X Marks the Spot III

Background to passage: this is the chiastic culmination of the clashes between Jesus and the religious elite during the final week of his life that began on what we call Palm Sunday with the triumphal entry of Jesus. He speaks so clearly and pointedly regarding hollow religion that makes a mockery of God as external religious practices, positions, and perception cover up internal darkness, hypocrisy, and facade that lead others astray by focusing on legal minutia instead of the heart of God.

Matthew 23:25–36 ESV

“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. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Opening illustration: Lance Armstrong, see page

Main thought: This morning we will cover the last of the three woes that correlate to the first three woes in which Jesus warns and condemns the externally religious, the morality police, the self-righteous, self-appointed kings and priests of faith.

1) Dirty Cups (v. 25-26)

Matthew 23:25–26 ESV

“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. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

1) Dirty Cups (v. 25-26)

Explanation: Jesus uses the issue of a cup that needed to cleaned on the inside and the outside or on just the inside for it to be clean. This could have been a real rabbinical issue that was argued about or just a way to get to a point. Jesus uses it as a metaphor for holiness and true religious fervor. He acknowledges their appearance of religiosity on the outside, but their filth on the inside. In their concern for external appearances, they had no desire for cleanliness on the inside. Clean on the outside maybe, but inwardly full of greed and self-indulgence.

The perfect picture of hypocrisy: someone to looks one way openly and yet internal is completely different.

Mark 7:18–23 ESV

And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Illustration: when you pick tomatoes or pears and you put your finger right through the skin, the coffee cup that was sitting in the garage for weeks.

Application: Do you realize that one of you could wear a suit and tie to church and one of you could wear a bathing suit, and one would be judged. One of you may arrive in a million dollar sportscar and one of you may arrive in a 30 year old jalopy held together by duct tape, and one would be judged. God’s concern in what you arrive as on the inside, what you are wearing on the inside.

Did you come inside to worship with bitterness and hatred in your heart even though you were all smiles on the outside? Did you come in with lustful thoughts and desires that you harbor and keep warm? Do people think that you are great because you attend all the religious events and fundraisers and church services and wear the t-shirts, but inside you are greedy, you want all the things that you can’t have. You appear to love people but inside you are a racist, or a sexist, or you look down on those who are poor or externally sinful?

We must examine our hearts. Jesus is pleased when we are poor in spirit, pray in secret, fast in secret, give so that the right hand does not know, love our spouses, our brothers, our enemies in truth not simply in deed. What are you on the inside? Do we beat our breast like the publican, cry out oh wretched man that I am, plead with God to give us clean hands and a pure heart?

2) Whitewashed Tombs (v. 27-28)

Matthew 23:27–28 ESV

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

2) Whitewashed Tombs (v. 27-28)

Explanation: The sixth woe dealt with the ceremonial cleanness of people coming to Jerusalem to worship supposedly. It is true that before feasts and assemblies in Jerusalem, tombs along the roads and paths would be painted white so that people would not inadvertently come in contact with dead things. It is similar to the fifth woe in that external things are compared with internal things, but the difference is the context and sins. The context is ritual cleanness, and the sin is lawlessness.

This is particularly odd because the Pharisees are the champions of law keeping. They attend the most SS, know the most scripture, have the most developed theology, and cared the most about holiness, at least on the outside. And Jesus tells them they are full of lawlessness, antinomian?

Mark 7:11–13 ESV

But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban” ’ (that is, given to God)— then 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.”

Jeremiah 8:8 ESV

“How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.

Romans 2:23 ESV

You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.

Illustration: do you remember the little boards that used to be in sanctuaries that kept track of the number of people who attended SS, the offering, how many brought their bible, how much the SS offering was, etc. A culture could be created that carrying your bible to church or to school or having one on your desk or in your car counted for something if you don’t read it, study it, memorize it, love it, feed on it, be transformed by it, obey it...but we could check the box that we brought it.

Application: Do we make rules that ultimately cause ourselves and others to practice “lawlessness”? Do we make Christianity a behavior modification program? Is there 12 steps to becoming a great Christian? Does HOPE have to potential to create Pharisees? Of course. Our hearts are little idol factories who love competition even in religion. We love merit based systems. We love earning things. We love promotions and degrees and knowledge. It’s easy for us to think we are better than we are.

application points

Do we do Christianity without loving Christ? Are you ritually clean when you come, but lawless before and afterwards? Do you know how to be a Christian more that you know God? Do you keep the rules, but disregard the spirit of our faith. Jesus wants the heart. We are always evaluated by your heart. There are not scales for good and bad deeds. There are no crown for Sunday school attendance record. Do we live for self-glory and not glorify Christ for his value? Do we live to be seen lifting our hands here and ignoring God the other 166 hours a week? Do we train others to do it also by our example?

3) Blood of the Prophets (v. 29-36)

Matthew 23:29–36 ESV

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

3) Blood of the Prophets (v. 29-36)

Explanation: In the first woe Jesus indicted the Pharisees for failing to see that the scriptural prophecies pointed to him, and thus they should point others to him. Here he says they fail to recognize the prophets. They would venerate, decorate, and commemorate the prophets that their fathers rejected and murdered. They thought that made them better, spiritually superior to them. They boasted that they wouldn’t have participated if they were there.

Then he tells them exactly what he told them in the first woe, they are serpents, vipers, and are going to hell. He equates himself with God saying that he sent/sends the prophets, wise men, preachers, writers, scholars to point the way, and prophesies himself that they would continue to kill, crucify, flog, and persecute. He finally pronounces all the blood-guilt of all the prophets upon them.

Argumentation: one of the most sickening parts of the I read this week was in Judges where the men of Gibeah wanted to have homosexual relations with a man, but the host refused and gave them his concubine. She was raped to death. Then she was cut up into 12 pieces and sent all across Israel. Then they all came and destroyed Gibeah.

Illustration: They believed that they would not have joined their forebears in murdering the prophets (v. 30)—just as many Christians today naively think they would have responded better to Jesus than the disciples or the crowds that cried, “Crucify him!” - D. A. Carson

Application: D. A. Carson nailed the application—we all think that we are much “better” than we truly are. Our hearts are wicked and deceitful. We think that we “would never.” I pray protection over my family and yours. Satan is trying to take you down, but he doesn’t have to do it alone. With our spiritual lives destroyed or corrupted, we could.

I would be remiss if I didn’t warn you as Jesus did. If your lives don’t point people to Jesus, but keep them out, you don’t know Christ. If your making of disciples actually looks pretty worldly, you don’t know Christ. If you make loopholes to manipulate the scripture so that you can look better, you don’t know Christ.

If you life revolves around the minor things in life, and the gospel and disciples are not in the front, and a priority to sacrifice for, you don’t know Christ.

If you are really good at harboring inward sin and darkness, but looking good for the religious, you aren’t going to see Jesus. If your rule-keeping in some areas leads to sin-flaunting in other areas of honoring God in your lives, you don’t know him. If you boast and act in your own self-righteousness not realizing your own sinfulness, you will not get in.

Hell is a terrible place of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. It is a place where the worm does not die, and the fire is never quenched. It is a place of darkness and torment apart from joy and every good thing.

Pharisees do not see the joys of heaven, but reborn pharisees do. Redeemed Pharisees do. Repentant and contrite Pharisees will see Jesus on when they pass from this earth. The gospel beautifies religious pharisees and abject rebels against God and atheist, and agnostics, and the apathetic, and the broken, and the hurting, the rich and poor

Closing illustration: Carl Lentz, pastor at Hillsong Church in NY, 2020 moral failures, see attached doc.

Recap