WOES

WOES Matthew 23:13-33 October 28, 2007 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction How well do you receive criticism? Being criticized is inevitable for everyone, and it is not a problem if you develop a positive way of dealing with it. The pastor who received an anonymous note with nothing but the word “FOOL!” written on it. The next morning he got in church and said, “I’ve gotten many notes without signatures before but this is the first time I got one where someone forgot to write the note and just signed his name!” Abe Lincoln wrote these: “I do the very best I can, I mean to keep going. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me won’t matter. If I’m wrong, ten angels swearing I was right won’t make a difference.” But no element of positive spin was going to help the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23. Jesus brings His most scathing judgment on the scribes and Pharisees in this passage. Seven times He uses the word “Woe”. Woe is our translation of the word in the Greek language OUAI (pronounced oo-ai). What “woe” doesn’t capture is the mournfulness of the term. It is like a one-word lamentation. Jesus wasn’t simply expressing his anger at these leaders—he was making a pained statement. It was both a statement of denunciation and the wrath of God’s judgment, and a statement on the pain of God giving in to the faithlessness of these religious leaders. Despite what you might think as you read these harsh words, Jesus loved the Pharisees, and He deeply, deeply wished they had turned their hearts toward him in faith. But they hadn’t. People often mistakenly think that God is smiling as He issues judgment. But He’s not—His e is delivering on pure justice, with a burdened heart. Hell is God’s reluctant acquiescence to people who insist on saying no to His love.   OUAI expresses the pain of sincerely wishing His efforts to reach these people He loved had worked. OUAI is Jesus’ sad, final sigh in response to the continual rejection of His offer of love to them. There are seven woes in the middle of chapter 23 of Matthew. I have squeezed them into four points (nobody likes a sermon with seven points!). The first two woes are in verses 13-15. Jesus begins by bringing to the attention of these spiritual leaders the realization of what their behavior has meant to those who followed them. Sorrowfully, Jesus laments and accuses them of behavior that has had negative effects on other would-be disciples. Their Effect on their Disciples Woe to you, teachers of the law ad Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, or will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. First, Jesus chastises the religious leaders for their pride. Verse 12 which we studied last week, said …whoever exalts himself will be humbled… The Pharisees had disqualified themselves from entry into the kingdom of God by virtue of their pride. In Matthew 5:3 Jesus taught Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But as if it weren’t bad enough that they proudly disqualify themselves, they go from bad to worse by misleading others so they cannot enter the kingdom. How did they ruin those they taught? Luke 11:52, a parallel to our text, says they taught the traditions of men, thereby they’ve taken away the key to knowledge. Here’s the point: the pure, unadulterated Word of God is truth. When you decide it is more convenient to teach man made ideas instead of the Word, you not only keep yourself out of heaven, but you also deprive those you teach. Michael Green put it this way: By their [wrong] priorities, their [bad] example and their scorn of those with simple faith, the prevent others going in. You know, it’s one thing when the devil’s advocates who have no faith dissuade people from biblical faith, but it’s much worse when those who profess to have faith do so! There are Christian leaders who watch Billy Graham crusades, and then proceed to belittle his methods and his simplistic message. They insist that people who say yes to the message of salvation are somehow missing something. Jesus says there is no other way to come to the Father than through faith in Him. Religious leaders who teach the churchianity of their traditions above the Christianity of Jesus poison and prevent others from coming to genuine faith. No wonder Jesus said, “Woe”! Concerning their teaching Jesus goes on to condemn these leaders for the specifics of their teaching. Verses 16-24 cover three wrong teachings of the scribes and Pharisees. 1. They broke solemn oaths Earlier Jesus warned against the danger of taking solemn oaths, teaching it is far more godly to let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. Herod made an oath to give Herodias the head of John the Baptist on a platter. He was bound to follow through on that promise, and he did even though he regretted his oath and was distressed about it. (Matthew 14:7) Peter would one day soon swear on an oath that he did not know Jesus (Matthew 26:72). The Pharisees were notorious for making hundreds of rules about how to swear an oath by the temple, by the altar of the temple, and dreaming up various loopholes for getting out of oaths. The created and maintained an entire legalistic system in which system they, of course, were the judge and jury on proper oath-taking. Nit-picking religious rules dishonor the Lord and they put ungodly burdens on people. Those proud leaders who love to control are addicted to such legalism. It is sadly true in the church today as well. I emphasize again, the Word of God is the only rule for people of faith. When creeds and traditions and the iron clad expectations of men with their rules and constitutions and by laws get so hung up on them that they upstage the clear priorities set forth in God’s Word, then woe to those leaders.   2. They distorted God’s Word Another example of wrong religious emphasis comes up in verse 23. The Pharisees were very picky about tithing, insisting that even a tenth of people’s garden seeds should be tithed to the temple. There is nothing wrong with tithing to the Lord completely and exactly, but the religious leaders made such a big deal over these details that they failed to talk about the weightier matters of the law, like justice, mercy and faithfulness. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. The Pharisees were very fastidious about their eating. There were lengthy rules and expectations about how clean your dish and cup should be. The running joke in those days was how these leaders would guard against gnats getting into their wine glasses. They carried strips of cheesecloth with them and continually strained their drink so they could strain out the little suckers. So much time and energy was given over to such insignificant things that they never got around to dealing with the real issues of living for God, taking care of the poor and helpless.   3. They were pre-occupied with minutia, so much so that they missed the bigger issues of godliness Verse 24 is one of the funniest verses in all of scripture, as Jesus pokes fun at the way the leaders major on minors. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Still today, leaders will spend thousands of dollars and multiple hours of time on how best to unstop the drain in the west wing men’s room, or which committee should handle that issue, or what sub-paragraph in the by-laws should be amended to allow for this or that savings account or whose toes got stepped on in the redecorating process. Such drama! Maybe in light of what Jesus says here a more appropriate question would be when was the last time those leaders prayed with the sick or evangelized a lost man or visited a prisoner or a dying saint? Ah, the weightier matters of God’s kingdom! God’s real priorities: pastoral ministry for those who need it, scriptural teaching for the young and old, propagation of the gospel here and abroad, issues of justice and mercy in the community. It is the pharisaic spirit that pushes the important things into the corners and saves them for the final hurried minutes of our meetings when we must hurry up and pray before we go home. It is the pre-occupation with the minutiae that got Jesus’ goat. Let us be always vigilant that our addiction to small potatoes doesn’t lead us to swallow the tractor! May God faithfully remind us that it is in prayer and ministry to people where He is most glorified, and that focusing on the finicky will always bring out the Pharisee in us. Let’s always include plenty of time for intercession in our every meeting, and time to ask the Lord of the Church to show us what is important to Him! Problem of externalism The third issue Jesus vents about to the scribes and Pharisees is how they worry too much about externals, and not enough about the heart. Verses 25-28 – Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. Using the religious fetish of cleanliness as a symbol, Jesus goes after the deeper sins of the Jewish leaders. Behind so much of their preoccupation with minutia and their distortion of the Word of God was the well-known scandal of the personal riches the leaders were raking off the temple ministry. Jesus would not ignore such avarice and injustice. While poor people suffered the religious elite were making a killing, and doing so in many ways. And here the Lord puts on the historic mantle of the prophets who raged against such greed and dishonest gain for centuries. Jesus brought balance and truth to the teaching of the law, and one of His major themes was how much more important was the inner man than the externals. It wasn’t even so much what one did that interested God, but what a man was in his heart. What God honors most is the one who may fail in his behavior occasionally, but is hungry for more of God, and driven to be more like Him. What God hates the most is the sham of remaining evil deep in the heart and in one’s secret behaviors, but trying to cover it all up with religious cosmetics. Mincing no words, Jesus calls the hypocrites to account. They had made millions in Enron-like swindles and back-room deals, but they never failed to look good. Well-groomed, pious, well-publicized prayers and giving, not to mention those clean dishes! Years ago a decision was made to renovate the Queen Mary—that great ship in England. The first part of the project was to refurbish the smokestacks. They had been painted and repainted by many work crews, but it was time to check the infrastructure. When the large cranes lifted them from the deck to the dock, a shocking discovery was made. Though the stacks looked good, almost the entire tube of steel inside had been eaten away by rust. What was holding them together was only the multiple coats of paint that were applied over the years. You can fool everyone but God by looking holy, making just the right religious noises and keeping up a pious fa?de. But God sees into the heart, and He knows what we’re truly like in our most hidden parts—down in our motives and secret desires. Staying outwardly attractive while underneath your faith has rotted will not fool God, nor will it fool others for very long. There is a day of reckoning for the foolish hypocrite. The Pharisees’ day had come. Ritualism and superficial religion can never replace or compete with a living relationship with God in Christ. Rejection of God’s messengers The final judgment against the religious leaders is in verses 29-32. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers! Every prophet whom God raised and sent to speak warnings against the Jewish people was violently mistreated, and most were killed by their religious and political leaders. The hypocrisy of this current generation of Pharisees was that though they were just like their forbears, they pretended to repent of those historic crimes against God’s prophets. They decorated their tombs, brought flowers every Memorial Day, and swore their allegiance to God and His prophecies. Here comes Jesus, the greatest Prophet, and raises His voice against the pompous and pretentious leaders of Israel and says again, in the words of Isaiah 1: Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong ad learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.   Jesus lays their hearts bare, and tells them (and everyone listening) that they will do the same thing. In fact, the new wave of persecution and killing will begin with Jesus Himself. There will always be persecution against God’s kingdom people—always. And in fact, it will continue to increase (in the last decade of the 20th century, more martyrs died in the cause of the gospel than in the entire century before 1990). But what is worst about it is that much of the persecution comes from people who insist they are people of faith. I hope to pick up on this theme in the next segment of teaching, but suffice it for now to understand God’s disgust and anger with those who mistreat His spokesmen. Not only do the religious leaders not receive the message God sends through these servants, they turn on the prophets and kill them—for telling the truth! When things get bad in His kingdom on earth, God raises faithful voices to speak the truth to His people, calling for repentance and change. But instead of repenting at that Word and coming out of the darkness, they do their best to put out the Light. Woe to those who persecute God’s spokesmen and recklessly disregard their message! Conclusion Let me wrap this up with a solemn warning to all of us who sometimes get too comfortable in our definition of faith and too complacent in our comfortable religious cribs. There are some very clear, uncomfortable exhortations in the New Testament for believers to remain faithful, to not rebel against the Lord, to not ignore His Word and to stay faithful to the end. That may disturb your satisfying definition of security, but it is the Word of God. Darryl Kile, the Cardinal pitcher, looked to be in the peak of health. #57 was a 12-year veteran who stood 6’5”. Hours before he was to start against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, he died of a heart attack. 90% of his main coronary artery was blocked. But he looked fine. I exhort the faithful people of God to: 1. Live in submission to the Truth avoiding the religious trap of neat little man-made formulas of religion. Know God’s Word and obey it.   2. Minister that Truth to others at every opportunity, teaching it with the confidence of faith and living it out as an example of God’s will.   3. Never be satisfied with externals. Focus on keeping your heart and mind in Christ Jesus and walking in His Spirit’s fullness.   4. Never turn a deaf ear to the spoken Word of God preached and taught accurately, nor certainly turn a violent word or action toward the messengers who bring you that Word.       [Back to Top]