Woe - Sermon 4

Recap

Do not shut the door of the kingdom in people’s faces. Twice as much a child of hell.

The more important matters of the law.

How clean is your heart?

And with all this said about the Pharisees, Jesus lays the biggest hit on them yet:

Scripture

Matthew 23:

Matthew 23:29–38 NIV

29 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. 30 And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started! 33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? 34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. 35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation. 37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate.

They are cut from the same cloth as their ancestors, and are practicing the same things. They can claim all they want to that they wouldn’t be like their ancestors, but Jesus is skeptical.

“Brood” or spawn of vipers. Vipers tore their way out of their own mothers.

The Jews thought the time of prophets had disappeared with the OT. Jesus is saying, in the place of God, that He would send prophets and they would react the way everyone had always reacted.

ALL of the blood shed at the hands of the Jewish leaders would fall on this generation. And before we think Jesus says this with vindication, he laments their rejection of the Grace of God.

The Warning

Feeling like we know exactly how things are

Not heeding the warnings scripture gives us, or choosing not to engage in hard conversations that may be prophetic

God takes no joy in judgment. He laments the rejection of Grace. It doesn’t change the fact that judgement will come.