fact, God himself reinforces this pattern. So when we're looking at Ezekiel 5, let me remind you of kind of where we started.

We're going to go into the book of Deuteronomy again, finish up what we started by looking at Deuteronomy 28. I'm going to pull in something from Judges, and then we'll take a look at how the New Testament opens, and you'll kind of see how this works out.

Ezekiel’s Sign-Act and Jerusalem’s Coming Destruction

So, "'And you, O son of man, take a sharp sword, use it as a barber's razor, and pass it over your head and your beard.'". That's the most manly thing I've ever heard of, and I'm thinking about shaving with a sword.

Yeah, it's like, you know, dude, talk about patriarchy. Yeah, right. You do it daily. All right. I did not know that about you, David. I'm most certainly impressed. Okay. "'Then take balances for weighing and divide the hair.

A third part you shall burn in the fire in the midst of the city when the days of the siege are completed, and third part you shall take and strike with the sword all around it, and the third part you shall scatter to the wind, and I will unsheath the sword after them.

And you shall take from these a small number and bind them in the skirts of your robe, and of these again you shall take some and cast them into the midst of the fire and burn them in the fire. From there a fire will come out into the house of Israel.

Thus says the Lord Yahweh, this is Jerusalem, I have set her in the center of the nations with countries all around her, and she has rebelled against my rules by doing wickedness more than the nations and against my statutes more than the countries all around her, for they have rejected my rules and have not walked in my statutes.

Therefore, thus says the Lord Yahweh, because you are more turbulent than the nations that are all around you, I have not and have not walked in my statutes or obeyed my rules and have not even acted according to the rules of the nations that are all around you.

The pagans are more moral than you are. Therefore, thus says the Lord Yahweh, behold, I, even I, am against you. I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations, and because of all of your abominations, I will do with you what I have never yet done and the like of which I will never do again.

And here he's going to be invoking the curses clauses of Deuteronomy 28. We started a look at this last week. Therefore, fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers, and I will execute judgments on you, and any of you who survive, I will scatter to all the winds.

Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord Yahweh, surely because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore, I will withdraw. My eye will not spare, I will have no pity.

Deuteronomy 28 and the Curses of Disobedience

Now, here's where we have to learn how to think biblically. Note here, God has threatened them with one of the curses clauses of Deuteronomy 28, and that is the curse of cannibalism. It's a horrifying curse.

However, we don't really see that fully fulfilled until the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. And we must, must, must, must keep that in mind as we look at this, but this now gets to the pattern. We worked our way through Jeremiah.

What did Jeremiah do? He called Israel, he called Judah to repent. Did they repent?

No.

God said, if you don't repent, then I'm sending Nebuchadnezzar. Did he send Nebuchadnezzar? Yes, and he invoked one of the curses clauses, and that is that God was going to send them to a nation that they had not known and make them serve other gods in that nation, which is the Babylonian exile.

So there's a pattern and we see it. Let me show it to you in the book of Judges. So in Judges, you can kind of see how this plays out. Judges 2 .11, the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh and served the Baals, and they abandoned Yahweh, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt.

They went after other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them and bowed down to them, and they provoked Yahweh to anger, and they abandoned Yahweh and served the Baals and the Ashtoreth.

So the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them, and he sold them into the hand of the surrounding enemies so that they could no longer withstand their enemies.

And this is the pattern of the book of Judges. So they do evil, God sells them into slavery to some flea-bitten tribe, the Midianites or the Philistines or whatever, and this is a recurring pattern. And then God sends a judge who we learned earlier, God refers to them as saviors, and they restore their fortunes, free them from their captivity, and then the pattern starts again.

They do what's evil in the sight of Yahweh, and God sells them into slavery to somebody else, and then raises up a savior, and the pattern goes on. And so you can see what's happening here is that early on in Judges, the curses clauses of the Mosaic Covenant are legitimately being played out.

The Roman Occupation as a Fulfillment of Deuteronomy 28

So when we go to, let me do this, let me go back to this. I'm gonna go to Deuteronomy 28, and this is gonna help it out in so many ways. I'm kind of excited about this next bit, okay? So we've read about that.

All right, Deuteronomy 28, 36. Babylonian captivity promised by God if they do not obey. Yahweh will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone.

You shall become a whore, a proverb, and a byword among the peoples where Yahweh will lead you away. Read the book of Esther. That's complete fulfillment of that, right? You shall carry much seed in the field.

You shall gather in little, for the locusts shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine or gather the grapes, for the worms shall eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout all of your territory, but you shall not anoint yourselves with the oil, for your olives shall drop off.

You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity. The cricket shall possess all of your trees, the fruit of your ground. The sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower.

He shall lend to you, you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head and you shall be the tail. All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you. This is Radha again. And overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of Yahweh your God to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you.

So note, these curses actually pursue, okay? Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. That's goodness and mercy pursuing you. And then if you are disobedient under the Mosaic covenant, God's curses pursue them and chase them down.

And they shall be a sign and a wonder. Watch this. They shall be a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever. These curses stand out as a sign. Why is it that we're in such misery? It's a sign, right?

Because you did not serve Yahweh your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart because of the abundance of all things. Therefore, you shall serve your enemies whom Yahweh will send against you in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and lacking everything.

And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand.

This is a prophecy of the Roman Empire's occupation of Israel. But note here, if this is a prophecy, a promise of a curse, if you would, for disobedience, when was this fulfilled? At what time do we see this in the Bible?

The beginning of the New Testament. When the New Testament opens, are the Jews a sovereign people with their own sovereign king? No, they are under the boot, or the sandal, of Rome, right? And you'll note then, this is an important aspect of rightly understanding the New Testament.

If you forget this, or you're unaware of this, you're going to err in a lot of ways. And so the idea here is that here we've got this promise, I will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand.

Again, the eagle is the ensign of the Roman Empire. And hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young. It shall eat the offspring of your cattle, the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed.

It also shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your herds or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish. They shall besiege you in all of your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you have trusted come down throughout all your land.

Have you ever heard of Masada? The siege of Jerusalem, the siege of Masada. I mean, the Roman Empire legitimately built a earthen rampart in order to climb up the slope of Masada in order to finally get in there.

And what did the Jews do at that time in Masada? They all committed suicide. This is what was prophesied. So here's the thing, the New Testament opens. And remember this, when we get to the end of the Old Testament, the last prophet of the Old Testament is the Italian prophet Malachi, right?

I say that joke like every time. And everybody, it's just as bad, if not worse, every time I tell it, right? But in the Old Testament, the last prophet is Malachi. That's actually Malachi. And he doesn't mention anything about any Pharisees, does he?

In fact, when you read from Genesis to Malachi, how many Pharisees are mentioned? Zero, absolutely zero. But you'll note that the curse of the Roman Empire coming and taking possession of the land of Israel is a curse that comes after the Babylonian captivity.

And it's only threatened by God for what?

Disobedience.

So here's the idea, is that we human beings, I hate to say this, we are the masters of idolatry. Legitimately. So at the time of Jeremiah the prophet and the time of Ezekiel, you had rank idolatry, people worshiping Asherah, Baal, sacrificing their children to Molech.

But did that continue after the Babylonian captivity? No, it didn't. Instead, the best way I can put it is, is that they kind of came up together with an idea of how to create a new form of idolatry. And this form of idolatry mimics externally the smells and bells of biblical Judaism, but isn't.

Okay, and this is the idolatry that God then is so displeased with that he then invokes Deuteronomy 28. And we'll say starting where? Like 45 and on, regarding the Roman Empire. And that has been invoked by God.

And again, they are no longer under their own sovereignty. They're under the boot of another group of people, not the Midianites of the Philistines. They're under the boot of Rome. And we should learn from the pattern then, okay, New Testament opens up, children of Israel, the Jews are under God's curse for disobedience.

Because one of the assumptions regarding Pharisees that's given when somebody says, you're a Pharisee, is that somehow being biblically accurate is wrong. That being faithful to the scriptures and rebuking false doctrine, that that somehow is wrong.

But are the Pharisees a group of people who are known for their biblical fidelity? No, not at all. And so reminder here, Mark chapter seven is like the definitive text here. And take Mark seven and compare it to what we're reading in Ezekiel, what we just finished in Jeremiah.

And look at how the pattern plays out. Watch what's going on here. So the Pharisees gathered to Jesus with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem. And they saw that some of Jesus' disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is unwashed.

The Tradition of the Elders, Corban, and False Worship

Fill this out for a second here. Pharisees from headquarters in Jerusalem send investigators to check out the ministry of Jesus. This is Mark seven, so we're still fairly new into Jesus' ministry. And they're gonna check Jesus out, which means they're gonna spend the day with him or maybe a few days with him.

And they are going to see Jesus perform miracles. They're going to hear Jesus preaching and teaching and the things that he's saying and the things that he's doing. Is there anything criminal that we can point to in the ministry of Jesus?

No.

But where do they draw the line? At hand washing, okay? Yeah, not because it's a biblical law. Thank God there's no law in the scriptures that command us to wash our hands because my mother would have been intolerable, right?

Lamest gestapo ever.

Yeah, right?

So you'll note then, again, I've taught on this before, that the command to wash the hands is not found in the Bible, not in the scriptures. And so the Pharisees during the intertestamental period arose and here's what they said, that when Moses went up on Mount Sinai, he didn't come down with one Torah, he came down with two Torahs, okay?

One was written and the other was passed on verbally, verbal word tradition. And the reason why the second one existed is so that Gentiles can never know the whole truth and be saved. That was the reason, okay?

And it was in the oral Torah that you have the command to wash your hands. And again, the washing ceremony has you put your hand over a bowl and you have to switch hands and start face down and do one hand, face down the other hand, face up the other hand, and face up the other hand, and then it ends with a prayer.

The prayer goes like this. I thank you, Lord God, maker of heaven and earth, that you've given us the command to wash our hands.

Hey, Macarena.

Yeah, right?

Yeah, it is kind of like the Macarena. It's an aquatic version of the Macarena. Yeah, but all of that being said, it's not in the scripture. And the prayer says, I thank you, Lord God, maker of heaven and earth, that you've given us the command to wash our hands.

And Jesus does not allow his disciples to participate in that hand-washing ceremony. And this is where the Pharisees lose it, okay? This is where, wait, what? Okay, for the Pharisees and all the Jews, they do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to what?

The tradition of the elders. That needs to be capitalized. I don't know why we're not capitalizing. That's a formal body of work. The tradition of the elders is the oral tradition. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.

And there are many other traditions they observe, such as the washing of cups, pots, copper vessels, and dining couches. And the Pharisees and the scribes asked Jesus, why, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders?

That's a very Jewish question, by the way. Because throughout the Old Testament, God commands the children of Israel to halakh, to walk, to conduct their lives according to God's commands. And so note the question, why do your disciples not walk?

Why do they not conduct their lives according to the oral Torah? Okay, but they eat with defiled hands. And here Jesus comes at them hard. He said, well, did Isaiah prophesy of you, you hypocrites? Now, wait a second.

Didn't Isaiah prophesy against idolatrous Israel? Yes, he did. And so what Christ is doing is using the idolatry prophecies of Isaiah. He's pinning them on the Pharisees in order to expose this fact, that the Pharisees are every bit as ungodly, refusers to obey God's command, idolaters as the people who worship Baal, Asherah, and Molech.

They just do it now with a facade to make them look like they're Jews. But they're not. Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

In vain do they worship me teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Now, a little excursus here, okay? In this past Thursday's, one of our catechism classes, somebody had posted up a question because they have a lot of family members in the Roman Catholic Church.

And they said, it's funny because when I talk about purgatory and say that it's not biblical, purgatory is not found in scripture, their answer is, well, we know that it's true because the apostles told it to us verbally.

And it's part of the verbal tradition of the apostles. Same argument. In fact, Luther commented on this and he called tradition the way that, because the Roman Catholics have held onto this for a long time.

Their claim that these other doctrines, purgatory, prayers to the saints, and all this kind of stuff, it's found in the oral tradition of the apostles. And Luther called that the magic bag, okay? You need a doctrine?

No problemo, we'll just reach into the magic bag and we'll call it apostolic tradition, right? What's Semper Virgo doing? Semper Virgo's in there, wow, you know, okay? But note here, Christ rules all of this out.

In vain do they worship me. He doesn't say, you know, they're just misguided. This is no big deal, it's kind of a small mistake. No, he says, in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines, what? The commandments of men.

And then, listen to what he says. You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. Interpret this back through Deuteronomy 28, okay? Let me back this up. Listen to the, if you will not obey the voice of Yahweh, your God, or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.

For what, doing what? Not obeying the voice of Yahweh, your God, and being careful to do all of his commandments. What did Jesus say regarding the Pharisees? He said of them that they were abandoning, hang on, let me find the text here.

You leave the commandment of God and you hold the tradition of men. That's the very behavior that invokes the curses of Deuteronomy 28. He goes on, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition.

This is idolatry. For Moses said, and here's where it kind of gets really awful if you think about it. Moses said, honor your father and your mother. Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. I like the way the Greek, must die the death, okay?

But you say. Now think this out for a second here. In our gospel text today, you had the scribes and the Pharisees coming up to Jesus. Who gave you the authority to be doing these things? The better question is, who gave you the authority to teach the things you're teaching?

Who gave you the authority to say that you have to wash your hands? Who gave you the authority to set up the temple as a marketplace? Who, and have money changes and all this kind of stuff. Who gave you the, in fact, better question is, who gave you the authority to be breathing, right?

They're questioning Christ, their creator, who's doing nothing but teaching, but they take issue with that because what he's teaching isn't the same as what they're teaching. Because they're teaching the traditions of men, their own man-made doctrines, and it's a sneakier form of idolatry.

It's really easy to spot idolatry when you travel to India. It's not hard. Or you travel to a country that's in the east. They have Buddha statues everywhere. You travel to India, you will see actual statues set up to Shiva and Vishnu, and you will see that people are offering sacrifices to these graven images, sacrifices of food.

In fact, in Thailand, there's even a deity that you can offer whiskey and cigarettes to. That sounds like a really fun god, okay? But at the end of the day, it's all, you recognize that for what it is, rank idolatry.

But what happens when idolatry masquerades as Judaism? What happens when idolatry masquerades as Christianity? How will you spot it? The only way you're gonna spot it is if you are holding fast to the word of God.

So Moses said, honor your father and mother. Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. But you say, if a man tells his father or mother, and by the way, let me explain this to you. It's been a while since I've explained it.

The teaching of Korban goes something like this. Have you guys ever noticed that there's a, it's like a trope, it's like one of these things that everybody knows about, that Jewish mothers are overbearing, okay?

There's a thing about overbearing Jewish mothers. And Jewish sons always seem to have these mommy issues. This is kind of a blanket statement. But imagine having an overbearing Jewish mom who's just driving you nuts.

And of course, does she get along with your wife? No, because she's an overbearing woman, right? And so you and your mom are not getting along, and mom's getting up there in age, okay? And you don't wanna be saddled with having to have her live in your house while she spends the rest of her days picking you apart for every little grievance of whatever she's not happy with, right?

So they came up with a clever way of making it so that you can disobey the fourth commandment, which says honor your father and mother. So what you would do is that you would go and you would see a priest at the temple, and the priest would say, how old is your mother?

My mother is 64, okay. And is she in good health? She's in pretty good health. Does she have any sicknesses or any problems right now? Well, she's starting to lose her memory a little bit, and she's kind of feeble and weak, and she's shriveled up after she finished menopause.

Okay, so they actually had like an amortization table, and say, your mom is going to live for the next, she's 64 now, she'll make it to 72. So what you can do then is that here's how much you would have paid had she lived in your house to feed her, and to clothe her, and to take care of her needs for the next eight years, and if you give us a lump sum here and dedicate it to the temple, then you are not required to care for your mother at all.

And so you have that conversation with mom. You sit her down and you go, mom, I want to tell you I am so excited. I went and met with the priest today, and good news. We've taken the money that we would have spent on you, and we've dedicated it to God, and we've given it as korban to the temple.

Yeah, you're homeless, who's gonna take care of her, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The first word in the Greek is korban, which means Christ is like going at it hard, okay? And so tell me this teaching isn't wicked, but what do we know from the New Testament about the Pharisees and their love of money?

You have a problem with your mom, no problem. Give us this money and you are cleared of your obligation from the fourth commandment to care for your mother or your father. So you say, if a man tells his father or mother whatever you would have gained from me is korban, that is a gift given to God, you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.

And many such things you do. So when the New Testament opens and the people of God, the chosen nation that he chose to bring the Messiah from are under the boot of the Roman Empire and Deuteronomy 28 and its further down curses is now in place, we are to interpret this in this way.

Once again, the Jews have abandoned the word of God and his commandments and have gone into idolatry and God has executed judgment against them. But in the midst, remember now the pattern of judges, right?

They sin, God puts them into slavery under a different nation, he sends a savior. Jesus shows up in that context exactly as the pattern of judges would lead us to believe he would show up. But that needs, we then need to take into consideration the person who says to a faithful Christian who is rightly pointing out that those doctrines being taught by that prophet or that teacher or that priest or that Pope are not in accord with scripture, they are not Pharisees.

The ones teaching the false doctrine are. It's the exact opposite, the one who claims a Christian who is rightly rebuking from the scriptures false doctrine as a Pharisee is in fact the one who is the Pharisee.

That's the irony of it. It's crazy when you think about, but until you learn how to take these other passages and then interpret the context of what it is that we're seeing in other portions of scripture, you're not going to see how this all plays out.

God’s Judgment on Nations and the Call to Repentance

All right, now let me check questions here from the onliners, okay?

Hang on a second here.

Okay, so here's a question, let's see here. Does God still continue to judge the different nations of the world throughout our most recent history and even into today as he did throughout the Old and the New Testament?

Yes, he does, okay? He absolutely does, which terrifies me for the United States, okay? Because when I look at the United States and the evil that we've been engaging in for decades, I mean, we are ripe for God's judgment.

And I would note that sometimes when God acts in judgment, it's decisive and you can sit there and go, that was legitimately the judgment of God. If you've ever watched Ken Burns' documentary on the Civil War, wonderful, wonderful documentary.

It's well worth the watch. But one of the things that really comes up throughout some of the later episodes of that documentary is the profound belief that the blood that was shed in the United States was God's judgment against the wickedness of the United States in practicing of chattel slavery.

And the people of that generation legitimately believe that they suffered the wrath of God for their sins, that God judged them for that. And you'll note, that's not a bad way of looking at it because here's the thing, when misfortune like that happens, when God cuts off your food supply, when God allows your nation to be ravaged or your states to be ravaged, and it's gonna take a long time to rebuild, this is all the consequences of sin, right?

Sherman's march to the sea. Right, Sherman's march to the sea. And I would note that even Herr Hitler had quite the decisive end to his regime in such a way that many of the people of the greatest generation that ever lived, that's how we refer to them, right?

They legitimately thought they were doing the work of God, especially when they discovered the encampments and the death camps of the Nazis. And so keep this in mind, God still does judge and he uses other nations for the purpose of judging others.

So may God grant us repentance, but at the moment, here's the thing, in the United States, we're overrun with false prophets and false apostles and false teachers. Hearing the word of God rightly taught is a tough thing in the United States right now.

And usually when there's a famine of God's word, that's one of the precursors to God acting in judgment. So if the United States will not turn and how are they gonna turn unless they're gonna hear the gospel and people call them to repentance?

But do you think Patricia King's gonna call them to repentance? Do you think Joel Osteen's going to? Have you ever heard a single Sunday school message or sermon by Joel Osteen on Deuteronomy 28 and the curses of God?

No, okay?

So I would note these false teachers are part of God's judgment. Daniel says, is it safe that the Pharisees worship themselves? That's not a bad way to put it. It's not exactly nuanced correctly, but at the end of the day, since they're the ones who created their own traditions and created their own commandments, it's a form of, you know, and since they're the ones who are the clear beneficiaries of their false doctrine, yeah, they're the ones who are, they're in a sense very much worshiping themselves.

Something like, look, God, how great we are for obeying all these commandments. You know, Daniel, I can think of a passage that it sounds almost identical to that. Hang on a second. Let me hunt this down.

Luke, I'm doing this from memory.

Hang on a second here. It would help if I typed it correctly.

Let's see, persistent widow.

Here we go.

Listen to this prayer. So Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves.

That would be, yeah.

So Daniel, I think your question is, Jesus would tend to agree. The Pharisees, who did they trust in? Themselves. That they were righteous, and as a result of it, they treated others with contempt. I would note, there's nothing worse than a self-righteous religious person, because they are intolerable to be around, okay?

I would say that the woke left and the extreme Nazi right are both iterations of this nasty self-righteousness, right? So here's the setup. Two men went into the temple to pray. One a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus. God, I thank you that I am not like other men. I'm not like the extortioners or the unjust, or the adulterers, or even like this tax collector. What is he doing here in the temple?

Kenneth Copeland's a little hard, but let me try it with this. God, I thank you that I am not like other men, like extortioners, or the unjust, or the adulterers, or even like this tax collector over there.

How's that, right?

What kind of prayer is that? This is Joyce Meyer. I'm not poor, I'm not a sinner. I'm not miserable, and I'm not a sinner. Joyce Meyer praying like this, right? What a prayer that is, yeah. And so he's trusting in himself.

I fast twice a week. I give tithes and offerings of all that I get. Oh, what a pious, righteous man I am.

Right?

Who prays this way? Narcissist, yeah. The tax collector, who I can totally relate to, standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

I always like to point this out. Merciful here, it's tough to pull this over from the Greek. Be merciful to me, or pardon me, is one of the standard ways that you can translate. Halas kamai. But here's the issue.

Halas kamai, this propitiation, this mercifulness, he's invoking the evening sacrifice. It's an invocation of the sacrifice that's being shed, that's being bled out at the time of the evening prayer. Remember, there's two times when there has to be sacrifices according to the Mosaic Covenant on a daily basis.