Mission 66 (English podcast)
Matthew 23 Harmful to Your Spiritual Health
We have to make sure that the outward appearance matches up with what we do in our private hours. When the door is closed and no one sees, because believe me friends, our private sin never stays private. It will always work its way to the surface and even if we can fool others, we can never fool the all-seeing eyes of God. So nobody gets away with anything. This is Mission 66, a daily dive into God's Word. I'm Rob Dempsey. Today, we continue our focus on the Gospels. Mission 66 originates from the Ministry of Bible Teacher and Pastor Dr. Luis Ciao and is produced and heard in multiple languages around the world in partnership with Transworld Radio. Let me remind you to download your free study guide of the Gospels. You'll be able to go deeper into God's Word and follow along with each day's program. It's a great companion resource of the audio teaching of John Matthews and Esther Susullo. To get your free study guide of the Gospels, visit Mission66.org. That's Mission66.org. John Matthews is our teacher. His co-host, Esther Susullo, gets us started today. Welcome friend. We are on the series of studies in the Fall Gospels as usual and today we are exploring chapter 23 of Matthew. I'm your host Esther and it seems, you know, wherever Jesus went in his earthly ministry, the scribes, the priests and Pharisees, they followed him around, criticizing everything that he said and he did. It came to a point where he finally had enough and he gave them a good lashing from his tongue. Now, why did Jesus have such serious conflicts with the religious leaders of his time? Is it because they had rejected the Word of God and replaced it with religion based on human tradition? Well, we'll see as we adjoin John Matthews who teaches on the theme, "Homful to your spiritual health." Esther, thank you so much. So good to be with you as always and a very warm welcome as well to all of you listening today, wherever you are. Great to be with you and a very warm welcome to Mission66, which is about understanding and pursuing the keys to eternal life found. Within the pages of the Bible and how new life is available to all through the power of the Holy Spirit. You know, in society today, there will be some that believe that religion is something good. There are perhaps plenty more that look at the world and what is done in the name of religion and believe that religion causes a lot more division and strife. You see, bad religion can do more harm than good. And many people have taken a wrong turn because some false teacher led them astray or cults may have arisen, ruining people's lives. Wars, many wars have been fought and continue to be fought this very day in the name of religion. And in this chapter, Jesus is about to expose the Pharisees' twisted teaching which caused people to go astray. And what Jesus does is He pronounces seven woes against the Pharisees for their hypocrisy. Let me just explain as we read Matthew 23, starting at verse 1. Then Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses's seat. So do and observe what they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. The key words here are they do not practice what they preach, and we know that that is hypocrisy. When what you see is not what you get, those who say one thing but do the opposite, and they're good, so good actually at telling other people how they should live, but their own lives are in a mess." Now Jesus was not saying the Pharisees should not be Pharisees. They were in a leadership role just as Moses was and to their credit, they studied and were so considered experts in the Old Testament law, but the problem was they were not doing what they were supposed to be doing. Listen to this in verse 5. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylactories broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honour at feasts under the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. Now phylactories were these scrolls of paper or parchment containing certain words from the law of Moses. They were actually prescribed by the law, and you can see that Numbers chapter 15 to be worn on their foreheads and their left arms to remind them of their being God's people. So what were phylactories? Well they were scrolls of paper or parchment that contained certain words from the law of Moses. They were actually prescribed by the law from Numbers chapter 15 verse 38 to be worn on their foreheads and left arms to remind them of their being God's people. But the Pharisees made them bigger than they had to be, just the show. The bigger the phylactery, the more holy you see. And tassels on their clothing were they represented holiness, and the longer the tassel, the more holy. And you know this is not just the old Jewish context way back then. It also happens today. It's possible, isn't it, to look like a Christian, to act like a Christian, maybe carry the biggest Bible, sing the songs, go through the litany's and the rituals like everybody else, but still not be honest and sincere about Christ. Why do we go to church? Is it to honor God, learn more about Him, become closer to Him? Or is it just to be seen by others and receive their approval? We all need to examine our own hearts, don't we? And Jesus then says, but you are not to be called Rabbi, for you have one teacher and you are all brothers, and call no man your father on earth, for you have one father who is in heaven, neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant, whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. So you see what Jesus is like here, Esther? He's tough on the religious elite of his time. So we should all listen as we learn about things that are a real danger to our spiritual health. The seven woes that Jesus pronounces against the Pharisees of his day, and woe number one in verse 13 says, "But woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces, for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who had entered to go in. How many people want nothing to do with religion and faith, all because they've seen the behavior of some Christians or have been perhaps mistreated in church, who feel so disillusioned by those who practice religion, but are actually very far from the kingdom of God, who know in the hearts that the fruit of the Spirit is not flourishing. Such people often end up driving others away, and people understandably think to themselves, "Well, if this is Christianity, then I want nothing to do with it." So this does call, doesn't it, for self-examination? Jesus, please don't let me be a stumbling block to people who are trying to get close to you. Some versions of the Bible have another woe spoken against the Pharisees and teachers of the law for exploiting the poor, those who were less fortunate. They were plotting and scheming how they could cheat widows out of their property, but disguise their greedy plots and schemes with prayer. What hypocrisy there? And Jesus says in verse 15 woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you travelled across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. A proselyte in that respect means a convert or a new convert, but aren't these strong words from Jesus? And this verse speaks to the missionary community, which is a big step, isn't it, for anybody to decide to be a missionary and carry the gospel to distant lands? But a change of location does not make you better elsewhere than you are here. Practice what you preach at home before you go international. If you cannot be what God intends you to be behind the doors of your own home, you'll likely find that your effectiveness is limited in other contexts. Allow God to search our hearts and refine our souls and lives. So whether overseas or near a home, people are watching you, and they can detect if you don't really believe what you preach, and we may find out that hypocrisy has turned more people away from God than their own sin did. You're listening to Mission 66, my friend, and wow, some powerful words for us to think about there. I'm glad to be your host Esther, and today John Matthews is teaching from Matthew 23, which contains Jesus' seven woes to the Pharisees. And it's dealing with the hypocrisy of those who do not practice what they preach, very important, which we establish now can be very hazardous to your spiritual health. Yeah, that is right, Esther. And on we go then into verse 16 with Jesus saying, "Woe to you blind guides who say if anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath, you blind fools, for which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred, and you say if anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by the oath, you blind man, for which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred, so whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it, and whoever swears by the temple swears by it, and by him who dwells in it, and whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God, and by him who sits upon it." One of the characteristics of hypocritical religion seems to be an unhealthy interest in financial gain, and we see this here in another of Jesus' pronouncements in verse 23, "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, 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 guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel," tithing is a good practice, but these guys were majoring on minors, they were concerned with small details that were pretty unimportant whilst the really important things were being overlooked, and then Jesus has something to say about hidden sin in verse 25, "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence, you blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness, so you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness," wow, well, isn't that challenging, and we have to make sure that the outward appearances are outward appearances match up with what we do in our private hours when the door is closed and no one sees, because believe me friends, our private sin never stays private, it always somehow will work its way to the surface, and even if we can fool others, we can never fool the all-seeing eyes of God, and so nobody gets away with anything. You know, wherever you're listening to this friends today, the Pharisees and the Jewish religious leaders of that time were a little different from us. Every one of us don't we have this tendency to sin inwardly, yet try our best to keep up appearances and protect ourselves so that we look good on the outside, so we need to be real about the things that we struggle with, confess those areas of our lives to God who promises His help for us to change and overcome that sin in our lives. And Jesus said as a man thinks in his heart, in other words, what goes on in his inner heart and mind, well, that's what He really is. Jesus also says in verse 29, "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous. In other words, He's saying to the Pharisees that the prophets of yesterday were murdered by religious people, just like you who were hypocrites, 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." And you know, you'll have heard the expression I'm sure that history repeats itself, and you may have noticed that many horrible things that happened in the past are being repeated today. Why is that? Well, it's because the same sins that haunted our ancestors are sins that are found inside of us right now, and so we need the power and the Spirit of God to fill our hearts and help us to heal, change our ways and habits and recognize and change the oft, devious slant in our hearts. And Jesus then says, "Fill up then the measure of your fathers." In other words, go ahead then and complete what your ancestors started is what Jesus is basically saying, and their harsh words, and Jesus is certainly Esther, not treating this lightly. You know, John, I think even us sometimes we think that if we had lived in the times where Jesus was here on earth, that we would not have rejected Him, we wouldn't have done just as they did, but the reality is we probably would be in the same situation. Yeah, that, I know exactly what you mean Esther, and I think it's right. And yet, you know, look at how sometimes we treat Christ today. How often is His name taken in vain? How often do we who claim to know Him, ignore the leadings and the promptings of His Spirit? How often do we make room in our hearts to hear His gentle voice and His words of guidance for our lives? And how often do we read His word and obey His word? How do we treat pastors and ministers? And so you're right Esther, sin is sin, and the human heart is the human heart, and we're no better than they were back then. And then look at this in verse 33, Jesus again goes on to say, you serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Jesus is using strong words to speak to these religious leaders, goes on, therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify and some, 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 to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barakiah whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I say to you all these things will come upon this generation. You see these hypocrites themselves soon would be murdering Jesus as well. Yeah, and we will definitely see that as we continue our study. But John, is this the same Zechariah that prophesied that Jesus would enter Jerusalem on a donkey? Yeah, it's the very same one Esther, you know, Jesus saying that divine patience has reached its limit and with people rejecting the prophets who foretold the coming of the Messiah, divine judgment would finally strike the nation. And so Jesus then laments for the city and the nation in tears and even yet ends with a hope for restoration in the future. And that sort of ends the chapter in a way in verse 37 by saying, "Oh Jerusalem Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it, how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing? See, your house is left to you desolate, for I tell you you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.' You know, Jesus was more concerned about the lost sheep of Israel who were going to suffer because of their rejection of him than he was of his own impending suffering on the cross. One day though, everything was going to be restored with the coming of the Lord himself. But because of this destructive version of religion which describes the Pharisees and the hypocrites were pushing so hard, Jesus is saying that all they could expect was judgment. And this is certainly what we've been uncovering studying chapter 23 of the Gospel of Matthew which deals with good religion done badly by people who either don't believe the word of God or who preach it, but don't practice it themselves or at least try to add their own words to it. And this is what the Pharisees did often friend. And I just wonder how it happens that people would turn the word of God into what is harmful for our spiritual health. Yeah, it's a good question Esther. And you know, we clearly see that created human beings who do not believe in God, right? Their own rules for life. And what the Bible shows us, and I'm thinking of the first chapter of Romans here, is that rejection of God is often a process that happens over a period of time. People don't generally make a lifelong snap decision to totally reject God or decide to become a hypocrite or an atheist. Generally, it tends to happen more gradually as people take what God has said and done and simply ignore it one item at a time. And God has revealed himself through nature. He's revealed himself in his word and through prophetic preaching. And perhaps out of carelessness or simple heart rebellion people dismiss it. And maybe that dismissal takes place over generations as people cool and become increasingly distant from the work of the spirit in the histories of their own families. It starts perhaps with a little bit of ingratitude and then it grows into serving other gods of our own making. And it goes downward from there into sexual sin, maybe witchcraft, and there's no bottom to the pit of sin. Self-seeking religion, you know, it's not godly, it's an obsession with power which is disguised with an artificial halo of self-righteousness. You know, false religion always has a materialistic element to it. It seems, John, money or some kind of other sensual satisfaction tends to be the underlying theme of false religion. Yeah, that's right. And you may have heard this expression that time is money, but the same I think goes for religion. Religion sometimes can be money to people. And what we truly do for Christ is not motivated by profit, but ultimately by a sheer love for Jesus. I remember once meeting someone who said to me, I can't become a Christian because I don't have $2,000 as seed money. You know, they'd heard some preacher somewhere on television promising them a return on their investment. You know, this is the sort of thing that Jesus was so against turning the faith of God into a marketplace or having people think that the blessing of God can be, can be bought. And Jesus said that those who do these kind of things and teach these kind of things will receive double punishment because bad religion drives others far from the truth. It's hazardous to people's health. It's hazardous to people's eternal future. And it's doubly hazardous, says Jesus, to the unfaithful preacher who departs from the word of God because he's driven or she's driven by money. Okay, well, getting to the topic that I think most people tend to fear, and that's the topic of hell. Now twice in this chapter, first in verse 15 and also then in verse 33, Jesus talks about hell. So is hell a reality or should we just understand it as figurative language? Well, as to the Bible makes it very clear that there's a time coming when God will judge everybody. And hell then is real. And what is hell? Well, we can't define it in its entirety of course, but it's certainly spending eternity removed, absent from God's love. And whilst you might listen to that and think, well, with that, the truth is that all good things around us are sent from God. Hell then will be horrific because it's a place cut off from the love of God. What does it look like? Well, we don't know. But Jesus does talk about eternal punishment in fire that never goes out and lasts forever. We know from Matthew chapter 25, verse 41, which we'll get to in a couple of days that hell was not created for man, but for the devil and the angels who sinned along with him. But unfortunately, the tragedy is that mankind who goes with the devil's program in this life also will share the devil's fate. You know, if we believe in Jesus, I sometimes think we're like lighthouses beaming his truth out to an oft raging sea or world where all the people of the world who don't know Christ are heading for some kind of eternal catastrophe on the rocks. And so this image of a lighthouse should remind us of the importance of being God's advocates here on earth. Wow. Well, I do have just one more question. I am really enjoying our time studying this book, but what does verse 39 mean? It says, you shall see me no more till you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Well, I think as to what he's letting them know is that he's going to be killed, raised again, and would then ascend back to heaven until the glorious day when he will return. And the Bible says every eye will see him and he'll take up his rightful throne in Jerusalem in the great kingdom to come the new heavens and the new earth. Now, this necessarily means that there is still hope for the future restoration of the nation of Israel. Now, as to when and how all this plays out, well, many scholars have speculated on that, but we do know we won't know the where and when of it until it actually happens. Well, at least we ended today's episode on a high note with that good news, with that hope that is in Christ Jesus. But John, how can we sum up this chapter, chapter 23? So here we go then. This chapter was mostly devoted to Jesus' seven woes of the Pharisees who drew condemnation from God because of their pride, their self-serving attitudes, and their hypocrisy. God's vengeance will fall on all hypocrites. That's what is made clear here. But in the meantime, our blessed Savior, Redeemer and Messiah, stands at the door of our hearts, ready to receive all who call upon him. He offers forgiveness, dear listeners, so repent and believe the gospel. And it's with that friend that we close off mission 66, and we'll be back again next time with more to uncover as with regards to the life of Jesus and his teachings according to the Gospel writer Matthew. Well, I'm Esther, and as always, it's been a pleasure. Please do join me and John Matthews again next time for another mission 66. That wraps up today's episode of mission 66 with John Matthews and Esther Susulu. Follow their daily teaching by downloading your free study guide of the Gospels at mission66.org. Go deeper into God's Word and discover how each day's teaching can apply to your life. James, chapter 1, verse 22 tells us to be doers of the Word, not just hearers. Download your free study guide at mission66.org and have it for our next program. That's also where you can leave a comment or make a donation to continue mission 66 here and around the world. That's mission66.org. Mission 66 is a ministry of Transworld Radio in partnership with Dr. Louis Cial. I'm Rob Dempsey. 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