FBCWest 420 | Woe to Hypocrites
Recorded On: 10/01/2020
Bulletin
FBCWest
October 11, 2020
“God is Spirit, and those who worship Him
must worship Him in Spirit and truth.”
“Blessed Assurance”
Praise and Worship
SCRIPTURE READING – 1 John 3:1 & 2
“Open up the Heavens”
“You’ll Come”
“I Will Boast”
“Oceans Will Part”
Giving of Selves and Our Offerings
OFFERTORY PRAYER
SPECIAL MUSIC – By Pru Hungate
Proclamation of the Word
Message by Pastor Joe
“The Life and Ministry of Jesus The Messiah”
“Woe to Hypocrites”
PRAYER TIME / Time of Reflection
“Show Me Your Glory”
Acknowledgements and Announcements
Benediction “Won’t Stop Now”
-
Sermon Notes
Matthew 23:13
They shut off access to heaven, but don’t enter themselves
Matthew 23:15
They go the world over to make a proselyte twice the sons of hell as them
Matthew 23:16 – 22
They swear by lesser things
Matthew 23:23 & 24
They neglect the greater things
Matthew 23:25 & 26
Their outside clean, but inside full on unclean things
Matthew 23:27 & 28
They appear righteous on the outside, but full of hierocracy and lawlessness
Matthew 23:29 – 30
They are no better than those who killed the prophets in the past
Scritpures
Transcript of Service
There are times when preachers and pastors and others have messages that they love to preach.
So much so that they often preach them over and over and over again.
Evangelists are that way they love to preach evangelism.
Those.
Who are being saved? Love to hear it and those who.
I've already got their Salvation or glad to hear it because.
They don't have to be challenged by the words of Jesus.
And then there are times when there are messages that.
A little more difficult.
To accept.
Ann, it's the natural inclination to say, well, he's talking about somebody else, and therefore I don't have to listen.
And hopefully what Jesus is going to be condemning the.
Scribes and the Pharisees. For he's not speaking to us.
However.
Two things.
Number One.
Wisdom comes by hearing things so that you modify your behavior so you don't make the same mistakes and so for instance, in sports, when you have a coach, it's easy. When the coach is yelling at one of the players for not doing something, say Well, the coaches yelling at him or her rather than saying well, can I learn something from this and be wise?
And so Jesus is going to do some condemnation. However, the second aspect is.
Many people
in the world.
Think.
Improbably, generally speaking, rightfully so.
That the church is filled with hypocrites.
Now the somewhat differences is that we acknowledge that there are times that we are hypocrites.
And the church is a hospital and we're trying to recover from it.
So we are hypocrites. For instance when we sing and say that we believe that Jesus is everything to me.
Until he isn't.
However, the world has plenty of hypocrites. Is that well? And 1st we have this tendency to think that hypocrites mean.
Inconsistent and hypocrites means playacting to pretend you're one thing when you're not.
And so for instance.
The world will say.
That there are no absolutes.
But they are absolutely certain that they are no absolute.
The world says that everything is relative.
And that morality is relative.
Until you take something from theirs, and then say that's wrong.
But if morality is relative, than what's right for you is not necessarily wrong for me.
And children grow up knowing that's not true, because one of the things you'll frequently hear children say is that's not fair.
What do you mean? It's not fair if it's all relative, there is no ferness.
It's just whatever I can take from you and hold on to.
The world also says there is no God that we got here by accident or a bunch of goo and whatever. And yet they live their lives as if it has meaning and relevance.
And they tried to tell me of how meaningful and relevant science is. Well, if we just all got here by a mistake, then how can I depend on science? Because it's just all here by mistake, but no one wants to really believe that life is.
Inconsequential that life has no meaning.
Even those who believe this wanting to invest so that we might go to Mars another place so that mankind might.
Sustain itself because it could eradicate itself well if we're all just a mistake. What does it matter if we go to Mars will just be a mistake there as well? There is no.
Meaning.
And so when they and we point at people saying, or you're a hypocrite, remember all of us have three more fingers pointing back, saying, yeah, we are too.
So Jesus is going to really hammer.
The scribes and the Pharisees on their hypocrisy.
An I'm hoping that most if not all of what Jesus is going to be condemning them. We are not guilty of. But again, I think we need to watch to make sure that it does not creep into our lives because hypocrisy is like leaven, it just takes a little bit to ruin.
Or in fact, everything.
And so in Matthew, Chapter 23, starting with verse 13, he's going to. He's addressing, he goes. But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.
Woe is a great sorrow or distress, so Jesus is worn that there is great sorrow in great distress coming their way because they are hypocrites. Notice he doesn't say scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites, he lumps the scribes and Pharisees together as hypocrites, as those who are play acting as those who say one thing and yet conduct a different life.
This is because you shut off the Kingdom of Heaven from people.
For you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.
So again, the scribes and the Pharisees are religious people. They are the type of people who are supposed to be showing people the way to God.
And instead of showing people the way to God, they are preventing them from entering the way to God, and even those who want to enter their shutting off.
But they're even worse than that. They don't even want to go themselves.
Now that's amazing for religious people who are supposed to be showing us the way to God.
To prevent it.
And yet all too often.
Church people.
Not saying believers church people.
Will be so.
Anti.
Jesus.
That they block people from coming to heaven.
That they, by their lives seem to say it's not really true.
And therefore, if you don't really believe it, and what I why should I believe it? And we as believers are supposed to be those who are pointing people to the Lord, not preventing them from entering.
And then he's going to. In verse 14, I'm going to not read that verse. If you have in your Bibles a little bracket.
It says that some of the earlier manuscripts don't have this verse. Some of the other manuscripts do an, I believe.
A number of translations have this verse.
And others block it out.
Now.
Always comment on this.
Because I hope either want to remind you, or if you've never heard it.
There's so many times people say, Well, you can't rely on the Scriptures because it was written so long ago an it could be changed and it could be whatever, and so how can rely on it.
Well, there are more copies of the New Testament than any other historical book.
And there are a number of fragments and a number of complete manuscripts. So much so that in reality we even know what we don't know.
And so verse 14 is one of those things. It may be there, and it may not be there, but the idea is that the Bible isn't.
Reliable because we know what we don't know.
No one will say that Homer didn't write the Iliad and the Odyssey, and yet the most.
Current copy after his death with some 500 years.
And yet somehow people have a problem with the Scriptures when we have scriptures going back with the within about 30 to 50 years of their original writings.
And so I'm going to skip down to verse 15.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees hypocrites because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
Now, if you're talking about getting hit between the eyes.
Jesus is saying not only what they're doing, but they are the sons of Hell.
They're not the sons of Heaven. They're not the sons of God there. Now. What I just read at the beginning of the service that we are the children of God.
Jesus is saying You, Scribes Pharisees, hypocrites.
Are sons of help?
But you're making those that you and you're expending notes. You're sparing no expense to go over land and sea to make a proselyte, to get somebody to change from who they were, to being a Jew.
We should also pay attention to this.
Because we have been given a command, there are those who say a Great Commission.
To make disciples.
To.
Teaching them everything that he taught.
But we are to make disciples of Jesus.
Not disciples of me or you.
Or some pastor that wrote a great book.
Where to make?
Disciples of Christ.
And we need to remember that no matter how much we go, whether we go across the sea or we go all over the continental US or wherever it is, we may go.
We are to make disciples.
Of him
I'm not much of a martial arts person.
I've seen some neat throws I've seen so many punches and kicks and and whatever.
This, but I do know about martial arts.
Each martial arts comes from someone who started that particular martial art.
So she and rue or whoever from Japan or China or the Philippines, or I think there's one in Brazil. There's all these different and everyone. And so when they.
Show you how to make a move, whether it's it's flip, the hand, whatever they do it, the way the master taught them to do it.
They didn't. They don't do it the way some other Masters. Whether it's these better or not, it's this. The way my master taught us to do it was this way, not this way. This way and the people learn and learn and become disciples of that first Sensei.
But if you will, Jesus is our sensei.
And we do it the way he does it, and we teach the way he taught, and we teach what he taught.
We don't go after some other and say Oh well, you know it's really popular now to do name and and claim it. It's really popular to do that. Jesus wants us all to be rich and wealthy and an well and all these things.
Where to teach?
But Jesus taught.
So that they.
Might be like their master.
And not like us.
Or do you blind guides who say whoever swears by the temple? That is nothing. Whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated now.
That's a statement. There's just.
Almost unbelievable comprehend.
Here are these.
Verisys
who truly believe that the temple is significant that they.
Leave that. That is where they come into relationship with God that they offer sacrifice and there to do that. And that's where God dwells.
And the statement is the temple itself, nothing.
But the gold on the temple is obligated, so if you swear by the temple.
It doesn't mean anything.
But it is where by the gold on the temple, then you gotta fulfill it.
And then he says, you fools and blind men, which is more important than gold or the temple that sacrifies the goal?
And whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing. But whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.
You blind men, which is more important, the offering or the altar, that sacrifies, the offering.
Therefore, whoever swears by the altar squares, both by the altar and everything on it, whoever swears by the temple swears both by the temple and by him who dwells within it.
And whoever swears by Heaven swears both by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.
The Scriptures tells us.
It's much better to make our yes yes and or no no.
Dennis where?
And yet somehow we think that if we swear that somehow that's more truthful.
And in our day we don't swear by the temple and we don't swear by the offering. What does it do here? I swear by a stack of bibles.
Well, why is the one Bible good enough?
You know, somehow God's word is more holy if you stack it up upon upon itself and appan itself. And so if you have 10 Stack Bibles somehow, I'm more truthful than if I had sworn on one.
Let me tell you that you're.
Veracity.
Is probably already challenged if you have to say I will swear by a stack of bibles.
Or the other one in our common culture is, I swear by my mother's grave.
And a lot of times in the movies, you'll say, but your mom still alive, you know. But people want to in some.
Somehow our mothers graves is holy.
We would not know. We would never lie to her moms except when she was alive and when she said that you do that was that Oh no, wasn't me.
The dog must have done it. You know, we we don't mind lying to her mother when she's alive, but somehow it's really sacred. If we swear on her mother's grave.
So you know.
See the inconsistencies and so hopefully we will become people who don't have to swear by things that when we say this is what happened, it happened.
No matter how improbable it might be, because we know that person tells the truth.
Or do you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you? Tithe mint and Dill and cumin.
And have neglected the weightier provisions of the law, justice, and mercy and faithfulness, but these are the things you should have done when not the collecting the other. You blind guides who strain out a gnat.
And swallow a camel.
Jesus is saying look at.
Adele C and Accumen Anna meant are really small items.
And you're so concerned with the ties that he says that you do all of these things. The minor an lesser things.
But yet you neglect.
The greater thing.
Again, is very easy for us to do that as well that we major on the minor rather than major on the major.
And so we're so concerned about the way somebody may do something.
I know.
I've heard people say, for instance, that.
Their families were never allowed to play cards because that sinful and other people couldn't go to the movies because that sinful and other people did all kinds of other things. I'll give a personal example my father.
He was born in 1886.
Whole generations ago he didn't like people going to pool halls because at the time people who in my father's generation or the less desirable people went. Now today it's the family Billiard Place, and it's a different culture both. Sometimes we look at the activities rather than the person.
And a holy person can play cars as a matter of fact, it used to be in this church. They would play Rook on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve and do those types of things and the whole church would be playing card games.
But somebody who grew up thinking cards was evil.
So how could Christians do that?
We need to major on the major which is love.
And Mercy.
And faithfulness.
And be less concerned about what we do.
That doesn't really reflect.
On whose we are.
But notice that Jesus doesn't say will stop tithing.
He goes.
Continue doing that. Those are the lesser things. It's OK. So if in your heart you think playing cards is not good, don't play cards.
But also.
Love.
Be faithful.
And be merciful.
And again he uses a great analogy which the world has adopted for you. Strain out a gnat.
And that can be irritating, especially when it's flying around. But whatever. And so you make sure you know whatever, so you don't want to make sure the Nat isn't in your water.
But you don't mind the camel, it's there.
And let's face it.
I would much rather drink water that and that was in the water that a camel was in.
'cause water that a camel is in may be mostly pure, but it ain't totally pure.
What do you, scribes and Pharisees hippo?
Chris, for you, clean the outside of the Cup and of the dish, but inside there full of robbery and self indulgence, you blind Pharisee's first clean the inside of the Cup.
And of the dish so that the outside of it may also become clean.
So I want to get this image. I want you to think of.
A teacup?
That you found.
In the trash.
And there's.
Duncan
in dirt.
But it's a pretty Cup.
So you take the Cup.
And you wash the outside.
So that you can see and you go oh.
This is a really expensive Cup. It's made by some famous.
Designer
and then you pour.
T in it.
But you never clean the inside.
Do you want to drink that?
I.
And Jesus saying, that's your lives Pharisees and scribes, you hypocrites, that you are so.
Desirous of appearing to be clean that you could care less what's on the inside and on the inside is uncleanness. It is full of robbery and self indulgence.
Now, most of us can say, well, I haven't robbed anybody. I haven't taken anybody stuff by 4th.
But let's face it, we're all pretty self indulgent.
We all think that what we have to say is important.
Everybody ought to listen to aura opinions and ideas, and if the world just did what we said, everything would be fine.
He's saying first clean the inside of the Cup.
'cause that's the usable part.
As a matter of fact, you could clean the inside of the Cup and the brim of the Cup and the rest of it. We could be dirty because it won't affect what's inside it. And when you drink it.
And again, people are so.
Desirous to appear to be.
Clean.
And are not, and that is the exact definition of hypocrisy to act one way.
And to be another.
Or do you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you, or like White wash tunes on which the outside appear beautiful but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanliness?
So you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Again, Jesus.
Tells them.
No matter how beautiful the outside of a mausoleum may be.
It can be made of marble.
It could be made.
Whatever valuable.
Materials that you can think of and you can clean it and paint it and whatever, but truth of the matter of mausoleum or grave contains.
The remains of a dead person.
Now there are two factors here. In this notice he said dead men's bones, which means they've been dead for a long time.
So this this this.
Events of their hypocrisy wasn't like it happened just recently. They're full of dead men's bones, which means they have been dead for a very, very long time.
And 2nd.
Under the.
View of Jews.
A dead person was unclean.
So if you touch a dead person, you were considered unclean and there was a ritual you had to go through, you had to wash and wait for sundown, and those types of things.
Present an offering. So there were things to do to avoid or to become clean. Once you become unclean. He's saying that is their natural condition.
To be unclean.
So that anybody who comes in contact with them.
Becomes unclaimed.
What do you, scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you? Build the tombs of the prophets and adorned them, adorned the monuments of the Righteous, and say, if we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with him in the shedding of blood of the prophets.
They're saying.
We're better.
In the past.
We're better.
Then what our fathers did.
Kind of sounds like today's world, doesn't it?
Most people a long ago were so terrable, but were so righteous.
We're so good.
We would have never done what they did.
So you testify against yourself that you are sons of those who murdered the Prophet.
Fill up, then the measure of the guilt of your father's.
You serpents you brood of Vipers. How will you escape the sentence of hell?
Talk about tough language.
Jesus is that having an altar call off of this.
But as a matter of fact, that same language goes all the way back to John the Baptist.
When they came out to see John, he said you brood of Vipers who warned you?
Or you see.
They were not interested.
In Repentance.
They were not interested in the truth.
And we have seen that, by the way, they have treated Jesus.
We will see that, by the way, they're going to treat Jesus, and we're going to see that, by the way, even after his resurrection, they lie to prevent the truth.
How?
Will you escape?
The sentence of Hell.
Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets, and wise men inscribes some of them. You will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city.
So they have on you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth from the blood of the righteous, able to the blood of Zachariah. This on a Barack.
Whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
You see, Jesus now is telling their very plainly what he told them in Parables.
The parable of the landowner was that the landowner sent his.
Servants.
To reach the produce.
And they mocked them in scourge them, and killed them.
And then he said they will take my son seriously. They'll listen to him. They said, no, let's go outside and kill him so that we may inherit all.
That was a parable.
Jesus is saying This is what's going to happen.
That you think you're better than the path.
But your own words will condemn you.
Because of your actions.
Not only will they kill the prophets.
Not only will they kill those who come after Jesus as his disciples.
Peter
Impol
in Thomas and all the others in James.
But they killed others after that.
People they burned at the stake.
People that were condemned to be killed by Lions.
I had the honor.
Privilege and.
And desire to have gone to Rome a couple of times.
The first time I went, you go and people take you to where they want you to go and they're always taking you to all these churches.
And all these places that was converted to church is one of that was the.
Parthenon in the Parthenon was a temple in Rome, built for all the gods. Didn't want to miss anybody, so they go well. This temples for this goddess symbols for that God, but in case they left one out, they made a temple for all of them.
There's now a church and.
With all those places that I went in Rome to me, the most holy place I ever went to.
With the Colosseum.
Because believers died there.
Their blood to me.
Sanctified that place.
No church there.
But you might say well.
I'm not interested in killing. The pastor may ignore him. I may start coming and may turn off the various.
Computer programs.
But let me tell you how you can be is just as much guilt.
By trampling under your foot, the blood of Christ.
By ignoring his sack.
Or you.
Is the same as killing the prophets?
And the son of God.
Because you did not consider it valuable that sacr.
We're so concerned about swearing on a stack of Bibles were so concerned about.
Living quote unquote the right way.
My God so loved you and me that he gave his son.
Enter reject that offering of love.
Is the same.
Eskens area of no value.
The blood that is more valuable than all human beings combined.
You consider no no value.
So tell me.
If not this case.
Who's the hypocrite?
One of the excellent ways to avoid.
Hypocrisy.
Is to see it.
To see it not in somebody elses life, but to see it in ours.
Whether you're a hypocrite or not.
That's between you and God.
But the Rama hypocrite or not is between me and God, and I don't want that between me and God.
So we listen to what he says.
We get rid of those things that are playact.
And we acknowledge.
The truth.
To take the weightier matters.
As Jesus said.
To love the Lord Your God with all your heart or your mind or your soul and all your strings.
And to love your neighbor as yourself.
Those are the way to hear things.
Do those.
Everything else will filter out.
Do those and you'll no longer have to strain at a gnat.
You no longer have to wonder.
If you're going land and sea.
To make.
Another hypocrite.
But that you and that person.
Become.
What we call.
Christian.
Little Jesus.
But that's what he is called us to do.
And who put anything else above that?
We then lied to ourselves.
By saying, well, he's everything to me.
But this problem he can handle.