your Bibles this morning. Turn with me to Luke chapter 11. Luke chapter 11, and this morning we're going to be looking at verses 42 through 44. I thought we'd make it all the way through this chapter, but as I was telling the guys earlier when I had six pages of notes on these few verses, I thought, well, I better cut it off there, or we would go into about a couple-hour sermon. And so, anyway, we're going to look at verses 42 through 44 this morning. And I think there's enough here to digest that there's no sense of moving quickly through this whole passage. So, let's begin reading in verse 37 to put it in its context and read down to verse 44. It says, While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked Him to dine with Him. So He went in and reclined at table. And the Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, Now you Pharisees cleaned the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you were full of greed and wickedness, you fools. Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give his alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you. But woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. Woe to you, Pharisees, for you love the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you, for you are like unmarked graves and people walk over them without knowing it. Let's pray. Father, as we come to you this morning, Lord, we know that we are nothing without you. We know that our flesh profits us nothing, and it is the Spirit that gives us life. And Lord, we are dependent upon you this morning. Lord, to understand this passage, to be able to take it to heart and to live it out and to obey all that you command us. And Father, I pray that you would speak to us. Lord, forgive us of this week, of all the times that we have not put you first, where we've not loved you as we should, where we have, Lord, been so caught up with this world and the things of everyday life, and we have thought little of you, and we've had small thoughts of you and your greatness. Father, forgive us of all of that. Lord, we know that life is all about Jesus. And Father, I pray that you would give us a greater love for Jesus, that you would stir our hearts and fan the flame in our heart to just be on fire for Jesus, to love you and have a passion within that desires a greater relationship with you. Father, I pray that we would Look away from this world, and we would look to Christ this morning. Fix our gaze and our hope and our affections upon Jesus. Lord, we ask that if there is anybody here that has no love for Christ, that today would be the day of salvation for them. Lord, we ask these things in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Many years ago, me and Sarah, we moved to Texas. I was going to seminary, and when we moved down to Texas, we were looking for a church that would preach the Bible and not just, you know, on Sundays or whenever the church met. They wouldn't just be, you know, just tickling ears and doing all kinds of goofy stuff. And we searched around for a good church for a while, and finally we came upon this church. It was a newer church, a church plant. There was about 45 people at the time, and it was growing by leaps and bounds. But when we came to this church, we were very impressed by the things that we saw there. There was the preaching of the Word. It was very straight out of the text. There was the music that was very sound, theologically speaking. There were a lot of good things there. There was a lot of order to the service. There was responsive readings and catechisms and all that kind of stuff. They promoted strong families, and a biblical view of manhood and womanhood, and all of those types of things. And we thought it was almost, or I thought, that it was almost like the perfect church. I was like, this seems too good to be true, because most churches that you go into, a lot of churches, they don't take the Bible that serious and stuff. And so, I was very impressed, and the sermons that were delivered were impeccable. The man that was able to deliver them, he was just impeccable in the delivery and very moving and so forth. And so, it was a great time. We did learn a lot there while we were at that church. But the one thing that I noticed about this church is it went on. It was just very, very polished, and no one really let their guard down. No one really shared their struggles. No one opened up, and you kind of got this impression that everybody around you had it all together. They had the perfect family. The preacher and his family were perfect, and everybody was perfect in this place. It was a very, very polished place. And it was so polished that one Sunday I remember as a seminary student they invited me to come and read the scripture that was going to be read that Sunday. And I got up and I was almost like trembling. By this time it had grown from like 45 to probably 350 people. And I stood up to read and I was afraid that I was going to be the blemish on this whole thing because I might pronounce a word wrong or misspeak or something like that. And that's kind of the impression that it got. When you stood around and talked after service, everybody had their guard up, and everybody was polished in their speech. It was like you were talking to these well-trained theologians and all of the rest. And I remember even a friend of mine, after we had left that church, he went down, he was in seminary, and he visited the church. And they had a business meeting, and they were talking. where they were talking and discussing some things. And one guy even raised his hand in the meeting and said, Pastor so-and-so, shouldn't this on this paper say something like, to the glory of God instead of for the glory of God? I mean, that's how polished they were. And a lot of people were impressed by that. I was even kind of impressed by that because you didn't see such in most churches. But about three years after we left that church and we'd come back to Oklahoma and I was pastoring, I happened to stumble across some sermons by another man, and I was reading the manuscripts, and I was looking at these manuscripts because I didn't have commentaries on this passage of Scripture, and sometimes, you know, you can use a sermon from somebody you trust and read that and use it kind of as a commentary. But as I was reading this, I was like, hmm, I've heard this before. And I began to look, and I started thinking, and lo and behold, I remember this exact sermon, word for word, being preached by this guy that was our pastor down there in Texas. And come to find out, he had plagiarized every single sermon, word for word, for about five, six years, however long the church had been in operation. That sparked in me a need to go and talk to the leadership of that church. And so me and a friend that also discovered it too, went and talked to the pastor, and later the leadership came and asked me some more things about it. But what happened was he ended up resigning, and it was after that all kinds of skeletons began to come out of the closet. All kinds of issues began to come out of the closet. And that pastor, just a few years ago, committed suicide. He was no longer pastor there, but he committed suicide. Many people since that time left the faith. Many of the people that I thought had it all together ended up having all kinds of problems and issues with their children. Many of the people there came out as full-blown liberals, some even in favor of homosexuality, and all of the rest. Many embraced the whole woke movement and all of that kind of stuff. And you've got to ask the question, what was going on there? It was so polished. It looked so well on the outside. Well, the problem was, even though there were good believers there, and there were, even though there were people there that I believe that loved the Lord, For the most part, on the outside, the cup was clean. But on the inside, it was nothing but dead bones. There was a lot of skeletons in the closet. And I tell you that story because that is the danger of any Christian group. That is the danger among Calvinists. That's a danger among Armenians. That's a danger among Lutherans. That's a danger of any group of Christians. that people can begin to conform outwardly, and appear that they are worshipping God, and appear that they love God, and do all the right things on the outside, and yet be a million miles from the Lord. Have all kinds of issues of wickedness and sin, and all of that stuff on the inside. And that's what Jesus is getting at in this passage of Scripture. He is confronting a group of people, religious people, and these aren't pagans, these aren't people that are out in the world worshipping idols and everything else. These are Pharisees, one of the three religious groups of the time. who claimed to worship Yahweh of the Old Testament, who believed the Bible to be the Word of God, and all of that. And he confronts this Pharisee and those Pharisees that were probably with him. And here we see in this passage of Scripture, Jesus has been speaking. He's just cast out a demon. He goes along, and as He cast out this demon, these people come to Him, and they say, well, you've cast this out in the name of Satan. And some say, well, we need more signs. We need a sign from Heaven, and then we'll embrace you. And Jesus is like, no, you're not going to get any more signs. You've had enough evidence that I am the Christ. You ought to have believed by now. He's the light that has come into the world, but these men have loved darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. And so Jesus says, this is an evil generation. They seek a sign, but the only sign that they're going to get is going to be the sign of Jonah. And clearly Jesus was referring to His resurrection. He's going to be raised from the grave, and that is going to be a testimony that He is truly the Messiah, that He has come. Now, they ought to have already known that He was the Messiah, but while He's speaking, and while He's telling them, that they need to be careful lest they reject Christ, and they don't respond to the light that they have, this Pharisee asked him to dine with him. So he goes to the house. Notice he didn't refuse this unbeliever. But he goes to his house, and it says that the Pharisee was astonished that he did not wash before dinner. So here they are getting ready to eat. Jesus doesn't wash, but the Pharisee, he washes, and he's sitting there looking at Jesus like, He's unclean, like he's broken the law of God, even though he had not done that. And why did the Pharisee believe this? Well, what the Pharisees had done is they believed in the written law of the Torah, the law of God, the first five books. But they added on top of that what they call the oral tradition. And that was their interpretations of the law and their beliefs about the law. And what they ended up doing is they added all of these commandments on top of God's Word. They not only had the law, but they added their laws, man-made laws, on top of those. And so, there was like 613, I believe is how many they had come up with. And they were crazy. They were laws that no one could keep. And so, they had this law about washing. In the Old Testament, the priests were to wash before they offered up a food offering. And they took that and they expanded it to everyone and said, well, everybody has to wash now before they eat, even though that's not what the law said in God's word. But they had made it a law that you had to go through all of these rituals about washing and so forth. in order to eat, to be able to come to the table and eat. And otherwise, you were ceremonially unclean. You were unfit before God in their eyes. And so they were astonished that Jesus didn't go through this process, that he didn't wash like them. And so Jesus says, look, you Pharisees, you clean the outside of the dish, but inside are full of greed and wickedness. In other words, they had polished the outside. They had appeared to worship God and be right with God, but inside was what mattered. God had made the heart, and their heart was wicked, and it was evil, and it was full of greed. And all of us are in danger of this. We can make everybody look make it look like we're following the Lord, like we've got everything together, we can put on our Sunday best and all of that, but inside our heart may be a million miles from the Lord. We've seen this over the last ten years or so. There are people in Christianity who some were big name leaders in Christianity in different movements. And what have they done? They've walked away from God. And you say, well, how in the world could that be? They looked apart. They said the right things. They prayed the right things. All of that stuff. They taught us the right things from the Scripture. But now they're not walking with the Lord. Well, why is that? On the inside, they were full of wickedness and sin. Their heart was not right with God. And so we can have an appearance of godliness and have no power within, have not the Holy Spirit within. We can have religion, but not be regenerated. and not be born again. And that's what Jesus is getting at. Look, you guys, you clean the outside of the cup, but inside you're full of greed and wickedness. And so He says in verse 40, You fools, did not He who made the outside make also the inside? But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you. What is He telling them there? Well, He's not teaching works-based salvation. He's not saying if you give alms, then you'll be clean. But he's saying, give as alms those things that are within. What is he saying here? Well, basically, when you would give alms, what did God require? To do justice and show mercy and things like that? And giving alms is helping those poor and so forth? So basically, Jesus is saying, if you do the right thing, and if from the heart these things are flowing, it'll be evidence that you are right with God. And if your heart is right, you're going to be giving of alms to the... to the poor. You're not going to be full of greed, and if that's what your heart is like, your heart's not going to condemn you. Everything is going to be clean for you. That's what you ought to be doing. You ought to have a right heart with God, is what Jesus is saying. But now we come to verse 42, our passage this morning, and notice the contrast. He says, But, the cat's contrasting with what he just said in verse 41. But, woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God." Now there's going to be three woes here that we're going to be looking at. And when he says woe to you, he's saying you're in danger of judgment. There are bad things coming for you. The wrath of God, the judgment of God is going to fall on you. You better watch out. That's what you ought to think of when you hear the word woe. But notice the contrast. Verse 42, Jesus draws this contrast with verse 41. Verse 41, He's told them that instead of focusing on the ceremonies and the rituals and the washing of hands, though that would somehow make them clean on the inside. They were to focus on the inside, their heart. They were not to give by just show, because they did give alms, but they were to give from the heart, a heart that had been changed by God. They were to do this by giving alms, money to the poor from the heart, which would be a true expression of a heart changed by God that had been forgiven and made clean as opposed to their heart that was filled with greed and wickedness. And so, in contrast, he says, woe to you. You're not doing this. You don't have a heart that is flowing out of love for God and love for man and giving of alms out of a love for others. That's what you ought to do, but woe to you. What you guys do is you tithe mint and rue and every herb and you neglect justice and the love of God. What Jesus is saying here is that instead of having a clean heart and giving alms from the heart, you're just out here playing religion is what you're doing. You have a form of godliness, but there's no power in you. You have religion, but you have never been born again. You have commandments, but you're not clean from sin. You look on the outside, but your heart, and you look good on the outside, but your heart is filled with greed and wickedness. And Jesus warns them about this in verses 42 through 44. And look at what he says, Woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe men and ruin every herb, and you neglect justice and love God. Woe to you Pharisees, for why does he say woe to them? Why are they in danger? Because of what they don't love. what they don't love. Again, this is one of the many woes. But what is it that they don't love? Well, they appear to follow God on the outside. They're saying that they're following the law, which is God's law. They appear to be religious. They pray. They do all of these things on the outside. And if you looked at them, you would think, man, that guy's got it all together over there. That guy surely is following the Lord. But as Jesus says, you neglect justice and the love of God. You tithe, don't you? You tithe mint and rue and every herb, but you neglect justice and the love of God. Their hearts proved that they did not love God, even though they did all of these external things. And as we go on, we see what they neglect. They neglect justice and the love of God. But here's the thing. What they were doing right, and Jesus didn't condemn them for this, was they were tithing. And this law of the Old Testament that they were basing this off of said that they ought to tithe. Leviticus chapter 30 and verse 30 says this, Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord's. It is holy to the Lord. But they were going on, they took that law, and instead of just tithing the things that they got out of the garden or whatever, they got down to the minutia of things. They were getting down to every little herb that cropped up, and every little rue and mint and things that popped up out of their garden, they were tithing on those, and they thought they were doing good by doing that. And that wasn't that they were necessarily doing bad by doing that, we ought to give to the Lord. All things that we have ought to be the Lord's and be seen that way. But the problem with these people is that they were doing the same thing that they were doing when it came to washing. They were adding to the law. They were going beyond what the law even prescribed. They were adding to it, and they thought that somehow, if they just kept all of these laws that they had come up with, then they would be right with God. And they did all of this at the expense of loving justice and loving God. So, let's focus on here what they did not do. What they did not do was they did not love God. And that is the biggest problem with those who practice religion. You can do all the right things on the outside. You can appear one way, but have no love for God and no love for neighbor. Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew's Gospel. when he was asked, What is the greatest commandment? He said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment, and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these the two commandments depend, All the Law and the Prophets. All of those laws of the Old Testament that God gave. Now they were to point us to Christ. They were a shadow of the things to come. They pointed us to Christ. But the one thing that was behind those laws was, if you were to sum them up, was they taught us how to love each other. They taught us how to love our neighbor and taught us how to love God. And that's what Jesus was saying. When he was asked what is the greatest commandment, he summed up the entire law and the prophets, what was taught in the Old Testament by these two things. Love God and love your neighbor. But the problem with these Pharisees were they were trying to obey the law, and they were trying to obey the laws that they had piled on top of the law, the man-made traditions, But yet they had no love for neighbor, and they had no love for God. So they missed the boat. They missed the spirit of the law, the intent of the law, because they had no love for God. And how many people do that today in our churches? How many pastors? How many deacons? How many... Sunday school teachers, how many missionaries, they go out and they do ministry, and even Christians, they go out and say and profess that they're followers of Christ, they sing songs, they have right theology maybe, they read their Bibles, they do all of these things, they may even pray, but there's no love for God, and there's no love for those around them. I believe that's what was going on in that church that I was a part of. There was a lot of people there that did love the Lord. I believe that. And I can even point back to this day to some of them. But I believe that a lot of what was going on there, it was polished on the outside, but there was not a heartfelt love for God. And the Bible warns us about this. The Bible tells us in many places that we are to cultivate a love for God. Let me give you just an example of a few places. In the book of Jude, At the end of Jude, he gives a call to persevere. And he says, but you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, in the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions. It is these who cause divisions, worldly people devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, listen to this, building yourself up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God. in the book of Revelation, chapter 2. We find the church at Ephesus. Jesus talked about the things that they had right, things that were going good for them. They were not tolerating false teachers. They evidently had some good theology going on because they were discerning right from wrong from these false teachers. But He said in Revelation chapter 2 and verse 4, But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love that you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the works that you did. at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place. You see, a church can meet, and there can be people in that church that sing and pray and do all of these things, listen to sermons, the pastor can even churn out sermons and all of that, and our hearts may not even be in love with God. And it will show if we're not in love with God, we're not going to be in love with each other. We're not going to have love for one another. We're not going to show mercy and justice towards others and help those who were in need. We will be selfish, and self-centered, and self-seeking, which is what these Pharisees were. They didn't care about people. They cared about themselves. And we'll see that in just a moment, because they liked the best seats in the house of worship of that day. But that's what the problem was, is that the Pharisees, their biggest problem was they did not love God. They had religion, they claimed to worship the God of the Bible, and all of these things, but they did not love God. And so, they did not love God, and so Jesus says to them, these you ought to have done. Yeah, you ought to tithe, but while not neglecting the other things, which is love God and love neighbor. In other words, you ought to tithe, but you ought to do it reasonably, without going over the top with all your man-made rules. You ought to tithe, but you should You shouldn't just tithe while neglecting to show justice and love towards others, and you shouldn't tithe while neglecting a love for God. Do you hear what Jesus is saying in all of this? You ought not to neglect love for God and love for others. And I would ask you in light of that, ask yourself this, am I doing things out of a love for God and a love for others? Or do I just fulfill religious requirements? Do I come here on Sunday morning because I truly love God, and I want to grow in my faith, I want to hear the Word preached, I want to pray with others, and I want to go there and not only love God and serve Him, but I also want to go there and I want to love others around me. I want to serve them as well. Ask yourself that question. What motivates you to carry out your religion? Ask yourself this question. Do I read my Bible and come to church out of duty or delight in God? Do I read my Bible and come to church out of duty or because I do it because I truly love God? You ever felt that way about your Bible? You wake up, and you're like, man, I've got to get in there and read. So you just read. And it's not really to have a relationship with God, and talk with God, and meet God there. It's like, I've got to check this off to say I've done it so I can feel better throughout the rest of the day. Do I say that I will pray for others because that is what I'm supposed to say, or is it because I truly care for them and I love them? What motivates you to say, I'll pray for you? Do I profess to be a Christian because I know I should be one? My spouse expects me to be a Christian. My parents expect me to be a Christian. And so I say I'm a Christian because that's the expected thing of me. Or am I a Christian because I truly recognize I'm a sinner and I need Christ to save me from my sins? As a church, do we read Scripture? I'm asking this as a body. Do we read Scripture, recite certain things, use religious language and act reverent because that is the disposition of our heart towards God? Or are we just doing it out of out of just, you know, habit. That's what we do on Sunday morning. I tell you, some churches, like the one I was in, they were so precise in how they were set up. but yet the heart was far from God. Is that how we are when we come here on Sunday morning? When we go through all of everything and we pray and we sing and we listen to the word, are we just going through the motions? Are we truly here to love God with all of our heart and love those around us? Listen, if our professed faith, if you were just a open up your heart and do heart surgery, and you're to look and peer into your heart. If there is no love for God, then something is wrong. Now, I believe that believers can grow cold, obviously, as we see there in Revelation chapter 2. And they can grow cold in their love for God. That's why Jude says, keep yourself in the love of God. It's something you've got to do. You've got to return to those things that you did at first, Jesus said. Now, I know that we can get cold, but if there is no love of God that is driving you, to do the things that you do in your religion, come to church, pray, witness, all of those types of things. If it's not the love of God in your heart that is compelling you, then if you have no love for Jesus, Paul says, let him be accursed. in 2 Corinthians 16. If there's no love of God, we are accursed. You see, that's the most important thing, that we love God. Second, do you see how important it is to have a heart that has been changed by God? To be born again, to have a heart that loves God and loves its neighbor? Listen, it doesn't matter what hymns we can sing, or how many prayers we pray, or how many good deeds we do, or how much we tithe, or how moral we are. It doesn't matter. None of those things matter if we do not have a love for Jesus. Again, 2 Corinthians 16.22, if you have no love for Jesus, you are accursed. That's what, basically, Jesus is pointing out here. That's why the woe is pronounced upon them, because they had no love for Christ. And third, I ask you in light of this, where is your heart this morning? Is your religion, your Bible reading, your church going, your giving, your professed faith, all of that, is it accompanied by love for God and a true, genuine love for others? If not, you're in great danger. And what you need to do is maybe you've never been saved. Maybe you've never had the love of God shed abroad in your heart. You've never come to know the love that God has for you by way of the cross when Jesus went there to die on your behalf. You've never understood your sins and what God has done to save you from those sins. And so where you need to begin is to cry out to God to save you. And you need to repent of the wickedness of your heart, for not loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, for not living for Him, instead you've lived for other things. And then I also want to say, guard against hypocrisy. Avoid a checklist mentality in your faith. Live life unto God from the heart, instead of just obeying a bunch of rules. Well, I've got to do this, and I've got to do that. Man, that becomes duty. That is a weight around your neck if that's how you live the Christian life. Live life the opposite of that. Read your Bible because you love God. Think about it in those terms. When you're going to go read your Bible, think about it. I'm going in there, and I'm going to sit down with God, and I'm going to have fellowship with Him, and I'm going to talk with Him, and I'm going to hear from His Word. and I'm just going to enter in a relationship. And it's not just me and the Bible, but it's me and God there. And it's His Word speaking to me. Think about your relationship that way. And when you go to God, don't just go through the motions, but believe that He is a God of love, that He loves those even who are His enemies, and He's made a way to reconcile you. And think about your relationship in terms of the cross. and that will help you guard as a Christian against hypocrisy. Now, that's the first woe. And we go on to the second woe. We see that they don't love God, but now we're going to see what they do love. And a woe is pronounced on them here because of what they do love. Verse 43, Woe to you, Pharisees, for you love the best seats in the synagogue and greetings in the marketplace. In those days, the synagogue was much like a church. They had been established after the temple had been destroyed, and they were kind of scattered out, and people who couldn't make it to the temple would go to these synagogues, and they would go there, and the Bible would be read, the law of God, and so forth. But in a semi-circle, there were certain seats reserved for prominent ones, the rabbis, the prominent people of society, and so forth. These weren't front row seats, but they were kind of just scattered around on the side, and the commoners would be down more in the middle, and so forth. These Pharisees, they loved the best seats. They didn't like the cheap seats. They loved the best seats, the chief seats. They liked those places when they would go to the synagogue. Why? Because it was a place of position. It was a place where they could be admired by those who did not sit in those seats. They wanted to be seen by all. They loved themselves so much and they had so much pride in themselves that they just wanted to walk around and they wanted people just to look up to them and to look to them like they had it all together. And Jesus says, woe to you Pharisees, for you love the best seats in the synagogues. Instead of taking the back seat and letting someone else, loving others around them enough to put them ahead of themselves, they wanted that position and that prestige, and their arrogance got in the way. Instead of loving God, they loved themselves. They were focused on their own glory, and not God's glory. These were men who loved status and they loved being admired by people. They also loved having status. so much and being admired by people that they love the greetings in the marketplace, not just in church, but out there in the world. When they would go out into the world, into the marketplace, Jesus says, woe to you, Pharisees, for you love the best seats in the synagogues and the greetings in the marketplaces. When you were going around as a rabbi, when you were going around as this religious teacher and so forth, people would greet you, hey there, rabbi. Hey there, master. They would call you those types of names. And they loved the people to come up to them and do this, to affirm their status, to affirm what they thought about themselves. It built them up when they would hear these things from other people. And so they loved the greetings. And what a danger this is. This is such a danger in religious circles. I've seen over the years in denominational life, in Southern Baptist life, there are people who you can just see, they love the positions and the authority. I've seen it in churches. There are people who want positions, and want positions in the church. They want to be a preacher. They want to be a Sunday school teacher. They want to be a deacon. They want to be a trustee. They want to be a head of some organization. And it doesn't mean that just because someone is in that position or they desire that, that their heart is wrong. They may want to do that because that's what they feel God leading them to do and so forth. But there are some people, and I'm sure you've seen it in churches as well, people who live like the devil, but they want those positions. They want it because they want people to admire them and listen to them and look up to them And it doesn't have anything to do with God. And that's what was going on here with these Pharisees. They loved themselves. They were not a humble people. And what does the Bible say about those who are not humble, and they're all about themselves and full of pride? God gives grace to the humble, but He resists the proud. And that's why they were having this woe pronounced on them. They were in a dangerous position. They weren't in a position with this attitude to receive grace, but to receive the wrath of God. It's third. We see the third woe here in verse 44. He says, Woe to you, for you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it. What in the world is Jesus saying here? Well, we have to go back to the Old Testament, and I think this will help us to understand it. Listen to Numbers 19, verse 16. The law of God told Israel, It said, If anyone is in the open field, and they touch one who has been slain with a sword, or who has died naturally, or a human bone, or a grave, that person shall be unclean for seven days. In other words, if your body, as a Jew, had come in contact with a dead body, dead bones, a corpse, or whatever, then you would be ceremonially unclean for seven days. Now, why was this law given to Israel? Well, what did it teach them? Well, death is a result of sin. And so this law taught them about purity, and it was a reminder of what sin brought, and their need to be clean before God, to be right with God in order to come into a relationship with God. And so they were ceremonially unclean for seven days. So Jesus takes that imagery there, and He tells these Pharisees who thought they were the epitome of godliness, and thought that they had it all together, and He says, Woe to you! For you are like these unmarked graves. You know, what's an unmarked grave? You don't know there's a dead body there. And so somebody could walk along and stumble over this dead body, and they would be unclean, and not even really knowing it. because it was unmarked. And they're unmarked because they don't look dead on the outside, they have the appearance of godliness, but inside they are full of dead men's bones. And so really, when somebody comes in contact with these Pharisees, they're not coming into contact with somebody who is right before God, but they're coming into contact with a literal corpse, basically. Because spiritually, they are dead. They don't know God. They're far from God. Their hearts are evil and wicked. And so what does that do? They corrupt those around them. Just like you would be ceremonially unclean if you came in contact with a dead body, according to Numbers 19.16, so if you come into contact with these Pharisees and come under their influence, it's going to make you unclean. You may go down the same path that they are going. You may fall into all of their nonsense, the things that they are teaching, and so you may be found unclean as well, and that may lead you away from God. And so that's what happened with many who came into contact with them. They were defiling those around them. And that's what Jesus is saying. Woe to you, for you're like unmarked graves and people walk over them without knowing it. In other words, you're out here defiling people rather than leading them to God. And that's why Jesus said in Matthew 23, 15 of them, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourself. In other words, you're the blind leading the blind. You're the dead leading the dead, and you're both going to hell. You're leading people astray by all this stuff that you're out here teaching, the doctrines of men. So what do we learn by this third woe? Well, we learn that legalism is very dangerous. Formalism is dangerous. Religion without a love for God is dangerous. Why? Because it contaminates everyone around us. Let me give you an example of this, of how it works. It causes people to want nothing to do with Christianity. We see this all the time. Now, I know people have excuses for not valid excuses by no means. There are people out there who say, I want nothing to do with the church. There are a bunch of hypocrites up there and so forth. And we look at that and we're like, well, they're just making an excuse. They want to live in their sin. And part of that is true. They want to use anything they can to justify their unbelief. But there's some validity in what some of them are saying. And here's why I say that. There are some who have went to church. And when they go to church, they have come in contact with some people that were hypocrites, not people who love God from the heart. but hypocrites like the Pharisees. And what a turnoff this is when somebody who's lost encounters a Pharisee. Because what they encounter is a person who is clean on the outside, but they know what they do all throughout the week. I mean, you've heard unbelievers say this type of thing, and I have heard it too. They'll say, well, why do I want to go up there to that church? I know what that deacon up there does. He goes to church every Sunday and he does that, but I know what he's out doing on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and the rest of the week. I know how he treats people at the business that he operates. And so they live like the devil because they're Pharisees. But what this person, this unbeliever, is doing is they're looking at another unbeliever, only that unbeliever pretends to be a follower of God. And so legalism and formalism, religion without God, religion without a love for God, it's dangerous because it's a turn-off to the unbelieving world. It basically turns people away from God because it says this is what God's all about when he's not all about that type of lifestyle. And so people think that's what Christianity is. And so they want nothing to do with that. And we see this in some unbelievers who come to church, and they later leave. We see this also with many kids that grow up in families that go to church. We see families that bring their children to church, and they have all kinds of rules, and you don't do this, and you don't do that. I'm not saying you don't have rules. You have rules. And you have a standard which is God's standard. But I'm talking about people that go beyond what the Bible even says, and they impose all of these do's and don'ts on their children that are not in the Word of God, but something that they have come up with, and they make it all rigid, and it's all about outward conformity, and being able to cite the catechisms, and say the right Bible verses, and say the right things, and they think they're good, and they impose this on their children. when they have not thought about their hearts. They've not even portrayed a loving relationship with God to their children. Instead, it's all formality and legalism and religion without a love for God. And so kids see this in their parents. They might see it even in some people in the church. And it's not a grace-driven mentality, but instead it's all about rules, and there's no grace in it. It's very harsh. And what happens? We see people, these kids grow up, and they're just so confused, and they don't want anything to do with that. And so they leave that type of lifestyle. And what they do is, they suffer shipwreck. They go off, they begin to live in all kinds of bad ways, and they want nothing to do with the church, because they think that's what Christianity is, when it's not. Because Christianity is about a love relationship with God who has sent his son into the world to die for our sins. And the other thing it does for those who don't run away from the church, it's dangerous because when people come into contact with this type of person, it creates more legalists. It creates more people who have religion but don't have God. The religion of the Pharisees created those around them, people like themselves. That's why Jesus says you travel across land and sea to make a proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourself. In other words, they were going around, they were trying to get other people to get in on their bandwagon and do what they did and follow their man-made rules without a love for God. And there were some people who loved that and they clung to that, and they were just as bad off. They didn't love God. And so that's what legalists do. There are people who will teach certain things. They will tell people they won't give them the gospel, and so instead they give them a bunch of do's and don'ts, and be moral, and be nice, and do all this kind of stuff, and you'll work your way to heaven. It's kind of the message that they portray. And people will latch on to that, and they will grab a hold of that, and they will follow that instead of having a love for God. And so they never hear the true gospel of Jesus Christ. And so they never have a love for God themselves and they continue down this path. So with these three woes, I wrap it up by saying this. The most important thing is that you know Christ and that you have a true love for God. in your heart, because it's not about conformity. Christianity is not about just conforming to a bunch of rules, some standards, and so forth. Yes, there's rules, there's standards, there's commandments, and all of that. That's true. And we are to obey the commandments, but we don't do it out of duty, but out of delight. Jesus said, if you love me, you will what? You'll keep my commandments. And so I say this in light of the Pharisee that Jesus is rebuking here, and pronouncing woes over. I say these things. Legalism is a dangerous thing. And it can be found in any church. Doctrinally strict churches, charismatic churches, you know, all of those churches. You have some churches out there that are very legalistic. They have all these rules. Don't drink and chew and hang with girls and do all that. We shouldn't do that anyway. But they have all these rules and it's all about that instead of loving Jesus. Then, They're the other churches, like the one I went to in Texas. They have all the formalities, and it looks very nice on the outside, but there's not a lot of love going on for Jesus in the heart. And so, both of those are ditches that we can fall in. Don't be taken captive by things that have the appearance of wisdom. Paul talked about that in Colossians. There are things that have the appearance of wisdom, have the appearance of godliness. And if we'll just do this, and we'll do it this way, then God will shine his face down upon us. We see that in movements that come throughout the church. We've seen that over the last several years. I mean, there's people who will take one thing that is good and true. For example, you see people that are teaching that there are roles between men and women. I agree with that. God has given specific roles to mothers that He hasn't given to fathers. And there ought to be a distinction between man and woman and and the two ought to come together, and when they come together, they work in harmony, just like God has called them to. But people will take those principles, and they'll go down this road, and they'll make everything in the world, just all these little things, come out of that movement, and all these little commands. And so you see these movements in society, in Christian society, where people follow all these rules, and it's like, but where's the love of Jesus? Where's the love for neighbor? I see that you have all of your rules, and you're telling everybody they need to do everything in their family this way, like you're doing it, and how your group is doing it, and if you don't do that, then you're shamed and everything else. You see this type of thing happen, but there's no talk of Jesus. There's no love for Christ. And so we need to avoid those things that have the appearance of wisdom. The other thing is don't substitute laws and rituals and formalities with the love of God. And how do we avoid legalism? We begin by acknowledging and understanding, first and foremost, that we are sinners. that we must be made low, that we cannot bring ourselves to God. There's not enough prayers, there's not enough things that we can do to save ourselves. But it is Jesus Christ and Christ alone who can save us from the wrath to come, and to save us from our sins. And when we see our need for Christ, and we understand the great love by which He loved us, and we look to the cross, we look to Jesus by faith and trust Him, that's where it all starts. We recognize the love that God has had for us first. And when we're saved, when God has saved us from our sins, then we go on with that new heart and we love God and we love our neighbor. And a person who's truly born again is, though a believer might fall into this, if we have a true love for God, we will avoid legalism. The other thing we want to do is keep ourselves in the love of God, as Jude said. Do the things you did at first. Maybe your heart has grown cold, and your religion, your Christianity has just become very duty-driven, and it's not out of a love for God. What you need to do is do what Jesus said. Go and do the things you did at first. Remember when you loved God when you first came to know Him? What were you doing? You were just walking with Him in simple faith. You were believing in Him, trusting in Him, all of these things. And you're just walking with God, loving God. Go back and do those things. Drop the formalities and go back and do the things you did at first. And then ask yourself this question. Do I love God, and do I have a genuine love for Christ? What does your heart look like? Does it truly love God? That will be manifested in how you obey the commandments. You'll do it out of love for God. Ask yourself, do I have a love for those around me? Do I have a genuine concern for the poor, the needy, the widow, for the helpless, for the orphan, for those around me? James 1.27 said, Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit the orphans and the widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world. That's true religion. Loving God and loving our neighbor as ourself. That's true, genuine, biblical Christianity. And I don't know where your heart is this morning, but if it's cold and it's indifferent, you need to run to the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to look to Him upon the cross. Maybe you need to be saved. You need to trust Him. And if you're a believer, maybe you just need to go back and focus on that relationship, cultivating that time alone with God and loving Him and basking in the riches of His grace that He has shown you in the Lord Jesus Christ. But keep yourself in the love of God. Don't be a Pharisee. that is focused on the externals, but misses the whole heart, the condition of the heart. Focus on your heart. Where is it with God? Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Let's pray. Father, as we come to you this morning, we thank you for your word. Lord, I pray that we would avoid, Lord, living in just a duty-driven, life. I pray that we would not just live by rules and regulations, but we pray that we would live for Christ out of a love for Jesus. And Lord, we know that when we're truly in love with Christ, we will want to obey your commandments. Lord, I pray that you would give us all love for Jesus, a greater love. If anyone's here today that has a heart that has grown cold, I pray that they would get rid of the sin that is in their life, that they would repent. and that they would turn back to you, and that they would cultivate that time alone with you, that they would spend time in that relationship with you, loving you and getting to know you. And Father, I pray that if anyone today does not know Christ, I pray today would be the day of salvation. In Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.