TOMORROW NIGHT – 1 Samuel 16

Matthew 23:13-39Rejection of the King

Part 9 Seven Woes and a Lament

It is the week of Passover, 32 ADExodus 12:3-7; 12-14 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household…… 5Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. 7“Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it…..

12For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.14“This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.

Jews from around the world have flooded into Jerusalem to commemorate their deliverance and offer the Passover Lamb

At the end of this week, Jesus ---- THE LAMB OF GOD ---- will be betrayed by Judas Iscariot, turned over to Pontius Pilate, beaten and murdered as the sacrifice for our sins–

In Chapter 23 we have the record of the LAST words spoken by Jesus to the multitudes at large.

The subject matter was the religious hypocrisy Scribes and the Pharisees.

In the opening 12 verses of the chapter Jesus PUBLICLY denounced the Pharisees and scribes and identified their religion as FALSE on FIVE COUNTS

v.3 – He DENOUNCED them as Hypocrites

v.4 - DENOUNCES them and IDENTIFIES their religion as false because they laid heavy spiritual burdens upon men and women

v.5-7 DENOUNCES them and IDENTIFIES their religion as false because their religious activity was NOT for God and His glory ---- it was for THEMSELVES and THEIR OWN glory!

v.6 He DENOUNCES them and IDENTIFIES their religion as false because all of their PUBLIC DISPLAYS of spirituality were merely the means to THE SELFISH ENDS of POSITION and TITLE

v.11 He DENOUNCES them and IDENTIFIES their religion as false because they had a false concept of greatness

As scathing as these denunciations were –

They were actually just the PRELUDE to SEVEN WOES that Jesus was about to pronounce upon the Scribes and Pharisees.

QUOTE: A. T. Robertson called these "the rolling thunder of Christ's wrath."

QUOTE: Plummer - these woes are "like thunder in their unanswerable severity, and like lightning in their unsparing exposure.. . . They illuminate while they strike.”

CRUCIAL NOTE: We must not read this series of woes with the idea that Jesus lost His temper.

REMEMBER – From our study in 1 Samuel that God’s anger against sin is NOT LIKE our anger.

There is NOTHING in His heart that looks like the irritation and impatience and malice that we have against those who have offended us.

It is NOT anger as we know it

It is the CALM ---- SETTLED OPPOSITION ---- of His NATURE to sin

KEY INSIGHT: The Greek word for woe is hard to translate into English because it includes not only wrath, but also sorrow.

The THUNDER and LIGHTENING of each woe has it’s origins in the settled opposition of God’s nature against sin

BUT - The THUNDER and LIGHTENING of each woe is also filled with divine grief over the stubborn blindness of these men!

I believe there was compassion in the heart of Christ for them as individuals.

He fully understands the consequences of their hypocrisy!

13“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

NOTE WELL: He never talked to a prostitute or a sinner in this way.  

He never spoke this way to those whose hearts were towards Him.

To them He always spoke of God’s love and repentance.

The sincere, yet stumbling, believer is never addressed like this.

He didn’t even speak this way to the rich young ruler who walked away from Him!

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.

Nobody talked to these guys like this.  I imagine that He pointed His finger at them.  hupokrites in the Greek  an actor under an assumed character Derived from Greek word that means: to speak under a false part

Across this nation there are people who go to seminary and graduate and are ordained

Many of them never really ordained of God

Many of them aren’t even saved.

EXAMPLE: Joe Focht - was telling me about a seminary-educated pastor in the Philadelphia area that had visited his church ---- and upon hearing the clear proclamation of the Scriptures had gotten saved

He went back to his denominational church and started to preach the gospel on Sunday morning

He started to see two or three of his congregation get saved

The next thing you know people were getting saved in bunches

And after a matter of time his denominational headquarters heard about it and the big mobs were there.

And they said, “We’ll not have any of this preaching of the gospel here.”

And he was out on his ear.

Now I would say those folks fit this category ---- keeping men and women out of heaven!

If you have the ESV your verse numbers go from 13 to 15 --- If you have the KJV or the NKJV you have v.14

(Mat 23:14 KJV) Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.

 All through the Old Testament we see that God has a special place in His heart for the orphan or the widow.

(James 1:27 NLT) Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us.

Yet here Jesus says that these men ---- the religious leaders of the nation ---- are devouring widow’s houses.

INSIGHT: The scribes would come to the widows of Israel and essentially say to them, “Look if you really want to honor your husband we think you should take a part of the estate and donate it to the temple in his name.”

And then as a pretense of being “spiritual” they made long prayers for the sake of big donations.

SUCCESSFUL SCAM - When the Romans conquered Jerusalem in 70AD they turned up what would be worth today in our market over 2-1/2 million dollars in sterling and close to 3 billion in gold.

 

Therefore you will receive greater condemnation:

No one will have it good in Hell

But Jesus makes it clear that some will have it worse than others will.

15Woe 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.

Zeal in evangelism does not prove that a person is right with God.

These religious leaders went to great lengths in their evangelism, but they brought people to darkness, not light.

Paul spoke of this very thing in Romans 10:2

There he stated that some of the Jewish people of his day had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 

NONE of their converts were actually born again.

BECAUSE their message could only produce more men and women trying to work their way into heaven (which is impossible!!)

When he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves:

These men were similar to Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses today.

Courageous and energetic messengers, but with a false message that leaves THEM and their hearers lost!

The GOSPEL declares that you can only be saved from hell and enter into heaven through FAITH in the finished work of the cross.

It is THAT message alone that God uses to save souls!

James 1:18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth,

1 Peter 1:23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;

16“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.’

It was a common belief that if you swore by the temple that the oath you were making was about a five on the serious scale ---- and thus there was wiggle room to connive your way out of it.  

But they believed that if you swore by the gold in the temple ----

WELL THEN!!

THAT was the really sacred stuff!

THAT made it an unbreakable oath!

17You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? 18And 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.’ 19You blind men! For which is greater,

the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. 22And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

CHECK THIS OUT – Fools (v. 17) = moros = blockhead

NOBODY had ever talked to these guys like that before.

HERE’S THE POINT that Jesus is making

Earthly things are sanctified by their relationship to heaven.

23“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.

KEY INSIGHT: They would grow their own spices.  

As they would gather their seeds they would say -nine seeds for me and one for God.

 He said, “You guys are blind hypocrites. You’re tithing of your seeds and forgot about justice.

 

KEY OBSERVATION: He didn’t say they shouldn’t be tithing,  

He said they should be tithing AND be just and merciful and full of faith.

1 Cor 13:1-3 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

1 John 4:7-8 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

24You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!

If a Pharisees got a gnat in his mouth he would stop and have a fit because it had blood in it.

The Law said that they were to eat nothing with blood.

 SO – He would stick his finger down his throat and make himself throw up rather than swallow a less than kosher gnat.

 

Yet Jesus says these guys ---- who would be that extreme regarding a gnat ---- would gulp down a camel (The camel is the largest mammal in the middle east.)

Now of course it was figurative.

The point is that they would STRAIN over the most minute detail of their traditions --- because such details made them more spiritual in their own eyes and the eyes of the nation

But they MISSED ---- IGNORED ---- the LARGEST POINT of relationship with God – LOVING Him and His children!

Tragically, the church is obsessed with the trivial while the world goes to hell.

25“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

KEY INSIGHT: A lot of these men were immoral.  

They had problems with greed and pride and lust. 

But because they kept up the external they fooled others and over time themselves.

 BUT NOT GOD – He is not mocked.

KEY INSIGHT: There is ONLY ONE thing that clean the inside! 

What can wipe away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!

1 John 1:7 For the blood of Jesus Christ ---- God’s Son ---- cleanses a man of all sin.

Isaiah 1:18 Come let us reason…..

 27“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. 28So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

KEY INSIGHT: At the time of a mandatory feast (when the Jews from all over the known world would have to come to worship) they would take time to white wash the sepulchers.

They did this to make them VISIBLE because many of them were right by the roadside

YOU SEE ---- if you were a Pilgrim coming to Jerusalem to worship and accidently touched a grave you were unclean for seven days and would be excluded from the feast.

So out of courtesy – and because they wanted you in the temple to get your money - they would whitewash the tombs so the people would not accidentally touch them and become defiled.

 With this FAMILIAR picture Jesus points out that these men might look great OUTWARDLY

But you would no more want to be around them than you would want to touch something dead

These guys were filled with stuff that would defile them as much as any tomb!

He’s not trying to win a popularity contest this day.  

I wonder if through all of these woes that their hearts are sinking.

29“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.

We say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  32Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.

They would fill the cup.  They would kill the Messiah.

33You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?

As if woe wasn’t bad enough.   NOTE: In Genesis 3 Satan comes to Eve as a what?

a serpent. 

(John 8:44 KJV) You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

 NOTE: Jesus goes beyond merely calling them serpents, He uses the term viper – a poisonous snake.  KEY POINT: Jesus wants us to know that hypocrisy is poisonous.  

It’s one of the reasons that church discipline is given to us in the scripture.

  

34Therefore 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, 35so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

KEY OBSERVATION: “Upon you will come all of the blood that was shed in the Torah.  

KEY INSIGHT: It doesn’t mean a generation as in those were alive.

This generation = genea, ghen-eh-ah'; = this family.  KEY QUESTION: What do you think Jesus is really feeling in His heart towards these guys

Anger for the sake of anger

Or indignation mingled with grief because of the consequences of hypocrisy

Or indignation mingled with grief because He knows

That the Romans will come and kill 1,630,000 Jews.

 

> That the siege of the city would be so bad that those living in Jerusalem would turn to cannibalism.

 > That Ferdinand and Isabella pass a statute that the Jews should be sought out at the inquisition.

 > Everything that will happen with Nazi Germany.  

 I think that Jesus has a broken hearted here because

He sees all of the bloodshed of the righteous through the ages ----- as He tried to send prophets to warn these very people ---- and yet they constantly rejected the Word of the Lord.

 

It was a continuous situation where hypocrites loved to have their own position…..

Even if that meant killing the prophets.

NOTE: One of the reasons they said they killed Him was because He’s taking away our authority.

 Mark 15:10 For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up.

All of this is the reason why when He was coming down on Palm Sunday that He wept.

He was convulsing weeping.  

It was a continuous situation where hypocrites loved to have their own position…..

Even if that meant killing the prophets.

NOTE: One of the reasons they said they killed Him was because He’s taking away our authority.

 Mark 15:10 For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up.

All of this is the reason why when He was coming down on Palm Sunday that He wept.

He was convulsing weeping.  

The siege and destruction of Jerusalem was so terrible that Titus Vespesian was said to have looked up to heaven and cry out to a God he didn’t believe in and said, “Don’t leave this to my account. I’m not responsible.”

“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! 38See, your house is left to you desolate. 39For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”  

 

KEY INSIGHT: If you don’t know Christ in a personal way this is your life story.  

It’s the life story of all of those who have heard and turned away.

Christ will one day say, “How often would I have gathered you to myself in tenderness and love. The way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and takes care of them. And you would not.”

 Those of us who know Him - He put us right here, right now for a reason.

I think of how desperate this nation and the world are for this kind of love that we profess to have fiund in Christ.

 

Why did Jesus utter such scathing rebukes?

Because He loved these men.

These men were the farthest from God and they needed to be warned of coming judgment.

What Jesus really wanted was their repentance, not their judgment.