Woe to the Theology of Self Glory

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern,

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew chapter 23 verses 1 through 12.

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Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, The scribes and the

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Pharisees sit on Moses's seat. So practice and observe whatever they tell you, but do not, but not what they do.

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For they preach, but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to bear, lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.

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They do all their deeds to be seen by others, for they make their flacketerries broad and their fringes long.

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And they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and sitting and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.

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But you are not to be called rabbi. For you have one teacher and you are all brothers and call no man your father on earth for you have one father who is in heaven.

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Neither be called instructors for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant.

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Whoever exalts himself will be humbled. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Important categories that we're going to need to begin to understand in order to get what's going on, not only in our

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Old Testament text, but our gospel text today. Long time ago, Martin Luther, after posting the 95 thesis, participated in what was called the

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Heidelberg Disputation. And in that event, there was an important distinction that was made that I think is quite helpful for us today.

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When we talk about the fact that there are many religions on the earth, the reality of the of it is this.

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There are only two. There are only two religions. There is the religion of self -glory, and there is the religion of the cross.

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There is the theology of self -exaltation. And there is the theology of the crucified.

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Big difference. Important categories to understand what's going on. In fact, our gospel text and our

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Old Testament text work very closely together. And you're going to note here that the thing that the false teachers have in common is that they are all about themselves.

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Important thing to note. So with that, let's frame our sermon today by returning to our

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Old Testament text, Micah chapter 3. We will start in verse 5. And here's what it says.

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Thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets who lead my people astray.

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Important to note here that in our politically correct culture, it is considered a sin against society to say that all religions are not equal.

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To somehow say that your religious views are wrong, whereas these are right.

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And you're going to note that Scripture does not agree with politically correct culture. Scripture teaches us that there are those who in the name of God are teaching doctrines that lead people astray.

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Scripture is unified on this idea. In fact, this is a breaking of the first commandment. You will have no other gods before me.

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And this is Scripture's condemnation against idolatry. Even idolatry that invades the church and is spoken by people who hold official positions within the visible church.

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So the Lord here in Micah is condemning those prophets who lead my people astray. And here's what they do.

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They cry peace when they have something to eat, but they declare war against him who puts nothing into their mouths.

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Remember in the book of Jude, there are three primary different types of false teachers. Our Cain.

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Cain is the fellow who basically goes through all the religious motions, offers sacrifices, but has no faith.

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Balaam, who is the prophet for profit. And Korah, who rebels against the established order and offices that God has ordained in his church.

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Here we see the prophets for profit are at work, and they are theologians of glory.

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To be sure. And here's what happens. When they arrive in a house, when they have something to eat, they declare peace for that house.

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But when the one who puts nothing into their mouths, they end up warring against them. This would be like you inviting me to your home to offer a blessing in your home.

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And me kind of hemming and hawing and kind of making in the motion like, you know, I'm expecting some money.

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And you thinking, what is that? Is there something wrong with his hands? Why are his fingers itching? What's going on there?

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And eventually you don't quite get what's going on. And you never write me that check and slip it in my hand.

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And so rather than blessing your home, I call down a curse on it. Because you weren't smart enough to figure out

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I need some moolah if you want a blessing from God. What terrible people these are.

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But the reality is there are people like this even today. So God, talking about these false prophets, speaks a condemnation for all of Israel and says this,

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Therefore it shall be night to you without vision, darkness to you without divination. The sun shall go down on the prophets, and the day shall be black over them.

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The seers shall be disgraced, the diviners put to shame. An allusion to hell here. And they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God.

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But as for me, now Micah here is not being uppity. He's not speaking arrogantly.

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He's speaking the truth. As for me, I am filled with power, with the spirit of Yahweh, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.

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And you're going to note that the prophets of old, the prophets of old, were preachers of repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

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They preached God's law, and they also proclaimed the good news that Yahweh forgives sins.

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So, here you're going to see a true prophet, Micah, literally saying that he's filled with the

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Holy Spirit and declares transgression and Israel's sin. He says this,

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Hear this then, you heads of the house of Jacob, and you rulers of the house of Israel who detest justice and make crooked all that is straight.

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Important phrase there. False teachers, false prophets, theologians of glory, take the straight things of God, and they make them crooked.

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Pay attention to how they do this. You who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity, its heads give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for a price, its prophets practice divination for money.

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This is quite the racket. It's a money -making Ponzi scheme with the religious leaders sitting at the top of the pyramid, and so God then paints them this way, says they lean on Yahweh, and they say,

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Is not Yahweh in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us. Therefore, because of you,

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Zion shall be plowed as a field, Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, the mountain of the house a wooded height.

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And that verse 12 is prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem itself, which was fulfilled in 70

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AD, decades after Christ's crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of the

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Father. And so with this kind of as a frame, let's return now to our gospel text in Matthew chapter 23, and we're going to pay attention to the greater context by going past where our reading goes.

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And you're going to note what what Jesus is saying here, speaking to the false teachers of his day, theologians of glory.

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And how can you like readily understand that these people are false teachers? It's quite simple.

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These Pharisees claimed to worship the God of Israel, and there was the

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God of Israel standing in front of them in human flesh, born of the Virgin Mary.

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And they did not believe him, did not listen to him, and they sought to take his life. Why? Because they weren't really about glorifying the one true

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God. They were all about glorifying themselves. And self -righteousness does this.

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So we can we now return to our gospel text, Matthew 23 verse 1. Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, the scribes and the

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Pharisees, they sit on Moses's seat. So do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do, for they preach, but they do not practice.

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Now, let me help you understand what's going on. What's a Moses seat? Have you ever heard of one of these things or seen a photograph of one?

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Now, like I always point out, I haven't traveled to the Holy Land yet, so I always visit there via someone else's vacation photos.

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It's a good way to, it's very inexpensive to travel that way. And plus, Google Earth is getting better and better. That new update, if you haven't got it already, it's fantastic.

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But a little bit of a note here. When you look at other people's vacation photos of the synagogues of the first century, and we have found them, like in Capernaum and other cities that are mentioned in the

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New Testament, one of the interesting pieces of furniture that you will find in these synagogues is a very large stone seat.

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Stone seat. Well, the preachers of Jesus's day didn't preach from pulpits.

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They preached from the Moses seat. And if you know your Torah, you know your Old Testament, then you know that God had specifically set apart the

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Levites to offer sacrifices in the tabernacle, which eventually became the temple.

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But they were also tasked by God to teach the people of Israel the

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Word of God. And so there was an established order set up, and when the people would gather at synagogue, the

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Levite would sit and teach from God's Word and instruct them. That was the idea.

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So there was an office with the Moses seat. So, you know, so if somebody thousands of years from now digs up the remains of Kongsvinger and finds this piece of wood, right, you know, this is the pulpit.

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It's a symbol of the office of the ministry, the preaching, the Word, preaching the Word office, right?

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So Jesus is saying, they sit on Moses's seat. Now remember, Pharisees are not necessarily

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Levites. These are guys who've jumped the fence, according to Jesus, into the sheep pen.

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And so Jesus is saying, yeah, when they're sitting on the Moses seat and instructing you from the Word, listen to them when they teach you the

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Word, but don't do what they do, for they preach, but they do not practice. And listen to this, they tie up heavy burdens that are hard to bear.

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They lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their fingers.

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These are preachers of law, law, law, law, law, no gospel, right?

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They do all their deeds to be seen by others. They make their flacketerries broad and their fringes long.

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Flacketerry, by the way, if you're not familiar with this little piece of furniture, jewelry, if you would.

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The Jews of Jesus's day took God's words from the Old Testament, like extremely literally.

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When God was telling them that the Word of God should be in their mouth, should be in their hearts, should be what they're talking about, should be on their foreheads.

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They came up with this clever way of like taking this literally. So they would write out of small passage of scripture, maybe like the

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Shema, hear O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. On a piece of parchment, roll it up, stick it into a little box, paint it black, and then strap it to their foreheads and see the

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Word of God is on my forehead. All right. And the Pharisees, they made the biggest flacketerries of them all.

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They were practically hard hats, right? And walking around, look at how big my flacketerry is, right?

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And if you want to know what the fringes are, these are the tzitzioth that are commanded in the book of Numbers for the men of Israel to wear.

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And these, you know, when they had garments were basically not shirts like you'd buy at Walmart or a tailor today, it was something more like a poncho.

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And on the corners of the garment that they would wear were these, well, specified tassels that each of the men of Israel were required to have on their garments.

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But the Pharisees, what they would do is they would make sure that everybody knew that they had their tassels on by making them so long you could practically put a pocket watch on it and swing it around with it.

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So everything they're doing is to glorify themselves. It's a racket where they're at the top.

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So they make their flacketerries broad, their fringes long.

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They love the place of honor at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.

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Oh, rabbi, I didn't know that you shop here. Well, yes, I do, of course. And but you are not to be called rabbi,

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Jesus says, for you have one teacher. You're all brothers. And no man, call no man on earth your father, for you have one father who is in heaven.

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You get a note here. The title for a pastor as father is strictly forbidden by scripture because it puts him above rather than below the people he serves.

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And I need to remind you, maybe it's fortuitous that my vestments were forgotten today, right?

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That the reason why I wear this is to this is a visual reminder of my position in this church.

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I am not the head of the church. This is a slave shackle, a slave shackle to remind you

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I am the servant, the slave of the church. Big difference altogether, right?

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Neither be called instructors for you have one instructor, the Christ, the greatest among you shall be your slave.

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Whoever exalts himself will be humbled. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted. And then

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Jesus gets very politically incorrect. Pay attention. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.

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Now, the term woe is a term used of judgment. Somebody whom

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God calls woes down upon are not headed to eternal life. They are headed to eternal damnation.

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It is that kind of a term. And a hypocrite of the ancient world, theater of the ancient world, the actors, what they would do is they would put masks on.

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So there was a mask that depicted happiness, another one sadness or whatever the feelings were.

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And so the actors of those days, they were called hypocrites because they would put a mask on that showed what their emotions were.

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But underneath it, I mean, whatever their face had, you know, they basically stoic, right?

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So he's basically saying to them, you are people who wear masks. You shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

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A good way to think of false teachers, theologians of glory is, well, these are the guys who if they were a football team, they would always play defense.

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Now, I understand they would have to be a little bit better than the Vikings at this point, but the idea then is this, is that the person who's making a run for the goal line trying to get into the kingdom of heaven, the false teachers play defense and their job is to tackle that guy to make sure he doesn't make it into eternal life.

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That's what false teachers do. And this is Jesus's picture of them. You shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.

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You neither enter yourselves nor do you allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

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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 your selves.

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I think it's important to note this, that in all of scripture, the person who spoke the most about hell and revealed the most details about hell itself was

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Jesus Christ. Nobody even comes close to him. It's as if this particular doctrine is so important, but so controversial that Jesus basically said, leave it to me.

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I'll explain it in all of its gory details. Because if we had all of the gory details of hell from the prophet

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Isaiah, people would dismiss it and say, well, that's just Old Testament. If it was from the apostle

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Paul, they would challenge it and say, yeah, you know, the apostle Paul. He really wasn't one of the inside circle of Jesus.

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So when it comes to the doctrine of hell itself, Jesus is the greatest teacher of it in all of scripture.

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And so here he's saying to these false teachers that they and their disciples are literally children of hell, theologians of glory.

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It's all about them. And then he says this, woe to you, blind guides who say, if anyone swears by the temple, it's nothing.

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But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he's bound by his oath. A little bit of a note here.

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Notice what Jesus said. You who say this. Theologians of glory are not interested in accurately conveying what

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God's word says. They are, well, obsessed with giving their opinions and their ideas and setting them up as doctrines within Christ's church.

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And the Pharisees, their body of work, where they had their own theology, it was called the tradition of the elders.

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And here Jesus is taking the doctrines of the tradition of the elders and literally throwing it into the rubbish bin to be burned.

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And he says, you say, if anyone swears by the temple, it's nothing. But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he's bound by his oath.

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And then Jesus says, you blind fools, which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?

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Isn't it funny? They think the gold is the sacred thing because they're all about money, right? You say, if anyone swears by the altar, it's nothing.

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But if anyone swears by the gift on the altar, he's bound by his oath. There you go again. Jesus saying, you say, and they taught this doctrine as if it was a doctrine from God himself.

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And Jesus says, this is not from God. This is from you, you blind men, which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred.

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So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and everything on it. Whoever swears by the temple, swears by it and him who dwells in it.

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Whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by him who sits on it. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

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You tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law.

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Note here, these guys are meticulous in their tithing, so much so that they've gotten into their spice rack and figured out 10 percent and throw it into the offering plate.

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Maybe next week we can do that, Barb. We'll go through your spice rack and work out the 10 percent of the cinnamon and all that other stuff that we have in our kitchen, right?

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We'll throw it into the offering plate. But I would like to point this out. Why do you think these guys are making such a big deal about tithing all the way down to their spices?

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Because who do you think was the one who, when the plate was passed, counted the money and pocketed it?

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The Pharisees did. So look at, look at, look at, I'm tithing all the way down to 10 percent of my cinnamon, put it into the offering plate.

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And then once church is over, they're the ones counting it, saying, thank you for my cinnamon back.

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And they they do this. So they basically say, I'm doing it. You need to do it too.

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But they're the ones ingratiating themselves. And Jesus says to them, you have neglected the weightier matters of the

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Torah. And I love what Jesus does here. The next part of this,

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Jesus takes law, gospel and repentance and just says it in three words.

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Justice, mercy and faithfulness. It's a good way to describe the message of Scripture.

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Justice is the call of God for us to repent, repent of our sins.

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And this is informed by the Ten Commandments. Mercy through the forgiveness of sins and then faithfulness in bearing fruit and keeping repentance by having good works or being zealous in good works for your neighbor, for your neighbor's sakes.

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Jesus says these you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.

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I'd like to see somebody write that into a political cartoon, because I think the picture itself is quite absurd. And God himself is capable of some of these absurd word pictures.

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Next week's Old Testament has another one like this. And he says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

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You clean out the inside of the outside of the cup and the plate, but the inside are full of greed and self -indulgence.

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You blind Pharisees first clean the inside of the cup and the plate so that the outside also may be clean.

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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you're like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.

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So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

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Now, note this. False teachers are not guys who on the surface look like criminals.

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They don't act like them. They put on righteous pretenses for the purpose of lining their wallets with money.

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And so these fellows look good on the outside, but their doctrine and their theology is all screwed up and they are totally putting on a show.

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And in reality, they are lawless. Think of it this way. Think of like the most notorious televangelist on TBN, right?

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This is a fellow who, if you critique him, somebody might say to you, how can you critique that fellow?

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You sit there and go, well, do you not watch the news and pay attention? He says, if you send him a thousand dollars,

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God's going to bless you. That's ridiculous. That's absurd. This, we just saw an expose on the news about this teacher.

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He jets around the world in the latest Gulf Stream private jet.

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He stays in five diamond resorts. He lives in a mansion on the

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Pacific coast in the most expensive neighborhood in Southern California. Come on.

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And they'll sit there and go, but look at the good that he does. He set up an orphanage in Haiti and there's 20 kids who are being fed and clothed in Haiti because of his outreach.

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To which you should say, how does feeding 20 orphans in Haiti justify taking millions from welfare moms in the

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United States? You see, they look righteous, but they're not.

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They're lawless and they're hypocritical. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

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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 in this.

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We would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets. Uh -huh. Notice that Jesus doesn't even give any credence to their words.

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He says, thus, you witness against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.

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Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers, you serpents, you brood of vipers. Yeah, you'll notice that Jesus actually engaged in some name calling.

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If this were happening today, I'm sure the news media would be freaking out.

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Did you hear what Jesus said to those religious leaders? He said their moms were snakes. Oh, that Jesus fellow, you can't be listening to him.

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He didn't pull any punches. He didn't mince words. You serpents, you brood of vipers. How are you to escape being sentenced to hell?

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Well, that would require them to repent of their idolatry, to repent of their self -glorification and to be forgiven by Christ.

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And then Jesus says something very interesting. He says, therefore, I sent, present tense, you prophets, wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify.

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Some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town. Jesus didn't say,

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I sent you these fellows. He says, I send them now.

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And who did Jesus send? He sent the apostles. He sent the apostles.

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Some of them were crucified and killed. Some of them were flogged in synagogues, and some of them were scribes.

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Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, James, Jude, Peter, right?

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And notice they're all sent from Jesus. And Jesus describes them as men who would be despised, who would be persecuted.

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Not men who would live in mansions, but men who would be living on the run.

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That's how he's describing them. And that they would be flogged in the synagogues. Again, over and again,

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I see a phrase like this, and I think it's been a long time since we've had a good flogging here at Kongsvinger, right?

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To which I would say, what kind of church does that? I mean, what church has a flogging pole set up in it, and as part of their liturgy, would have somebody flogged?

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But see, the religion of self -glory will defend that self -glory, even if it requires physically beating, flogging, or murdering another person who would challenge them and rob them of their glory.

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Self -idolatry makes you God, makes you in charge.

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And when you're God, if somebody dares to not obey you, they could pay the ultimate price.

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You could damn them by taking away their lives. Such is the theology of self -glory.

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But Jesus says, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes, those who write the scriptures.

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Some you will kill and crucify, some you will flog in your synagogues, and then persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous

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Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

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Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Now, as we read a text like this, it's very easy for us to sit there on the sidelines and you say, go, go,

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Jesus, you get them. Ooh, wow, you're really letting them have it. You're speaking truth to power, dude, down with the man.

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Sitting on the sidelines, just applauding Jesus's performance here. But I don't know if you've noticed that as Jesus was calling down the woes on the

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Pharisees, he not only got dangerously close to condemning some of our own behaviors and thoughts that we've had within ourselves, he came right out and did it.

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Have you noticed the Pharisee within you yet? Have you noticed the theologian of glory within yourself?

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That your tendencies, your thoughts, the works that you have done actually are perfectly in line with what these false teachers that Jesus is condemning have done.

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You see, false teachers always end out, start out as lay people first. And I must confess, there are things that are in these condemnations that I know for a fact

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I myself am guilty of, and it makes me terribly uncomfortable.

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So focusing in on those words. On you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth from the blood of righteous

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Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berekiah. It reminds me of when

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Jesus himself was on trial in the book of Matthew. You're familiar with it from our

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Good Friday text. When Jesus is on trial and Pontius Pilate is trying to get him off, trying to literally get

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Jesus rescued, right? Well, what ends up happening is that the people there at Jesus's trial, they literally cry out, crucify him, crucify him, and they want

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Barabbas. And Pilate himself is appalled by all of this.

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Listen to these words from Matthew 27. Pilate was sitting on the judgment seat, verse 19, besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word, have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him in a dream.

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Now the chief priests and the elders, they persuaded the crowd and they asked for Barabbas to destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them, which of the two do you want me to release to?

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They said, Barabbas. Pilate said to them, then what shall I do with Jesus who is called the

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Christ? They all said, let him be crucified. And he said, why?

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What evil has he done? They all shouted out all the more, let him be crucified. So when

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Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water, washed his hands before the crowd, and said,

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I am innocent of this man's blood. See to it yourselves. Listen to these words. And the people cried out, his blood be on us and on our children.

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His blood be upon us and on our children. Interesting.

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If Jesus's blood is on you, is that good or bad? It can be either one.

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It depends. Are you a theologian of self -glory? Are you using the things of God and Christ to exalt yourself and to extort power, glory, and money from others?

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Then the blood of Christ is on you, and you are guilty of it. And that guilt will condemn you to eternity in hell.

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The one who exalts himself will be humbled. But for those of us whom

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God's Word has crushed, exposed our sinful hearts and intent in the wickedness of our deeds and the very things that we think within ourselves, and exposed us for what we are, guilty sinners.

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Christ's blood is on us, not to condemn us, but to forgive us. But in order for that to happen, the little deity within yourself must die, must be killed, must be exposed for who he is, or she.

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And so that's the difference. So brothers and sisters, Christ's blood is on all of us.

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Christ's blood is on us to forgive us. Let us continue then to put to death that maniacal, self -centered sinner within ourselves who seeks his or her own glory, so that Christ's blood being on us may be for our forgiveness, not for our damnation.

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In the name of Jesus, Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th

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Avenue, Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota 567 -44 and again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th

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Avenue, Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota 567 -44 We thank you for your support.

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All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.