Today we are starting a new sermon series entitled: The Questions Jesus Asked.
Jesus had a way of asking questions to which He fully knew the answers. The question Jesus asked where for our benefit, not his. Jesus being divine, He is all knowing, so in a sense, His questions are rhetorical. God asked questions in the OT. Questions he asked in the garden were probing, not because God wanted to know, but he wanted us to know. God asked Adam:
Genesis 3:9 (NKJV) Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
And again God asked:
Genesis 3:11 (NKJV) And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”
Later God asked Job a series of question. Job was demanding an audience with God to asked God why he was suffering, but God takes center stage and asked Job a series of questions:
Job 38:4 (NKJV) “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.
And God continues to ask Job questions for 3 chapters. Now Jesus comes and asked probing questions (like Father, like Son). Some question was for the intellect, others questions was to stir the conscience. Questions we will be examining over the next few weeks:
Mark 5:31 (NKJV) But His disciples said to Him, “You see the multitude thronging You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’ ”
We will explore what it means to touch Jesus.
Mark 4:40 (NKJV) But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?”
We will examine what does it really mean to fully trust in Jesus.
Matthew 20:32 (NKJV) So Jesus stood still and called them, and said, “What do you want Me to do for you?”
How would you answer?
We will conclude the series with the question Jesus asked Peter and all the disciples:
Matthew 16:15 (NKJV) He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
What is important is how we answer that question.
Today we will start with a question Jesus asked that He expected no answer in response. This is a question most of the world does not get or understand, and but believe they have the answer. Jesus asks in our focal verses today: How Can You Escape the Condemnation of Hell?
Matthew 23:31–36 (NKJV)
In the military we had a term that we called “square fillers.” We would have a check-list of requirements and before each requirement or inspection item, there would be printed a little square . When each requirement was completed, you would check off the appropriate square. Flying, we would run the checklist, make sure all requirements were done for each phase of flight. As complete as the checklist were, the pilots still had to fly the jet. The checklists really didn’t cover everything.
The term came to mean meeting minimum requirements. You “fill the squares,” accomplished only what was necessary, and then it was time to do something else. This term was applied to when you were up for promotion. The question asked was “Did you fill all the squares?” If so, then you were eligible to be promoted.
The Pharisees and Scribes were “square fillers.” They insured that every “T” was crossed and every “I” was dotted, but their hearts were far from God. Jesus was angry and He had about all He could take from them. In Matthew 23, Jesus gives His seven woes to the Scribes (some translations will say teachers of the law) and the Pharisees. They were all about appearances, nothing in the heart. They were outwardly righteous. But they were like white-washed tombs, but full of dead men’s bones.
Matthew 23:27–28 (NKJV) “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
We are more like the Pharisees and Scribes than we would often admit. We’re at church whenever the doors open, we give generously, we put on our happy faces and pretend all is right with the world, whereas on the inside, our hearts are far from the Lord. We so often just go through the motion, “filling squares” convincing ourselves that we tight with the Almighty, when it’s been a week since we talked with Jesus and had an intimate moment with him. The scary thing is, and I hate to even ask the question, how many “Christians” really know what a personal relationship with Jesus really is? How many have experience intimate moments with the Savior? How many spend time alone with Jesus every day? We may look pretty on the outside, but what are we really like on the inside?
Our look at the Scribes and Pharisees will take on several different aspects. We look at their actions and their hearts, we will also consider those who are at the receiving end of their actions.
Matthew 23:29–30 (NKJV) “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’
The scribes and Pharisees were quick to condemn the actions of their forefathers, those Jews in the past who condemned and killed and persecuted the prophets. Hindsight is always 20-20. However, as we will see, they are just like them. Within the week, they will put to death Jesus, just like their forefathers did to the prophets before them.
Matthew 23:31 (NKJV) “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.
Jesus uses family terms often. The “sons of those” do not necessarily mean the literal sons of those murders, or even the direct descendants. But they are of the same character. In John 8 Jesus compared Abraham being their father and the devil being their father.
John 8:39 (NKJV) They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham.
John 8:44 (NKJV) You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.
Like father, like son. We are children and descendants of those we imitate and follow. This begs the question: Whose family do we emulate? Like who do we follow? Do we follow the world, becoming more like the world every day? or Are we really becoming more like Jesus every day? Or are those just church words?
Matthew 23:32 (NKJV) Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt.
Jesus is telling them to go ahead, be like your fathers, those that killed prophets. And sure enough, they did just that later that week. Stephen, the first martyr of the church, accused those who were about to stone him:
Acts 7:51–52 (NKJV) “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. 52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers,
And so sets the stage for Jesus to ask this question:
Matthew 23:33 (NKJV) Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?
Jesus calls them serpent (another name for Satan) and vipers. The question is rhetorical. Being the followers of those who murdered the prophets, whose father is Satan, the murderer and father of lies, how do they hope to escape condemnation.
It bear reminding here, that Jesus is talking to the religious leaders, those who taught the law, those who should know the scriptures more than anyone else.
[We can see why the Pharisees were Jesus’ enemies. Jesus emphasized the inner man; they were concerned with externals. He taught a spiritual life based on principles, while the Pharisees majored on rules and regulations. Jesus measured spirituality in terms of character, while the Pharisees measured it in terms of religious activities and conformity to external laws. Jesus taught humility and sacrificial service; but the Pharisees were proud and used people to accomplish their own purposes.[1]
This is not the first time the Scribes and Pharisees encountered such damming language. John the Baptist warned them as well with almost identical language.
Matthew 3:7–10 (NKJV) But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, 9 and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. 10 And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Hear very closely to what I am saying. It is all about the heart. Showing the works of repentance. Bearing good fruit. These are not works to be saved, but rather the works giving evidence of being saved, of having a close relationship with Jesus. The Scribes and Pharisees were all out filling the squares. To those without God given discernment, we as bystanders cannot always tell the difference. But God knows the heart.
In the sermon on the mount, Jesus said much the same thing is some of the most worrisome verses in the Bible:
Matthew 7:21–23 (NKJV) “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
Jesus is talking to square fillers in these verses. The T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted, but the heart is not right. The warnings are there:
Matthew 23:34–35 (NKJV) Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.
Jesus sends out the prophets, the wise men, and scribes. The prophet speaks as God gives the prophet words, but the wise men and scribes, these are those who study the word and the Holy spirit has granted understanding, and they pass on the true message of God. These are who God uses today because we have His Word, right here in our hands. Jesus send us teachers, preachers, biblical scholars, and pastors. These godly teachers, preachers, and learned scholars, God uses today, and they will be persecuted. We have martyrs today because of the truth they speak.
Able to the blood of Zechariah. Able was the first martyr and Zecharaih the last in the OT. We read about Zechariah in 2 Chronicles 24, which in the Hebrew Bible, 2 Chronicles is the last book. These Godly men were killed by those who claimed to know God.
Matthew 23:36 (NKJV) Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
“this generation” is quite literal here. In the verses that follow, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and says destruction is coming, and his disciples ask Jesus about this in chapter 24, where we have Jesus’ discourse on the end of Jerusalem and the tribulation, and his second coming. That generation who rejected Jesus and saw to His crucifixion, less than 40 years later also saw the utter and complete destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70AD.
Judgment is as certain now as it was then. Looks go back and look at the big picture. The Scribes and the Pharisees, did everything right, they filled all the squares, but their hearts were not right. It was plain from the woes of Jesus that they were out for themselves. Despite their outward appearance,
they followed their father, the devil.
Today, those who chase after the world, regardless of their church attendance, how will they escape the condemnation of Hell? Who is our father? Who do we truly follow, in our hearts and in our minds, and in our very souls. We must come to Jesus, with all we have and with all our baggage. How do we escape the condemnation of Hell? Through Jesus. He said I am the way the truth and the life. There is no other way. Where is your heart today?
[1] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 85–86.
