How To Avoid The Worst Woes In Life - Part 1 Series

How to Avoid the Worst Woes in Life - Part 1

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 23:13-24

Sermon by Rick Crandall

(Prepared January 28, 2023)

MESSAGE:

*In this chapter you will hear the strongest words of condemnation Jesus ever spoke during His ministry here on earth. Eight times Jesus called these religious leaders "hypocrites." A. T. Robertson explained that "this hardest word from the lips of Jesus fell on those who were the religious leaders of the Jews. The Lord's verbal thunderbolts of wrath were deserved by the scribes and Pharisees, due to their murderous conduct toward Jesus and their unholy treatment of God's things." (1)

*Jesus called them hypocrites 8 times, and in the same verses He pronounced 8 woes on their souls. Our English word "woe" is a strong exclamation of grief that comes from a serious affliction or misfortune. It expresses deep distress, misery, or wretchedness.

*William Barclay explained that "the original word for 'woe' here was hard to translate because it included both wrath and sorrow. There is righteous anger in the Lord's voice in this Scripture, but it is the anger of a loving heart that was broken by the stubborn blindness of these evil leaders." (2)

*These scribes and Pharisees brought the Lord's condemnation on their own heads. But their story can help us today. We need to be as far away from them spiritually as we can possibly be. We need to run away from their hard-hearted ways, and the Lord Jesus Christ will help us!

1. SO FIRST: DON'T HINDER PEOPLE FROM GOD'S KINGDOM. -- HELP THEM GO IN!

*This is the Lord's message to us in vs. 13 where Jesus said, "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in."

*What did Jesus mean by this accusation? Well, we have to understand that the only way into the Kingdom is through the King! The only way into the Kingdom is through God's Son, the Messiah Jesus Christ. As Jesus said in John 10:9, "I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture." Then in John 14:5-6 , when Jesus was about to go to the cross: "Thomas said to Him, 'Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?' Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'"

*The Pharisees believed that the way into the Kingdom of Heaven was by keeping the multitude of petty regulations they had added to God's Law. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Trusting in Jesus Christ is the only way into the Kingdom of heaven! So, by rejecting Jesus, they were slamming the door on themselves, and on anyone else who would listen to them.

*How can we avoid this woe? Don't do anything to hinder people from God's Kingdom. Help them go in. And God will help us to help them!

*I love to hear stories about how God does that. Charles Spurgeon was one of the great preachers of the 1800s. One morning, he asked the Lord to direct him in what he should read for his morning devotions. And he was strongly moved to read the book of Joel.

*When Spurgeon came to Joel 3:3, he read, "They have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink." Or as the Living Bible says, "They divided up my people as their slaves; they traded a young lad for a prostitute, and a little girl for wine enough to get drunk." In that moment of reading, the Holy Spirit made sure that the word "girl" caught Spurgeon's eye. The preacher was curious about it, and he checked his concordance to see how many times the word "girl" was found in his KJV Bible. To his great surprise, he found the word only occurred once.

*Later that same day, Spurgeon decided to take a walk. He had gone about a block and a half, when he looked up to see a certain house. Spurgeon knew that a radical atheist lived in that house. This hard-hearted unbeliever was very ugly to anyone who believed the Bible. But Spurgeon went up and knocked on the front door.

*In a growling voice, the atheist asked, "Well, what do you want?" "I would like to read the Bible to you," Spurgeon replied. The atheist began his usual abuse, but then suddenly he stopped and asked, "Will you tell me how often the word 'girl' is in the Bible?"