What is your relationship with Christ this night? When I ask that, I'm not asking whether you can remember a time that you prayed a prayer to receive Christ as your Savior. I'm asking, I'm asking about your daily life this week. I'm asking about the state of your heart tonight. What is your relationship with Jesus Christ? I've shared with you before that one of the most haunting statements I ever heard was from a young man, a serial adulterer who had been engaged in ministry since boyhood. We said, I've been doing all the serving of the Lord, but I have no walk with Christ. What is your relationship to Christ? Because apart from him, there's nothing of value we can do in the sight of God. Apart from him, we have no Christianity at all. Apart from him, we're just engaged in the charade that men call religion. Last time we looked at Matthew 23, we were noting the religious leaders that Jesus denounces, he took on abusive spiritual leadership. We learned from the middle portion of Matthew 23 that God is not fooled by abusive spiritual leaders. They might get the accolades and they might have the paychecks and they might be highly revered, but God's not fooled by them, nor will Jesus let them go unconfronted. However common it is to engage in abusive spiritual leadership, and we see it throughout human history. Remember, those characteristics of that abusive leadership was a refusal of salvation while blocking the way for others. It was a public religious display that masked the abuse of the vulnerable or selfish gain. It was characterized by sectarian zeal that actually increased the sin and the doom of their followers and made them twice the children of hell. And then it also engaged in complex rules that ended up sanctioning sin, contrary to the clear intent of God's law. All of those sins have to do with the poisonous effect that abusive leadership has on those that are being led on those that are being taught. But the problem with the men that Jesus is addressing wasn't just the damage done by what they taught others. The fact was that the kind of religion that they were practicing was itself a fraud. So Jesus now moves from confronting them as spiritual leaders to confronting them as hypocrites, for theirs was a religion of masks playing a role in a religious play, but hiding who they really were before God and even hiding from themselves what they really were. Jesus calls them blind guides and blind fools. So whether or not we serve in a teaching role or a leadership role, we can find ourselves slipping into the twisted kind of religion that had become the stock and trade of the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus Day. We have to remember that while to us two thousand years removed, they are the quintessential villains of the story. They were in Jesus Day the most influential and respected of all religious leaders. And so what that means is is regular folk like us, if we were living in that day, we would get our concept of what biblical religion is largely from these men. It's a terrible state of affairs where those that are supposed to be leading in godliness are actually practicing religious fraud. And that problem actually continues to this day because of the kind of religion that Jesus is confronting. Has to do not just with the the doctrine of the Pharisees or the particular sect that was popular in that day. It actually has more to do with the deceptive nature of the human heart. They are merely historical example of the way our flesh operates as we try to be religious, apart from a genuine relationship with God. So we begin our reading of verse twenty three of Matthew twenty three, where Jesus declares, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and come in and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guys straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel. 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're 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. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them and shedding the blood of the prophets. Thus, you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets, not just that you are descendants of them, but you have their same character. You serpents, you brood. I skipped a verse, didn't I? Verse 32, fill up then the measure of your fathers, your serpents, your brood of vipers. How are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore, I send you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify and you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth from the blood of righteous able. In the book of Genesis, the very first righteous man murdered to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barakaya. That's from Second Chronicles, the last book in the order of the Hebrew Bible. So from first to last, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. We look at look at the focus of these verses. What struck me is what I brought out already, that he was talking not just about the teaching tendency and the leadership tendency of these men, but about the religion they practiced itself. So tonight I want to talk to you on twisted religion. I'm calling it twisted religion because it began with the word of God. It began with those who were to be the guardians of God's truth and the true worship of God. It began among the people that God had favored with revelation. But they have twisted it to be something that God never intended, it was twisted religion. What characterizes twisted religion? Well, verses twenty three to twenty four tell us that twisted religion is characterized by reversed priorities, reversed priorities. It emphasizes the trivial on neglecting the weighty. Second, it's characterized versus twenty five to twenty eight by externalism. It seeks to appear clean on the outside or remaining corrupt on the inside. Third, twisted religion is characterized versus twenty nine to thirty six by persecution. It honors God's messengers of the past while mistreating God's messengers of the present. It is a twisted religion and. It's the kind of religion to which all of us drift. In our flesh. And so we want to pray tonight that God will teach us. Now, as you look at Matthew 23, if you read your Bible through any number of times, you know, when you get to Matthew 23, Jesus is pulling off the gloves. And when Jesus pulls off the gloves, it's hard to take. It's easier to take when you think he's just targeting those bad people who aren't us. But when we start seeing ourselves and start seeing how much this is natural to the human heart. We realize that Jesus is warning us as well. So let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, thank you for your word and we thank you for the way it not only instructs us, but the way it rebukes us and corrects us. And Lord, as we we think about the men that Christ was addressing. And that day. These are men that. for the most part, given their lives to recording the Scriptures and teaching them. They were considered the men that were the safeguard against the encroachment of worldliness and the go to theologians of the day. And yet, over the course of time, because of the natural bent of the human heart, They had actually reached the point where their religion was so twisted that the very God that they claim to worship was the God that they hated enough to murder. Because these men were the men that saw to it that Jesus was crucified. God, may we have no part. With such thinking and such living. Help us understand that this is the natural bent of the human heart. Human beings are naturally religious with all kinds of flavors. What I pray that we might practice a religion. That is truly Christianity. That is rooted in a relationship with God that is honest and humble. Loving. And dependent. the Holy Spirit of God transform us and what we are from the inside out. God protect us from sham. Protect us from the paths that lead to this kind of twistedness. We pray these things for the honor of the Lord Jesus for the sake of the great mission that you have given us to display It's proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to our world. It's in his name that we pray. Amen. Twisted religion first, consider with me the twisted religion suffers from reversed priorities, emphasizing the trivial on neglecting The weighty look at verse twenty three, what do you scribes and Pharisees, you tithe mint and dill and common different kinds of spices. We're familiar with these. We still use them today. If you'd like dill pickles, it's dill. That's part of what makes the dill pickles taste like dill pickles. If you like chili, chances are not only is there chili powder in that chili, but there's coming as well. You tie the spices, but you've neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guide straining out in that and swallowing a camel. The Old Testament law. prescribed hives, giving a tenth of the produce of the land. I mean, that's really for many people was was where their income came from. Whatever the land produced in the Pharisees had applied this law in their in their effort to be very righteous, even down to their spices, the ments and the dill and the common for example, common spices in that day and in ours. Now, Jesus says these you ought to have done. In other words, precise tithing is not a wrong thing. It's not a bad thing to give a tenth to God, even though God's law did not prescribe that you had to tithe even your spices. That kind of precision was actually small to God. But Jesus doesn't want them to miss the point. The point is not throwing out the tithing per se. It is that it's possible to obsess on what is small to God while you neglect what is large. It is possible to focus on what God does not require while we ignore what he does and to wage jihad for the sake of what the scriptures don't require. Well, we show no interest in what they stress. What is waiting? What carries weight and even with the spices, you know, spices are fairly light, you'd have to measure in teaspoons, really not by weight. What is weighty with God? What carries weight with him? What does he count of great importance? So Jesus lists three examples. He talks about justice. That's the the ethical and fair dealings that you would have with other people in law and in business and your daily affairs. Are you a person whose word can be trusted? Are you a person who who pays his debts? Are you a person who pays a fair wage? Do you exercise justice toward others? Are you righteous in your dealings and then mercy? and in this case, he's likely referring to the loyal love that we've been looking at in the morning series and Ruth often translated mercy in the New Testament. That loyal love more than even refraining from from punishing someone who deserves it. That's what we think of when we think of mercy. But God has a larger reference point than that, that love that's loyal, that that that issues in kind deed, showing kindness to others out of love and out of loyalty. In fact, this is one of the things that, you know, Micah 6, 8 says, What does the Lord require of you? One of the things is a love mercy to love, love, loyal love your You're committed, you're faithful to people, you're loyal in your love to people, just as God is loyal and his love to you. And then third, faithfulness, trustworthiness. You can be counted on your faithful in your duties, your faithful in your word, justice, mercy and faithfulness. What was the problem with all three of these? You can't measure these qualities the way you measure out spices. And yet, You and I know whether a person is showing justice. You and I know whether he's displaying loyal love. We know whether a person can be counted on because he's faithful, even if you can't quantify it in terms of teaspoons. In other words, spices may be more tangible. But they are not more real. Justice, mercy, faithfulness, the fact is. A person can be a master of tithing spices. Without any change of heart toward God and without any attitude or action of benefit toward others, without any mark that he's actually been born again and that he actually even knows God. So much of what religion touts is high standards can be practiced by people who have no relationship with God. and do no one else any good. There's no love of God, there's no love of others, but they keep the rules. Character qualities of justice and mercy and faithfulness, on the other hand, display transformed character. That brings about goodness into the lives of others. God has saved us that we might show that we might show good works to others, that we might proclaim the excellency of him who has called us out of darkness into light. We're to shine. We're to we're to display genuine goodness that actually helps people. And apart from that, the gospel rings untrue. Because it's that transformation that marks it is for real to neglect these. is to neglect the whole purpose of God's saving us. And while we know that is true. You will nonetheless listen long and hard to hear someone talk about high standards of love or of joy or of peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith and meekness. We letter them We take the fruit of the spirit and it becomes artwork for our walls. And yet, when it comes down to doing battle royal for the faith, they disappear off the scene. Yet these demonstrate whether or not God, the spirit actually resides in a person and controls him. And it's striking that Paul talks about the fruit of the spirit against which there is no law. in in the context of confronting the legalism that had taken over the thinking of the believers in the province of Galatia. Despite the Council of Jerusalem said we're not gonna put all these these other ceremonial cultural requirements on the Gentile believers is believers from the ethnicities have entirely different setting than our Jewish believers. It's at least these very basic kinds of things despite that. The Judaizers had convinced many of the Galatian believers that adhering to the Mosaic law, especially in its ceremonial requirements, was necessary, not so much the salvation as it was to spiritual growth and as such was a mark of spiritual maturity. In other words, they would say something like this. Well, when you as a Gentile believer really become mature in the faith, And you will practice the same kinds of ceremonies. I know you're a new believer, and so we'll give you a pass for now, but when you become mature, then you will practice these cultural and ceremonial requirements. But it was all a lie. It's actually another gospel. So what Paul is opposing in Galatia was not another way of entering into salvation, it was a way of becoming sanctified once you are a believer. And he argues, just as you were never saved by the works of the law or by your ceremony, you aren't sanctified that way either. You can pile up. All the tithes and splicings, you can engage in all the ceremonial requirements. Service orders and dress standards and the whole nine yards. And you will not be one with more spiritual. Or one with closer to God. Spiritual growth. Does not come through ceremonial rules, nor does it hearing to them prove anything but that you can keep the rules. If that was true of the ceremonies rooted in Old Testament law. How much more is it true? Of those rooted in nothing but historical culture. If Jesus were preaching this message today, he would be just as offensive to his audience today as he was then. Jesus calls these men blind guides to be blind is bad enough to presume to guide others when you're blind is reckless endangerment. They are straining out of that. You know, you're drinking. I don't like drinking that. But I think I can get the net down better than I can the camel. They're straining out and out and swallowing a camel. And over the years, it's been striking observation for me, and this is this is purely anecdotal, but I think it's true to form that usually those who are most likely to be outraged about trivialities. Turn out to be enslaved to some great sin pattern in their lives. It's almost like distraction. It's almost like the second reminds me years ago of one of my nieces when she was just like two or three years old and I was told second hand and it's been a long time since I've heard I hope I get it right. But she had gone someplace she wasn't supposed to go in the house. There's a room she wasn't supposed to go and I think that was the sin. And when she was confronted about it immediately she holds up her finger and goes hurt finger. It was distraction from her sin. And so often the obsession with the trivialities and going to war in the trivialities hides that we're not dealing with some major sin in our lives. Fact is, true Christianity, true religion is centered in Christ. And he's a savior. He's a savior that has to save us from ourselves and transform us at the level of character and desire and the way that we know that we are his the way that that people see true religion is by the change of our character. That issues in real deeds that benefit other people. Not really so much by the high standards. When I say high standards, I'm not talking about high standards that God requires. I'm talking about cultural high standards. Those that focus on trivialities trivialize the gospel itself. I mean, think about it. If all that coming, becoming a believer is and I'm not. I don't know if there's any way I thought about this message tonight. My wife asked me if I'm OK, and I'm just thinking, how can I preach this without being offensive? So I'm just telling you it's going to be offensive tonight, I think, as I think about this. But really, is my goal, as we try to win other people to Christ, is my goal that they just look sharp? Is the way I'm going to tell whether or not they're following God is by the style of their haircut. Or their choice of garments. I'm not talking about modesty. I'm not talking about transvestite ism. But I am talking about the things that we debate about, about, you know, how casual should it be or not? I mean, is that really my goal? I mean, if if everybody were clean cut and sharp looking, is that the goal of Christianity? And I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be clean parts and sharp. I mean, I did my best tonight. A little cologne doesn't hurt the shower once a day, at least. It's helpful, but that can't be as far as it goes. And that actually can be practiced by unbelievers all over the world. That's not how that's not what makes it real. What makes it real is my character is actually changing. I actually love other people more than myself. That's extraordinary if that happens, right? I mean, if I'm actually behaving with humility and self-sacrifice. I'm actually bearing up and are trying circumstances and irritating people and doing it with endurance and long suffering. If I'm forbearing with the sins of others, if I'm reaching out to those in need, if I'm I'm taking what I could have used for myself and I'm using it for somebody else to help them. That's where the rubber meets the road. That's that's that's when you know it's for real. You travel all over the world and all kind of ways that people show that they're religious. I mean, you go to Cambodia, you know that you're religious if you're wearing a bright orange robe. And you're walking around barefoot and you're doing little chants for people for money. Buddhist priest. We all know we look at that and because it's foreign culture, that's crazy. That doesn't prove anything. What if they were wearing suits and ties instead? It's no difference. Two hundred years ago, I'd be wearing knickers and a lacy crobat. I mean, one of the big arguments with our pilgrim forefathers is whether or not the pastor's wife should have whalebone in her garments and the church split over it. I mean, it's just stuff of comedy, several hundred years removed, but then it's with the church. We all know, you know, if you step back, we all know that that's not what it's really about. Straining at Nats and swallowing Campbell's true Christianity is Christ and the transforming work he does, so this reverse priorities is one of the characteristics of twisted religion. Make the big things the big things and let God define what the big things are. Or what you have is just some man-made twisted religion. Second, externalism. Externalism seeks to appear clean on the outside while remaining corrupt on the inside. What do you scribes and Pharisees? You clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they're full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee. First, clean the inside of the cup and the plate, but the outside also may be clean. What are you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites? You're all like whitewashed tombs is outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all in cleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Now, you know, we start looking at this and the common charge of Christianity is, you know, I'd be part of the church, but there's so many hypocrites. Well, you could just turn around, be part of the world, but there's so many hypocrites. I'd be part of the human race, but there's so many hypocrites. I mean, the fact is, the fact is, we all naturally. It's easier to look good on the outside than it is to be good on the inside, I mean, can we just admit that right? I mean, that we've got to deal with who we really are, and it's much easier just to deal with the outside. It's it's it's much easier to get the shower, it's much easier to get to look sharp than it is to be good. So. What they're practicing is just that same normal human way of dealing with life on steroids. The very cups they drank from are full of the fruits of their greed and their self-indulgence. But to them, the important thing was that the cups have been washed and washed correctly. in line with ceremonial procedures for washing. That's one image Christ uses. It was important to those coming to Jerusalem during festival season to be able to identify wherever the tombs were so they didn't touch them and become ceremonially unclean and thus unable to participate, say, in the Passover that was coming up. So whitewashing the tombs was important and the whitewashing made the tombs look bright and sparkling in the midday sun, but it didn't change the contents of the tomb. Inside, it's still rotting bodies and moldering bones full of a stench and corruption of death. Twisted religion goes to great lengths to appear righteous to others. With little concern about being truly righteous before God. It works hard at making sure it doesn't get in trouble with What's demanded, say, in the Christian school or the church? This happens particularly among our children reared in our families. It's like they they learn how to conform to the culture. They learn how to say the right things. They learn how you're supposed to say it if you're spiritual. Meanwhile, neglect what's going on. On the inside, little concern about being truly righteous before God. Are you concerned about the state of your heart before God? Or is your main concern when it comes to religious things, just making sure other people think you're OK, your parents, grandparents, your teachers, friends? Are you actually dealing with who you are? And how you think and what you desire. These that Jesus is confronting were full of hypocrisy and lawlessness, they were They were murderers at heart, but they were maneuvering to destroy Jesus and they were practiced liars. The truth of God was not nearly so important to them as protecting their standard teachings and practices and their way of life. The survival of institutions and their subculture was where they poured their efforts. And if God himself was perceived as a threat to their way of doing things, even God must die. Let me ask you, does your Christianity extend only as far as what others can observe? I'm really glad you're here tonight, and I wish more of our congregation here tonight. I think there's there's value in God's people gathering together on the Lord's Day as much as they can and getting as much of the word of God as they can. But. You know, everybody can see that you're here. So I might look at you and say, well, you're you must be a good Christian because you're here. I see your face every Sunday night and you can maybe even come on the Wednesday night or you go to a life group. And I OK. And all these things ought to be beneficial to you, but what's actually going on in your heart? A lot of they endure the services and they ought to do their duty to be there, they're going to do their duty. What's going on in your heart? Do you work hard at doing and saying what you believe will look good to others while you pretty much neglect what matters to God? In other words, if only God knows about it, does it even make the meter? Are you upset? Are you as upset about being unclean in your thoughts and your private life? As you are about others, knowing you to be guilty of corrupt deeds. In other words, this religion about saving face and a good reputation, or is it actually about your personal relationship, your walk with God? Speaking, how can we test that? Well, let's let's start with the Ten Commandments. Let's talk about things we know God wants. Is there anything? Is there any other God? Before him. Is there anything you love more? You're devoted to more. You think about more. You want more than him. Do you hate anyone? And bear a grudge against them and wish them harm. Maybe they did you wrong. Because that's the heart of murder. Do you live in nearly a perpetual state of adultery in your mind? Do you lie? Or are you really honest and truthful? You live in a fairly wealthy nation. We've had a tough economy here for several years, but. Are you a covetous person? In your in your heart, do you live? To possess more. And when you see somebody that has something of great value, does your heart response immediately, I wish I had it. That's what I want. Are you really a materialist in that you think more things are going to actually make you happy? I mean, that's just a sampling from the Ten Commandments. And the reality is, when we start looking at these things, even the Ten Commandments, we realize that we are hopeless sinners. That on the inside, we're corrupt and we're naturally bent this way. I mean, some people sometimes excuse their sin and say, you ought to celebrate my sin because I'm just was made this way. I'm this naturalist way. Well, look, we're all naturally sinners. We sin because we're sinners. We all naturally do what's corrupt because that's what our flesh wants. Our flesh rebels against God. And the real religion is a rescue religion that actually rescues us from ourselves. To the power of the living God. It is not a religion about how good you can make yourself through sheer determination. Is that religion has to become external, it cannot deal. Honestly, with what we really are in our hearts, and that's what Jesus deals with us, that's where God deals with us, he sees our heart. So let me flip it, I've talked about the sense, let's talk about good things. What about time in God's word? Do you spend time in God's word just because you want to be there to know Christ better? Not just because you have to complete an assignment for Bible class. I mean, do you open the word of God on your own other than when in a church service like this, when we say open your Bibles and look at. Do you even desire it? What about time and prayer? Do you spend time talking to God when no one else is around? Or is your prayer life confined? To when you're in a prayer group expected to pray. What about meditation on God in his truth and his ways? We talk about our thought like we struggle with our thought like, right? What about your thought like how much of it is directed toward him? Versus meditation on simple practices that you would be embarrassed to do in front of people. Giving to the Lord, do you give to the Lord mainly when you will receive recognition from others? Or do you give to the Lord regularly, secretly, cheerfully? Because you love furthering his gospel and you love helping those in need. You see what we're looking at here is it's not that that real religion doesn't show on the outside, it does. It's that it's not outside only. It's not merely about looking good, it's about actually being good. And to be good. Requires that you be born again. And that you be yielding the Holy Spirit of God and you be walking with Jesus. And what's tough about that is you can't measure it, all the tangible, I mean, you know, when it's there and you know when it's happening, but it's not like you can quantify it. I mean, Paul's goals for the people he wrote, he said, I'm in labor till Christ be formed in you. It's an audacious goal. So, God does with people that belong to him and make him more like Jesus. And it's not mere externalism. Third, twisted religion is characterized by persecution. It honors God's messengers of the past while mistreating God's messengers of the present. Verse twenty nine, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets. Thus, you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. My father, like son. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers, your serpents, your brood of vipers. How are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore, I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify. Some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute in town to town so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth from the blood of righteous able to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barakaya, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Way back in Genesis, we learned that the serpent who guiled Eve has his offspring. And that they are at enmity with the offspring of the woman. Like poisonous vipers, they bite and they kill. John the Baptist identified these same men as from that brood of vipers. And so does Jesus, who knows them even better than John did. They honored the prophets of the past. But they hated the prophets of the present. They were about to crucify Jesus. If history is correct, historical tradition, they crucified Peter, they crucified Jesus, half brother Simeon, they would flog Paul, they would hound him from city to city. They made Paul's life a just a living persecution all over the ancient world. They finally Got him to appeal to Caesar in Rome. It was safe to honor dead prophets. Dead prophets can't confront your unbelief and sin. It was the live ones that caused the problem. What these enemies of Jesus practice is not as foreign to our experience as you might think. You're about to read the kind of language those devoted to some man-made standard use against those who don't adhere to their views. Never forget the comments of one of our secretaries when. Shortly after publishing the second book on translation being part of that. And the comment was, I don't know. All the technicalities of this particular issue, but I know what spirit this is. The spirit is wrong as far as the kind of attacks that are made. Now, many a person will talk glowingly about Luther's courage in standing for the authority of God's word will nonetheless bristle when a preacher today suggests the word of God does not require what they require as a standard of righteousness. or dares to put the Bible in the language of the common man. I mean, how do you think we ever got the King James? Let me encourage you, if you struggle with that translation issue to get the translators to the readers that's available in our in our bookstore area. The original preface to the King James Version as to why they made what they called that very vulgar, very common translation for the common man. So you wouldn't be fooled by false teachers. Many a Baptist will bask in the glow of Spurgeon's ministry. At the same time, will vilify today's preachers who hold exactly the same doctrines he did. Many a person will thrill to Fanny Crosby songs. There's a Paul to someone today were as broad in their associations as she was. will declare allegiance to fundamentalism. Would be outraged if such a coalition were emerged today. A coalition on the fundamentals. Millions will join in singing Newton's Amazing Grace, but will accuse those who hold his views of salvation as being heretics. Had a preacher friend. Either rhetoric preached Ephesians one. They had a couple of his members come up afterwards and they opened their Bibles, had their Bibles open to Ephesians one and they point down to what Ephesians one says about election. And they said, do you believe this? Do you actually believe this? And my friend said, well, yes, I mean, I mean, they didn't mean that they weren't even talking about his explanation of it, just what it said. And they said, well, we can't stay members here, then. That's not uncommon response. The last time I read through Ephesians one similar response when I read through nine on Wednesday night a while back. I was accused of being a heretic. Not to my face of course. How often do we hear. Well I know what the Bible says there but I believe. Or I know that the Bible does not say anything about that, but it just seems to me or that's what we were always taught was right. Or there's nothing scripturally wrong with what that ministry is doing. But I fear the direction that they're taking. How many Christians in churches have been demonized for no wrongdoing, but for supposedly being on the slippery slope to wrongdoing, not for violating God's word, but for breaking through a man made hedge about it. And usually what they're called is worldly, with no reference at all to the scriptures that tell us what worldliness is. How many are condemned, not for what they believe or how they live, because they do not belong to the approved group and did not get their schooling at the approved school or gaining a greater following than we are. We live in a community. It does not have the civil authority to imprison and to kill preachers of God's word. But it delights to murder the reputations of people who love God. And to misrepresent what they teach and believe, often because there's been no due diligence to find out. We worry about persecution from the pagans and those devoted to immorality. And certainly, persecution can and will come from those sources. But most of what faithful preachers of God's words face in our country, in our community, is slander and mistreatment from those who think they're serving God. Satan doesn't have to use the pagans. The professing Christians are too useful. And their barbs hurt more because they come from those we count as friends and family. The same is true in the first century and really the centuries in between. Much of the mistreatment the church faces comes from religious people. And nearly always what you find is that devotion to religion has become more important than devotion to the authority of the scriptures or concern for true godliness as the scriptures define it. a devotion to twisted religion. Jesus Christ pronounces woe against these men. It's a wail of sorrow, and it's also a cry of judgment. It's not just that Jesus confronts the twisted religion and speaks out against it, but that God will severely judge those who practice it. And that's why we must take warning. Verse thirty one, he says, you give witness against yourselves. Verse thirty two, you are filling up the measure of your father's verse thirty three. How are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Verse thirty five on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth. It's like all that sin is piling up like an avalanche to fall on that particular generation. And he says, truly, I say to you, verse thirty six, all these things will come upon this generation. What does that teach us? Well, God is not blind. to twisted religion, nor will he let it go unchecked and unjudged. These kinds of sins drag people to the lake of fire, burning the soul for forever. In 70 A.D., the temple was burned and Jerusalem was destroyed. And to this day, judicial blindness rests on the nation of Israel. And yet, to the point of Jesus coming to the earth, they were the most privileged people in all of human history. It has happened not just to the Jews, but to any people who have been given truth over and over again. But do not get real and get right with God. About the true nature of their hearts and lives. Is to come to twisted religion with reverse priorities, emphasizing the trivial while neglecting the weighty. Externalism seeking to appear clean on the outside while remaining corrupt on the inside and then persecution honoring God's messengers of the past while mistreating God's messengers of the present. God deliver us from this kind of twistedness and may we be open and honest before God. Humble. Loving. Just. Merciful. Faithful. Those who display the light of the countenance of Jesus Christ. To a world that needs him. Not just religion. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word and Lord, I pray that. So I tried to make application tonight that. Whatever I've said, that's chaff would be blown away with the breath of your spirit. Whatever, Lord, is truth. And productive of true holiness and righteousness before you. That God, it will plant the and root down and grow strong and bear fruit that is sweet to the glory of Jesus. Lord, it's so easy for us to play religion. It's so easy for us to get by. God, help our walk with you to be genuine. Help our love for you to be genuine. We'll make mistakes. We'll see things in ways that are are messed up. We'll have misunderstandings. Because we're frail. We're foolish. But, Lord, in spite of that, we pray that by the power of your spirit. People will also see that we are growing in Christ. That we're becoming more and more like Him. And that the Gospel we declare is more than just a mantra. It's a life. A life given us by Jesus. A life to His praise. For it's in His name we pray, Amen.