The text is going to be the entire chapter. It's a big text and there is a lot in it and the temptation is to break this down into smaller little bite-sized messages. So I could serve you McNugget sermons for several weeks in a row or we can recognize that Matthew presents this chapter, chapter 23, as a single sermon of the Lord Jesus, and we should try to consume it that way. Now I say that knowing that the two-chapter Olivet Discourse is what comes next in chapters 24 and 25, and that might put me on the hook for something very difficult. But in this case today, if we can get through a long introduction, I think we'll be all right. Matthew 23, read it with me. Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples, saying, the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses's seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works, for they say and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders. But they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But you... Do not be called rabbi, for one is your teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father, for one is your father, he who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers, for one is your teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant, and whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. 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. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers, therefore you will receive the greater condemnation. 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 the son of hell as yourselves. 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. Fools and blind, for which is greater the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? 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. Fools and blind, for which is greater the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by all things on it. And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits on it. 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 at a gnat and swallow a camel. 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 they 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. 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. Therefore, you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of your father's guilt. serpents, brood of vipers. How can you escape the condemnation of hell? 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, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those that are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. See, your house is left to you desolate. For I say to you, you shall see me no more till you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Just a spoiler alert. If you want a sermon about gentle Jesus, meek and mild, this is the wrong text for you. Matthew 23 is not where you will find it. So you can just stop listening, plug your ears, switch off your brain. I had a family member earlier this week wearing a Jesus t-shirt that said, more of him, less of me. And that's absolutely what we need. But if you really want more of the Lord Jesus of scripture, Then buckle up, brace yourself for impact, because when you get more of Jesus, you get a confrontational savior when it comes to hypocrisy. In this chapter, you know, good old gentle Jesus, meek and mild, stares down the self-righteous religionists of his day, right out in the temple courtyard and in front of everyone, and he calls them to their face, oppressive, lazy taskmasters, thieves and robbers, blind guides, self-indulgent, whitewashed tombs, snakes, vipers, ignorant, egotistical, persecutors, murderers, and of course, the word that echoes like a drumbeat through this entire chapter, hypocrites. and we're good with all of that, except we want him to be talking to the Sadducees, right, to the theological liberals of his time, to the people who really didn't take scripture seriously. But instead, the Lord Jesus says all of this about verse two and throughout the chapter, scribes and Pharisees. which means Jesus' attack here on the self-righteous religious hypocrites of the day was a scathing rebuke aimed at people who believed in the inspiration of Scripture, believed Scripture was authoritative, believed in the supernatural, they believe in heaven and hell, they believe in angels and demons, they believe in the resurrection, they expect judgment after death. We find out in verse 15 they even believe in what we would call missionary work, right? Taking God's word to the lost. The scribes and Pharisees were the most serious, most devout, most respected spiritual leaders of Israel. Well listen, there are many pathways to hell. There is one way to God, there is one way to salvation, and that is faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. And yet there are many pathways to hell, and whether we want to believe it or not, religion can be one of those. The scribes and the Pharisees, as many people are today, are traveling a religious roadway straight to eternal condemnation. This modern idea that gets passed around of, well, all religions are just different pathways to the same destination, is right in some senses, it's just not right about the destination. When it's Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons or Muslims or Hindus, they are all attempting to please God apart from the God-ordained means of grace, Jesus Christ. But the scribes and Pharisees, they could not understand their position before God. For the scribes and Pharisees, they've been waiting for a Messiah, right? They're awaiting the Christ, and they see Jesus, and they are just absolutely certain it can't be him. Right, he's out there, he's associating with sinners. He's speaking to them. Why is he talking to them? Why is he eating with them? Why does he spend so much time with those sinful rascals and not us? Because it's those rotten people over there, all of them are breaking the rules. We're the ones who are keeping the rules. In Matthew 23, Jesus exposes that kind of hypocritical thinking of the scribes and Pharisees. He also does this in the Sermon on the Mount, back in chapter five through seven. But he digs in here too, in this final week of ministry, before they murder him, he calls them, he repeatedly calls them hypocrites. And if you remember back from when we talked in the Sermon on the Mount, that word hypocrite is literally talking about putting on a mask. They are actors, they are pretenders, they are pretending, they're stage actors who are putting on a show, acting like there's something that they're not. In short, the scribes and Pharisees claim on righteousness in their thinking was, God has to accept us because we're better than everybody else. Listen, better than everybody else is not good enough. Setting aside for a moment the question of whether they actually were better than everybody else, just assuming for the sake of argument that they were better than everybody else, that is not God's standard of righteousness. God's standard of righteousness is perfect obedience. And since the Pharisees were not perfect, and the scribes were not perfect, and you are not perfect, and I am not perfect, God in his love sent his perfect son, Jesus, to obtain righteousness for us, to give imperfect, unrighteous sinners the eternal life with him in the presence of God. That truth eliminates any pride in ourselves. It eliminates boasting. It's evident in this chapter, the scribes and Pharisees sort of defined themselves by boasting. We're more righteous than the rest of y'all. We're better than them. And that pride of looking down on others, Jesus calls that hypocrisy. C.S. Lewis once helpfully talked about this kind of pride noting how it's rooted in comparison, looking down on others. This hypocrisy is all about comparing yourself to others which are not the standard. And the examples he gave was this, like imagine a rich man who's proud of his riches. His pride is not simply in what he has. His pride is based on the fact that he has more than the other people around him. Imagine a person who's proud of their good looks. Their pride is rooted in comparison, right? They're better looking than the people around them. Someone who's proud of how smart they are. They only feel that pride if they're smarter than everybody else. But if you take that rich man and without taking anything away from him, you somehow give everybody else the same amount of money, suddenly the source of his pride is gone. He has just as much as he had before, but it's not more than everybody else. And so he can't be proud. If a good-looking person finds themselves surrounded by equally good-looking people, they don't have anybody to look down on, and they lose their pride. If the smart guy, you put him in a room of NASA engineers and brain surgeons, he's still got all his smarts, but he doesn't have the pride that he had before. Sinful pride is firmly rooted in this I'm better than them kind of mentality. Jesus smashes this kind of thinking in verse 12. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. If you think a lot of yourself, Jesus said you're going to be brought low. And for the scribes and Pharisees, that's exactly what Jesus is doing to them in this chapter. What we find in this chapter is the scribes and Pharisees had taken a list of rules and they had used those rules to make things as easy on themselves and as hard on others as they possibly could. And then, as a result, they demanded the honor and respect of being recognized as the best. They are the very most righteous in their own eyes. But like we said, being the best is not good enough. Thinking of yourself as the most righteous just makes you the biggest hypocrite. This is a lesson that we all need to learn. Righteousness will never be found in conforming your life to a list of rules. Righteousness is only found in having your heart transformed by Jesus Christ. So there's the long introduction to the whole chapter. Here's how the chapter breaks down. Verses one through 12, there is hypocrisy versus humility. In verses 13 through 36, there are eight woes of religious pretense. And in verses 37 to 39, there's Christ's call to grace. So let's look at this hypocrisy versus humility first in verses one through 12. Verse one tells us Jesus is talking to the crowds and to his own disciples. But I just want you to remember how this all unfolds. This is the final week of Jesus's ministry. Jesus apparently spends his evenings in this little village called Bethany that's up over the crest of the Mount of Olives opposite Jerusalem. He's probably staying at the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, if you know them. And every day he comes into the city and he goes to the temple and he teaches in this temple courtyard surrounded by people. And leading up to this chapter, back in chapter 22, The religious leaders had all taken their turns taking their shot at him, challenging him to no avail. If you look at chapter 22 verse 15, the Pharisees plotted a way to entangle him in his talk asking about paying taxes to Caesar. In chapter 22, verse 23, the Sadducees then come asking them about resurrection and marriage. And then in verse 34, the Pharisees again gather close asking about the greatest commandment. And the confrontation continues in verse 41 with another question about the Messiah. Jesus has answered all of those challenges in chapter 22. And it finally says at the end of chapter 22, verse 46, no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question him anymore. They had learned their lesson, at least when it came to arguing with Jesus or trying to trap him, they didn't dare try it anymore. That does not mean that they left. It just means that they're not speaking anymore. They're still there, they're still hearing. Jesus is in fact addressing them as he is, verse one, talking to the crowds and his disciples. In some of the things he's saying to the crowds and the disciples, he's not calling them scribes and Pharisees. He's talking to them about the scribes and Pharisees who are listening. So they're there overhearing all of the sermon. They aren't going to engage with him anymore because they'll get exposed for ignorance, but Jesus is not going to relent. So the conversation stops being directed at them, and now Jesus is talking to the crowd and the disciples about them. And here's what he says. First off, they won't practice what they preach. Start at verse two through four. The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do. but do not do according to their works, for they say and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. Have you ever had your parents say, or maybe as a parent you have said, do as I say, not as I do. I'm glad y'all are familiar with it. Every son and daughter knows when their parents are being hypocrites. Jesus says the same thing here about the religious leaders. They have Moses' authority, he says, and so Jesus says, look, you should obey it. He's not, by the way, he's not releasing you from submitting to leaders just because you see those leaders are hypocrites. He doesn't do that. Jesus says whatever they tell you to observe, do it. Do what they teach, just do not behave like them. One way of making it look like we are better than everybody else. was to make religious obedience as hard on everybody else as they possibly could. In verse four, they bind heavy burdens hard to bear, lay them on men's shoulders. Now listen, if the burden of scripture is heavy, and it is sometimes, then that needs to be made clear. The teaching of the word of God is not always aimed at making people feel good about themselves. I certainly don't expect this sermon is gonna do that. God demands perfect righteousness and that is a heavy burden, but the teaching of Scripture also shows that God has sent a Savior, that Jesus has come to bear the burden of our sin on himself at the cross. If the Pharisees were loving teachers, they would not have been like joyfully making things as hard on people as they possibly could, all the while, Jesus says, refusing to lift a finger themselves. They refused to practice what they preached. And it's the height of hypocrisy. Jesus also says all their righteousness is just eye candy, verse five through seven. all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garment. They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplace, and to be called by men, rabbi, rabbi. Their service to God actually had little, if anything, to do with God. It was all about themselves. In the Sermon on the Mounts, back in chapter five through seven, Jesus addressed this by pointing out, look, they're giving charitably, but they're blowing a trumpet in the street to get attention before they give charitably. They won't do it if somebody's not looking. They're out there making these impressive prayers, but they're doing it only in the synagogues and on the street corners where they can get this as a plea for attention. Now he says they make their phylacteries broad. Phylacteries were little boxes with scripture verses in them. They were worn on the arm or on the forehead. It was a religious observance. It was not a bad thing. As long as your heart was right, the idea was to have those as a reminder that all that your hands find to do and all the thoughts you think are to be in complete dedication to God. But it's bad when the message turns into, look how religious I am. You see what a big box of scripture I'm carrying on my head? Of course, this is foreign to us, because we don't walk around with those things nowadays, but the illustrations would make, imagine a friend of yours carries around, you know, three by five note cards with scripture memory verses, but because they weren't getting enough attention for having those, they started carrying around their memory verses on three foot by four foot poster boards. the borders of their garment in verse five is a little tassel on the edge of their robe, which Deuteronomy 22, 12 said folks should have. And so this is good. There was a command from Numbers 15 as well. It's good as a personal reminder of holiness. So that when you look at your robe and you see that tassel, it reminds you to live your life holy. But the Pharisees wanted to make those things huge as a reminder to everybody else, look at us and how much we're living our lives holy. They wanted attention. They relished Jesus as the seats of honor. They thrived at people calling out to them, calling them rabbi, rabbi, or teacher, teacher. Be warned about this, y'all. Avoid anyone whose motive in entering ministry or to begin teaching the word of God is to get attention and respect. Jesus says their self-exaltation is contrary to God's calling, verse eight. But you do not be called rabbi. For one is your teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father, for one is your father, he who is in heaven. Do not be called teachers, for one is your teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant, and whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. This pharisaical desire for titles and honor and prestige is contrary to God's calling in Christ Jesus. Let me just say as a side note, for any independent Baptist preacher who insists on being referred to as that is the man of God, you're doing this. Attempts at title and prestige is nothing more than another way of saying I'm better than them. It's grasping at superiority. It is hypocrisy. So Jesus says, don't relish in titles like rabbi. Reject labels like father. We're looking at you, Roman Catholics. Don't grasp for recognition as a teacher. There is one leader, Jesus. There is one father who is God. There is one teacher, the Christ. And furthermore, Jesus asserts here a kind of organizational chart for the children of God. We are all on equal footing. Look at the end of verse eight. You are all brethren, you're brothers. Family should not be a superiority contest. Now, at no point in this is Jesus denouncing all spiritual leadership. That's not his point. His point is, when it comes at this grasping at superiority, remember, here's God's organizational chart. There's Jesus, and then there's everybody else. These people mired in religious hypocrisy, Jesus insists the key to religious sincerity is humility. The greatest, verse 11, should be a willing servant, a slave. Humble yourself, embrace a low standing, and the Lord God will raise you up, but if you exalt yourself, he is going to cut you down to size, and this chapter is proof of that. Verses 13 through 36, there are eight woes of religious pretense. Let me just say as a personal side note, I wonder how closely Matthew's presentation is a word for word of what Jesus preached. I mean, I'm comfortable saying that Matthew led, moved by the Holy Spirit, could condense or write an overview of Jesus' teaching. I think the Sermon on the Mount is that way, chapters five through seven. You read that, it takes about 15 to 20 minutes. Do any of y'all really think Jesus only preached 15 to 20 minutes? I know somebody's out there going, I do. And I think Pastor Jason should try to be more Christ-like. Assuming for a second that verse 13 through 36 is a word for word accounting of Jesus' sermon in the temple courtyard, it presents a rapid fire condemnation of religious pretense. Don't overlook the fact that Jesus' sermon is as stylish as it is scathing. It had to hurt. to hear Jesus condemn their religious hypocrisy and do it so fluently. Although there are parts of this that sound more dignified to us than they actually are. Woe, for example. Sounds like a dignified word. I would argue it's not. As Jesus repeatedly through here offers these eight woes. Woe is an interjection. It is an emotional expression of strong grief, condemnation, or horror. It's less a word than it is a sound. In the original language, it's onomatopoeic. It's a word that is based on what it sounds like. And so, in fact, in Greek, it's really only five letters long, and all of those letters are vowels. So it sounded something more like blah. It's an exclamation, there's horror, there's dread, there's condemnation. And eight times in these verses, Jesus expresses this dread toward religious hypocrisy. The first woe, we won't read them all, but the first woe in verse 13 is they're keeping others out of heaven. Not only is their hypocrisy a barrier to their own faith in Jesus as Savior, it's creating a blockade that's keeping others from eternal life. They claim to know God, and they don't. They claim to speak for God, and they can't. They claim their rules are a way to righteousness, but they aren't righteous themselves, nor is anybody who follows, tries to follow their rules. Their hypocrisy isn't just hurting themselves, it's putting up a roadblock preventing others from finding eternal life. The second woe in verse 14 is instead of providing, they're consuming. Jesus says they devour widows' houses. That is, they're like wolves feasting on the very most vulnerable of society. Later on in James 1, 27, he's gonna say, pure and undefiled religion before God is to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, right? To provide help where it's needed. These religious leaders were using widows for their own gain, and then presumed, Jesus said, to make long prayers and pretense, like asking God, Oh Lord, won't you please help these poor widows who they had just devoured? They will receive a greater condemnation. They'll face judgment for taking where they should have been giving. The third woe, verse 15, is they delight in spreading the bad news. Imagine, let's look at verse 15. Imagine a missionary Pharisee This is not usually how we think of the Scribes and Pharisees, right? But Jesus says in verse 15, they travel land and sea to win one proselyte. That is, they go out in order to gather in one proselyte. proselytes to Judaism, a proselyte is a Gentile who has decided to become Jewish, worship the Jewish God of the Old Testament, and follow all the laws of Moses and the rules of the Pharisees. But in the Pharisees' legalistic system, they're taking Gentiles, they're turning them into Jews, and they're putting them under that unbearable legalistic weight of their rules, condemning them to hell in the name of inviting them to righteousness. They are out just trying to replicate their own wicked selves. They're literally spreading the bad news of the impossible weight of the law when the gospel is the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus. And as a side note, do not assume then that putting the word missionary in front of Baptist inoculates us from the same kind of condemnation. The fourth woe is verses 16 through 22. Jesus essentially says they're motivated by materialism. And this takes some explanation. Let me ask, what kind of oath is binding? If I make a promise to you, how will you know I really mean it? Well, from a young age, all people are naturally inclined to use intensifiers. I'll do that. I promise. I swear. I pinky swear. Yeah, but do you cross your heart and hope that I stick a needle in your eye, you know? Or your fingers cross so it doesn't count. And with kids, that's kind of silly, but when it continues into adulthood and the oaths just change, I swear on my mother's grave. I swear on a stack of Bibles. The religious leaders of Jesus's day had actually set a standard so that you could swear an oath, right, make a promise, and then get out of it later. Verse 16, to say I swear by the temple is not legally binding. It's nothing. You have to swear by the gold of the temple for it to be binding. In verse 18, I swear by the altar isn't enough. It's I swear by the sacrifice on the altar, and then you're stuck. When you play games like that, it's obvious that truth and honesty is not the goal. Deception and dishonesty is the goal. And these teachers promote such nonsense while claiming to be guides to the blind and light to those in darkness and teachers of righteousness. Jesus says that they themselves are blind guides, right? You are leading people and you can't see where you're going and you don't know where you're taking them. So incidentally, if we are not to swear oaths like the Pharisees in order to convince people we're telling the truth, What should we say to convince people we're telling the truth? I have two shocking words to suggest. Yes, no. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount says in Matthew 5, 37, let your yes be yes and your no be no, for whatever is more than these is from the evil one. Can you just live in such simple, stunning honesty that when you say yes, it means yes, and when you say no, it means no, and in the process, you are so unrelentingly honest that nobody has to second guess your motives. The fifth woe, verses 23 and 24, Jesus says they're majoring on the minors. Look at verse 23. 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. These religious leaders would tithe, they would give their 10% and they would teach others to tithe because ultimately they were going to be the benefactors of the tithing system. And in fact, Mark's gospel shows how this is likely the means they used to devour widow's houses. So there they are, just picture them at home, weighing out 10% of their table spices so they could calculate their tithe, but in the process, they are ignoring some of the most clear and simple statements of God. Jesus here, I'm convinced, he is alluding to Micah 6, 8, right? He has showed you, oh man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with your God? Now, should the religious leaders have just ignored tithing? No. Jesus said you should do that. but you shouldn't leave the other obligations undone in the process. And so you and I should tithe, Christian generosity is called for in scripture, but do not ever assume that by putting something in that box back there, you are performing an act of ultimate righteousness if you are not gonna conform your life to principles of justice and mercy and humble faith. We like to major on the minors because it's easy for us. In our relatively affluent and wealthy society, tithing or Christian generosity, it is seldom as difficult as we pretend that it is. If you take a regular accounting of your bank account and give accordingly, you are doing only what the Pharisees did. So do that, you don't wanna do less than the Pharisees did. But a regular accounting of your bank account needs to be accompanied by an accounting of your heart and life. Because money comes easy for us in our society, but we live in a world that is materially prosperous, and yet you can see society is destitute of true justice. It is starving for mercy that it seldom sees. Jesus gives an illustration that's equal parts humorous and humiliating in verse 24. Doing the small stuff without getting the big stuff right is like straining out a gnat because you don't want it to defile your drink, but you will willingly swallow an entire camel while congratulating yourself on keeping that gnat out. The sixth and seventh woes, verses 25 to 28, are closely related. Jesus is saying, look, you're all about appearances. I love to use this illustration. You probably remember it. It's what I call the bachelor crockpot. That handful of guys who actually owns a crockpot before getting married, they have this strange tendency to use it but not to clean it very well. Years ago, Joy and I encountered some questionable church potlucks where a crock pot or two had stuff that was caked onto the outside that had dripped down and had splattered on. It was from three or four meals over the previous several months. Whatever was cooked on it was stuck on it. I mean, why clean the outside of the crock pot when all the food's just going on the inside, right? Just clean the inside and that's good enough. And if you think that's nasty, and it is, imagine somebody taking the opposite approach. I'm going to clean the outside so it looks good to everybody, and I don't care what junk is on the inside. That was the life of the Jewish religious leaders. They were preoccupied with things like ritual hand washing, doing the outer acts of righteousness, but they were not concerned at all about cleansing on the inside. And Jesus says, look, you have to start there. The same leaders who people looked up to for their appearance of righteousness, you know, back in Jesus' day, imagine you're looking out at somebody and there's the one who's making the elegant prayers and making sure to give charitably out on the streets. Inside their heart, end of verse 15, or end of verse 25, inside their heart was full of extortion and self-indulgence. Like, are you trying to satisfy God, or are you trying to satisfy people? Because people will see what's on the outside, but God is gonna judge your heart. God knows your heart is like a whitewashed tomb, Jesus said. You can go to some tomb of dead bodies inside, and you can paint the outside all you want, and it won't change that on the inside is dead, stinking, rotten decay. Verse 28, he says, even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. You wanna appear righteous to others, you can accomplish that, but only submission to Jesus in faith is gonna cleanse your heart and make you right in the eyes of God. The eighth woe, verse 29 through 36. Jesus says they reject God's message and messengers. It's building on this imagery of beautifying tombs. Jesus says these religious leaders build monuments and decorate the graves of the prophets that their fathers rejected. And they even dare to say in verse 30, if we had lived in those days, we would have done better. We wouldn't have killed those prophets. We wouldn't reject and murder God's messengers. Think about the situation here as Jesus is talking. Like, oh really? Jesus knows that they're over there, they're stewing in silence and they're plotting his murder. Before them in the temple courtyard is the ultimate prophet, the greatest messenger of God, with the greatest message of salvation through faith in him. And what are their intentions toward Jesus? Well, they're gonna execute their plan by executing Jesus in a few days. And in the process, verse 32, he says, they will fill up or fill to the top the measure of their father's guilt. And not only will they do this to Jesus, they'll continue their murderous plot to the disciples after him. Jesus foresees the future in verse 34. It says, I'll send you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of them you'll kill and crucify. Some you'll scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city. Jesus is outlining the future book of acts in advance. Even if the religious leaders say we're better than everybody else, Specifically in this case, we are better than our forefathers. Jesus says they're just as guilty. The blood of verse 35, able to Zechariah, and there could be a lot to explain that, but maybe the easiest explanation is that every prophet from A to Z is on their hands, and the ultimate prophet's blood is gonna be on their wicked hands as well. The chapter ends, verse 37 through 39, with Christ's call to grace. Despite this generational rejection of God's prophets, the Lord Jesus is still willing and able to save. Verse 37 through 39, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her, how often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you were not willing. See, your house is left to you desolate, for I say to you, you shall see me no more till you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. For time's sake, three quick notes about verses 37 through 39. First, Jesus knows the wicked will be condemned. He says, see, in verse 38, and it's predicting the future, your house is left to you desolate. This legalistic system saturated with hypocrisy, it's not livable. In fact, the city of Jerusalem itself is gonna be destroyed a few decades after this, just as the wicked religious leaders, hypocrites, are going to face ultimate destruction in hell. Second, Jesus is willing to save the wicked. For all of the woes, those exclamations of horror, dread, and condemnation that he's given, Jesus is still willing to save. His desire was to, he says, gather people together like a mother hen would gather her brood of chicks under her wings to protect them. Now imagine this imagery for a second. Just say there is a hawk flying through the air. It's a threat to these poor things. And the mother hen gathers the chicks under her wings. They are protected. But who is exposed? The mother hen is exposed. Jesus uses this comparison to say, look, he's willing to save, he's willing to protect, he's willing to go to the cross and be exposed to all the wrath due to our sin. And so condemnation is sure, salvation is possible, but third, Jesus' glory is certain. They will not see him again until the day they see him in exaltation, returning to the earth in glory. And on that day, the declaration of Psalm 118 verse 26, which incidentally are the very words of praise that Jesus entered into the city of Jerusalem with and triumphed just a few days before this, will come to pass. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. So as we close this out, a whole lot real quick. We should not be content to hear Jesus' words as just to the scribes and Pharisees. We know he warned his disciples in another place, beware of the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees. There's something insidious, there's something pervasive about this, you know, I'm good enough because I'm better than others sort of mentality. What we should do is read and reread this chapter and ask ourselves, is Jesus' description of religious hypocrisy, does it also condemn us? Do you actually practice what you preach? Or do you hold people to a set of standards that you won't meet yourself? Is the desire of your heart to please God or are you striving to just convince others that you're pleasing God? Do you have a sense of spiritual superiority? Do you find yourself thinking individually, well, I'm better than them? Or as a church, do we find ourselves thinking collectively, well, at least we're better than those people? As if better than other sinners is some kind of an achievement. Are you being a help or a hindrance to the spiritual lives of the people around you? Is your goal to create disciples of Jesus or do you wanna just recreate new versions of yourself? Do you find yourself focusing your attention on these minute details of Scripture, right? You take your pet doctrine that you know and that you love and you elevate it to chief status and all the while you ignore justice and mercy and humble faith. Do you make sure to present your life as cleansed on the outside so everybody sees how well you've got it all together? Or are you concerned of living faith in Jesus who's cleansed you on the inside? The kind of inside-out change that he demands. The scribes and Pharisees, y'all, we can read a chapter like this and the scribes and Pharisees are easy targets. But we can embrace the same kind of religious hypocrisy in our own lives. That kind of religion is unlivable, it is unsustainable, it is bound for eternal condemnation. That's what Jesus teaches. Righteousness is never gonna be found by conforming your life to some list of rules so it seems like you've got it all together. Righteousness is found by having your heart transformed by faith in Jesus Christ the Savior.