LUKE #50 Woe To You
Notes
Transcript
INTRODUCTION Luke 11:37-54.
INTRODUCTION Luke 11:37-54.
We have arrived at a critical juncture in the life and ministry of Jesus.
The Pharisees and Sadducees make up the religious leadership in Israel.
70 of their number plus the High Priest comprised the Sanhedrin.
Typically speaking, they were enemies of one another.
The Pharisees were the conservatives so to speak.
They at least held to the truths of the Bible as they interpreted them.
Where as the Sadducees who were the liberals, believed in very little of the Bible.
They denied the resurrection especially.
So to sure, these two groups had very little in common, and were at odds with one another most of the time.
But now, both groups feel threatened by Jesus.
And this common fear of Jesus has united them against Jesus.
At the same time, Jesus was in no way their friend either.
He was sickened by their attitudes and actions and has made His feelings well known.
In fact, from the very beginning Jesus has attacked their self righteous piety.
Matthew 5:20 being the first shot in this long struggle, and it was fired by Jesus Himself.
“For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus knew their heart, knew the corruption and sin.
And for a time, spoke words of truth to them.
But in the end, rather than heed the words of Jesus, they chose to be His enemy and get rid of Him anyway possible.
Matthew 13 and Luke 11 are parallel chapters in some ways, but especially in this, Jesus has given them over.
In fact in Matthew 13 Jesus began to teach in parables.
A parable was meant to hide the truth from these enemies of Jesus.
What we are about to see are some of Jesus’ most scathing words for them, one last final attempt to open their eyes to their need.
TRUE CLEANSING
TRUE CLEANSING
Jesus was invited to have lunch with a Pharisee.
It doesn’t say so in this passage, but typically they had ulterior motives.
They had been trying to trap Jesus in His words.
They had tried to discredit Jesus before the people.
And it is a safe assumption that the same is going on here.
Matthew records that they had already had this debate over the washing of hands before one eats in chapter 12.
So now, my bet guess is, Jesus has been invited to lunch just to see what He will do with regard to washing.
The Pharisee is surprised that Jesus doesn’t wash.
It is one thing to eat in the field without washing, water isn’t readily available.
But at a home, water was easily accessible for washing.
The Pharisees were very meticulous in their hand washing.
The would wash, and then make sure that the water ran off their hands and dripped off the ends of the fingers.
Then, without anything being said, Jesus responds to the thoughts of the Pharisee.
The response is meant to drive home one central truth, your spiritual condition is far more important than your physical condition.
They were fastidious about their washing.
They made a show out of it.
They were very public in their giving of alms.
They made sure that their alms giving was witnessed by on lookers.
They were detailed in their tithing.
So much so that they counted out even the smallest of herbs from their gardens.
But sadly it was all about appearances.
Did you realize that in the court of the women were large brass collection containers.
When the Pharisees were bring a tithe, they were infamous for bring it in a small container that was filled with small coins.
They would come at a busy time, and then very slowly and loudly I might add, pour their pennies into the brass container.
As they did so, the noise made by all those coins clanking into the brass container drew all eyes.
They loved the chief seats in the synagogue.
Those would be the seats on the stage facing the audience.
I remember we attended a church for a while and there were two large red, tall back chairs on the stage.
Our pastor planted himself in one of them every week.
I refused to ever sit up front, only stepping up front when it was time to preach.
Are you starting to get the idea?
These men were self absorbed, self righteous, and demanded to be treated as royalty.
They were all about themselves.
If they were with us today, they would be competing for followers on social media.
Their calling was to shepherd God’s people Israel.
But like so many of the leaders in Israel’s past, they failed.
We could go all the way back to Eli, a judge of Israel.
His two sons were so corrupt that the people hated the idea of them succeeding Eli.
Phineas and Hophni, the two heirs apparent, y the were promiscuous, they kept the best of the sacrifices for themselves, and they were lazy.
And the people hated the idea of them leading.
Sadly, this was a familiar situation.
“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to those shepherds, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? “You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat sheep without feeding the flock. “Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them. “They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered. “My flock wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill; My flock was scattered over all the surface of the earth, and there was no one to search or seek for them.” ’ ”
“Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of My pasture!” declares the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel concerning the shepherds who are tending My people: “You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not attended to them; behold, I am about to attend to you for the evil of your deeds,” declares the Lord.
and Zechariah 11:12-17
I said to them, “If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!” So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages. Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord. Then I cut in pieces my second staff Union, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. The Lord said to me, “Take again for yourself the equipment of a foolish shepherd. “For behold, I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for the perishing, seek the scattered, heal the broken, or sustain the one standing, but will devour the flesh of the fat sheep and tear off their hoofs. “Woe to the worthless shepherd Who leaves the flock! A sword will be on his arm And on his right eye! His arm will be totally withered And his right eye will be blind.”
You get the idea that the Lord despises shepherds who are negligent in their duties?
Being a shepherd of God’s people is both a privilege and a great responsibility.
And with it also comes a great temptation.
The temptation is to use the ministry for your own self interests, and that is sin.
These men defrauded widows.
These men burdened the people and did nothing to help them.
They made proselytes, but the proselytes were just as lost as the leaders were.
They were blind guides of the blind.
I get angry when I think about all these charlatains of our day.
Those who are out there and who occupy pulpits and classrooms and fail to feed their people truth.
But in truth, I should pity them.
WOE UNTO YOU
WOE UNTO YOU
When Jesus says woe unto you, English just doesn’t capture the intensity.
This is a very very intense word and it speaks of total destruction.
The type of destruction that would be considered horrific.
The truth is, this is prophetic.
Jesus is pronouncing judgment upon these wolves in sheeps clothing.
This really isn’t anything new, YHWH has done this before as we have already read,
Phineas and Hophni, they never made it to the place of supreme power, the Lord saw to that.
And make no mistake, they got the message.
That is abundantly clear in verse 45.
Jesus insulted them, and a lawyer says you insult us also.
Lawyers were the religious experts in the law of God.
It is my understanding that they were for the most part associated with the Pharisees.
But not all Pharisees were lawyers.
When I read these discourses between Jesus and the religious hypocrites, I question why they kept coming back.
Jesus never backed down, and truth was always on His side.
And Jesus unloads on this lawyer.
Those who know the law of God have the responsibility to guide others into the truth.
To help them to live righteously.
The religious elite weighed the people down with the burden of the law, but did nothing to help them get free of the burden.
The ministry is about leading people to repentance where they can find grace and mercy.
Not looking down on others and thanking God I am not like that sinner over there.
Ministry comes with the responsibility to preach against sin.
The goal should be to convict of sin, because that leads to repentance and restoration.
But these religious leaders offered not relief.
They used their pulpits to make themselves look good.
Did you realize that they actually prayed thank you Lord I am not a Gentile or a woman.
Then Jesus brings up the past and how the prophets have been treated.
Israel was a rebellious and stiffnecked people who refused to heed the message of the prophets.
Instead they killed them.
This is exactly Jesus’ point.
For the most part, Israel’s leadership were not godly, not the kings or the priests.
In fact Jesus tells a parable in Matthew 21 that was very pointed.
Immediately after the Triumphal Entry, during the last week of His earthly life, Jesus told them the Parable of the Landowner.
Let’s read Matt 21:33-45.
The landowner is God the Father.
The slaves are the prophets of the OT.
And Jesus is the Son.
Jesus is telling them, you killed the prophets, and you will kill the Son thinking the inheritance will be yours.
That is exactly what they did.
They killed Him because they feared if Jesus gained to much popularity, the Romans would see it as a rebellion and take away their place and power.
But Jesus informs them, they kingdom will taken from them.
And that too came to pass.
In 70 ad, the Romans crushed Israel, leveled Jerusalem and the Temple, putting an end to the corrupt system of Judaism.
And then to make matters worse, the kingdom was indeed being given to others, as the gospel went out into Gentile lands.
So whether you look in Luke 11 or Matthew 21, the message is the same.
You are a godless and corrupt group.
But notice verse 49.
“The wisdom of God said.”
If ever there was a passage that demonstrates how different God’s way are from ours this is it.
Jesus says, sending prophets to Israel to be killed and persecuted is the wisdom of God.
When we think of these things, we think well Satan is responsible, or evil people.
But the truth is, YHWH asks some of His greatest servants to die for Him.
We can’t begin to understand this wisdom.
Loosing a missionary to persecution seems to us unfair.
But YHWH, sometimes uses death to bring about something awesome.
For example, those 5 young missionaries that were killed by tribal people, of which Jim Elliott was one, brought about a great spiritual awakening.
One tribal member who later became a believer admitted, the fact that we attacked them and they would not fight back, but died so passively, opened the door for the gospel.
The whole tribe was saved and their culture transformed.
It all began with the death of 5 of God’s servants, most devoted servants.
But, that does not release the guilty parties from culpability.
Just as in the wisdom of God, the Son was crucified to bring about the greatest good ever known by man.
This generation, the very generation that killed Jesus, would be guilty of all the blood shed against God’s men.
It is sad when you think about it.
The Son of God came unto His own.
He demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that He had supernatural power.
He spoke the words of salvation, showing the real way of life.
And His own received Him not.
Worse than mere rejection, they killed Him.
This is one of the great paradoxes in scripture.
YHWH planned His death.
The Son embraced His own death.
Yet at the same time that generation was guilty of His death.
And that is the gospel as outlined by Peter.
“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God did through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of lawless men and put Him to death.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
What can we learn from this?
First and foremost, be careful when you oppose those who claim to be for God.
We are not omniscient.
Sometimes, what appears to be off, may be exactly what the Father is doing through them.
Our best criteria is the word of God.
Heresy is easy to see, but motive is not.
We need to know the difference.
Second, there have always been false teachers, and there always will be.
In fact 3 books in the NT are devoted to how to deal with false teachers.
2nd Peter says false teachers will come.
Jude says they are already here.
And 2 Peter, Jude, and 2 John provide instruction as to how we should deal with false teachers.
2 John says, don’t even show them any hospitality.
Why is God so angry with false teachers?
The answer is in verse 52.
False teachers have the word of God, yet because their teaching is false, they hinder people from entering the kingdom of God.
Truth matters.