A majority of adults who don’t attend church say they believe in God, but they have other feelings about the institution of church. A recent survey of 1 402 adults who don’t attend church, not even on holidays, found that 72 percent thought the church ‘is full of hypocrites,’
In Canada over the past few weeks we have seen everything from sex assault charges where a minister engaged in what he call “purification baths” with members of his congregation and fathered 16 children, to another that performed what he called curse removal for substantial fees.
One individual commenting on the survey results said: “We need to be helping [non Christians] understand what the church is. My feeling is we’ve done a poor job communicating that church is not for people who have arrived, but for people who are on a journey.’
George Barna, a pollster commenting on this data said: “the media-saturated, fault-finding, skeptical society we live in is part of it. You see the mistakes of prominent [Christian] leaders broadcast and printed on pages, and that solidifies people’s perspectives about Christians as hypocrites or living hypocritical lifestyles.’
Another individual commenting on the latest survey said: “people’s personal relationships also influence their perception of church, such as the neighbor who is heavily involved in his church, but also heavily involved with a mistress.
Young adults in particular are rejecting the institution — and Christianity in general — because it is perceived to be hypocritical. One hopeful element in this survey found that 78 percent would ‘be willing to listen’ to someone who wanted to share their beliefs about Christianity. They were open to talking about spiritual matters with a friend. That number was even higher among young adults, aged 18-29, of them 89 percent said they were willing to listen to a Christian sharing his or her beliefs. (Source: Tuscaloosa News, USA: http://www.religionnewsblog.com/20397/survey)
One commentator on this study said: [we are not] doing a good job of getting the message [out] of what a church is about out beyond the church walls”. We tend to be talking to ourselves. We say this in church but only about 3 percent of unchurched people come into a church [building]. This is one reason why churches must begin to communicate outside the walls of the church more, so people understand what church is and what church is not.’
This problem of hypocrisy not new. It resulted in Jesus’ strongest denunciations. Learning why it is such a problem will help us in communicating the true message of redemption and not have it hindered by a lifestyle that undermines it.
In Matthew 23:13-33 Jesus relentlessly condemned the false spiritual leaders of Israel, in particular the scribes and Pharisees, who then held the dominant power and influence in Judaism. Jesus warned about them in His first sermon, what we looked at last week, in the Sermon on the Mount (see, e.g., 5:20; 7:15), and His last sermon (Matt. 23) consists almost entirely of warnings about them and to them. In this final public message, the Lord wanted to draw the people away from those false leaders and turn them to the true teaching and the godly examples of His apostles, who would become His uniquely commissioned and endowed representatives on earth during the early years of the church. He also gave the apostles themselves a final example of the confrontational stance they would soon find it necessary to take in their proclamation and defense of the gospel.
The unbelieving scribes and Pharisees stood as models of all false spiritual leaders who would come after them. Therefore what Jesus said about them and to them is of much more than historical significance. It is essential instruction for dealing with the false leaders who abound in our own day and clear warning to us to examine ourselves, and do no be deceived about the dangers of hypocrisy.
In the first twelve verses of chapter 23, Jesus had declared that the scribes and Pharisees, typical of all false spiritual leaders, were without authority, without integrity, without sympathy, without spirituality, without humility, and therefore without God’s approval or blessing. Now speaking to them directly, He asserts they are under God’s harshest condemnation.
In His series of seven curses, or woes, against the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus condemned by extension all false spiritual teachers, and hypocrisy in general. He condemns them for 1) their Exclusion of people from God’s kingdom, for their 2) Subversion of the people, for their 3) Perversion of truth, for their 4) Inversion of God’s priorities, for their 5) Extortion and Self-indulgence, for their 6) Contamination, and for their 7) Pretension.
1) FALSE LEADERS ARE CURSED FOR THEIR EXCLUSION Matthew 23:13
Matthew 23:13 [13]"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 would enter to go in. (ESV)
In His castigation of the false Jewish leaders, Jesus repeatedly used two words, woe and hypocrites, that are keys to understanding Matthew 23:13-33.
Jesus used woe against the scribes and Pharisees not as an exclamation but as a declaration, a divine pronouncement of judgment from God. He did not use the term in the sense of the profane phrase “Damn you!” He was not wishing for the damnation of those false leaders but certifying it. It was not His desire that they be condemned but rather that they repent and come to salvation. But He knew that if they did not repent and believe they were doomed to hell under God’s righteous and just wrath. When God utters woe against evil men He sets divine judgment in motion.
• Regardless of any opposition we may ever encounter, if is never warranted to wish someone’s doom but pray for their repentance and faith.
Hypocrites is from hupokritçs, whose original meaning was that of answering or replying. It later came to refer to actors, who answered one another back and forth in dialogue, and from there it came to mean deceitful pretense, the putting on of a false front. It was used to describe what might be called theatrical goodness-pretended goodness that is simply for show.
First Jesus cursed the scribes and Pharisees for their exclusion of people from the kingdom of heaven. The chief evil of every false religion is that it shuts people out of God’s kingdom.
• By extension, this applies to the action where anything is substituted for genuine faith and a saving relationship with God.
• Some will use work, entertainment or hobbies as a substitute.
Regardless of the appealing, benign, and promising front that a false system of religion or philosophy may have, its ultimate accomplishment is to shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. It may feed their bodies, stimulate their minds, and calm their emotions, but it will inevitably damn their souls. It may raise their moral standards, increase their worldly success, overcome practical problems, and improve their outward relationships with other people, but it will not remove their sin or improve their relationship to God. It may promise heaven, but it can only deliver hell.
Please turn to Romans 2
“You neither enter the kingdom yourselves;” Jesus said, “nor allow those who would enter to go in.” In their hypocrisy, the unbelieving scribes and Pharisees pretended to know God but did not, pretended to be His spokesmen but were not, pretended to be in His kingdom but were not. In their boundless pride they even believed they themselves were the doorkeepers of the kingdom.
In his letter to the Roman church, Paul said:
Romans 2:17-21 [17]But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God [18]and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; [19]and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, [20]an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth-- [21]you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? [23]You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. [24]For, as it is written, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." (ESV)
• Have you studied scripture and are confident that you know the will of God and what is pleasing to him? Are you quick to tell your children what is right? But do you do it?
• The essence of hypocrisy is proclaiming the truth to others yet failing to abide by it yourself.
• Disobedient children or scoffing co-workers may regard God as contemptible because of you.
Matthew 23:14 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive the greater condemnation.(ESV footnote verse of Variant reading).
If verse 14 were included there would be eight woes, but that verse is not found in the early manuscripts of Matthew.
To some extent this second evil was caused by the first. They disregarded such things as justice, mercy, and faithfulness because those things are essentially the reflections of a transformed heart. It is impossible to be merciful, just, and faithful without a divinely wrought change. No external formality can produce that.
• Be very careful if you willingly commit sin and excuse it to yourself by appealing to work that you do. If you find yourself willing engaging in sin and excusing it that you read your Bible, go to Church or help others, your righteousness may be that of the Scribes and Pharisees, partial and therefore insufficient.
Hypocrisy is 1) CURSED FOR ITS EXCLUSION
2) FALSE LEADERS ARE CURSED FOR THEIR SUBVERSION
Matthew 23:15 [15]Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel 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. (ESV)
Second, Jesus cursed the scribes and Pharisees for their subversion of the people. They not only excluded them from the true faith but subverted them with false faith.
In New Testament times a great effort was being made to convert Gentiles to Judaism. They worked aggressively, traveling across sea and land to make a single proselyte. The word proselyte had the basic meaning of a person who has arrived, and came to be commonly used of an outsider who was brought into a religion.
There is a very serious implication with this: Jesus was not denouncing their zealousness. They traveled across sea and land to make a single proselyte. How far will we go to evangelize? I’m not talking geographically, but in effort. Will we do anything but take the effort to evangelize? Or do we take comfort in either going or supporting international missions work but not make the effort to share the truth with our neighbors, coworkers of friends?
Acts 1:8 [8]But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." (ESV)
• God expects us to deal with those closest to us. Evangelism supported in distant lands is no substitute.
In Matthew 23 because the Scribes and Pharisees brought the proselytes into a false religious system that had replaced biblical Judaism, such a proselyte became twice as much a child of hell as the scribes and Pharisees themselves. They sometimes surpassed their mentors in fanatical zeal, but because their zeal was not godly it simply led them more certainly to hell.
Hypocrisy is 1) CURSED FOR ITS EXCLUSION, ITS 2) SUBVERSION AND
3) FALSE LEADERS ARE CURSED FOR THEIR PERVERSION
Matthew 23:16-22 [16]"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.’ [17]You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? [18]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 his oath.’ [19]You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? [20]So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. [21]And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. [22]And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it. (ESV)
Third, Jesus cursed the scribes and Pharisees for their perversion of truth. In this elaborate twisting of truth they tried to play word games with truth.
God is the God of truth and cannot lie (Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18), and His people are therefore to be people of truth. From the beginning, those who have rejected God have rejected His truth. They have:
Romans 1:25 [25](because they) exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (ESV)
In this particular indictment, Jesus did not call His opponents hypocrites but blind guides, emphasizing their unawareness that they were ignorant of the truth.
• What is your message of the truth? Do you tell everyone that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives? What is the implication if this is the essence of our message?
• Why should anyone forsake sin if God already loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives? Is the wrath of God for those who refuse to repent a “wonderful plan for their lives”?
• It’s not that we present a message where people must work to earn God’s favour, but the genuine message that a work has been done that alone has pleased God.
• If we don’t present a message of truth in a call to repent, turn from sin and trust in the work of Christ alone for eternal life, then we become blind guides.
• In failing to present this message, we fear rejection of others over denunciation of God.
Hypocrisy is 1) CURSED FOR ITS EXCLUSION, ITS 2) SUBVERSION 3) PERVERSION AND
4) FALSE LEADERS ARE CURSED FOR THEIR INVERSION
Matthew 23:23-24 [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. [24]You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! (ESV)
Fourth, Jesus cursed the scribes and Pharisees for inverting divine priorities. They magnified the insignificant and minimized the essential.
Mint and dill and cummin were garden herbs used as kitchen spices, and were not generally considered farm produce, of which the Mosaic law required a tithe be paid to the treasury in Israel (Lev. 27:30). They gloried in the self-righteousness of subscribing to such minutiae.
But with all their carefulness in such insignificant and often noncompulsory matters, they neglected the weightier matters/provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. They were obsessed with counting leaves and seeds but indifferent to basic ethics.
In His reference to the truly weightier matters, Jesus paraphrased the words of Micah. Some 700 years earlier that prophet had declared, “[The Lord]
Micah 6:8 [8]He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
The scribes and Pharisees were inequitable, unfair, unjust, unmerciful, brutal, unforgiving, unkind, greedy, and abusive of others. They were everything that is contrary to the weightier matters/provisions of the law. Worst of all, they walked by sight rather than faith, trusting in their own works rather than God’s grace.
Jesus did not denounce the tithing of herbs, which would have been perfectly acceptable if done in sincerity and faith. And because tithing was at that time still a valid requirement under the Old Covenant, He certainly did not reprove tithing in general. “These are the things you ought to have done,” He said, “without neglecting the others.”
It is also possible for true believers to become caught up in minutiae. Do you pride yourself in knowing what might be some of the more obscure elements of doctrine or scriptural teaching yet neglecting the application of commands? I have seen people almost superstitious in a having an absolutely unchangeable devotional time even at the expense of acting on weighty commands of justice, mercy and faithfulness. Don’t take pride that you understand these concepts. Look for opportunities of showing them. Even in the raising of children we can become obsessed in the minutest detail yet neglect in the transformation of the heart.
Jesus graphically illustrated the scribes’ and Pharisees’ inversion of priorities by saying that they would strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. The gnat and the camel represented the smallest and the largest, respectively, of the ceremonially unclean animals (see Lev. 11:4, 42). They were painstaking about formal, ceremonial trivialities but were unconcerned about their hypocrisy, dishonesty, cruelty, greed, self-worship, and a host of other serious sins. They substituted outward acts of religion for the essential virtues of the heart.
Hypocrisy is 1) CURSED FOR ITS EXCLUSION, ITS 2) SUBVERSION 3) PERVERSION 4) INVERSION AND
5) FALSE LEADERS ARE CURSED FOR THEIR EXTORTION AND SELF-INDULGENCE
Matthew 23:25-26 [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. [26]You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. (ESV)
Fifth, Jesus cursed the scribes and Pharisees for their extortion of others and indulgence of themselves.
To illustrate again their hypocrisy, Jesus used the figure of cleaning the outside of a cup and ... plate, but not the inside. The Greek phrase behind plate was often used of a platter on which exquisite delicacies were served. The idea is of a person who offers a guest a seemingly lovely meal served with the best wine. But it turns out that, although the utensils are beautiful and ceremonially purified, the food served on them was putrid.
• Just as it is deadly to clean to just appearances, for our own lives if our foremost concern is not to be outwardly caught in a sin, the internal rot will consume us.
• If our primary attention is on internal sanctification, then the outward result will be pleasing to God.
Outwardly, the religious leaders gave the appearance of pious devotion to the Lord, but inwardly they were full of the moral and spiritual filth of greed and self-indulgence. They were ceremonially immaculate and attractive but spiritually squalid and repulsive.
Harpagç (greed) carries the ideas of plundering, pillaging, and extortion, and akrasia (self-indulgence) has the basic meaning of lack of self-control and was often used to denote unrestrained self-gratification. The unscrupulous religious leaders robbed the people they were supposed to serve in order to satisfy their own greed. They plundered both the souls and the wallets of the people and used the ill-gotten gains to serve themselves.
• Part of my responsibility is to warn you of false teachers. Just about all you see on religious TV and most in the bookstores is the greed of false teachers. Some of the flashiest productions on TV and in print hide the internal rot and bankruptcy of the false teachers.
• I have been a resource consultant in Para church ministry for many years and have seen behind the veil of many corrupt false teachers.
• If there is an author or speaker you want to know about, I would be more than willing to go into as much detail about this individual as you would wish.
Making the accusation more personal and direct, Jesus said, “You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the plate, so that the outside may also be clean.”
Mark 7:15 [15]There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him." (ESV)
Throughout history, false religious leaders have become rich and fat by fleecing those they pretend to serve. Outwardly they appear righteous, caring, and exemplary, but inwardly they are rapacious wolves.
Hypocrisy is 1) CURSED FOR ITS EXCLUSION, ITS 2) SUBVERSION 3) PERVERSION 4) INVERSION 5) EXTORTION AND SELF-INDULGENCE AND
6) FALSE LEADERS ARE CURSED FOR THEIR CONTAMINATION
Matthew 23:27-28 [27]"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. [28]So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (ESV)
Sixth, Jesus cursed the scribes and Pharisees for spiritually contaminating everyone they touched.
After the spring rains had ceased, Palestinian Jews in New Testament times had the custom of whitewashing houses, walls, and particularly tombs. They began this task on the fifteenth of Adar, which roughly corresponds to March, in order to make their communities more attractive for Passover pilgrims. They had an additional purpose for whitewashing grave sites, however, especially those in and near Jerusalem. Because a person became ceremonially unclean for seven days if he touched a dead body or even a grave (Num. 19:16), all tombs were carefully whitewashed to identify them to unwary travelers. They would be prevented from inadvertently touching the tombs and becoming defiled and thereby disqualified to participate in many of the Passover activities, including the offering of sacrifices.
Like the whitewashed tombs, the scribes and Pharisees outwardly appeared beautiful, but inside they were also like the tombs, full of dead peoples bones and all uncleanness. They were spiritually dead and had no genuine regard for God’s law, despite their outward praise of it and claim to be its true interpreters and teachers. In an infinitely worse way than the tombs ceremonially defiled those who touched them, the scribes and Pharisees spiritually defiled those whom they touched.
• Take an honest assessment: What do you spend more attention on: your outward appearance or your internal sanctification?
• Can you see a holy beauty growing inside you that is marked with an ever increasing fruit of righteousness? Are there tangible things you can point to in regards to spiritual growth?
• What impact do you have on those who come into contact with you? Do people avoid you for fear of negativity or come to you for counsel?
• Those that do come into contact with you, can you see the fruit of sanctification in them, or frustration?
Hypocrisy is 1) CURSED FOR ITS EXCLUSION, ITS 2) SUBVERSION 3) PERVERSION 4) INVERSION 5) EXTORTION AND SELF-INDULGENCE 6) CONTAMINATION AND
7) FALSE LEADERS ARE CURSED FOR THEIR PRETENSION
Matthew 23:29-33 [29]"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, [30]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.’ [31]Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. [32]Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. [33]You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? (ESV)
Seventh and last, Jesus cursed the scribes and Pharisees for their pretension in presuming to be superior to others, including their forefathers.
For many hundreds of years these leaders had been in the vanguard of ventures to build the tombs of the prophets and decorate/adorn the monuments of the righteous saints and heroes of Israel. They would have been on the speaker’s platform in ceremonies honoring the great men of the past and would have voiced the loudest adulations.
• This is comparative to the possible danger of religious giftware. Doing things like listening to Christian music throughout the week, having religious artwork, things on your car or at your desk, can become an item of pride, somehow thinking that just having them around is all the witness I need or makes me more holy. Yet every one of those songs played, events displayed, verses immortalized or symbolized do you no good unless they are internalized and not just items of display.
Realizing that many of those saints had been persecuted and martyred by their own forefathers, the scribes and Pharisees made vehement disclaimers for themselves, asserting self-righteously: “If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.”
But Jesus repudiated their pretension and exposed their true character, declaring that “you bearwitness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.” At that very moment they were plotting to kill Jesus, their Messiah and the Prophet of prophets, proving they were even more wicked than their ungodly ancestors. They were so consumed by hatred of the truth and righteousness of God that they were totally blinded to the fact that they were about to crucify the very Son of God.
“Fill up then the measure (of the guilt) of your fathers;” Jesus said. “Your scheming to put to death the greatest prophet of all,” He declared in effect, “will be the final measure of the murderous conspiracies of your fathers against God’s messengers.”
Please turn to Romans 3
• Perhaps you come to the end of this and wonder how the Scribes and Pharisees could be so dense. They had Jesus in front of them and his teaching. Perhaps we tell ourselves that if I was there, I would not have been so evil or I would have figured it all out. If we say those things to ourselves, then we fall into the same pit of hypocrisy that the Scribes and Pharisees were in themselves.
Romans 3:9-18 [9]What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, [10]as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; [11]no one understands; no one seeks for God. [12]All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." [13]"Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips." [14]"Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness."[15]"Their feet are swift to shed blood;[16]in their paths are ruin and misery,[17]and the way of peace they have not known."[18]"There is no fear of God before their eyes."
Everything good that comes from us is a gift from God Himself. If we do anything of merit or praiseworthy, if our mind can meditate on what is good or our words be edifying, if we can be loving, if is all of God’s grace. It is God’s gift to us to be used in His service.
In a final curse Jesus exclaimed in verse 33: You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? (ESV)
The question was rhetorical, meaning that they could not possibly escape being sentenced to hell if they carried out the evil intent that now poisoned their hearts.
Ophis (serpents) was a general word for snakes, but echidna (vipers) referred to small poisonous snakes that lived primarily in the desert regions of Palestine and other parts of the eastern Mediterranean. Because they looked like a dried twig when they were still, a person collecting wood for a fire would often pick one up inadvertently and be bitten, as happened to Paul on the island of Malta. Vipers therefore had the understandable reputation for being both deadly and deceitful.
At the beginning of his ministry John the Baptist had called the unbelieving and unrepentant Pharisees and Sadducees who came to him for baptism a “brood of vipers” (Matt. 3:7), using exactly the same phrase used now by Jesus at the end of His ministry to describe those same false leaders. Neither the messages of John the Baptist nor of Jesus had any positive effect on those men, but served only to harden them in their unbelief and in their opposition to the gospel and to God’s righteous messengers.
geenna (hell) was derived from the name of a valley near Jerusalem where trash and garbage continually burned. Jesus’ relating vipers to the sentence of hell suggests the common practice of a farmer’s burning the dried stubble in his field to prepare the land for the next planting. As the flames approached their dens, vipers would try to scurry away but were usually unsuccessful and consumed by the fire. Jesus said, in effect, “You wicked, deceitful men, do you really think you can outrun God’s fire of judgment?”
• This is a warning to us all. Sin in our lives often looks harmless, but it will strike if untreated, if unrepented, and often with deadly consequences for ourselves and those around us.
Numbers 32:23 [23](But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the LORD, and) be sure your sin will find you out. (ESV)
Galatians 6:7-8 [7]Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. [8]For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. (ESV).
We cannot sow some prayer and praise just on Sunday, and expect a crop of holiness. That is hypocrisy. What do you think about? What do you read? You will spend eternity with what you most love. If it is things of the flesh, then the result is corruption, death and hell. If it is things of the Spirit, then it is eternal life.
