Jeremiah 13. You see, we just sang about pride and how God brings down the proud and how He exalts the lowly. And here we see how proud Israel is humbled by God with this illustration of the linen sash of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 13. I'll read the entire chapter. This is God's holy word. Thus the Lord said to me, Go and get yourself a linen sash and put it around your waist, but do not put it in water. So I got a sash, according to the word of the Lord, and put it around my waist. And the word of the Lord came to me the second time, saying, Take the sash that you acquired, which is around your waist, and arise. Go to the Euphrates and hide it there in a hole in a rock. So I went and hid it by the Euphrates as the Lord commanded me. Now it came to pass after many days that the Lord said to me, Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take from there the sash which I commanded you to hide there. Then I went to the Euphrates and dug, and I took the sash from the place where I had hidden it. And there was the sash ruined. It was profitable for nothing. Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, Thus says the Lord, in this manner I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people who refuse to hear my words, who follow the dictates of their hearts and walk after other gods to serve them and worship them shall be just like this sash, which is profitable for nothing. For as the sash clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to me, says the Lord, that they may become my people for renown, for praise and for glory. But they would not hear. Therefore, you shall speak to them this word. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, every bottle shall be filled with wine and they will say to you, Do we not certainly know that every bottle will be filled with wine? Then you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings who sit on David's throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with drunkenness. And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, says the Lord. I will not have pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but will destroy them. Hear and give ear. Do not be proud, for the Lord has spoken. Give glory to the Lord your God before He causes darkness and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains. And while you are looking for light, He turns it into the shadow of death and makes it dense darkness. But if you will not hear, my soul will weep in secret for your pride. My eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears because the Lord's flock has been taken captive. Say to the king and to the queen mother, humble yourselves. Sit down, for your rule shall collapse. The crown of your glory, the cities of the south shall be shut up, and no one shall open them. Judah shall be carried away captive, all of it. It shall be wholly carried away captive. Lift up your eyes and see. Those who come from the north, where is the flock that was given to you? You are beautiful sheep. What will you say when He punishes you? For you have taught them to be chieftains, to be head over you. Will not pain seize you like a woman in labor? And if you say in your heart, why have these things come upon me? for the greatness of your iniquity. Your skirts have been uncovered. Your heels made bare. Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil. Therefore, I will scatter them like stubble that passes away by the wind of the wilderness. This is your lot. The portion of your measures from Me, says the Lord, because you have forgotten Me and trusted in falsehood. Therefore, I will uncover your skirts over your face, that your shame may appear. I have seen your adulteries and your lustful ne'ings, the lewdness of your harlotry, your abominations on the hills and the fields. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! Will you still not be made clean?" May God bless to us the solemn hearing of His Word. You know, as we look at this passage in Jeremiah, Just want to make a couple of comments before we go to our New Testament passage. Our New Testament passage that I'll be preaching from this morning has to do with the Pharisees and Jesus' denunciation of some of their errors. And you see here that in verse 11 that the Lord said, for as the sash clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me, says the Lord, that they may become My people for renown, for praise, and for glory, but they would not hear. God's Word calls us to join ourselves to Him in faith. To cling to Him. To hold to Him. And He's saying to Israel, you would not cling to Me. And so, this sash was supposed to be clinging to the waist of a man. So when it's separated, then it loses its whole purpose. It's ruined. It's good for nothing. And of course, it became full of holes and everything. And He's saying, this is what I'm going to do to you and your pride. Your pride that says we don't need the grace of God. We don't need God's salvation because of what we are in ourselves. And God is saying, I'm going to bring you down. I'm going to humble you. Well, he's warning them, pleading with them that they would turn and that they would repent. And so we find in our passage, which is in Matthew 23 this morning, the Lord Jesus making this same kind of plea. to His people. I'm going to read only the first 12 verses of this chapter, but the whole of Matthew 23 has to do with our Lord's call to the Pharisees to humble themselves and warnings to His people about that. Matthew 23, beginning in verse 1. Listen now as I read to you from God's holy and inspired Word. Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do. But do not do according to their works, for they say and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders. But they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. They love the best places at the feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But you do not be called Rabbi, for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your Father, for One is your Father, He who is in Heaven. And do not be called Teachers, for One is your Teacher, the Christ, But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant, and whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. May God impress these words on our hearts today as they are from his holy word. Now let's join in singing a song of imprecation, Psalm number 58B. As the Lord pronounces woes upon the Pharisees, so he has given us in his word songs to sing concerning his judgments for those who harden their hearts toward him. Psalm 58b. And I might mention to you that the chorus here or the melody, I should say, is on the tenor line. You may be gods, but can you claim that you speak righteousness? And do you judge the sons of men in truth and uprightness? No, even in your very heart you wickedness produce. On earth you weigh out with your hands your violent abuse. The wicked from their day of birth are strangers to the way. They from the womb come speaking lies, they wander far astray. They have the venom of a snake, they have an adder's ear. Which they have closed to charmers unskilled, Charmers they'll not hear. O God, inside their open mouths break off their cruel teeth. The fangs of these young lions, Lord, tear out by roots beneath. Let them like run-off waters be that leap the ground soon dry. Let arrows that he aims become like headless shafts that fly. Let them be like the snails that melt along the course they run. Or like one prematurely born Who never sees the sun They are like blazing thorns Which you beneath your kettles lay Whose heat is scarcely felt before A wind sweeps them away. The just rejoices when he sees that vengeance is complete. For in the blood of wicked men he then will wash his feet. They'll say there surely is reward for righteous ones of worth. There surely is a living God who judges in the earth. We're coming to Matthew 23. We're beginning this chapter in our Matthew Sermon Series. And in this chapter, we have the very last public discourse of our Lord Jesus Christ. He certainly speaks to His disciples after this, but this is the last public discourse with the multitude present as well as His disciples. And verse 1 shows us that the multitude is still present. And as He speaks, we see that He at points addresses the Pharisees and the scribes directly. And so that shows us that some of them were also still present. It's very striking to see what Jesus chooses for the topic of His last public address. It is a severe imprecation against the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy. It's the psalm we just sang looking at them as lions that are devouring the flock of God that has been entrusted to them. He pronounces a whole series of woes upon them. It's one of the most scathing denunciations in the whole Scripture. It is not surprising to find that many unbelieving Bible scholars have a serious problem with this chapter. It doesn't fit in with their ideas of what Jesus is supposed to be. You know, it's become fashionable among them to suppose that Matthew was the one who came up with all of these things. And because he was having a problem with the Pharisees when he wrote these words, that he added these words and attributed them to Jesus in order to get at the Pharisees that were bothering him that day. Because these men are sure that the Lord Jesus Christ the Lord Jesus as they understand Him, could have never said these things. Fenton, a commentator, suggests that anyone who complains about this section might ought to consider if it is not because these words address that man. He says the words of Nathan the prophet, you are the man. Perhaps those who object to these words of our Lord Jesus object because the words apply too readily to their own lives. Mounce points out that A Jesus who is not allowed by his critics to say anything contrary to their tastes will be a Jesus quite different than the Jesus that we should expect in real history. My friends, this is not a fairy tale. This is the Word of God. And Matthew, under the inspiration of God, has recorded for us the words that Jesus spoke before the multitude shortly before His crucifixion. If Matthew says that Jesus Christ spoke these words, then He spoke these words. Now, we may ask, why Jesus would choose such a topic as this? for His last public discourse? We can best answer that question by looking at the content of what Jesus says. We see that it's directed at two sorts of persons. He speaks directly to the multitude by way of warning. And He tells them that they need to beware of the scribes and the Pharisees and not be taken in by their bad example. This is particularly what He focuses on in the first twelve verses that we're looking at today. And then the second thing, the second group that he addresses is the scribes and Pharisees themselves. And he tells them that of their wickedness, he exposes their hypocrisy, as it talks about in Psalm 58 that we sang or Jeremiah as well that we read. He uncovers. their wickedness and exposes it. He puts it on display publicly so people can see and be warned. And also so that the Pharisees and scribes themselves can be warned that they need to repent. And as you know, this chapter ends. If you look ahead, you can see with a lament over Jerusalem. And Jesus, a tender plea of grace saying, how many times I would have gathered you under My wings, I would have taken you under My grace, if you had come to Me and looked to Me for My grace. But you would not, He says. And so it is then that He denounces them in this way. But it's marvelous to consider that the words that He spoke here bore much fruit. Because what do we find later on? At Pentecost, we have the 3,000 who come to believe. And then over the next years, there are tens of thousands that are said to come to believe at Jerusalem. and some of them were even among the Pharisees. Jesus did not speak these words in vain. And even if no one had come, these words still vindicate the justice of God in judging His enemies and bring glory to His name in that way. But today, as I said, we're going to focus on the first 12 verses in which our Lord warns the multitude not to follow the ungodly lifestyle of these Pharisees and Scribes. This is recorded for us in the Scripture. This wasn't recorded for them. Jesus spoke these words to them. It's recorded for us today because we need to hear these words as well. We need to watch out for the same kind of thing. You see, there is a tendency in each one of us, because of our fallen, sinful nature, to follow the bad examples of our leaders rather than the good words and the good examples. Do you not find it to be so? If your father was given to anger, then you tend to lose control the same way your father did. Even if he chastened you and he rebuked you for your anger, his bad example had more influence on you in many cases than his good words. And so, if your mother complained a lot, you find yourself doing the same thing very often to your own shame. Even though she may have told you not to complain, she may have complained at you for complaining, and even though you hated to hear her complain, you ended up following her bad example rather than her good counsel. It's a pernicious tendency of our fallen human nature to imitate ungodly examples rather than to follow godly counsel. And so Jesus begins His denunciation of the Pharisees with these words that are recorded in verse 2 and 3. I'll read them to you again. He says, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do. But do not do according to their works, for they say and do not. This shows you that you must learn to separate the teaching from the teacher. The scribes and the Pharisees, inasmuch as they sat in Moses' seat, were the expounders of the very Word of God. God has appointed teachers in His church. And none of these teachers are perfect. But their imperfections should never be used by you as an excuse not to follow the Word of God. Matthew Henry pointed out that of course, we would all prefer to be brought God's food in the mouths of angels. But that if God brings you His food in the mouth of ravens, then we ought to receive it with thanksgiving. Because you pout that the Word of God does not come to you from angels, does not excuse you from obeying the good word of God because it comes by ravens. But you see, there are many bitter people. You meet them all the time who have rejected God's word because of the hypocrisy, because of the bad example. of some ordained minister that they knew when they were a child, or a whole bunch of ordained ministers that they know today who are hypocrites. You know how people go on and on when they hear a good story about the fall of a minister. But the question is, why should you let a wicked man in a good office keep you from receiving the precious Word of God? That doesn't make any sense, does it? The Lord tells you, do not let that happen. Inasmuch as the minister speaks the Word of God to you, receive that Word with thanksgiving. Jesus says, hear what they say. The man may very well be unworthy to even hold that office. Perhaps he is a man that should have been removed from that office by the church. But he has not been removed. And yet, this should not make you oppose the Word of God itself. Don't let Him keep you from what is good and excellent. Now, you might object and say, but when I read these words, it looks like Jesus is saying to give these wicked men an absolute obedience, an implicit obedience to do whatever they tell you. What if they're telling you to pray to the saints? Or what if they're telling you to believe that homosexuality is a perfectly acceptable practice? Is Jesus telling us To obey them when they say things like this? Do whatever they tell you? No, of course not. The word, therefore, in verse 3 qualifies His statement. It gives you the reason that you are to obey what they say. You are to obey them because they sit in Moses' seat. In other words, because they are the official expounders of God's Word. The people are to hear God's Word from their mouths. And as you do from ordained gospel ministers today. But this does not mean that their distortions and their additions to the Bible or to Moses are to also be received and believed. Absolutely not. Distortions and additions have nothing to do with Moses' seat. They are not a part of the gospel ministry either. They are outside of the man's ordination to the gospel ministry, or in the Old Testament, to the seat of Moses. But the thing is, in that seat, there are still plenty of things that they say that are in accordance with the Word of God. You are to make good use of those things and receive them as the Word of God. Now, of course, if you can find teachers that are more sound, Teachers that have lives that you can rightly imitate, lives that meet the qualifications that are outlined in Scripture, then you should learn from those teachers instead of from hypocrites who are in error. And you should also pray, as our Lord Jesus taught us, that God would raise up faithful servants to minister His Word and send them out into His harvest. But as even the very best teachers will have their inconsistencies and their things that offend you, their example will never be as good as their doctrine. Then you need to be careful that you follow what they say from God's Word rather than following their bad examples, which we all have. too much tendency to do. This is the theme of our Lord's instruction in these first 12 verses. Do not imitate hypocrites, but follow the Word of God instead. In verses 4-10, I want to identify for you this morning three maxims that the wicked leaders live by. Three maxims that you ought not to imitate. maxims they live by, maxims that you ought not to imitate, because we do have a lot of people around us today who carry out this. I mean, we do not have a lot of people today that carry out the specific behaviors that are mentioned by the Pharisees. When is the last time you saw somebody wearing a broad phylactery? It's not something that goes on in our society. I want to apply these three maxims to you in a very broad way and show you how they apply to us as we look at them. Okay, so the first maxim of false religious leaders, the first maxim that you should avoid is this, that godliness consists primarily in the observance of certain rituals. That godliness consists primarily in the observance of certain rituals. In verse 4, Jesus says that the scribes and the Pharisees bind heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on men's shoulder. Now, the picture here is a very graphic one. You've probably seen these pictures in the National Geographic before with a little pack animal, and he has this great big bundle that's tied on his back. It's all bound on there with ropes. It's twice as tall as the animal, and the animal laboring along. This is the picture of what the scribes and the Pharisees were doing with their ritual requirements upon God's people. They were loading them. They were binding burdens upon God's people. And then like that one that walks along beside his little donkey, not caring a thing himself, and scolding the animal when it stumbles and when it doesn't keep on moving. Thus, the Pharisees. This was their attitude. We only need to look back and see some of the earlier encounters that they had with the Lord Jesus and His disciples realize what kind of burdens He's talking about. Remember back in Matthew 12, we looked at how they rebuked Jesus, these scribes and Pharisees, because He allowed His disciples to pick grain as they were walking through the field and to rub it out with their hands and eat it as they were going along. They bound burdens upon the people. You can't do that. It's a violation of the Sabbath. You're harvesting when you do that. We saw them again when Jesus healed a man that same day that had a withered hand. He said, this isn't something that's life-threatening. You can't do that. It's the Sabbath day. A ritual, a requirement of their own. And then in chapter 15, they rebuked the Lord and His disciples for not ceremonially washing their hands before they ate. Not a ritual that God had given them, mind you, but one that they had added to God's law. You don't do these things that are according to the traditions of the fathers, they said. And they had hundreds and hundreds of rules like this. You couldn't spit on the ground on the Sabbath day because you might be tempted to cover it up with your foot and to plow with your foot. I mean, just ridiculous things, minutiae that were just loaded upon God's people so that they could hardly move under the load. And besides these rituals, They had things like their mandatory prayer times, their twice a week fastings, their tithing of the herbs of their gardens. They were extremely rigorous and severe with those who transgressed in the slightest details. They had made burdens that could not be borne. And they chided and ridiculed the people for their failures to bear these burdens. But in the meanwhile, Jesus says they won't lift it with even their little finger, one of these burdens. They had loopholes all over the place. And because they understood the law and they understood the loophole, then they could apply one of these loopholes to relieve themselves from having to bear these burdens whenever they wanted to. They had all sorts of loopholes. Even ones that would keep them from obeying the clear mandates of Scripture. Like that we should take care of our parents. And they had that silly custom that they could dedicate their possessions to God and still have use of those possessions in the meanwhile and not help their parents because, oh, this has been dedicated to God. You see, they didn't carry any burdens themselves, even the burdens that God had properly put upon them. This was the kind of men they were. All the while, the message that they communicated, though, was that message that godliness is found primarily in keeping of rituals. That godliness is about observing rituals rather than about gratefully receiving the grace of God that He gives us in salvation. The grace that brings salvation. The grace that brings forgiveness. The grace that brings the Holy Spirit and gives us new life so that we can live to God. Keep His commandments that He has given us. And though the multitudes do not observe the rituals as closely as their leaders often demand, the multitudes are sadly often more ready to embrace the notion that godliness consists in rituals than they are to receive the grace of God that makes them into a new creation in Christ Jesus. The rebellious human heart, brothers and sisters, seems to prefer rituals to a life of sincere faith that looks to the Lord for His grace and salvation. You know, if I can do some fasting, or if I can keep some holy days, or I can perform some kind of ritual, then that's just fine with me. I'll do that. Rather than humble myself, a dependent one upon God's salvation. Brothers and sisters, do you see how common this is today? There are traditions that we make our righteousness to consist in. Some of them are good traditions. Some of them are wicked traditions. Some of them are traditions that are mandated from Scripture. But we misuse them by making godliness to consist in those traditions. We make the Word of God of no effect by the traditions. We listen too readily to that kind of counsel. Now, let me give you some examples. I have met some people who suppose that because they were baptized that they are right with God. Yet, if you inquire further into their lives, you find that they are no more looking to the cleansing that is signified in baptism, then that doorpost over there is looking to the cleansing that is signified in baptism. They have the ritual. And for them, that is sufficient. They are no more relying on the Lord to wash away the guilt of their sins in His forgiving mercy in Christ, and looking to Him to wash away the presence of their sin by the gift of the Holy Spirit, than an idol worshiper is. The ritual is enough in their minds. And often, they learn that from the spiritual leaders that they have. Jesus says, don't learn such things. And then you meet another who is relying on a ritual prayer. A very different way. Oh, baptism. No, I don't rely on baptism at all. But somewhere, somewhere way back in his past, one day, he went forward at some church service and he prayed a prayer to receive Christ and that settled it. The ritual was done, so there's nothing more to do now. He considers himself forgiven forever, but he has no interest in seeking the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ day by day. He does not have a new heart. He has a ritual, but he doesn't have a new heart that comes when the grace of God really comes into our lives. He has followed a form, but he does not have real godliness. There's another. who has his daily family worship. Good for him. We ought to have daily family worship. He never misses a day. He reads the Scripture and he prays. But the Scriptures that he reads are not really heard, are not really applied by him, not really believed by him. The prayers that he offers, it's just going through the motion. It's just a perfunctory prayer. The form of godliness is enough. The whole purpose of regular family worship is to seek the Lord. And He just made it into an end in itself. And then there's a church over there somewhere that has decided to sing only psalms without instruments. And they have decided to do this for good scriptural reasons. But there they are, week after week, feeling pious because they are doing what God requires. And they're missing the weightier matter of the law. Not that we should neglect the lighter things, the little things, but they're missing the weightier matter. They're singing the right stuff, but no one's paying attention to what they're singing. They're not sincerely crying out to the Lord God when they sing the prayers of the Psalms. Neither are they sincerely bringing praise with heartfelt gratitude to Him when they lift up their praises. It's the right words. It's true that we should sing what God has given us to sing. But the way your matter is that we consciously present what we're singing from God's Word before the face of our God with a true heart of sincerity. And then there's... we can go on and on with these things. There's the church that finds a righteousness because they have a liturgy. And there's the church that says our righteousness is that we don't have a liturgy. We have no set form at all. And then there's the one that says we're better because we have two services. Even though they don't pay any attention in those services, we have two services on Sunday instead of one. Or we have a prayer meeting on Wednesday. Or we pray every morning in our church. We gather for prayer. Well, those are fine things to do. But that's not where your righteousness is. And then there's a believer over there who thinks he's mastered self-control because he drinks no wine and he abstains from tobacco products, and yet his belly betrays that he has not mastered self-control. And then there's another one that says he's mastered Christian liberty because he drinks his wine and he smokes his pipe. But he has a critical spirit that shows that he knows nothing about Christian liberty. Some of our traditions and some of our rituals are good. Some of them are scriptural. Some of them are mandated by Scripture. Some of them are no good at all because they're additions to Scripture. But the great problem. Whether they're scriptural or not scriptural, the greatest problem is that we want to make a righteousness out of these things. They keep us from Jesus Christ and the salvation that He has promised us because we settle down in the ritual rather than using the ritual to seek our God. Like the Pharisees, ungodly spiritual leaders almost always have something in the way of outward, external rituals, giving to the poor, whatever it may be, that they make a righteousness out of. If these rituals are scriptural, then go ahead and observe them. But be careful that you do not make godliness to consist in these observances. Second maxim of false religious leaders that you should avoid is the maxim that what other people think of you is extremely important. The maxim that what other people think of you is extremely important. Another way to say that is that the fear of man is more important to you than the fear of God. Such persons look for their reward in this life, as Jesus said back in the Sermon on the Mount. They look for their approval from their neighbor rather than from God. Rather than looking to the honor that comes from God only, they look for honor among men. Jesus shows that this is a maxim of the Pharisees in verses 5-7. In verse 5, He shows what audience they live for. Who it is that they're trying to please. And it's not God. He says, all their works they do to be seen of men. You see, God is simply not real in their estimation. People are real. God is way over there somewhere. He's removed. He's not significant. People are. God isn't. What he thinks is not nearly as important as what these people think of me. Well, of course, it's obviously very foolish to live by this maxim. When what men think is not that important, not nearly as important as when they think that it's more important what men think than what God thinks. And of course, you're way off track because men cannot give you an everlasting inheritance. They can't reward you. But you see, this is what everyone does who is trying to avoid God. They just don't concern themselves with him. They may talk about God a lot, but they never really personally draw near to God. He's always. held off at a safe distance. He's far away. The people are near. They influence him. Of course, those who think this way are always concerned with externals because people see what you do on the outside. Their works are of little value to them unless somebody finds out about what they've done. And they always find a way to make sure that people do find out about the things that they have done. It always seems to slip out somehow in the conversation about the things that they have have done for God. Those who are truly desirous to please God, on the other hand, are not so concerned about publicity. They're not necessarily trying to hide. They're not necessarily trying to promote. They're just going about looking to God and serving Him with a cheerful spirit, knowing that He sees what is done in secret and it doesn't have to be published for it to be rewarded. They are more concerned, in other words, about being faithful in prayer than they are about being known. as someone who is faithful in prayer. They are more concerned about giving to the poor than they are about being known as someone who gives to the poor. They are more concerned about being content in their trials than they are about being known as someone who is content in their trials. The Pharisees, you see, they only wanted to make a show. And in their zeal to appear righteous, they assumed many peculiar customs to try to distinguish themselves in the law. Moses, after telling the people to love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, the confession that we made this morning as these words, he says, these words which I command you today to love God shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes." Well, it would seem that Moses was simply telling them that everything that they did and thought, everything that they did with their hands, and everything that they looked at, they should look at from the perspective of loving God. But this is a call. that shuts up every mouth, doesn't it? It makes us all guilty. I mean, when you hear, I'm supposed to love God in everything that I do and everything that I think is to be controlled by my love for God, that's to be the supreme motivation behind everything, then we're humbled. And we see how much we need the grace of God. But the Scribes and Pharisees found a way to keep this commandment in the eyes of men Though not in the eyes of God. They had taken up the wearing of these phylacteries, these little boxes that they would tie onto their arm with all the straps. You've probably seen pictures of them with those around their head, a box on their head. And these little boxes, they had these scriptures printed on them. The little parchment paper inside the leather box. And it had the Scripture written so that they were wearing it on their forehead, and they were wearing it on their arms, binding it on, just like God had said. And as these things got more and more common among them, the last couple of hundred years before Jesus came, then the Pharisees wanted to set themselves apart. So they started making theirs bigger. Just like the children in the marketplace. Mine's bigger than yours. Look at this. Look at me. You see that they found a righteousness in this. Besides this, Jesus says they also lengthened the hem of their garments, talking about the tassels that Moses had told him to wear in numbers. It's a twisted thread. And they were to look at it and to remember the law of God, that they were to love God, that they were a people that were set apart to him when they saw that tassel. What would the Pharisee do with that? Well, he's going to make a big tassel. He's going to enlarge his and make it bigger. The story is actually told of one rabbi that had this great long tassel that he carried around with him and he actually hired noblemen to carry the tassel on a pillow to walk behind him and carry the tassel as he went about strutting about town. What a godly man. What a way to gain honor and renown from the people. Nothing appealed to the Pharisee's heart more than to have people recognize him. In verse 6, Jesus says, they loved the best places at the feast. They had the table with horseshoe shape. They would recline around the table. People that sat at the bottom of the ewe, those were the important people. And I'm on the right or I'm on the left. They wanted to be in those prominent positions. Their heart flooded with joy when they were invited to a feast of an important person and invited to sit down at the right or the left hand of that important person. And they were sick with envy when they had to take a lower place. When they were in the marketplace, they loved to receive the special greetings and be recognized for their importance. Apparently, in that day, the custom was that the inferior would give the greeting to his superior, and the greeting was supposed to be longer according to how important that person was. They loved to have long greetings. They were so zealous about these things that they taught the statute that he who salutes his teacher and does not call him rabbi provokes the divine majesty of God to depart from Israel. If you don't greet me and call me rabbi when you meet me in the marketplace, then God's going to depart from Israel. That's what they said. It's remarkable the way these men craved honor. They lived according to the maxim that what people think of you is extremely important. Of course, we can feel quite removed from all this, as I said earlier. When's the last time you saw someone with a tassel on a pillow walking around town? But let me show you how much these things apply to us. that other people, what other people think of you is very, very important. When you see ungodly spiritual leaders vying for honor and position, and maybe godly spiritual leaders vying for honor and position, it has a strange attraction to your sinful heart that you want to vie for the attention of men, too. The danger that Jesus is warning against is that it will rub off on you. Don't do what they do, he says. See, we all have our own styles. We have our own situations, our own circumstances of seeking honor for men. One person goes about always asking the question, do these people like me? You know, if this is you, if you're like that, then your mind is not how you can please the Lord when you come into a crowd of people. how you can serve others, how you can bring glory to God. But it's on how you can make yourself more light. How can I be more popular with these people? If it requires you to gossip, if I'll make you more popular, then you'll gossip or whatever you can do to be the hit of the party. Another person asks all the time, the people around him, the question, do they care about me? They watch to see, is anybody going to come and talk to me? Will anyone remember the prayer requests that I made three weeks ago? Will they come and ask me about that? Will my children remember to send flowers to me on Mother's Day? Yet another is concerned about her appearance. Her preparations for church are more about hair and shoes and about a heart that's ready to worship and praise God. Will anyone compliment my hair today? Then there's the one who wants to be appreciated. This one gains approval, perhaps by serving others in a certain way, but at the expense of other obligations. Or service with a bad attitude. Because, oh, I did this and I did this, and nobody even noticed, and nobody even thanked me, and nobody even cared. You see, these are all signs of a heart. that thinks it's very, very important what other people think of me. And there is the one who wants to be respected. This one comes into a crowd of people and he begins to speak about his accomplishments and his achievements, and his education, and his new position at work, of his income and his successes, and of his children maybe. He boasts of his children. All because he wants respect. Now, I could go on and on, but you can see that Pharisees don't have exclusive rights to this problem of wanting praise from men and thinking that that's very, very important. You will find this in spiritual leaders. Sometimes you will find it in spiritual leaders even more than you find it in other people. but do not imitate. Do not pick up this disease. It is one of those maxims that Jesus says you ought not to imitate. Your concern ought to be to gain approval from God, not from man. Men can honor you in this life, but God will honor those who diligently seek Him forever and ever. Now, let's turn to the third maxim. The third maxim of the false leaders that you are to avoid It's the maxim that man is, at least in part, the source of truth. This maxim is closely related to the one that we just looked at. It flows out of the Pharisees' love for honors and prestigious titles. In v. 8-10, Jesus hones in and focuses on these titles, and He forbids the use of these pretentious titles. He tells us not to be called or to call anyone rabbi, father, or teacher. In verse 8-10, he says, But you do not be called rabbi, for one is your teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father, for one is your father, he who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers, for one is your teacher, the Christ. Now, I hope that you know Jesus well enough by now to know what he means when he says this. Now, one commentator I read, I think, got himself rather tangled up. Because he said, boy, those people that call religious leaders fathers, that's just that's repulsive. That's completely unacceptable. No one should ever, ever, ever do that. But this particular man would be called a teacher. And so then when he came to that part, he began to explain how it was OK to call him teacher. And you see, Jesus is not that's not the way Jesus teaches. He's not concerned with these minutia with the names as such. He's not forbidding the name in a legalistic kind of a fashion, but rather the manner and attitude with which these names were called. The pope, which means father or papa, can call himself the servant of the servants of God. which is one of the names that he likes to use. But it doesn't make any difference whether he calls himself Pope or the servants of the servants of God, if he is, in all of those names, arrogating to himself what belongs to God. The name makes no difference. You can call yourself a humble servant. and be the proudest thing that ever walked on the earth if the name is used in that wrong fashion." See, Jesus often speaks this way with these strong statements that He makes a point. Like when He says, I think it's even later on in this chapter, we saw it in the Sermon on the Mount, And then a little while later, he's saying, verily, verily, I say to you, which is a form of swearing. And then he goes before his accusers and they say, I adjure you by the living God. And he answers under oath. So what he's saying in that context when he said swear not at all is don't swear with your fingers crossed, so to speak, the way the Pharisees did with all these loopholes and things that they had put on. He's not saying don't swear at all. If Jesus meant to say that a teacher should not be called a teacher and that a spiritual leader should never be called a father, then Paul was a great transgressor because he uses both terms of himself. He says, I am a teacher appointed by God of the Gentiles. And he also says that he's a father to many people, that he had begotten them according to the gospel. So what is it then? What is Jesus getting at? Well, it's when these titles are wrongly used. These titles are wrongly used when they are used to suggest that a mere man is the source of truth. That is, that law or truth originate with man or in man. This is the way the Pharisees were using these titles. And that's the way the Pope uses them today. because he claims that he is in the place of Christ, that he is the vicar of Christ, and that as such he has the authority to speak for Christ things that have not been previously revealed in Scripture. Jesus is emphasizing, one is your Teacher, even Christ. One is your Father, He who is in Heaven. The point is that no man can occupy the place of Christ. or the place of the Father. Men are neither the source or the originator of truth. Men can convey the truth that they have learned from God, but they cannot originate the truth. In other words, they have to be certain that they don't add anything and that they don't take anything away from what God has said when they teach. They are to expound the Word of God and to apply it, but they are not to change it. or to add to it. In God's dealing with men, truth is absolutely sacred. If anyone presumed to speak the truth as a prophet, to speak in the name of the Lord, and it was discovered that God had not commanded him to speak that thing, if what he said didn't come true or in some other way it was proven to be false, that prophet was to be stoned to death. That's how serious that God is about truth. It's not to be trifled with. It is to be regarded with the utmost reverence. Do you remember the prophet Hananiah in the book of Jeremiah? You can read about him in Jeremiah 28. Jeremiah told the people that they were going to go into captivity, but Hananiah said no. He got out the yoke and he broke the yoke and said Nebuchadnezzar's yoke will be broken in two years time. Listen to what Jeremiah said. Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, Here now, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, but you make this people trust in a lie. Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I will cast you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die because you have taught rebellion against the Lord. So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month. It is a very, very serious thing to presume to speak in the name of God as one who has originated truth. This is exactly what the scribes and the Pharisees did. They made their traditions. equal to the Word of God, sometimes even superior to the Word of God. They acted as if the traditions of their fathers were on par with the Scriptures, as if men are the source of the truth. And it was in this sense that they were called rabbi, father and teacher. It's the same thing that the Pope does today with tradition. It's the same thing that Jesus is prohibiting here in the most absolute terms. So now, what is it that false spiritual leaders do today? How do they violate this? Well, I've spoken about some violations, but let's bring it a little closer to home. They violate it by saying that the truth is found somewhere in man. I've already spoken to you about those who claim that Jesus never could have spoken the words that are written in Matthew 23. I told you about that in the introduction. These men that say such things have done what? They have made their own sentiment the source of truth. Their own feelings. It doesn't feel right to them to think that Jesus could have spoken these words. And so where does the truth come from, according to them? It comes from my feeling. It doesn't feel right, so it can't be true. Such false teachers adjust the truth to their own sentiments and their preferences. They cannot handle the Word of God. They revise the Word to make it suit themselves. They are teachers and fathers in the very sense that Jesus forbids. And people like to follow them, because what they say speaks to the sentiments of the people too, and they feel better about it. They presume that they are the originators of truth and they don't bow down to the Word of God. These men don't like scriptural doctrines like predestination or eternal punishment or substitutionary atonement. So they deny them. They set themselves up as rabbis and fathers. Their judgment will not slumber. Now, don't let this error rub off on you. It's in the air all around us because spiritual leaders have been doing this all the time. It's in the atmosphere that we breathe, so to speak. I'm not getting all spiritually funny here, but you are to live the idea that you are to live by your feelings rather than by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. You correct your feelings from the Word of God. You don't adjust the Word of God to your feelings. Your feelings are not the source of truth. God's word is a source of truth. OK, well, then there's the next guy. He relies on his reason to this one, it seems unreasonable to say that God could have created the world in six days and surely no one could believe that a man actually rose from the dead after being dead for three days. We want his teaching to rise up in the church. We want this man to come alive among us and his teachings for people to live the way he lived, but we think it's unreasonable to say that he actually came out of the grave. And so these men make up their own systems of truth. They stand in the pulpit of God as Christ's representatives and they declare what according to their reason is true or not true. Don't let that error into your life. I've met people who reject the Trinity. or the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man, because they say it just doesn't make sense to me. I really don't care if it makes sense to you. Is it in the Word of God? If you find things in the Word of God and you can't put them together like the Son is God and the Father is God and the Holy Spirit is God and there's one God and you read that and you say, well, it doesn't make sense to me. It's still true. You don't bow the Word of God to your reason. But you bow your reason to the Word of God. OK, and then there are those others that bring their own prophecies and they teach the people to do the same. The Lord told me this. The Lord told me that. Use it very flippantly, very carelessly. Now, I'm glad to see someone that's eager to please the Lord and wants to be led by Him. But as soon as prophecies start flying around, thus says the Lord, doing what Hananiah did. If that's not true, if that's not fulfilled, you may want things to work out in a situation and you may say, oh, God showed me. But if you don't, if that's not from God, you need to shut up. When God speaks, it will come to pass. Truth does not originate from with us. And of course, I've always spoken about traditions, which was the main error of the Pharisees and the main error of the Church of Rome today. It's not our place to create holy days, to create new doctrines about the immaculate conception or binding prohibitions about marriage or food laws. We are not the source of truth. God reserves that place for Himself. So, Jesus is warning to either take it for yourself to be the source of truth, or to allow others to take this place where they are the source of truth. False teachers live by the maxim that truth originates in man. Do not let that maxim rub off on you in any of its various forms. So, in conclusion, we have seen three maxims by which false teachers live. that we are not to follow. First, that godliness consists primarily in the observance of rituals. Secondly, that what other people think of you is extremely important. And thirdly, that truth, at least in part, originates with man. The Pharisees and false teachers style themselves as great men, great spiritual men who are indispensable to God's people. They are full of pride. They want their disciples to be dependent on them rather than on the Lord. But in verse 11, Jesus tells us what those who are truly great ones will do. They give themselves as servants. to God's people in the true sense. Their service is to point men to God rather than to themselves. And so, instead of being content with mere ritual holiness, no matter how pretentious it may be, the servant proclaims that salvation is of the Lord. That we cannot save ourselves. That Jesus Christ came to take away our sins. That we have to give up on ourselves and use rituals not as a righteousness that we present before God, but as a means by which we look to God to give us the righteousness that He promises in the Gospel. To pray, and to fast, and to read the Word of God, and to participate in the sacraments that we may, in those things, look to Him. for the promises of His covenant, for His grace to us in Jesus Christ. Don't trust in the ritual. Use the ritual to trust in Jesus Christ. One who serves you, rather than looking to obtain your admiration for Himself and for His large phylacteries, earnestly strives to point you, if he is a servant, to the glory and majesty and perfections of Jesus Christ. As Paul said so simply, we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. And ourselves, your servants, for Jesus' sake. And finally, the one who is a servant rather than teaching his own doctrine, his own counsel always points you to the Scripture instead of teaching you to rely on himself as the source of truth. He points you to the Word of God. His goal is not to show you those. something from himself that's not in the Word, but rather to cause you to understand the Scriptures, to hear the teaching that will make you look to the Bible and look and say, ah, yes, this is what this pastor wants to open the Scriptures, to expound them and to apply them to you. That one is a servant. rather than a Lord. He's not saying, do what I say, that these things that I have reasoned, or these things that I feel, or these things that I've prophesied. But He's saying, look to the Word of God. He opens the Word of God to try to help you to understand. Well, Jesus ends this session with a warning to both the teachers and those who are taught. And that warning is, whoever exalts himself will be humbled. But whoever humbles himself will be exalted. You know, that's really what it's all about. I mean, everything is all about everything. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted. If you exalt yourself the way these false teachers do, if you follow their example and you seek to obtain your own righteousness, your own honor, your own truth, you put yourself in the place that belongs to God only, you dare to knock Almighty God off of His throne and to establish yourself, man, in that place. God will knock you off of His throne. He will humble you with the deepest and most shameful humiliation for your treason. What an injustice it is. What arrogance. What a lie it is to put yourself in the place of God. My righteousness. My honor. My truth. My friends, if on the other hand you will humble yourself, if you will take that proud heart of yours, that corruption that you see in that heart, Before God. You come to Him. And you say, Lord, give me Your righteousness. Lord, help me to honor You. Lord, open Your truth to my eyes. Teach me that I may live. If you humble yourself, He says, you will be exalted. He will pour out His grace on you with such abundance that you won't be able to contain it all. That's the kind of God we serve. His mercy is in the heavens. His faithfulness reaches to the skies. Let's stand and call upon His name. Heavenly Father, we are delighted to come before you this morning because the blood of Jesus Christ has been shed to atone for our sins. We do not come before you today because of any righteousness that we find in ourselves, but we come to seek that righteousness that you have graciously promised in your gospel. We thank you that all of those who call upon the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved. and that you will give to them a new heart, that you will circumcise their hearts to love the Lord your God. And Father, we come to you today looking for you to pour out your abundant grace upon us. We do not come to exalt ourselves before you and to impress you with the rituals that we perform. We do not come to the Lord's table today to say, look at me, look at what I'm doing. But we come to say, Lord, have mercy on me and give me your grace that you have promised through the Lord Jesus Christ. We come to celebrate and remember what Jesus has done. Father, we pray that we would live this way. We pray, Lord, that You would day by day erase from us all of the corruptions that we have latched onto from the ungodly examples of our spiritual leaders all around us. Father, we pray that we would be able to put all of these things to death. That by Your grace, we would be able to mortify our pride. and that we would be able to come before You with a broken and contrite heart that You will not despise. Father, we know that even that broken and contrite heart is not itself a righteousness, but that it is only acceptable to You because of the broken and contrite heart of our elder brother Jesus Christ, who went to the cross and was crushed for us, who bore our iniquities in His own body, Father, we thank You that it is His broken and contrite heart that makes our broken and contrite heart acceptable in Your sight. We come to You, Lord, rejoicing in our Lord Jesus Christ, what He has accomplished for us. And we pray, O Lord, that You would help us to receive the life that You give to those who do look to You for grace, that we would know that abundance of the outpouring of Your Spirit, and that we would walk worthy of the calling that we have in Christ Jesus. Where we have this resource that we can look to You for Your grace, we pray that those graces would be evident in our lives, that we would put away our complaining and our selfishness, and Father, that we would live and love one to another. and that we would live a life that is truly devoted to You. We pray, Father, that You would help us to remember all of Your commandments, that we would love them, that we would delight in them, that we would not look upon them as those who are on the other side of grace do, those who see them as restrictive and ugly and binding and even as death itself, but that we would look at them as those on the other side of grace who have received Your grace and who therefore look at it a beautiful counsel from our Father to guide us into the ways of living and to show us how He would have us to conduct ourselves in His house. Father, please, work in us these things. We pray now that You would bless us as we continue on in this service. And Father, that You would enable us to be able to go from this place today proclaiming Your Word to those around us. That we would be full of joy and thanksgiving for the wonderful things that You have told us. and the things that you have done that are in your Word. For we pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen. You may be seated. Lord of patience and comfort, grant you to be like-minded toward one another according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.