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Birthdays and Anniversaries

Our sermon will be in Matthew 18:15-35

We have a website: https://tahlequahworshipcenter.com/

Dinner after service

Service this Wednesday Night - We are in the book of John

Diaper Drive

Prayer requests

Gerald

Georgey

Dorcas

Cristy’s Grandparents

Sandra

Donna

Ukraine

Joe & Family

Kevin Black

I want to welcome all that are joining us online.

Thank you for being here with us.

Cristy has some songs picked out for us.

Are you ready to worship?

Let’s make a joyful noise

Songs

Joy Unspeakable - 530 -

The Old Rugged Cross - 165 -

I Found It All

Woe To The Hypocrites

Last week we talked about how the Sadducees were trying to trick Jesus.

They wanted him to say something that would hurt him in some way.

So far, Jesus had been careful about what said to others.

It wasn’t time yet.

It’s time now.

He ain’t holding anything back now.

He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.

He has turned the tables over in the temple.

Now he’s going to unleash the truth about these so called leaders of the Jews.

They are like log store store over there.

The log store looks like it’s made out of logs but it’s just made to look like that.

Their holiness is a facade.

There’s a lot of people out there that is like that.

They want to look holy and they act holy but they are not.

We are going to look at the truth of the matter from someone that truly knows them.

Matthew 23:13–36 NKJV

13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. 14 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. 15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. 16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.’ 17 Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? 18 And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it.’ 19 Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? 20 Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it. 21 He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who dwells in it. 22 And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it. 23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. 24 Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! 25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. 27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ 31 “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. 33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? 34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Against People

The first thing Jesus mentions is what the Scribes and Pharisees do against others.

Their teachings and their actions close the door of heaven to others.

They put on a show showing that they are holier than others.

If you don’t act like them, you’re just not part of the kingdom.

They even steal money from the vulnerable.

They continue to do these things today.

The things listed here are in opposition to the beatitudes in Matthew 5.

They get hung up on how people are dressed or what they do.

Then they go out and teach others that their way is the only way and make those believe as they do.

I’ve seen this happen where someone becomes even worse.

I grew up believing that being a Christian meant that you had to follow this standard that wan’t possible.

That’s true, but it was absent from the Grace of God.

You’ve probably done this.

Well, they ain’t no Christian. I heard them say a cuss word about 20 years ago.

They are taking the laws of God and twisting them.

In verse 13 we have the proud shutting up heaven vs. “the poor in spirit” in Matthew 5.

In verse 14 we have Mourners being comforted vs. devourers being damned.

In verse 15 we have the proud sending people to hell vs. the meek inheriting the earth.

These people are against people and they are also ...

Against Principles

The laws of God are meant to be followed but first and foremost, they are principles.

In other words, there is an underlying moral principle to the law.

Let’s take the sacrifices that the Jews made back then:

They were intended to point to the sacrifice that Jesus was about to make.

Or what about this swearing that Jesus talks about.

They are teaching that swearing by the gold of the temple was meaningful, but swearing by the temple was not.

That puts material things ahead of the spiritual things.

The covering of the Temple

Here in verse 16 we have the scribes swearing by the material things vs. those seeking after things of God.

In Verse 23 we have a woe against those who make sure the dot their “I”s and cross their “t”s, but they miss out on the greater things like justice and mercy and faith.

In Verse 25 we have the Scribes and Pharisees caring about how they look vs. obtain mercy before God.

In verse 27 they are worried about the outside again instead of what’s inside

Against Prophets

In verse 29 they are building the tombs of the prophets and yet they are currently persecuting the saints of God.

Jesus compares them to Cain and all of his kind who persecute the righteous.

He tells them that the blood of the prophets are on them as well because they acknowledge what has happened before and yet they are doing the same thing.

They did not step up for John the Baptist and they are not going to step up for Jesus.

Almost daily I see people talking badly about those they don’t agree with.

Can we speak out about those that are clearly wrong?

But we must do it with love and grace.

If I say something wrong, you come talk to me afterward and correct me in love.

I had someone correct me after a sermon with other people around and without any love.

I’m going to tell you that I’m going to say something that is not right at some point.

We are all wrong about something.

And we have our blind spots.

Let’s approach others with love.

We don’t want to be a modern Pharisee

We need to love them and take them to Jesus.