Woes From the Great Prophet—Luke 11:37-54

Woes From the Great Prophet—Luke 11:37-54

Intro

In Context, Jesus is beginning his journey to Jerusalem, where he will suffer his passion under Pontius Pilate. As a teacher, he will continue to instruct his disciples while he is carrying on this journey. Chapter 11 begins with Jesus’ teaching on prayer. After he cast out a demon, he is accused of expelling demons by the power of Satan, so Jesus corrects them and shows how this theory is non-sense. Not only that, but after his acute explanation of why their accusation is false, he confronts his accusers in verse 23, which is central to this chapter:

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

Let that verse sink in for a minute. Jesus is painting a picture in black and white. No gray scale here, no middle ground, no lukewarmness. In other words, in this spiritual battle that’s taking place on earth, either you are with Jesus, or you are against Jesus.

After this, a woman in the crowd yells, Master, blessed are the womb that bore you! And Jesus answers, —Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it. Then Jesus moves on to call his followers to be watchful, so that the light that is in them would be truly light and not darkness.

And so, I think one thing is clear from this context: Jesus is calling people to be faithful.

So, our text begins just as Jesus is finishing all these teachings. With this then in mind, let us read from Luke 11:37-54.

Woes to the Pharisees and Lawyers

37 While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table.

38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner.

39 And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.

40 You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also?

41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.

42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.

43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.

44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”

45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.”

46 And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.

47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed.

48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs.

49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’

50 so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation,

51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.

52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”

53 As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things,

54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say. [1]

Let’s Pray

Big Idea: A life for Jesus is a life of faithfulness.

Main Points… in the next 25 min. Answer the question, how do we know if we are living a life characterized by faithfulness? How do we know we have a life for Jesus?

Being Faithful in Your Affections

Faithful with Your Authority

Faithful through Adversity

Hence, let us go right into it.

I. Faithful in Your Affections

1. After Jesus taught what we just discussed in the introduction, one of the Pharisees there invites him over to eat something. V.37

i. I believe it is a good exercise to pause and question ourselves, why would this Pharisee invite Jesus?

A. Two Possibilities, either he is for Jesus, or he is against him.

B. When we continue to read the text, we see that this Pharisee’s heart is not in the right place.

C. Hence, most likely, he is against Jesus.

a. He might be seeking the attention Jesus was receiving.

· Jesus is being followed by crowds (v.29), and he states that Pharisees love this attention (v.43).

b. He might have been seeking to caught Jesus doing something wrong to accuse him.

· Certainly, the Pharisee accuses Jesus early on in the narrative (v.38), and Luke tells us this was their intention at least after this episode (v.53-54).

D. In any case, what is clear is that the heart of this Pharisee is not in the right place.

a. And this invites an immediate application question:

· Why are you seeking Jesus?

· As you can see, it is not only about seeking Jesus.

· This Pharisee was actively trying to be near Jesus, yet his motivations are exposed.

· One can certainly be seeking Jesus and yet be far away from him in his heart.

The narrative then continues, after Jesus is accused of not washing his hands.

2. Jesus, in turn, is going to expose what’s really in the hearts of this Pharisees, he is going to expose what they love, what are their true affections.

i. Jesus does this first by showing that the Pharisaic logic is flawed.

A. There is no benefit of cleansing the outside while their souls are rotting in wickedness and greed.

B. On the contrary, Jesus rebukes them and calls them to offer as alms, as a true offering, that which is within them.

a. This faces the Pharisee with another hard question:

· Am I able to offer my heart to God?

· Would that be an acceptable offering?

· Would that be pure enough?

C. Jesus’ argument is that if we truly want to seek purity; we should start with our own hearts.

a. Not external actions…not the hearts of others.

· Now, Jesus is not against external purity, he came to fulfil the whole Law after all (v.42b These you ought to have done, withoutneglecting the others.)

b. Implied, then, is Jesus’ accusation that Pharisees are not really interested in purity.

ii. And so, here, Jesus begins his first Woe. This is a public rebuke or condemnation of the Pharisee’s attitude.

42-43 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.

A. There is a contrast posed in Jesus’ woe against the pharisees.

a. The contrast is between what they love and what they don’t really love, what they neglect.

b. They love attention. They love applause. They love high places and seats of recognition.

· They love this because they love themselves above any other thing, and every other person.

c. What they don’t love is righteousness. True righteousness. What they don’t love is God.

B. Hence, the Pharisee’s affections testify against them, as they are being faithful to themselves, while being unfaithful to the Lord.

iii. This unfaithfulness on what they love has consequences.

44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”

A. Jesus explains that rather than him being defiled by not washing his hands, the Pharisees are the ones defiling people.

B. OT Laws prohibited people to come close to dead bodies.

a. If they did, they would defiled for seven days, and that in turn meant that they could not go close nor touch other people, they could not go worship in the temple or the tabernacle, they needed to be purified first.

b. Hence, when a grave was established, God’s people needed to mark that grave to prevent others to come close and become defiled.

c. Unmark graves, then, would be defiling everyone coming close by, and they wouldn’t even know about it. Then would touch someone else, and they would become defiled, etc.

Back in Mexico, one of the elders of our former church, a fine engineer, use to talk about the way he would hire new people for his firm. He told me there were four kinds of people out there:

I. Brilliant, and they know they’re brilliant. Hire them. They are efficient and a great asset to the company.

II. Brilliant, but think they’re not. Hire them. Usually humble, and with great potential.

III. Limited in capacity, but acknowledge their weaknesses, and would work hard to overcome them. Hire them, they tend to be humble, disciplined, and ready learn and work hard.

IV. Finally, they are those who are frankly stupid, and believe themselves to be brilliant. Those are the most harmful for people around them.

And this is precisely what the Pharisees were doing.

C. Those who were supposedly concerned with purity were only fools that were defiling others due to their unfaithfulness in their affections. Due to loving something else, rather than God.

a. You fools! (v.40)

3. And hence, when it comes to us, we ought to ask the question:

i. What are those things that are captivating our affections?

ii. What are those things that have the potential to distract us from loving our Savior?

iii. What are the things in your life that jeopardize your faithfulness to Jesus?

iv. Even as a church, or a denomination, or as Christianity, what are those things tempting the bride to be unfaithful to Christ?

v. Jesus’ words today for us are hard:

A. Don’t be a fool!

B. Don’t fool yourself

C. Don’t try to fool others

D. And most definitely, don’t try to fool Jesus.

If you find these words offensive, you are not alone.

45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.”

II. Faithfulness with Your Authority

1. Jesus’ unapologetic response is telling.

i. “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. (v.46)

ii. You are bullies. You are abusing your authority. You are being unfaithful with what God has given you.

2. Lawyers had formal training on the Law (or Hebrew Bible).

i. They ought to have not only known better and apply the Law as it was meant to be apply.

3. Their actions too had consequences.

i. They are accused by Jesus of two things: Murder and Hijacking.

A. Because their actions were so similar to what their fathers did with the prophets from Abel to Zechariah, Jesus equals their guilt to the guilt of their fathers before them.

48-51 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.

B. They were, by Jesus’ estimation, murderers.

C. In other words, Jesus is saying, “…have you been there with your fathers you would have killed and persecute all the prophets of God.”

a. This is a sobering thought.

· Remember v. 27? Either with me or against me?

· This is a sobering thought because Jesus is also our Prophet.

· And so, for those who abuse their authority, the warning Jesus gives is this:

I. Your behavior is the same as that of the Lawyers, and their fathers, prophet-murderers.

II. At the same time, if you are being abused by an authority, know this: There is one with supreme authority. The Righteous Judge shall leave no crime unpunished.

III. If you are at this time only under authority, this is a good reason to pray for your authorities and ask God to be Lord over their hearts.

· You are either with me or against me. Either you are saved by Christ, or you are within those who crucified him. Either with me or against me

D. And so, the other accusation is that of hijacking the truth.

a. They ought to have reminded the people about God’s steadfast love and show them how a life of obedience flows out from the love God had already show them as a people, many times.

b. Instead, they upheld and designed new traditions of men that completely crushed the purpose of the Law.

· Burdening people more and more, keeping them out of being in good standing before the Lord.

52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”

ii. All these makes us reflect upon how we are using our authority.

A. Many of us have authority or will have it in the future

a. Either as husbands, parents, boss, church officers, counselors, etc.

B. So, the question is, what are you doing with that authority?

a. What are your expectations for the people under it?

· Are you placing burdens that you yourself would not be able to lift?

· Are you requiring things that go beyond what Scripture commands?

b. On the contrary, a life that is for Jesus will use the authority it has, regardless how big or small it is, to lead faithful people under it to Christ.

· To show God’s grace, God’s love, his mercy.

· How are you being faithful with the authority God has given you?

So, we’ve talked about being faithful in our affections and with our authority, and finally, let’s turn to faithfulness through adversity.

III. Faithful through Adversity

1. I believe the prophets are often overlooked in this passage, and they indeed, have much to teach us.

i. We’ve seen two negative examples in the unfaithfulness of the Pharisees and the Lawyers.

ii. Yet, the prophets and apostles are spoken of here with a much positive tone.

2. Though it might not be clear to us, the Teachers of the Law would not have missed what Jesus was saying.

i. Both references Abel and Zechariah share something in common,

A. They were killed by unfaithful men for being faithful to the Lord.

a. Abel was killed because of the good sacrifice he gave to the Lord.

b. Zechariah was killed after calling people to repentance for breaking the Lord’s commandments.

B. And hence, they are to signify the type of the faithful prophet that remains faithful through adversity unto death.

a. The type of the prophet that remains faithful, even when the cost would be his life.

b. We are in a blessed position here in America, I don’t think anybody will kill me because I preach the Gospel, especially in North Carolina.

c. And yet there might be times that we are ashamed of sharing the gospel

· Of behaving as Christians

· Of doing what pleases the Lord

· of being faithful through Adversity.

d. So, I believe, this is a good reminder for us, that there were people that suffered their faith unto death, and they still are people today doing so.

So, here’s a question. How then, do we remain faithful? Wherefrom comes the power to live faithful lives in terms of our affections, authority, and through adversity?

I. Christ’s Faithfulness

1. There’s still one more character about whom we haven’t mentioned much: Jesus.

i. How does He relate to each of these groups of people? How does he relate to the Pharisees, the Lawyers, and the Prophets?

A. Pharisees:

a. Like the Pharisees, Jesus did the right things, he fulfilled the Law, he was zealous for the Law.

b. Unlike them, he did so perfectly and with the right affections. He did so loving righteousness and loving his heavenly Father.

c. So that, on account of His faithfulness, we are now counted righteous, and our works are pleasing to the Lord.

B. Lawyers:

a. Like the Lawyers, Jesus taught the Law, he was given authority to teach Scripture, and call people to do God’s will.

b. Unlike them, he applied the Law according to God’s heart, unlike them he took the burdens off his people.

c. So that, on account of his faithfulness, we can come to him, all of us who are weary and burdened, and he will give us rest. We may learn from him, for he is gentle and humble in heart, and, then we will find rest for our souls. For his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

C. Prophets:

a. Like the Prophets, Jesus was called to preach the Word, and to rebuke the unfaithful, to call people to repentance, and to be faithful unto death.

b. Notice how Jesus, in this interaction is prophesying his own death.

· Those woes are pronouncements of divine judgement against these people.

· And I cannot but think what was in the mind of Jesus, when he was calling them murderers, while he was on his way to Jerusalem to be murdered by them.

c. Unlike the prophets, Jesus lives today. Jesus lives, to be faithful forever more.

d. Jesus lives so that today, you and me have life in him, and it is his life that enables us, through his Holy Spirit to remain faithful. That’s the gospel.

ii. So, are you with him, or against him?

A. If after today you’ve found yourself lacking faithfulness in your affections, authority, or during adversity, this is your hope:

a. Jesus Christ intercedes before the throne of God the Father for all of those who humble themselves and seek forgiveness.

b. Ask (Lk 11:13) and you will receive his Holy Spirit, so that you may be faithful once again.

Let’s pray.

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version(Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Lk 11:37–54.