Luke chapter 11 and this morning we are going to finish up chapter 11 and this morning we're going to read verses 45 down to the end of chapter 11 hopefully remember the context Jesus has just went to a Pharisee's house he's dined with him And he has spoken to him about his issues of having basically religion, but not having Christ Himself. And so, we start now in verse 45 reading, it says, One of the lawyers answered him, Teacher, in saying these things, you insult us also. And he said, Woe to you lawyers also, for you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses, and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourself, and you hindered those who were entering." As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke Him to speak about many things, lying in wait for Him to catch Him in something He might say. Let's pray. Father, as we come to this passage, I pray that You would speak to our hearts. Lord, You would help us to have listening ears, hearts that are inclined to Your Word. to hear all that the Spirit would say to us. I pray that we would be sensitive to your spirit and pray that, Lord, you would convict us, that you would, Lord, stir up in us a desire, Lord, to not be religious and pious, but, Lord, to be devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I pray that you would do a mighty work in our hearts. And again, if anyone is here today without Christ, I pray today would be the day of salvation. Lord, we pray that You would just help me to preach Your Word and the power of the Spirit. And pray Your Word would go forth in power and conviction. And Lord, may You do a mighty work in each of our hearts and those listening. In Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. You may be seated. One of the most terrifying verses, I think, that is in all of Scripture is found in Matthew chapter 7. In Matthew chapter 7, Jesus is speaking to the religious crowd, those who think that they are right with God. These were people who claim to worship the one true and living God. He's speaking to a Jewish audience and he says this to them. He says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? and cast out demons in your name, and do mighty works in your name. And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness." Now, in that passage, we find that Jesus is speaking not to the people who are out in the world, the pagans worshipping idols. He's not speaking to the people who are out doing things that they shouldn't do, and the people at the nightclubs and so forth. But here Jesus is speaking to the religious crowd. And He says of that religious crowd who claims to know the one true and living God, He says, Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. In other words, there's going to be a lot of people who claim to be a Christian, who claim to be a worshipper of God, who claim to be a follower of God, who say that they're on their way to the kingdom of God when they die, that they're on their way to heaven when they die, and they will believe this in their hearts, but yet they'll be sadly mistaken, because on that day, that day of judgment when it comes, many will cry out, Lord, Lord, Did we not notice the emphasis is on their works? They're claiming that they have done all of these things and have done these things, but yet they don't know the Lord. They think they do. They will say on that day, they'll have the excuse, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name? Did we not cast out demons in Your name? And did we not do mighty works in Your name? They were doing these things in the name of Christ. They would say that they were doing it on behalf of Christ, or by Christ, and so forth. But notice the key to all of this when Jesus says, Depart from me, I never knew you. The problem was they were workers of lawlessness. They continued in sin, they had not repented, and they had not truly come to faith in Christ. They did not have true knowledge of God. Now, they thought they did, but they lived like the world, and yet they were religious on the outside. They did all kinds of religious things, prophesied, cast out demons, and did mighty works. in the Lord's name. But He will say to them on that day, I never knew you. And why does He say that? Because they never repented of their sin. They never truly trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ. And He says many are going to be in that situation on the Day of Judgment. Many people He will say, depart from Me, I never knew you. And there we come to Luke chapter 11. And we find this very thing, that there are religious people that Jesus is encountering here, the Pharisee, the lawyers, and the scribes, and so forth. They claim to know God. They have all the appearance of godliness on the outside, but there's no power within. We find that these people, they were performing all kinds of religious ceremonies. They were going through all the motions, and if you would have seen these people, you would have thought, Man, that guy is devoted to God. Man, that guy loves the Lord. Man, that guy is truly right with God. And they would put to shame many of those around them just by the way they appeared and the way they looked, but they were a million miles from God. And there are many people in our day that are in the same condition. I believe that in churches there are many people who think and would say if you ask them, do you know God? They would say yes. You ask them, are you saved? They would say yes. If you ask them, are you going to heaven when you die? They would say yes. But yet many of those people will not make it. Many of those people will wind up in hell. Is it because God has failed in His promise to save them? No. That's not it. The problem is, is that they are relying upon their good works, their self-righteousness, they're relying upon their own performance, what they do, and all of those types of things, rather than resting in the finished work of Christ. And if you really press those people, and you really looked into their life, these religious people, that claim to know God, you would see that they do not make much of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're religious, but they're lost. They're religious, but they're not born again. They're religious, but they do not have the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the key right there. They do not know God. They do not know Jesus as Savior and Lord. And that's the situation that we find here in this passage. If we go back to the context before we dive into Luke chapter 11, I want you to think about what is going on. Jesus has been performing miracle after miracle. He's cast out demons. He's raised the dead. He's healed the sick. He's walked on water. He's calmed the storm. He's done all of these things. He performed a great miracle in turning just a few loaves into a whole lot of food to feed people, a few fish into a whole lot of food to feed people. He's done miracle after miracle, and in Luke chapter 11, one of the last things here that we see that he has done, that he's cast out a demon, a mute demon. But yet the people, in seeing all of this, these mighty works of God, they accuse him of doing this on behalf of Satan. They say that he's doing it by the power of Satan. And then there are others who were saying that, well, we want to see a true miracle. We want to see a sign from heaven. Even though he is given sign after sign, these people refuse to come to Christ. These were the religious crowd. They refused to come to Christ. And so Jesus, in speaking to them, He says the only sign you're going to get is the sign of the son of Jonah. They're going to get a sign, even though they demand it. He's not going to do other things, but he's going to give them a sign, and it's going to be the resurrection. But yet even then, many of them will still not believe. And he points out that In the times past, there were pagans who came and believed the right things. They came when Solomon was reigning. The Queen of Sheba, or the Queen of the South, rose up and came to see Solomon because she had heard about what God was doing through him and the great wisdom by which he had given them. When Jonah went and preached, the Ninevites, they repented of their sins. But the generation that Jesus is speaking to here, they have the Son of God, the true prophet, the Messiah, in their midst. They've seen Him do all of these things. He's greater than Solomon, greater than the preaching of Jonah, and yet they would not repent of their sins. Jesus reminds them of the judgment that is to come and so while he's speaking to them and warning them about not neglecting the light that they have and that they might return and they might repent of their sins and follow him while he was speaking verse 37 says a Pharisee invited him into his house or we're assuming that is his house because he invites him to dine with him and so Jesus goes in there and reclines at the table and the meal is prepared and they're going to eat, but Jesus does not wash. And these Pharisees, they had all of these rules and regulations that they thought were the law of God, even though God had never prescribed these things. And one of them was washing. They had to go through all of these ceremonial rituals in order to be able to eat food. And so when Jesus didn't wash, the man started accusing Jesus of basically breaking the law. He was astonished that Jesus did not wash before the dinner like the other people. And so Jesus took this opportunity to show this man how far he was from God. He pointed out that this Pharisee He says in verse 39, you Pharisees, you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you're full of greed and wickedness. In other words, you look the part. You look all fine and dandy because you wash up before and go through all these ceremonies and rituals and observe seasons and months and days and all of this kind of stuff. And you're real religious on the outside, but inside you are full of greed and you are full of wickedness. And he points out that they are fools because God has also made the inside of man. He's made the heart of man. He's given man a soul. And we ought to attend to not just the outside, but also the inside. And so he turns his heart to what he should be doing. And he uses these woes. He pronounces woe like a word of warning, a word of judgment that is to come if they do not mend their ways and repent and trust in Christ. And he says that the problem is you tithe, verse 42, mint and rue and every herb and you neglect justice and the love of God. And that was the problem. They did all of these things, but they did not love God. And you see, that's the problem today. There are many people who are religious, but they don't truly love God. If they love God, they would keep His commandments. If they love God, they would seek after Christ, and they would trust in Christ, and they would also love their neighbor as themselves. It would manifest itself in how they show justice and mercy and kindness towards those around them. And so, those who are truly in love with God, they love God, but they also love their neighbor. But these Pharisees, these religious peoples, they didn't do that. They were all about themselves. And so Jesus says, You love the best seed in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. They were full of pride. They just wanted to go around and wanted everybody to see them. And Jesus said, Woe to you, for you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it. In other words, you not only are prideful, you not only don't love God, but you're also leading other people to hell. Because when people come into contact with you, you religious group, You religious Pharisees, and you teach them your ways, you're leading them away from God as well. And the Bible says they cross land and sea to make these proselytes who are twice the son of hell. But in all of this discussion, we come now to verse 45. And it's apparent here that there was also others there at that meal, listening in to the words of Jesus. And here we find that a lawyer is there and he is offended by what Jesus says. Now, the point of this entire section that we're going to look at here is God wants us to understand Just like he wanted these Pharisees and the scribes or lawyers to see is that what matters to God is your heart. It doesn't matter how many times you come to church. It doesn't matter how many times you read your Bible, as important as those things are. It doesn't matter if you go around and help people and do ministry and things like that. All of those may be fine and dandy. But none of those will get you to God. It is only Christ and Christ alone. So, God wants our heart. You see, He wants us to see that religion, tithing, verbal professions, religious ceremonies, outward displays of piety, and devotion to God are nothing if our heart is truly not in it. If we truly from our heart have not believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what God is wanting us to see. I believe in this passage. as we look on this story of the Pharisee and the lawyer and Jesus's interaction with him. God wants us from this passage to take a long look at our hearts and ask the question of our hearts. You should be asking the question of your heart this morning. Do I truly know God? Am I truly right? Have I truly trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ? Have I truly repented and turned from my sins and now I'm following Christ? It doesn't mean you're going to be perfect because Christ is the one who is perfect. But is there a love for God? Is there purity in your heart? Is there a love for others and a compassion that is the fruit and the evidence that you are truly following God? Or is it all a sham? Is it all just when you come here and you pretend to worship, is that what it is? A pretending to follow God? Are you turning to God in pretense and not in truth? Are you turning your backs towards Him, but yet you pretend as though you follow God? Where is your heart? Are you truly saved? Are you religious, but lost? That's what we ought to be asking ourselves, that question, in light of this passage. Now, remember, Christ has dined with his Pharisee, he has rebuked him, he has pronounced woe, words of warning to them because of the way he is living. because he doesn't love God or his neighbor, because he's religious but he doesn't know God. He's speaking to this man, and now this lawyer interjects. He's been listening to Jesus, and what does he say in verse 45? It says, one of the lawyers answered him. That is, answered Christ. He said, Teacher, in saying these things, you insult us also. Now, the lawyers here, they were distinct from the Pharisees, though a lawyer could be a Pharisee. Oftentimes when the word lawyer is used in the Bible, it is describing also a person who was a scribe, someone who devoted themselves to the writing, the meticulous writing of the scriptures and so forth. But here we have a lawyer. And this lawyer was probably a Pharisee. Sometimes they could be Sadducees. Sometimes they could be Pharisees. So they could go with any group there. But this lawyer here, who was likely a Pharisee, given the context, he comes to Jesus. And by the way, he's not a lawyer in the sense that we think of a lawyer. He's not a lawyer in that he's out here defending people in the public square. like the lawyers we would go to if we had an issue with maybe a company or an individual or something like that. But these lawyers were men who were devoted to the Law of God. Now, they were specifically devoted to all of these laws that had been piled up on top of the Word of God. And so, these men They were interpreters of the Law of Moses, but not just the Law of Moses, but all of those laws that had been put in place on top of the Law of Moses. They were the legal experts of the day. That's who this man was. And so he stands up, or he speaks out, and he says, In saying these things, you insult us also. In other words, us, us lawyers, us people who, we know the law of Moses, and we know all of these laws that come from our interpretation of the law. We are experts in this, and you're insulting us by basically saying we don't know God, that we are far from God, and that we're just religious on the outside and so forth. That's what he says, and he's speaking to Jesus and saying, basically, you disgrace us as well. You bring and give us a bad name just like you do these Pharisees. Why would he say that? Because he was very much in lockstep with how he was living with this Pharisee. The Pharisees and the lawyers were sometimes the same, but even if they were distinct, they all did the same thing wrong. They tried to establish their own righteousness by what they did. And so, the problem with this man was the same problem that the Pharisee had. He was filled with self-righteousness and pride, and rather than listening to the words of Christ, and repenting of his sins, and allowing the Word of God to convict his heart, Rather than allow the Word of God to search his heart to see if there was any wicked way in it, an unrighteousness, this man digs his heels in and he became offended that anyone would call out his sinfulness. Anyone would say that you're a sinner and you're not right with God. He refused to see his own sin and its shortcomings. Have you ever known someone like that? You hear the word preached, or the word goes forth and gets preached, and someone gets offended. I remember one time I was in a church, and I was preaching through the Gospel of Matthew, and I was in the Sermon on the Mount. I don't remember exactly what passage it was, but it was in the Sermon on the Mount, and I preached, exactly what God's Word was saying and I remember there was a woman in that church that got so angry and offended and the youth minister there had come to me and told me that she was just irate at the message and I'm like I haven't called anyone out. I simply preached the Word of God." But this woman was so insulted and offended by the Word of God because it was having its way with her. It was convicting of her sin. And instead of just saying, you know what, I've sinned before God and I need to get right and this is right, God's Word, and I'm coming into agreement with God's Word, she dug her heels in and she would not receive humbly the correction of God's Word. And that's what this man did. How do you? handle a rebuke. That's what we ought to ask ourselves in light of this. How do we handle a rebuke? When the Word of God comes convicting us of sin, do we dig our heels in? Or do we say, God, search me, O God. Know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any wicked way in me. If there's any unrighteousness, then lead me in the paths of righteousness. That's how our heart ought to respond to the Word of God. When the Word of God exposes our sin, we ought to repent. We ought to confess our sin to God and ask God to forgive us. But many do not do that. When they hear the Word of God, they become offended, because the Word of God exposes their self-righteousness. It shows them how sinful they are, and men in their pride do not want to admit that they have sinned against God. And that was the case with this man. So don't let pride, don't let your pride or your self-righteousness allow you or cause you to refuse a rebuke. Listen to what the scripture says about how we ought to respond when the word of God comes to us. Psalm 141.5, Let a righteous man strike me. It is a kindness. Let him rebuke me. It is of oil for my head. Let my head not refuse it." In other words, the psalmist was saying, look, if someone comes to me, a righteous man, and he strikes me, and he tells me about my sin and what he sees in my life that maybe I don't, instead of getting mad at that person and just walking away and storming out, we ought to see it as a word of kindness, that rebuke. Why? Because when somebody comes to us and shows us something that they see in our life, and they're right in what they see, and we receive that, man, that saves us from further strain, or going away from God. James 1, 19-20, and speaking about the Word of God, it says, My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen. slow to speak, and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God's desire. In that context, he's speaking about the Word of God, we ought to be slow to speak, slow to anger. That is, don't get offended by the Word of God, but instead receive it with meekness and humility. And so, That's how we ought to receive the Word. Obviously, this man did not receive it that way. He heard the Word of God coming from the lips of Christ, and he said, Teacher, in saying these things, you insult us also. There we see the pride in this man's heart. Now, in response to this, Jesus doesn't back off. He doesn't say, well, this man's offended by the truth. This man's offended by the Word of God, so I ought to tone it down a little bit. I ought to make it a little bit more palatable so he can receive it, and make it sugar-coated a little bit so that he won't get offended. That's not what Jesus does. Jesus is kind, and He is gracious, but He continues to deliver the truth. the hard truth that this lawyer needs to crack that hard heart of his. Notice in verse 46, we have three woes here. He says in verse 46 in response to the lawyer, he says, Woe to you lawyers also, for you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Now, notice there, he says, Woe to you lawyers also. He's not really been directly speaking to the lawyers. He's been speaking to the Pharisee, but obviously this lawyer Because of his relationship to the Pharisees, or perhaps because he was one, the Word of God is convicting him. He feels insulted, and so his pride rises up, and he speaks against Jesus. But Jesus now turns his attention directly to the lawyer, and he says, Woe to you, lawyers, also. Not just a woe to the Pharisees, but woe also to you lawyers. Why? Because they're just like the Pharisees. And what did they do? They loaded people with burdens hard to bear, and he says, you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. In other words, you are a hypocrite. Woe to you because you are a hypocrite. Now, remember what we said about the Pharisees. They were all about the law. They were zealous for the law of Moses. But it was really more than just the law of Moses. You have the law of Moses, the law that God gave the people of Israel at Sinai. They had taken that law and they had interpreted it, and they had looked at it, and analyzed it, and with that law, which is the word of God that they should have been obeying, they took it, and in their interpretations of it, they made laws out of that law. For example, like the one with Jesus that we talked about. The Pharisee was astonished that Jesus did not wash before dinner. Well, there was no law in the law of Moses that said, before you eat, you've got to go in there and you've got to go through this ceremony, you've got to cleanse your hands and do all this before you eat. There was no law of God that said that. But the Pharisees, what they had done, is they went beyond the law of God. They took, for example, Exodus chapter 30, when God told the priest that when they offered up a food offering, they had to go and they had to wash themselves and do all of these ceremonies. God's Word did say that. But they took that law, and they expanded it out, applied it generally to all people, and applied it to everyone, and made more rules on top of it about what people ought to do when they go to eat, when God never gave those rules. And that's what religious people oftentimes do. They will take some principle in God's Word, and it sounds good, and it sounds like it's coming from God's Word, because it has an element of truth in there, but what they do is they distort the Word of God, and then they'll take the Word of God, and they'll distort it, and they'll make their own little rule, or law, that seems to have God behind it, and God speaking through it, and they'll impose that law upon other people. You gotta do this, you gotta do this, you can't do that, and so forth. Does God's Word say don't do this and do that? Yes. But many times what men do is they imply and make up their own rules and laws that God never spoke. And so then they impose it upon others, and when other people don't do what they say, they shame them, they bring guilt upon them, and all of that. They want them to perform. And that's what these Pharisees had done. They had 613 laws. that they had come up with, man-made laws, man-made traditions, and they had taken these things, which were very complicated to even understand, and they imposed them on the people, and so what Jesus is saying is, to these lawyers who had done so, He says, you load people down with burdens hard to bear. You load them down with hard... It's like a pack mule. You just load them down. You just keep putting one thing on their back after another. for them to carry, and that's what they had done to these people. This is why in Matthew 11, Jesus says, you know, come to me all you are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest for your souls. Why did he tell the people that? Because they had so much weight, so much guilt, so much shame from all of these laws and these rules that no one could even keep, even the ones who had come up with them. And so, that's what's going on here. Jesus says, woe to you lawyers, because what you do is you load people down with these burdens hard to bear. And you yourself do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. You come off religious and sounding great, and you load people down and you command others to do these things, but you're a hypocrite. You don't even do it yourself. Listen to some of the things that they had to do, some of the burdens that they put on people. Going back to the washing, look at that one. When they spoke to people about washings, they said, this is what you've got to do before you eat. First, you've got to take a two-handled cup, and you need to pour water into it. Then, you pour the water over each hand, and typically twice on the right hand and twice on the left hand, or reversed for the left-handed individuals. And when you've poured the water, you must cover the entire hand up to the wrist. And then, after you've done all of that, you've got to recite a blessing. You've got to say, Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with commandments and commanded us concerning the washing of hands. And then after that, you've got to clean your hands, or dry it, with a clean towel. Now you think about that. That has the appearance of godliness, doesn't it? I mean, because they're telling the people, you've got to recite a blessing when you wash up. And isn't washing a good thing? I mean, you've heard people say cleanliness is next to godliness. Well, that's what they thought. And so they washed their hands and they told people to recite a blessing and call God the Lord God, King of the Universe. Who would disagree with that? Sounds really religious, doesn't it? And if someone did all this, wouldn't you think, man, that person is devoted to God. That sounds wonderful, doesn't it? That person's really religious. They're very pious. That's what it sounds like, doesn't it? I mean, what's wrong with reciting a blessing, they might come and say? How dare you not recite this blessing to God and wash up like this before you eat? You see how they can impose that on someone, and it sounds right, and it sounds like that's something we should be doing, because after all, we're reciting a blessing to God, and praising Him, and so forth. But the problem was, God never commanded the people to do such a thing. And so they were doing this type of thing all the time with all kinds of other things. They were telling people to do this and that, and it had the appearance of wisdom, and the appearance of godliness. which, by the way, Paul warns the Colossians. He said, don't let anybody take you captive with their empty philosophies and their deceit, teaching the commandments of men, things that have the appearance of wisdom and so forth. He says, don't let anybody take you captive by that. In other words, you hold fast to Christ. And you put your faith in Him. You're to live by faith. The just shall live by faith. Paul dealt with the same thing in Galatians. They were telling people, you've got to be circumcised to be saved. You've got to do this to be saved. Well, where does the Bible say that? It doesn't say that. It says you're to walk by faith. You're to rest in the grace of Christ. And so, that was why Jesus pronounced a woe on this particular person. They had loaded people down with these burdens hard to bear that God never meant for anyone to bear. And not only that, but they did not even do them themselves. They were like the gym coach that had the person come in, and they're training them in weight lifting and everything else, but here they are over there weighing 400 pounds, never lifted a weight themselves, but they are sitting there shaming the person because they're not lifting enough. They're demanding they put on more weight and more weights to lift. while they never lift a finger. That's exactly what these people were like. That is what these lawyers and teachers had done. They weighed people down with their burdens. Now, we read this and we say, okay, I get that. But does this type of thing happen today? It absolutely happens today. There are people out there who would name the name of Christ, and maybe sometimes they are Christian, and they've fallen into this. But there are times that we might place burdens on people, or you might have done that, or somebody might have done that to you, burdens that are just never from God, things that God has never commanded, but they demand that you do them. And if you don't do it and live up to their standard, then they shame you, and they act like you're a second-rate citizen in the kingdom of God, or they may even act like you're not even saved at all. For example, some religious people motivate. When they want people to obey the commands, they motivate them by shaming them rather than pointing them to Christ. There are a lot of churches that do this. Some fundamentalist churches do this. I'm not saying all of them, but some. You see out there, they'll sit there, and they'll get behind the pulpit, and they'll use the pulpit or the Bible as a whip. And they'll start whipping people, and whipping. You ought to do this, and you ought to do that, and blah, blah, blah. And then they never give them Christ. They never motivate them with Christ. Now, when you look at the apostles and the writers of the New Testament, you'll notice something as you read the epistles and the letters of Paul. and so forth. And even Peter. You know the sections where it says, this is how you ought to live as a husband or a wife. This is how you ought to live as a child. You ought to obey your parents. Or this is how you ought to conduct yourself in the world and in society. Notice that they never put those on the front end of the letter. They never start out with, do this and do that and so forth. They don't do that. They start with grace. They start out writing, grace and peace be to you. They write that. They write about all that Christ has done for them. Every single one of them do this. They highlight what Jesus has done, the grace that we have found in Christ, and what He has delivered us from, and then in light of that, they go to the imperatives, the commands. Then they say, basically, in light of this, therefore, you ought to live this way. But there are people out there that will not do that. They will shame you. They may take the Word of God, which we ought to obey the Word of God, and they'll say, do this, and do that, and do this, and do that, and they never give them Christ. There are some parents that do this to their children. They want them to constantly be performing, and they're right in that they're teaching their kids the Scriptures, They're telling them what they ought to do, but it's never coupled with grace. They never say, you can't do this on your own. And you ought to do this because of your love for God. Instead, they foster just a rules and regulation environment without Christ. And if you do that to your children, it's going to drive them away. They're going to have so many burdens on their back that they can't live up to these things on their own, neither can you. But if you're doing it right, you'll give them the Word of God and what God's Word commands, and then you will point them to the Lord Jesus Christ. And you'll emphasize that we obey the commands not out of duty, but out of delight, because we love Christ. And here's what Christ has done for us. He's freed us from our sins. He wants to have a relationship with you, and we ought to want to please Him. And we ought to emphasize that if we have sinned, we have pardon and forgiveness in Christ. And when you lead a person that way and you're motivating them by the love of God and the grace of God, that's motivation to want to obey. But when you motivate out of shaming people and just rules and regulations and pounding the pulpit and stuff like that without pointing them to Christ, you're doing just what the lawyers did. You're weighing people down to the point that they can't even function and they grow despondent and despair. So, leaders sometimes seek to shame people. Parents seek to shame their children instead of fostering an atmosphere of grace and showing them that they can approach God because of what Christ has done. Sometimes in churches, there are unseen rules, rules that are not in the Bible, that get imposed. And so churches sometimes will focus on outward appearance. There are religious people that focus only on outward appearances. Something like tattoos or clothing or a lot or or and things like that And so what they do is they they go to the they make up these rules The Bible never really speaks of and they will just impose them on people You shouldn't wear a hat in church and things like that I remember I was at a church and I told you guys a story two men walked in they did not know Christ I'm assuming And they weren't churchgoers, it seemed obvious. And the guy came in, one of the deacons, and he goes up to them and he said, we don't wear a hat here. They never came back. Well, where does God's Word say that you can't wear a hat in church? Where does it say that? And so, that's what happens. They foster a judgmental spirit, they heap on rules upon people, and then sometimes they even have unreal expectations. They expect people to always appear a certain way, and no one can ever let down their guard and be honest about their struggles or their sin. And I think this is one of the biggest ones that we find in many places, in many churches that oftentimes occur. You come to church, and everybody puts on a front, We act like everything's good. How are you doing today? I'm fine and wonderful and dandy. And no one in that environment is able to share their struggles, and so they get isolated over in the corner. They begin to have all these struggles and weighed down with them, and they cannot express what they're going through to others. Why? Because the atmosphere there, the setting has been created that you can't share any struggles. You've got to be perfect. You've got to live up. Your family ought to look this way, and you ought to look this way. And so what happens is, people begin to fall into sin, and there's no one there to help them. I told you about the church that I was in in Fort Worth that was much like this. It was so polished, and everybody looked perfect on the outside, when there were all kinds of skeletons in the closet, all kinds of things. But then there's also, sometimes in churches, there's a pressure put on people, too. perform a certain way. You've got to do, you know, you have to homeschool your children. Where does the Bible say that? I'm all for homeschooling. But where does the Bible say that? And I've been around people who say, you know, basically act like if you don't homeschool, you're going to hell or you're sending your kids to hell or something like that. There's places that do that. Oh, you meet in a building? I've encountered this one. You guys meet in a building and not in a house church? Well, you're doing it all wrong. I can't believe you're doing this. Where does God's Word say that you have to worship in a house rather than a building? It doesn't say that at all. Jesus said God is looking for those who are worshiping Him in spirit and in truth, neither on this mountain or that mountain, but there in your heart. And so this type of thing happens all the time. These expectations are put on people, these rules and regulations, these standards that God never meant people to live up to. And so it's not a grace-filled environment. And the one thing that you'll find every time when this happens is Christ is not preached. Christ is not in it. But you'll find people that will promote things, and they sound good, and they may even be good. They may even have a biblical backing behind them, but they're devoid of Christ. We must avoid that. And Jesus said to this lawyer, woe are you for putting these burdens on these people. and you don't even do it yourself. Now we go to the second whoa. We'll go a little bit quicker here in the last two. He says, Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. You build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. Now, I don't think that means that they literally built the tombs of the prophets of the Old Testament. Those guys were dead and gone. They were already buried. But what he seems to be saying here is that they build them in the sense that they pretend to honor the prophets. They pretend to speak good things about the prophets of old and make much of their tombs and stuff. They pretend to honor them by maintaining the tombs and embellishing the tombs where the prophets were buried and so forth. And they act as though they truly cared about who those prophets were. They were men of old who spoke God's word as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And they were killed, though, by the Jewish people. But notice what Jesus goes on to say. He says, So you are witnesses, and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them. and you build their tombs. In other words, you're as bad as your fathers were. You act like it and you pretend like you give heed to the word of God and the prophets of old, but you're in lockstep with your fathers who killed the prophets and built their tombs. You're in lockstep with them because your deeds Your rejection of the truth now, your failure to repent and turn from your sins and look to Christ, whom all the prophets pointed to, demonstrates that you're no different than your fathers were who killed the prophets. And so, verse 49, he says, Therefore, also as the wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles, some whom they will kill and persecute. Notice there how gracious God is. Even though they have rebelled and they have rejected God over and over again throughout Israel's history, and now they're doing it yet again, even though they killed the prophets of old and persecuted them for speaking the God's Word, and even though they had rejected Christ, The wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles, some whom they will kill and they will persecute. This reminds us of Romans 11, 21. But of Israel, he says, All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people. Again, Luke 13, 34. O Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones, those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as hen gathers her brood under her wings? And you were not willing. God graciously sent the prophets and the apostles And yet they refused time and time again. They refused and they rejected their message and them. And so they were in lockstep. They were as guilty as their fathers were who killed the prophets. And he goes on to talk about how they were guilty And he had sent the apostles and the prophets, verse 50, so that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. He sent them, I believe, in a gracious way, but also as a form of judgment. Because as they heard the Word of God and they rejected it, they demonstrated that they deserved to be charged with the same condemnation that their fathers had received. And so Jesus says, this generation, it will be charged against this generation, the blood of all the prophets, because in rejecting the true prophet, Jesus, who was in lockstep with all the prophets that pointed to him, they were rejecting all of the prophets that had come before Jesus, from Abel to Zechariah. They had rejected their word in that they rejected Christ. And so, the judgment was going to fall upon them. And he says, Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Now what does he mean there? Well, I believe that he might be referring to two different things. In AD 70, a short time after Jesus spoke these words, destruction would come upon Jerusalem, be one of the worst destructions in history of that nation. And they were destroyed by the Romans. And then, I believe he's also speaking about the final judgment. Those who reject Christ, those who go on in their sinfulness and do not heed the Word of God, and reject the Word of God like those of old, they will undergo the condemnation of God. And so the thing we see here is that the legalist, the religious person who doesn't have God, they may play a good game, and they may look good on the outside and look the part, but inwardly they are full of all kinds of wickedness. Why? because it comes down to they reject the Word of God that points to the Lord Jesus Christ. They're imposters. That's what these legalists do. They don't apply God's Word to their hearts. They don't live in holiness, and they don't look to Christ. The third woe, he says, the last one, verse 52, he says, woe to you lawyers. He said this two times, now a third time. He says, for you have taken away the key of knowledge, and you did not enter yourself and you hindered those who were entering." In verse 52, this third woe, this word of warning and judgment, he says, you take away the key of knowledge. What did he mean there? Well, they muddied the word of God. Remember, they piled on the word of God, all these rules and regulations that God never intended. They burdened the people. They laid them on the people. and emphasized those things, works-based righteousness, rather than faith alone and Christ alone, and so they rejected all that the Word of God had said. And what had the Word of God said? It all, throughout the Old Testament, even in the Law, it all pointed to Jesus. And so by muddying the waters and taking away the Word of God from people, what it truly said, what it truly meant, and what it was truly getting at, love God and love your neighbor, by taking away all of that, they had taken away the key of knowledge. The key of knowledge, what is that? Well, it's the way of salvation. It's the way of Christ being the only way of salvation. So they nullified, as Jesus said, the Word of God with their traditions of man. So in doing so, they hinder others from entering into the kingdom of God. This is always the danger of these type of movements. They teach us salvation by works, and any time we tamper with God's Word, or teach something other than what God's Word said, or we turn people away from Christ and promote something else besides Christ, we take away the key of knowledge, that way of salvation from people. And so people are left wandering in the dark, and they're made worse off than they were in the beginning. I know a story of a church that basically it's all about appearances, it's all about words. The women have to dress this way, and the men have to dress this way, and you've got to do this and that. And I heard a story here recently about this particular church that does such a thing, that does not emphasize salvation by faith alone and Christ alone. And one of the kids in that group, who's a, well, I'll leave it at that, but one of the kids had grown up in that church, under that environment, finally said, I've had enough. And what did they do? They went off in the world, ran away from their parents, and living with some guy that they met on the internet. Why does a person do that? Well, it is that they're a sinner, and sinners do those types of things, but when you're under that environment, the key of knowledge has been taken away, that points to the way of salvation, knowing God has been taken away, and all you know is rules and regulations. And what do you do? You throw those off, and you go straight into the world, because the works of the flesh are evident. You know, and you have that whole long list of things that the flesh produces that are nothing but sin. And so that's what happens under this environment. And so they hindered those who would enter the Kingdom of God. Now we go on to verse 53. We see the reaction of the scribes and Pharisees to Jesus' words. As He went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press Him hard and to provoke him speaking about many things, lying in wait for him to catch him in something he might say. When he left there, that is after he left the lunch or the dinner or meal that the Pharisee had prepared for him, the guests follow after him. After he had said all of these things, they continue to just come and harass him. And like a lion crouching down, waiting for its prey to pass, they crouch down, lie in wait, waiting to catch him in something that he said. I've encountered these types of people. You can't win an argument with them. They're always wanting to trip you up in something that you say. They'll hang you on any little word that you say when you're debating them or arguing with them. And they will try to trip you up and everything else, and then they'll just hang you out to dry. And so, that's what they were doing with Jesus. They were trying to catch Him in something that He might say. Instead of heeding the Word of God, They sought to trap Him in something that He said, that they might condemn Him. And eventually, they're going to call out for His crucifixion. So, that's what it looks like to be religious and lost. To be religious and not saved. To be religious and to not know God. Those who have religion, but they do not have Christ, they are not saved. They look the part, but inwardly they are full of all kinds of wickedness. Let's just recap this real quick. I do a recap of what we've learned here about the religious who are lost. The religious who are lost, their heart is full of hypocrisy. They have all these rules and regulations, but when it comes down to it, they do not live up to that standard either. They are full of pride. These men wanted the best seats. They just want to be seen by others. That's what the religious do. They want to tell everybody about every time they do something, and they want to tell everybody about all their ministries that they do, and the things that they do. Why? Because they are full of pride. They lead people away from Christ by their teaching because they don't promote Christ. They promote a works-based salvation. They shame others who do not conform to what their standard is. They put pressure on others to follow their legalistic man-made rules, which are a burden on people. They don't give them hope. They don't give them the message of salvation. They don't like the truth. They don't take sin seriously. And they pretend like they love the Word of God. When truly deep down, they don't adhere to it, and they truly hate it. They lead people down a path to hell by shutting them off from the truth. They pretend to be moral. They pretend to love God. They pretend to be zealous for the truth. Yet in reality, they are sinful. They are self-seeking fools who are on their road to hell. They're devoid of spiritual power. They have no spiritual life in them. There's no spiritual truth. even though they look the part, and ultimately, they reject the grace of God. They don't live by faith alone in Christ. They don't rest in the grace of God. They're always trying to do, always trying to perform, and most of all, they reject Christ. They reject Christ. They're not Christ-centered people. This is one of the key ways that you identify this type of error. Anytime someone is religious, Anytime someone is like, you think, man, they've got it all together, just listen in to how much they talk about Christ, how much they promote Christ. They will promote things perhaps that are from the Bible. I've seen some movements even in our time that are going on where there's a lot of talk about biblical manhood and womanhood, how a man ought to be. Well, that's good. I think the Bible speaks to those things. A man ought to be a man and a woman ought to be a woman. That's obviously good because the culture is teaching something that's opposite of God's Word. But what I hear when I listen to these things is I don't hear a lot about Christ. I don't hear a lot of these things being tied back to the Gospel. And so, it's just, be a man or be a woman. Okay. Sounds good, is good, but where does that lead me to Christ? Where is Christ in the midst of that? There's another thing that I learned a few years ago. There's a big movement in Oklahoma to abolish abortion. We ought to abolish abortion. I'm a thousand percent for abolishing abortion. There shouldn't be any abortion whatsoever. It's baby murder. But there are people who promote this to the point that they exclude Christ. That's all they want to talk about. It's all about abortion, abortion, abortion. They wear the t-shirts every single day and that's all they're pounding. I'm behind you. Let's abolish abortion. But let's not forget the main thing, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Because you can do all of these right things, but at the end of the day, when it's all said and done, and you lay your head on your pillow at night, so what if you've convinced all these people, and now you've got a hundred people following with you to abolish abortion? Yes, that's good. But if you lay your head on your pillow at night, and you don't know Christ, and you haven't come closer to Him, what good is it all? What good is it all? You may have done some good works, but that's not going to lead you to Heaven. And I've seen people do this many times, again, focusing on, well, you should worship in a building instead of a, or sorry, you should worship in a house rather than a church. And they make Christianity all about that. And we see trends, if we look back, one trend after another over the past 20, 30 years. And it's nothing new. There'll be another trend after these others die down. But they, all of them, have one thing in common. They do not point people to Christ. I've seen the homeschool movement do this. I've seen churches. There was a church over in Fort Smith. You know what it was? It was a homeschool church. And I'm like, why do you want to be identified as that? Be identified by Christ. I'm all for homeschooling. I would say do it if you can. But at the end of the day, what matters is that you know Christ. That's what's going to save your kids. That's what's going to save you. So the way we avoid these pharisaical tendencies and that lead us to hell and not to heaven is we must focus on Christ. We must receive him as Savior and Lord. We must look to him by faith who is our righteousness rather than trying to establish a righteousness of our own like these Pharisees had done. We must rest in His performance and not our performance. We must be motivated to obey, not out of guilt or shame, but we must be motivated by love. It is the love of God, Paul says, that constrains us. We must see that Christ only can save and nothing that we can do, and we must acknowledge our sinfulness and our need of Jesus. And when we put Jesus at the center, and when it's all about Him, and salvation's all by grace through faith alone in Christ alone, you know what that's going to motivate? A people who want to obey the Word of God. A people who want to carry out the rules that God has in His Word. But if it's just duty, and if it's just rules and regulations without Christ, people are going to grow despondent and despair, and they're going to have guilt and shame, and they're not going to have salvation. They're going to have religion, but they're not going to have heaven. And so let's avoid these things. And if you're here this morning, and you're religious, I ask you, where is your heart this morning? Have you truly trusted in Christ, or are you depending upon what you do? Are you depending upon, perhaps, your baptism? Are you depending upon how much you tithe, or your church going, or your Bible reading to save you? And you're looking to your performance? If that's you, you're not saved. You have to trust in Christ and Christ alone, who lived the perfect life for you, who died on the cross for your sins, who rose on the third day, and who is coming again. And you rest in Him that your acceptance before God is not what you have done, but it is what Christ has done. And you rest in Him by faith alone. And we as believers, we ought to go on in that. We ought to live by faith in the Son of God who gave Himself for us when He died upon the cross. Don't promote rules and regulations to your children without promoting Christ. Foster that environment of loving Christ. Teach them what it is to love and to know God. And when they see that, they'll want that instead of rules and regulations. And when they see that, they'll want to obey God. They'll want to please Him. They'll want to walk in that path. And so promote Christ and Christ alone. And do not reject Him. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word. We pray, Father, that we would be a Christ-centered people. We pray that, Lord, we would not rest in our own righteousness, which is filthy rags, our own good works, which is filthy rags, but we would rest in Jesus and Jesus alone. Father, I pray that we would not impose man-made rules upon others and shame them, but I pray that we would foster an environment here in this place that we are all unworthy sinners and none of us have it together without Christ. and that Christ is our hope, our salvation, and the only way that we will be made right with you. And Lord, I pray that Christ would be the center, and that we would desire just to know you, and we would seek hard to know you and the power of your resurrection, as Paul said in Philippians 3.15. Father, we love you and praise you, and if anybody here today is without Jesus, I pray today would be the day of salvation. In Jesus' name we pray.