You Snakes!
Matthew 23:13-39
Harry Stoliker
May 5, 2010 EBC
Listen
Let me get right to the Main Message of this Sermon: Jesus is severely
warning the Jewish leaders that they are in danger of hell.
(V.33) The context of this fearful and scathing sermon to the
leaders of Israel is the entire OT! The sin and rebellion of the leaders
and people of Israel had been building up over the centuries like
pressure in a volcano. Think of all the many, many prophets
that God kept sending to the leaders and kings and people of Israel throughout the
history of the OT. Our text is the culmination, the great final
warning and denunciation, giving by none other
than Messiah Himself. In this chapter and the next, He is foretelling the end
of the entire Jewish identity and system of worship in the coming
destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD by the Romans. Jesus drops the
gloves and hits them very hard with their sin
and its consequences. He uses strong and graphic language:
"hypocrites, sons of hell, blind guides, blind fools, blind Pharisees, whitewashed
tombs, snakes, brood of vipers."
He gives them 7 woes that expose the heart of their hypocrisy. It'is
possible that the sense of completeness often associated with the
number 7 in Jewish thought is intended to underline the message
of the final culmination of Israel's guilt in "this generation." (France)
It is very likely that the "this generation" mentioned in these
judgment pronouncements refers to the generation that saw the Romans
burn Jerusalem to the ground.
(France): The first 6 woes seem to be three pairs with matching
themes. The 1st pair (V.13-15) speaks of keeping
people out of the kingdom of heaven. The teachers of the law, by
their false teaching, had shut the door of the Kingdom
in the face of those who listened to them! In a real sense
they were the instrumental cause of keeping people out of heaven.
Not the ultimate cause, but the secondary cause. These official
guardians of God's revealed will in the Torah corrupted it so badly
that others had the doors of heaven shut in their faces! On top of that
they were zealous to win converts to their false teaching. They would
travel over land and sea to convince even one person to follow their
error! What a responsibility to bear at the final judgment! Our
lesson, nothing we do or say should turn people away
from the gospel of Jesus Christ. To shut the door on people is to
be a hypocrite that is like a bad billboard advertisement,
it make the customers not want to investigate the product. 3 Key
passages: Mt. 5:16 "In the same way, let your light shine before
men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."
1 Timothy 4:16 "Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist
in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers."
Proverbs 4:23 "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs
of life."
The 2nd pair of woes (V. 16-24) has to do with missing
the heart of things because you are such a stickler on details.
They loved to be fastidious (choosy, fussy, particular, demanding)
about the details of the law but miss the real intent and real heart
of what God said. V.23-24 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees,
you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have
neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness.
You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.
24You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel."
What's the point here? The point is that the Pharisees
didn't give the same energy and care to working out the implications
of the law of justice, mercy and faithfulness as they did to working
out the minute details of tithing herbs. "They were satisfied with their
focus on incidentals and externals but willfully resisted
the spiritual meaning of the law." (MacArthur)
Our lesson: Do you know the real heart of God? Jesus
gave us the answer two weeks ago. The greatest command
is to love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul and mind. The
second is to love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and Prophets hang
on these two commands. If you are more concerned about keeping regulations,
rules, formulas, customs, or traditions than you are about loving God
with all your energy, you are in trouble. Listen to how Paul gets to the point in
rom. Romans 14:17 "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking
but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." How are you doing
in the areas of personal righteousness and joy in the Holy Spirit?
Have you put the energy into understanding these critical facets
of the Christian life?
The 3rd pair of woes (V25-28) is also a contrast between
outward and inward purity. V.25 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and
Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside
they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26Blind Pharisee!
First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean."
It's possible to dress up greed and self-indulgence so people don't
see it as it really is. You can put a nice dress on a pig,
but it's still a smelly old pig! Real cleansing starts on the inside
first and then works its way out, that's what V.26 says. Mt. 15:18-19
"But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a
man 'unclean.' 19For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder,
adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20These
are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him
'unclean.' "
Jesus uses another graphic illustration in V.27-28 "Woe to you,
teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs,
which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones
and everything unclean. 28In the same way, on the outside you
appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness."
Touching a dead body or a dead man's bones was extremely serious
in the Mosaic Law and made one instantly unclean for
7 days. Numbers 19:13 "Whoever touches a dead person, the body of anyone who
has died, and does not cleanse himself, defiles the tabernacle of the Lord, and
that person shall be cut off from Israel…" "The marking of graves with lime-plaster
(to make them beautifully white and clean looking) was intended not so much for
cosmetic purposes as to warn people against touching
them and so contracting uncleanness." (France) "This was done especially at Passover
with its massive influx of pilgrims" (Hagner). Imagine someone traveling
all the way to Jerusalem for Passover and inadvertently stepping on
an unclear grave and becoming unclean for 7 days, thus unable to
worship!
The point is clear for us: Don't hide an evil heart
behind a white-washed façade of phony Christianity. The real issue
is always: What's in your heart!? What drives your heart?!
What do you love with your heart?! God said in Psalms 51:6 "Behold,
you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret
heart." Is there greed lurking in your soul that you need
to be healed of? Is there self-indulgence that has to
be exposed and healed so you can live to God's glory? This is why
David's prayer in Ps. 51 is so great! He asks God to do the deep internal
cleansing of his heart. "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse
me from my sin! Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall
be whiter than snow."
The 7th woe (V.29-36) concerns the shedding of the blood
of the prophets. First the OT prophets are mentioned. Their graves are
honored and decorated by the Pharisees, who said they wouldn't have killed
them as their forefathers did. Jesus puts them in the same camp
as sons of their forefathers by telling them in V.32 they will fill up
the measure of the sin of their forefathers by the killing of the Messiah
Himself! The prophets, John the Baptist and Jesus were all spokesmen
for the will of God, which they roundly rejected for their lives.
V.33 stands as one of the most shocking, striking, solemn and fearful
verses in the NT. ""You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape
being condemned to hell? Is Jesus just blowing off steam
here, or being crude, rude and harsh? Not at all. When someone is
in danger of eternal judgment, the best thing you can do
is to tell them, warn them, strongly caution them, bring them face to face
with the severe consequence of their sin. That is the loving thing
to do. Speak the truth in love! Yes, Jesus was speaking severely to
them because of their long-standing, hard-hearted hypocrisy, but it
was also a last call to repentance! In modern times
people don't believe there is an eternal hell. They can't imagine
that God would send anyone to an eternal hell. They have no notion
about the holiness, justice and wrath of God. All that is repulsive to
them so they ignore the teaching of Jesus on this topic.
D.L. Moody said: "I cannot preach on hell unless I preach with tears."
He was so right, and it's because he had some understanding of the
nature of hell. It is not a light topic, a frivolous topic, or an
academic topic. It is infinitely serious. Let me just
quote two authors, one modern and one from the Puritans who attempt
to capture the infinitely serious nature of hell. John MacArthur :
"There's no way to describe hell. Nothing on earth can compare
with it. No living person can really comprehend it. No madman
in the wildest flights of insanity ever beheld the borders of hell.
No man in delirium's ever pictured a place so utterly terrible.
No nightmare racing across a fevered mind ever produced a terror to match that of
the mildest hell. No murder scene with splattered blood and mutilated bodies could
ever suggest the revulsion that one glimpse of hell could suggest;
and our Lord saw that...and He was moved...to reach out to people."
Thomas Watson "The torments of hell abide forever! "The smoke of their torment
ascends up forever and ever" (Rev. 14:11). Time cannot finish hell.
Tears cannot quench hell. The wicked will always live in the fire
of hell – but never be consumed. After they have lain
millions of years in hell, their punishment is as far from ending,
as it was at the beginning! If all the earth and sea were sand, and every thousandth
year a bird should come, and take away one grain – it
would be a long time before that vast heap would be removed! Yet, if after all
that time the damned might come out of hell – there would
be some hope; but this word FOREVER breaks the heart!
This is why we see Jesus lamenting over Jerusalem in V.37! "O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to
you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers
her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. 38Look,
your house is left to you desolate. 39For I tell you, you
will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the
Lord " Jerusalem here is representative not only of the city
but of the whole Jewish nation as well. But rather than repent at
the preaching of Messiah Himself, they continued to spill innocent blood
– including Jesus' and his followers. They were not willing
– their stone-cold, spiritually-dead hearts had no will to repent and believe
in Jesus. This passage shows us that God is not willing that any should perish,
that is, God takes no delight in the death of anyone. Jesus is lamenting
over their spiritually dead hearts! God says in Ezekiel 18:23 "Have
I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather
that he should turn from his way and live?" We should imitate Jesus and
God and lament over people who refuse to come to Christ for salvation!
Then Jesus gives an important statement in V. 38 "Look, your
house is left to your desolate." What is he talking about? He's telling
the Jews that the temple is going to be destroyed by the Romans and
their entire religious system would be obliterated. This is exactly what happened
in 70 A.D. when forces under the Roman general Titus sacked
Jerusalem and burned the Temple. This is what Jesus is talking about
in Matthew 24:1-2 "Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples
came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, "You
see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one
stone upon another that will not be thrown down." This sets the stage
for Mt. 24 which we'll get to soon. It was a horrible time of judgment
upon rebellious Israel. Jesus had said in V.36 "I tell you
the truth, all this will come upon this generation." He was talking
about the generation that saw all this take place at that time.
So, how should we respond to this very sobering passage
in Matthew? I'll mention just two responses: (1) Our hearts need to be
deeply moved by the reality of heaven and hell. These
realities should shape our values, our passions and our lifestyles!
Live for eternal realities, let eternal realities govern how you live your life
and spend your time and resources.
(2) We should be motivated to tell people about the gospel
of free grace and eternal life only in Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus
loved his worst enemies enough to warn them about the
reality of hell! Can't we love our neighbors enough to tell them about the realities
of heaven and hell? If we truly believe in these biblical realities we will do that!
May the Lord God give us courage and strength to point people to Jesus Christ! Let's
pray.