in your Bibles to Matthew 23, we're going to be returning to our series through Jesus's last public speech, his last public discourse, where he is rebuking the scribes and Pharisees, but he's doing it publicly so that believers listening to him, for his last week here on earth, begin to glean great wisdom and truth from the Lord Jesus, and warning about hypocrisy. It's a bit painful, it's uncomfortable, but there's great things that we must listen, learn, and live by in order to have effective ministry. So I will read verses 25 to 28 of Matthew 23. I commence the reading. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You, blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. This is the word of God. Well, these are what we call woes five and six in the series that the Lord Jesus has here. The Lord Jesus, in his final public teaching, is rebuking those who lead others away from the truth, and those same people are planning to kill him. In our last book, we learned of the fourth wall, where he's saying, well, you tithe mint, dill, and cumin. You tithe the little teeny, tiny, small herbs you may find in your kitchen, but you're ignoring, at the same time, justice, mercy, and faithfulness. And these enemies of Christ were indeed straining out a gnat, but swallowing a camel. This is the meaning. They were paying no attention to the really important requirements of God's law, but instead using all of their thoughts and energy on what was totally unimportant. No wonder that Jesus prefaces this metaphor by calling these men blind guides. And he does so again in this woe as well. To be blind is sad enough, but while in this condition, to serve as a guide is disastrous for all of those who would follow you by such willfully blind men. Choosing to be blind, proud in your blindness, which is a terrible thing. Why did they choose to be blind? Well, the next 12, that's five and six, explain it. People who are spiritually blind believe that they are beautiful in righteousness and full of life, when in fact they are completely ugly and completely dead. Look at the text again, verse 25. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. The Lord Jesus earlier, the gospel of Mark chapter seven, gives us a bit more detail about this business of washing the cup and the plate. And I read from our hearing now, just as a reminder, Mark chapter seven, verses three through eight. I'll begin in verse three. For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, They do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as washing of cups and pots and other vessels on the dining couches. And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands? And he said to them, well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, these people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. You lead the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men." We human beings, we're very funny. Terribly sinful is what I mean by funny. We love the idea of a religion, but not the careful searching of heart that is supposed to happen in a genuine, true heart change. Christian religion, but we love symbols and ritual in order to communicate a spiritual idea, but we have almost no interest in the actual spiritual reality. And it seems like the more we love symbols and rituals, the farther we move away from the actual understanding of who we are. What Jesus is saying about these so-called spiritual leaders is that they pay much more attention to the complicated ritual of cleansing the cup rather than the ethics of how they were able to receive the things put into that cup and onto that plate. The way that they got their food. Jesus shows that the ethics of the scribes by describing the cup and the plate is full of greed and indulgence. In other words, Jesus is saying, listen, you're so careful about making sure everything is clean, but how did you get your food? How do you sustain yourselves? Well, you're greedy and you have no self-control. That's how you're getting your food. Meaning, it's corruption. It's a scheme. They're being tricky and clever. The word used here in the text for greed is terrible. It's the same word you would use for a soldier who spoils a house during war. He takes what he wants, and he doesn't care, because he said, well, it's war. These people are gone anyway. In other words, Jesus is saying these men are guilty of going after material things of their people in the name of religion. The way they receive the things may have appeared to be so righteous. But instead, what's actually going on is extortion. They're manipulating people by emotions and deceitful tricks to get from people what they should never get. People like to say, do you love God? Do you want to receive the month of Judgment? Do you want to receive blessings? Hallelujah. You need to sow a seed. You guys know this, right? It's deceitful, it's underhanded, it's manipulating cultural images and ideas that they will give. And it's a dishonest thing. It's a con, as we like to say in modern language. It's an idea, it's a way of convincing people to do things they shouldn't. It's incredibly sad. How often do we see this today, Christian? We use music, images, words to get people to feel guilty, extra holy and righteous. We send money to this or that need. All along, it's being used for selfish purposes. The word self-indulgence that Jesus uses here is completely and especially painful to hear. Jesus is accusing these men of a complete lack of self-control. Now that's a weird thing. There's a guy in a nice robe, he's been to the religious school, he's memorized most of the Torah, he's been in this cycle all his life because he's from the Levitical tribe, and this is a guy who looks so holy and righteous and he has no self-control? Jesus, are you serious? Yeah, deadly serious, no self-control. Why does he say that? Because if you're greedy, you're used to getting whatever you want when you want it, and have long since forgotten what it meant, long since forgotten to feel that guilt and that pain and that conviction of sin. And the way they were filling their cup and the plate was a sinful process. They don't feel guilt anymore is what he's basically saying. In Luke chapter 16, verse 14, Jesus made it clear that these very same men were lovers of money. They had funds under their control, which were given them freely by both the rich and the poor. They had no right to use these for selfish purposes. And that's what Jesus is accusing them. Today, in our modern language, we call it misappropriation of funds. Common thing. Of course, you and I, we have no excuse either. I've lost count how many times I've had to remind someone to use funds just exactly for what they're intending. So simple, so basic, but it frightens me that the very basic ethic in the handling of money is so hard for us as human beings. Greed and self-indulgence are so simple and easy for us to fall into. How then should we handle this tendency? Well, let's look at verse 26. I'll read it again for a reminder. You blind Pharisees, first clean the inside of the cup, and the plate at the outside may also be cleaned. In the middle of this long speech in the temple, Jesus changes from the plural to the singular. He's saying, wait a minute, he's looking, maybe some particular scribe or Pharisee and saying, wait a minute, you're doing something wrong, you're doing this. What is Jesus doing by moving from the plural to the singular? The reason why he's doing this is he wants to personalize this and identify with this potential sin in our lives personally. When we preach the gospel, When we remind ourselves of God's law, those things, under the loving leadership of the Holy Spirit, convicted of a sin, you and I need to be confronted as individuals about our sins. We say in the confession, we need to repent of particular sins, particularly. We need to deal with those head on as they are. One of the reasons why I love the history of the Ugandan revival from 70 to 50 years ago was the emphasis on cleansing. If you remember the famous hymn that came out of that movement, Tukutende Reziyesu, that wonderful hymn talks about cleansing, the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit to make us clean. It means our behavior would change by the power and the grace of God. So Jesus, even in the midst of this rebuke, You idiot, you're wicked. What is he doing? He's calling them to repentance, even at this late hour, knowing these same guys are gonna kill him the next week. Shows he's a loving savior, doesn't it? Even to the very end, Jesus is preaching the gospel. What does he do in the beginning? He preaches repentance. What does he do at the very end? Preaches repentance. This is the only place in this speech where he demands it. He absolutely insists that we experience deep cleansing as God's leaders on the inside so that what we do on the outside reflects what's really going on. But to be honest, this is rare. We prefer panel beating and a re-spray on the outside of the vehicle, the outside of our souls, rather than a proper overhaul. This is why Jesus has to rebuke us with the words in verse 27, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. Now this metaphor, this word picture is very powerful because Passover is gonna happen next week and during this particular week, what other people were doing was they were taking crushed lime powder and they were sprinkling that white lime powder over all the graves you could get in Jerusalem. Why were they doing that? It's because it would make them look very white and clean to make them pretty, and also a pilgrim coming from all over Israel, if they weren't careful, they would step on a grave. In the Levitical law, if you step on a grave, you are unclean for seven days. Now think about it, you're a pilgrim coming way up country from Jerusalem, and you want to go participate in the Passover, the last thing you want to do is step on a grave and declare yourself unclean, and then you can no longer partake of the feast. Jesus is calling these Pharisees who outwardly look wonderful, like lime dust making pristine white, white, white, like we do on the football pitch to make the lines and boundaries for a football match, to look so wonderful, and yet, you're rotten on the inside. You look great, you look righteous, you look holy, but I know what's going on inside of you. Terrible. The scribes and Pharisees are making absolutely sure that they appear to be ceremonially clean. They've got an obsession with it. In our modern language, we would call this OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. They think of themselves as beautiful. Well, the reality is, if you're ugly and spiritually dead, what if that ugliness goes way deep to the bones? What is it about human nature that we, without hardly a thought, are so natural about making ourselves look good when we're not? Maybe I should take this suit off, right? I look good with my suit. Take it off. Schimke, show us who you really are. I'm just a sinner like everybody else. The whole system of lies and cover-ups in order to advertise to the world who we want them to believe we are. I think if this were not true, we wouldn't have an entertainment industry or apps where we update our status. I've got to make you think I'm okay when I'm not okay. Why do we work so hard at the suspension of disbelief? I think, for example, soap operas that are great, we know that it's fake, but we're really watching carefully to see if this guy is going to confess to his wife that he's got a girlfriend somewhere. Jesus concludes with a principle that should shock us into sober thinking in evaluation of our true motives as we do our ministry. I read again, verse 28. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Now, Jesus has been calling these men hypocrites the entire time. But here he brings the idea of complete spiritual death, that of being full of hypocrisy, meaning the lies, the entire web and system of lies have become so deep that they can't even begin to think about where they might have any kind of an honest truth about anything. You're living a lie. Your life is a lie. Anything that we know or claim to believe or desire, our motive for life, ritual or ceremony. In other words, the existence is a lie. In fact, what is Jesus saying? It's a living death. You guys have dead men's bones. If you think then that your life is a lie, you may have two extreme choices. Kill yourself, as some people do. I've seen that happen. Or kill the message. which is what these guys choose to do, remain absolutely stubborn, as we say in Uganda, complete and total, totally committed to their perspective. But our Lord Jesus, in calling them to repentance, has given them another option, and the only right one, repentance, cleansing. That means changing from the system of lies into a light of light. and genuine truth. Light, that means becoming transparent, walking in the light, walking with Christ, confessing sins. Back in those days of the Tuku Tenderize Yesu movement, if you met a fellow Molokole, the first question that the Molokole will ask you, besides saying, we'll come out here by some way, would say, are you repenting? I love that. Instead of, hi, how are you, how's the family, how's the children, how's the ministry, they say, are you repenting? And the answer has to be, well, you know what? I'm really struggling with a particular sin. You may have not ever met this person in your life before, ever, and right then and there, with another melochole, you would say, would you please pray with me about this sin in my life that's really struggling? You just met the God, and you're confessing sin. That, my friend, is revival. That, my friend, is no-joke Christianity. That, my friend, is repenting, as the Lord Jesus would have asked these men to do. King David learned this, when he wrote in Psalm 51, and I read from verse six to 10, behold, you delight in truth and the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness, that the bones that you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." If the Scribes and Pharisees had known and experienced this, Jesus would have had no reason to accuse them of being lawless. Can you imagine a scribe, an absolute legal scholar, a PhD in the Torah, being accused by our Lord Jesus of being lawless? That's insanity. But Jesus says it straight, you're lawless. Ouch. How strange and terrible it must be to accuse the very scholars of the law, to be those who despise it and consider it a small thing. something to be manipulated and used for selfish and greedy purposes to fill their cups and their plates. My friends, how is it with you today? Are you greedy? Are you self-indulgent? Are you lawless? We should be asking ourselves, how may I be cleansed by the Lord Jesus who calls me to repentance so that we do not become alive and live alive and so harm the name of Christ or his people? Our answer comes from John's first letter, chapter one, verse seven. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. In the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. My friends, we need to be asking the Lord and Savior to be shining light on our soul. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you've called us into your service by the power of the Holy Spirit. We're grateful for that. And as we look into the law of liberty, we notice that we are selfish and greedy. And sometimes we're lawless. Lord Jesus, help us to walk in the light with you. Help us to be humble and transparent, confessing sin, moving from greater and greater repentance. Not perfectionism, Lord, but just daily walking with you, knowing that your grace is working within us. Not to be burdened by guilt, but to know that it is our duty and our responsibility to experience change. Thank you for this privilege. Thank you that the gospel and our Lord Jesus confronts us with the truth so that we make it an inner hard look at who we truly are and what we truly want to be. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.