“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 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.’” ~Matthew 23:29-30
It is a sad reality that a prophet is only recognized after he has died. During his lifetime, a prophet is typically hated and despised because his job and calling is to call out sin and confront the culture and the comfortable. My pastor made a comment a few months back about the prospect of bringing Voddie Baucham to our church because he was so touched by Baucham’s sermon on brokenness. I said that would be awesome, but here was my pastor’s response: “He would not come as a celebrity but come to break us.” There’s a lot of truth to that. Same with Paul Washer. Leonard Ravenhill and David Wilkerson were among the prophets of the 20th century as well. Many hated them because of their strong stance for truth and unflinching fire to call out sin.
Washer practically laughed at the notion that our generation today cannot handle the true Gospel so we have to water it down so they might receive it. The excuse is that the people today are not as hardy or as “spiritual” as they were in the days of John Wesley, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, etc. Washer’s response to that was, “No one has ever withstood the Gospel, preached correctly. It can only have one of two results: they will hate it even more or they will be converted.” When Edwards preached “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” he simply read the sermon in a complete boring monotone, yet the power of God so fell that people were falling from their pews clutching to anything because they felt they were being dragged to Hell that very moment. Wesley would preach for 3-5 hours, and in some cases, it is reported that numerous people were lying on the ground totally unconscious because of how dreadful the weight of their sin was that had been put upon them.
Such prophets are not appreciated today. They really weren’t appreciated back then either when they were active. It is far quicker to count a prophet’s allies than enemies. Their enemies are even from within their congregation, because of how few people appreciate a man of God willing to stand up and defend a soul from Hell. So many of us say we would love to hear from Wesley, Luther, Peter, Ravenhill, Spurgeon, or any of the big-name missionaries or preachers that are known today. But would we hear the message they preached then? There is an easy way to tell. How are you handling those who preach the same message today? Or do we prefer to find pastors who preach a message that helps us cope with our problems, not deal with the sinful roots? Do we call those who preach the truth and call out false teachings as being judgmental? Or do we check them out against Scripture and if they check out, support them?
Jesus lashed out at the Pharisees and Scribes again for hypocrisy and play-acting. All their honoring of the prophets of old was just for show. It wasn’t real. They declared they would not have joined in with their fathers and literally slaughtered the prophets. Jesus said they declared their own guilt by associating with those who committed the deeds. But it is worse than that. These very people who said they never would have slaughtered the prophets as their fathers did are the same people who demanded He be crucified and then later assisted in the persecution and slaughter of the early Christians including the stoning of Stephen and the imprisonment of Peter and John. They sent Saul out to persecute Christians as far as Damascus. When Saul met Christ and became Paul, they later sought to put him to death but for Paul’s appeal to Caesar. The apple didn’t fall very far from the tree.
How do we handle those who preach the true message? I love listening to them, but I have to constantly remind myself of Paul Washer’s warning against idolizing celebrity preachers. Truth only listened to is worthless without being obeyed. In fact, truth left unobeyed can condemn you. I’m cringing as I’m writing this. The United States has had more light of the truth shed upon it than any other nation in the history of mankind. We have so many preachers we can listen do due to the internet and technology, so many sermons preserved in books and notes and audio recordings, and conferences and books galore. Yet it is not inappropriate to say that the U.S. is perhaps the most immoral country in the world. With our nation’s lust for sexual pleasure and deviancy, our lust for drugs, our lust for money and power, and our lust for blood, exactly how could anyone think that the “good” this nation does is going to counter that? This nation currently despises any voice who speaks the truth and we are fast approaching the day where the persecution will cease being censorship but instead a vicious physical persecution. Our nation is doing exactly what those who despised God’s prophets did then.
As a nation, we are not listening to these preachers, because we aren’t obeying them. There is only so much God can do to restrain His judgment before enough is enough. I would suggest that most of us are not ready for that day. We can see it coming, but are we ready? I’m not convinced I am, but I got one step closer by paying off my student loans. It is a terrible thing for your world to be turned upside down when you still have debts to pay. I am currently debt free and I have no plans to get into debt again no matter what. I’d rather pay for it all up front. That is part of my action of obedience to the urgent warnings of not being tied to this world. If we are, when the day comes, we’ll go down with them.
Do we love those who bring the Truth, even if it’s not popular? Will we obey the message God sends through these preachers, or are we just going to esteem it and sit back doing nothing? I am not innocent of the latter. But there has been truth spoken to my heart that I have obeyed. So, while I am far from perfect, I can say I have taken steps of obedience. I need to do more so I cannot be “comfortable” in what I have done so far. But I can take solace in the fact that I have not been dismissive of the truth I have been given. God rewards and is pleased with and honors those who obey Him.
Let us end our hypocrisy and our empty claims. Let it be that when God removes the veil that what we proclaim will be what we practice and what we live out, regardless of who is watching. If any of these woes spoke to you, repent and let God do His miraculous work of salvation. It’s not too late, but time is running short and fast.
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“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. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.
“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. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” ~Matthew 23:25-28
“Your eyes can deceive you. Don’t trust them.” ~Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars: Episode IV
I put these two woes together because they address the same issue: outward appearances of beauty but inward realities of death and decay. This is a repeated theme throughout these woes against the religious leaders of Jesus’ day. Please note that Jesus was and is not against religion. He was and is against FALSE religion, specifically play-actors and hypocrites who do not practice what they preach. The Pharisees and scribes were supposed to lead the people in the worship of God and to prepare the way for the Messiah, and yet all they did was use such positions for monetary and political gain. It was all about what they could gain out of it and for the praise from men here and now.
Not all is as it appears to be. Not all who claim to be Christian are indeed Christian. I have watched people declare themselves to be Christian, say all the right things in front of certain people, then turn around and not knowing I am in hearing range say the vilest things about those they claim are their “brothers and sisters in Christ.” It’s hypocrisy. Their “niceness” is nothing more than a façade to hide what they really are. False believers and spies act that way. They will use our language and our words, but they clearly have different dictionaries. They may claim to believe in the inspiration of Scripture or the infallibility of Scripture, but if you listen to what they do with certain parts of Scripture, it’s clear they really don’t believe that. They use equivocation, word salad, and big vocabulary terms that most of their audience does not understand to try to sound smart; yet when the façade is pulled away, so is any pretense of them being who they say they are.
A true believer can act that way too, however, it’s not their character. It’s simply a moment of weakness where the flesh won out in that particular moment. As this series has been about self-reflection, let us face the facts: every single one of us deals with this issue of wanting to look good when in reality, you aren’t what you pretend to be. At the root of all this is the fear of man, the fear of rejection, and the desire to be the best in the eyes of men. Jesus nailed it when He repeatedly pointed out the Pharisees’ desires for the praise of man in how they prayed, how they fasted, and how they looked in public. Yet inside, Jesus could sense their hearts were anything but genuine. I personally wonder if they ever would have cared for attempting to carry out the law if they didn’t have people watching them. The reason they were so threatened by Jesus was simply because He was taking away from them how they gave themselves the greatest value: the praise of man. Jesus was telling the people to not listen to them nor follow them, and they did because they knew He was telling them the truth.
What about us? Jesus pointed out the hypocrisy in the Pharisees on big issues, but He cares about the little cases too. Eric Ludy has a sermon on “When a Pastor Leads a Double-Life.” In it, he describes how when he was younger, he’d tell little white lies for the sake of pleasing people. He’d add a goal he’d score in a game to his actual totals, he’d shave off a few tenths of a second in his running times, or add a few pounds to his bench press, and for what? To please his audience due to feeling inadequate in their eyes. When he confessed it, those he’d lied to completely embraced him and wept in prayer over him. God was working in him to remove hypocrisy in his life, removing the outward clean appearance and inward ‘no-so-clean’ reality.
One of the reasons so many people refuse to confess their sins is because they are scared to death about what would happen if the public found out. We know what our propensities are. We know what we are capable of doing if the sinful flesh were given opportunity to unleash itself. I may not know what yours is, but I know what mine are and I know that regardless of what form it takes, if God were to turn it loose, our names would make Hitler look like Mother Theresa. I have areas in my life that I know full well that if God were to withhold His merciful hand from restraining that sinful part of me that hasn’t been cleansed yet, it would not be pretty to see what happens.
How does your outward life compare to your inward life? Is there a difference? As Christians, there shouldn’t be. It’s an easy thing to say, but not so easy to do. Some of us don’t deal with a weakness because we don’t know how to fight it. We’ve fought it for years and constantly lose. But there is hope. That hope can only be found in Christ Jesus. He did beat that temptation and that sin. He too was tempted to live publicly one way and privately another. He beat it. Jesus did not tolerate hypocrisy in His own life, so as He lives His life in us, He will work in us to remove any hint of hypocrisy in us. But we have to be willing to let it go.
No matter how much we may try to hide it, God is going to expose it. We can expose it to Him and He will deal with it, or we can continue to hide it and God will expose it publicly. And if God has to expose it publicly, it will include great levels of humiliation Worse yet, it will give others reason to blaspheme the name of Christ. We must deal with that inner sin before it deals with us. Let us not be white-washed tombs, pretty on the outside but with a leprous disease on the verge of escaping and showing its true colors from the inside.
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“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, 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. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” ~Matthew 23:23-24
A common quotation says, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials grace, in all things love.” Unfortunately, most who use that saying these days do so to avoid engaging in what they think are “secondary doctrines.” It is clear in today’s passage above that Jesus does indicate that some parts of the law are more important than others; however, the decision on what is secondary does not fall upon us to make. It must also be understood that Jesus never gives any permission to set aside the less weightier matters. The Pharisees did their tithes and Jesus said they should have done that, but not at the expense of the bigger things.
The Pharisees had the truth. They had it. They had the Scriptures, and they knew them well. Yet they missed it entirely. They never saw what it was for, why it was there, and they ultimately had no intention of carrying its purpose out. They followed the letter of the law almost to perfection and it was only for show. Jesus didn’t buy it. It is absolutely crucial to have the truth, but if you miss the point of the truth, why bother having it? Jesus said to not give pearls of wisdom to the pigs lest they trample over it.
For its whole history, Israel struggled to understand why God gave them the law. There were three major parts to the law: moral, civil, and ceremonial. The moral law was based off God’s character. The civil law was specifically for their theocratic nation. The ceremonial law was for dealing with sin and preparing for the Messiah. In this woe, Jesus charged the Pharisees of fulfilling the civil laws but completely ignoring the moral laws, which could be summed up in the 10 Commandments. In His hyperbolic analogy, the Pharisees sought to purify their water so much that they would strain out a gnat if it fell in, but in the process, they failed to see the entire camel in it. It is the same as Jesus saying, “Don’t complain about the speck in your brother’s eye when you have a plank in your own.” The Pharisees sought to extract every possible tithe out of their people but never did what they were supposed to do with it all. Why? Because they used the tithes to build their own wealth. They would rob widows this way (as I described previously).
Isaiah faced the same issue. God didn’t care for any of the tithes and sacrifices when the heart was wrong. Isaiah 58 addresses that issue when speaking of fasting. Anyone can fast food for a given time, but the kind of fast God wanted was to not merely to stop consuming on self but to support and protect others. God’s idea of fasting was to loose the bonds of wickedness, undo heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, break every yoke, share with the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. and to not expect a reward for doing so. Jesus said that when we have done all this, our response should be: “We are but humble servants. We have only done that which we ought.”
I have never liked the suggestion of “secondary doctrines” because it comes with the connotation of, “That other stuff is not important, I don’t have to believe it.” Never is such an idea hinted at in Scripture. These people want to try to major in the majors and ignore the minors. The problem is when you ignore the majors, you miss the point of them. The reverse issue is also true. When you focus so much on getting the finer details right that you miss the big picture, you have the same problem and are stuck on a similar ditch on the other side of the road. Jesus said we must do both, the majors and the minors.
As I’ve mentioned in recent weeks, there is one major that we should be focused on: Jesus Christ. Paul declared he had one message: Christ and Christ crucified. To get that major, we must get the minors correct as well, because everything points to and reveals Christ. If we get a minor wrong, we get a distorted view of Christ. But if we focus on the minors so much that we miss the picture they reveal, we miss the point. I love the origins debate because it reveals all the issues at hand, but origins done correctly will point to Christ. Origins pointing to origins misses the point.
We can be religious all we want, but what are we doing with God’s people? Are we just hanging out in our own circles, or are we taking God’s Kingdom into this world and going after souls? It is so easy for Christians to hide in Christian circles and never face the world out there. Or when they face the world, they hide their identity as Christians. Are we out to bring justice for the downtrodden, mercy for the broken, and faith for those who need a boost?
About a mile from my house, the government is building a facility for unaccompanied minors. This is basically a holding facility for those who have come across the border from Mexico and have already been identified has having no family members with them (so do not believe the hype that the Trump administration is separating children from families. They aren’t.). Most people’s reaction has been to do what the media tells them to do: thinking politically and attacking Trump for setting it up. My initial reaction to this facility is this: “They are coming regardless. What can I do?” I have no idea if I can do anything with these youth, either due to clearance, my skill set (though a teacher’s skills might be useful) or whatnot, but that was my reaction. That reaction hasn’t gone away yet (as of writing this). I may have the door shut on me, but how can this facility be so close to me, where I have to drive past it every day just to get to the city, and me not do anything? I saw protestors already on the nearly empty street it is on (seriously, there’s more rock quarry truck traffic and dogs than cars). They are just following the political talking points. I want to do something with these kids. I don’t know what yet or what I can do, but I want to do something.
While we must focus on sound doctrine and teaching the truth, that must not be at the expense of serving the people of God. I am no fan of suggesting that we can solve things through politics, however, we cannot sit back and do nothing, letting the world burn. Let us go out and save souls.
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“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.’” ~Matthew 23:16
This is the only one of the woes in this chapter in which Jesus did not call out the Pharisees and scribes by name, nor directly call them “hypocrites.” In order to put this into this scathing statement against the religious hypocrisy, Jesus must have seen and heard this statement numerous times. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus made it simple to not even swear oaths, but to simply let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no” be “no.”
Oaths in Biblical times were much more than merely “I give you my word.” They were legally binding. When Jacob tricked Esau into selling his birthright for a bowl of stew, Esau swore with an oath to give it up. It was only when he didn’t get it that Esau realized his folly, but he was never repentant of his sin regarding it.
Vows made today are similar to the oaths made then. Today, when people made a vow, they do so upon something they hold dear. A witness in court or a politician taking the oath of office is typically asked to place their hand upon a Bible and told to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (though today, things are changing for the worse). The idea is that the thing being used for the oath is what would hold that person accountable for breaking that oath. A person who lies on the witness stand or fails to uphold their duty in office is held accountable to the judgment of that which they swear upon. To lie upon Scripture is akin to lying to God, and those who know Scripture knows what can happen when you lie to God (just ask Ananias and Sapphira).
Many people tend to take such vows flippantly because it is ultimately just tradition and the serious implications are never really brought to mind. This is part of what Jesus is addressing. Integrity is no laughing matter. Any time God makes a promise, He is obligated to keep it, lest He deny Himself. And as God is the standard by which all righteousness is judged, any person who says they will do something and fails to do it is a liar. They failed to keep their word. Not following through on what you said you would do involves multiple sins: lying, hypocrisy, double-standards, disrespect, disobedience… shall I continue? That’s why God takes it so seriously.
What the people would do here, however, is arbitrarily place values upon the “down payment” or the standard upon which the oath is made. To swear upon the temple or the altar was dismissible because of how nonchalantly it was treated. But if you swore upon the gold of the temple, now you are making a vow upon what makes the temple so valuable. If you swear upon the sacrifice, then you are serious about what you are doing. Jesus didn’t take that well. Gold and sacrifices can be found anywhere; what makes them special is where they are found. God gave specific instructions on how He was to be worshipped. So, when Christ died, not just any altar would do. It was a specific altar, which the whole book of Hebrews describes as being in heaven, upon which God’s wrath would be carried out. And only Jesus could be placed upon that altar.
Jesus set the record straight that it is not the gold that is special, but the temple that makes it special. It is not the sacrifice that is special, but the altar upon which it is placed that makes it special. The altar is what made a sacrifice atone for sin. Anything else could be a sacrifice but it wasn’t for sin.
What about us? How many promises do we make and not keep? How many times do we “cross our heart and hope to die” or “pinky promise” and actually keep our word? The Bible is filled with examples of what happens when people make rash oaths (think Jephthah, Darius, or even Joshua) and the consequences when that happens. We sign legally binding contracts, some of which are for our protection, but some of which enslave us until the terms are complete. I was enslaved to a contract, to an oath I had signed, when I went to school. I had student loans. I gave myself one of my best Christmas gifts a month ago by paying off the entirety of the debt three years early. My oath’s obligation was fulfilled. But how many of us go take out a loan to get a house or a car just because we want the model and then are enslaved to it for 10, 20, 30 years paying it off? There is nothing wrong with having a house or car, but do we realize what kind of commitment that is when we sign on the dotted line?
We live in a culture that cherishes fickleness. The Sawi Tribe of Papua New Guinea had a culture in which the legendary heroes were the ones whom could build up the greatest friendships only to betray and eat them. When they heard the Gospel, they thought Judas was the hero. Are we truly any better in modern day America? We no longer live in a society that expects those who make vows to live by them. If so, we’d have run over half of Washington D.C. out of office long ago. And they know it too, because they truly don’t believe we’re going to do anything about them. That’s why Jesus was such a threat to the Pharisees, because he held them accountable to their word and exposed them publicly as the frauds they were. But I have news we may not want to hear: He’s going to hold us accountable for our word too.
Jesus made it so simple. Don’t even swear or make oaths. Simply live with basic integrity where anyone who hears you give your word will know you will come through. If you say, “yes” you do it. That’s all there is to it.
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“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.” ~Matthew 23:15
Right before Jesus ascended into heaven, He gave his disciples a command to go out to the entire world and make disciples of all peoples and of all nations. While many in the church have had no problem with this task, very few understand what exactly they are supposed to do with it. We are to make disciples, followers, and students of Christ, not a particular church group or denomination or teaching.
God installed the children of Israel to be His people through whom the Messiah would come and to give His message to the whole world. That was their job. Yet they missed it. They thought they were special, and that God only dealt with them. While at it, they’d let the rest of the world burn. They saw any outsider as someone undeserving of the truth. But any time someone wanted to join them, they insisted on that outsider adhering to their standards, which often included circumcision. The entire council of Acts 15 was to address this very issue.
Paul had a different approach. He didn’t care if anyone followed him or not. He just cared that Christ was preached. He even allowed those who preached Christ with wrong motives to speak because Christ was being preached. But if anyone preached a message that didn’t lead to Christ or revealed something other than Christ, he showed his “dark side.” Sometimes he got in the flesh and did not respond correctly, but he never minced words against those who preached a false message.
Jesus was likewise incensed with the Pharisees and scribes. They had the truth because they had the Scripture, but they missed the whole point of it. They made it all about them and getting people to believe their model, their teachings, and their traditions. If they found any potential convert, they went all out to get that convert to join them. Yet, because it was about their religious tradition rather than the truth which leads to Christ, they didn’t make any disciples; they just turned a sheep into another wolf.
In my family, I have seen the attempts of this woe in action. My parents are being actively recruited into the Mormon church by another family member. They aren’t buying it, but it is what Jesus is addressing here. That family member was himself recruited into the Mormon church and they went out of their way to see that the conversion was made. It worked for that one family member, but fortunately it’s not working on my parents.
But what about us? How are we making converts? Are we so concerned that people believe what we believe that we miss the point of why we believe it? Again, being such an intellectually-driven type of person, I see the susceptibility to this issue. I write about origins often in part because of how well it showcases the issues we face. Yet, I find myself so focused on getting the origins part right, that I can miss the point of getting origins right: to reveal Christ. There is no point in believing in a 6-day creation taking place 6000 years ago, only for it to be wrecked up by a global flood 4400 years ago, without taking it all to its logical conclusion: Christ and the cross. Yet it is easy to fall into the trap of getting people into believing the Bible on Genesis without getting them to Whom the Bible reveals.
In martial arts circles, there is a general saying: “There is no such thing as a bad student, only a bad teacher.” There is actually a lot of truth to this. Why students are responsible for their actions, when they misbehave it is often because a teacher or authority figure either teaches them to do so or lets them do so. As a teacher myself (officially for about a year now), I have been realizing how true this is. I have students who are lazy, refuse to do their work when I tell them to do it, but scramble to pull it off at the last minute to save their grades and pass. Some of that is on me as I am truly learning what the trade of teaching requires. I know my content, but I am learning the process of how to get students who have those characteristics to break those habits and become good students. If I do not figure it out, am I turning out students who are truly educated or students who just get through the system and never actually learned anything? It’s one thing to teach a Bible study or write a blog post, but to teach 170+ high school students is another matter. Am I going to be the teacher these students need to break out of the spirit of poverty my school has? Or am I going to blame the students and those around me, contributing to the problem?
When we go teach others (and we all do teach someone in some way, shape, or form), what kind of students are we producing? What is our fruit? Is a person growing closer to Christ because they’ve been with us, or are they running away and hardened from their time with us? I’ve produced both. And in the future, I will still produce both. But may those being brought closer to Christ be more numerous and more common than those being chased until the latter is removed completely. What will each person say about us in the end? Who will be able to say, “I met Christ because of Charlie Wolcott”? Or will they say “I wanted to know about Christ, but Charlie Wolcott showed me something I didn’t like”? Now, each person is going to be held responsible for how they handle the truth, but I am responsible for how I say it. My tongue is sometimes a source of life and other times it is a source of death. And Jesus does not like the mixture. I want those who listen to me to be zealous for the truth, but it is not good if I turn them into witch-hunters in the process, searching for every possible flaw in others for the purpose of searching for flaws. I do not believe I am doing that, but I can see how someone might become a “two-fold son of Hell” if they follow part of me too closely. If they imitate me as I imitate Christ, they will be just fine, but I must imitate Christ by allowing Him to imitate Himself through me. That requires dying to self.
How are we doing in our self-examination? Hang in there with me, because there is a message of hope in all this. Jesus never gave a message of judgment without a warning or a hope. But for the hope to mean anything, we must recognize the bad news and face it. Then we can receive the good news.
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“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.” ~Matthew 23:14
Jesus had utter disdain for those who claimed to be following God and sought to take advantage of those under their wing. He still loved them and longed for them to repent; however, He loved His sheep even more. The Pharisees were all about public show, popularity, and their political position. They made long prayers and long cries in public, yet they constantly sought their own gain and their own wealth. When the poor were powerless to defend themselves, the Pharisees would take advantage of them. This wasn’t outright armed robbery; it was sneaky. They asked the widows to give to the temple so that they might be prosperous, when in reality, they were getting the widows to fill the Pharisees’ pockets.
Does this idea sound familiar, like prosperity Gospel TV preachers? It’s well-known and many people are right to think they are milking people for their money. And they don’t merely go to the wealthy for their money. They fly to the poor countries of Africa or Southeast Asia and gather the poor crowds into giant stadiums to preach their message and ultimately just fill their pockets. They will say loud and lengthy prayers, often in tears, but it’s all for show. While they appear to be religious, their followers are left with empty pockets while they fly away for the next “show.”
Jesus didn’t address this issue just once. When a Pharisee asked him about how to get to heaven and said he was keeping the two great commandments of loving God and your neighbor, he tried to find a loophole and asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus then told the Parable of the Good Samaritan. An oft-missed thing in this parable is that it matches the point and purpose of this woe as well. The first two people to come by the robbery victim were priests and Levites. These were God’s chosen ones to lead the people and give the message of hope to the world, yet they purposefully went around the victim. Why? Not necessarily because they didn’t want to help, but because to touch blood would make them unclean and thus unable to go to worship. They were more concerned about going to church than to help someone in need right in front of them.
It is easy to point out this problem in others, but this series is about self-examination. How often are we doing our religious duty only for the sake of looking as such to others? Would we be that way if no one was looking? There is a reason Jesus called the Pharisees and Scribes “hypocrites” in nearly every woe in this chapter. It is because they were play-actors. Fakers. They did not practice what they preached. If we were honest, could Jesus say the same thing about us? You will notice throughout this series that this notion of claiming one thing and living another is the major theme behind the woes. While Jesus specifically address the Pharisees’ desire to get wealthy off their religious practices, I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that few of us are practicing that. However, are we the kind of Christian that gives long-winded and empty prayers just for show?
One of Eric Ludy’s sermons that caught my attention is titled “The Amen Life” (which I also wrote about here). The sermon is about living with blazing integrity so God, who is the “Amen,” can say “Amen” about us. Amen is the exact opposite of what Jesus confronts here. Amen means “Truly, verily, let it be so, unquestionable fact.” The Pharisees and scribes were anything but “Amen,” and yet as I listened to this sermon, I was lacking in the integrity needed for God to say “Amen” about me. It was there in many areas, but not entirely. How?
Because I am such a fact-driven person, when I see someone in leadership doing something wrong, I have to be watchful to bite my tongue. I will simply speak what is on my mind, and sometimes what is on my mind is not respectful of the authorities God has placed in my life. It doesn’t make what the authority person does right, but my response to that situation is what matters. Daniel faced very poor decisions made by the king he served, but he never went behind the king’s back and talked bad about him. He instead prayed. My first instinct right now is not to pray in such instances. If I prayed more before said situations took place, maybe the authority would not make a bone-headed decision.
But perhaps the biggest area of concern in this issue is talking the talk but not exactly walking the walk. It is easy to talk theory, but how many of us could answer this question: “So in what situation did you use this practice and how did it turn out?” While I listen to sound preachers, those preachers aren’t going to get me to heaven. They aren’t going to get me closer in my walk with Christ. They can preach some valuable truth and they can warn me of pitfalls, but I have to walk the truth out in my life. The same can be said about all my readers too. I can’t carry you to my destination. I can only walk with you for the parts of our own journeys that we have in common. I have my own destination and you have yours. They rarely could take the same route and end in the same place. Yet while we are on the same path together, let us help each other, build each other up, and seek our God together.
If our faith just for show, or is it real? If it is just a show, it will only be talk. It won’t be action. If it is real, it will be followed by action. It will not be perfect, but it will be pointing towards and aiming there. I heard of one preacher saying, “If they prayed long in private, his prayers in public would be short; but if he prayed long in public, you can say his prayers in private would be short.” Now, that should not be taken as a blanket statement, but one can most certainly have short private prayer and short public prayer too. But those who have a good, long private prayer life will tend to only pray in public that which is necessary. I can’t say that about myself. Jesus is not impressed by prayers of many words or vain repetition. He honors pure hearts, child-like implicit faith, and obedience. I heard of Rees Howells one time scouring through the Scriptures to see if there was a command he was not keeping. Who is doing that today? Howells was a man whose prayers God honored. Are we praying prayers that God will honor, or are we just desiring to look good? Let us examine ourselves.
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Every new year, a popular tradition is to form a resolution to start things new and make things better. Such resolutions often only last a few days to a month or two at most before reverting back to old habits. As last year began to close, I was reading through Matthew 23 and this unpopular passage stood out to me. As I read it, I saw some things in myself I did not like. In most churches today, Jesus is preached as this kind, gentle, loving guy who’d love you into heaven, but most tend to skip over the parts where Jesus gets in your face and tells you what’s up. Matthew 23 is one of those parts.
In this chapter, Jesus goes on what seems like a rant against the Pharisees and scribes, the religious leaders of His day, for being frauds. He starts by exposing the general hypocrisy and seeking of the praise of man instead of doing what is right, and then He goes into eight woes against them. A woe is much more than a mere warning. It is indicative that the judgment may already be sealed and set, with only a matter of time before its execution. When Jesus says, “Woe!” it means serious business. This will be a seven-post series (as two of the woes are related), however, while I do want us to be able to recognize the hypocrisy that is out there, I want us first to examine the hypocrisy in our own lives. This series is a unique approach to the New Year’s Resolution concept. Let us use it as a mirror to examine ourselves and repent of where we are guilty. The first of the woes is here:
“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.” ~Matthew 23:13
Misery loves company. Those who want to pout aren’t just satisfied with staying in a foul mood; they want to spread it around and hate those in a good mood even more. A false teacher is no different. In this case, I’m not talking about those who are simply deceived and preaching what they think is true but overall don’t have problems with those who speak the truth. I am talking about those who are concerned about losing followers to anyone else, especially to those who speak the truth. There are many preachers out there who reject the truth of Scripture and will do everything in their power to prevent anyone who might listen to them from hearing it as well.
They will carry what David Wilkerson called “Beware of the Smiters.” It is an “I am a man of God and how dare anyone speak against what I say!” spirit which lashes out against anything or anyone that would dare confront them. They will particularly speak against any ministry or preacher who defends the truth. They want to make sure no one listens to anyone else but them and those of their kind. They want the people to be knowledgeable enough to defend them and ignorant enough to not question them.
Jesus wasn’t merely mad at the Pharisees for teaching incorrectly. He was mad at them for taking advantage of His sheep, those He came to save, when their job was to point their people to Him. Ezekiel had the same objection. He calls the priests cut from the same cloth as conspirers against God, seeking to devour the people as ravenous wolves. This is no small thing. God is MAD about this. And the only thing holding back His wrath against such people is His mercy for 1) to not destroy the wheat along with the tares, and 2) that even those false teachers themselves might be saved.
Yet when I read this passage, I didn’t merely think about the intellectual elite these days, I thought about me. While I am a defender of truth, I had to ask myself: when I defend the truth, am I concerned about the salvation of the skeptic, or am I blocking the way for them to find the truth? It’s one thing to tell them the truth, but it’s something else when you use it as a weapon against the person, not the teaching.
One of the reasons I admire Ray Comfort is for his genuine love for the lost. His apologetics are not spectacular in my opinion, but his desire to see the lost saved is the real deal. Yet to acquire that love, he had to go through a difficult trial: the curse of being labeled “the Banana Man.” He committed some blunders along the way and in some cases deserved some ridicule from it. Yet through it all, he learned to wear the “clown,” be labeled the fool, and through it, he got access to witness to countless people including some big names like Lawrence Krauss and Penn Jillette. While Comfort has at times been foolish, one thing is for sure: no one has been blocked from getting into heaven on account from him.
Have I been that way? No, I haven’t. I have had to train myself to bite my tongue more because I perfectly relate to Voddie Baucham when he describes the unleashing of “Bad Voddie,” the side of him which sees the painfully illogical arguments used against Christianity and wants to “correct them” and then “enjoy this” when the whopping comes. I completely relate to that. It’s not something I like in me. Because as much as I try to restrain “Bad Charlie,” I often fail. I want to see people get to heaven. I want to see them believe the truth. But there are times where my staunch stance for the truth can get in the way. There is nothing wrong with having such confidence in what I believe that nothing can budge me, however, how I use it is the issue. When I come across those who want the truth, I am kind and gentle; but when I come across those who are also set in their ways and it’s not in alignment to the truth, I’m not always so kind. For me, truth is the #1 standard and we can have nothing else unless we have the truth. That’s how I’ve always operated and how I’m wired. What I need is for God to continue His work in me to redirect that wiring to a better use for His Kingdom. I do need to show more love and compassion, but never at the expense of truth. I must share the truth in love, but without truth, there is no love. If I ignore truth and just preach love, I preach them towards a false gospel and a false destination. But if I do not love, the truth I preach is just noise.
Do you find yourself blocking others from finding God? Examine yourself and let God’s spotlight search you. As you do, pray for me as well that I might be obedient to God’s direction in correcting me to stop blocking those who at the moment don’t want truth from hearing it, and instead to encourage them to welcome the truth that they might be saved.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
