Wonderful Words of Woe
First B Jackson
2023-11-26

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Sing. How can I sing? It's one of my favorite songs. Oh, it's so good. Oh my gosh.

Alright. Good morning, everybody. How are you? Let's sing them in. Sing them in.

How about that? We'll if you'll stand with me, we'll sing redeemed how I love to proclaim it. Redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Amen. Good to be back.

Redeemed how I love to proclaim it. Redeemed by the blood of the lamb, redeemed through his infinite mercy, his child, and forever I am. Redeemed, redeemed, by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed redeemed redeemed and am sorry. Sorry.

Redeemed and so happy in Jesus, no language my rapture can tell. I know that the light of his presence with me doth continually dwell. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed, redeemed his child and forever I am. I think of my blessed redeemer.

I think of him all the day long. I sing for I cannot be silent. His love is the theme of my song. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed, redeemed his child and forever I am.

I know I shall see in his beauty the king in whose mighty life, who lovingly guarded my footsteps and giveth me songs in the night. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed, redeemed his child and forever I am.

Amen. It's funny. Even when you know the song, if it if it lags just that long, it'll make you question yourself, won't it? Wonderful words of life. Sing them over again to me.

Let me more of their beauty see wonderful words of life. Words of life and beauty teach me faith and beauty. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Christ the blessed one gives to all wonderful words of life.

Sinnerless to this loving call wonderful words of life also freely given, wooing us to heaven. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Sweetly echo the gospel call, wonderful words of life. Offer pardon and peace to all wonderful words of life.

Jesus only savior sanctify us forever. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words

Amen. Y'all can have a seat. I have a few announcements. One of them is right here. It's not gonna make it to the screen, but it's the women's Christmas luncheon, the annual one that is up at Snow King.

That's the JH Women's Bible Study. That community study that meets here on Wednesdays, ten to twelve. That has happened in December 6. So that's right around the corner, and I did not announce this in the first service. So, hey, you might get in line.

There's limited space available, and you do have to register. It's not a just show up for it sort of year. So, jhwomensbiblestudy.com. There's a link to register. I'm gonna say it again.

Jhwomensbiblestudy.com. There's a link to register. If you forget that, you need to call the office. We'll direct you. But it's December 6, noon, Snow King.

That should be a Wednesday. I think it's always on a Wednesday. Noon, Snow King. That's happening. It's it's pretty close upon us here.

So, women's Christmas luncheon. And there was a discovery class. If you ever want for us to set up a discovery class like, I am not a member, but I think I wanna be, but I wanna get a few questions answered first. That happens on the usually the third Sunday of the month, but it happened this morning in my office. Gary Geek usually does that service.

I'm willing to do one anytime. If you'll let me know, we'll do a discovery class. This is for the youth of this valley. It is a seminar. Brian Butler speaks particularly on this, subject.

Life, love, and sexuality is the beauty of God's plan that will satisfy the desires of your heart. It's gonna be December 2. That is next Saturday, six to eight in the evening. There'll be pizza and the talk, 6PM. It'll be right here.

It's for the youth of the valley, and so it's a bunch of churches coming together. All of the Protestant churches and the Catholic church are coming together for this one. Brian Butler is doing the speaking. There's a QR code. You can do that little deal if you know how to do that.

If you don't, just ask us and we'll let you know more details. There's also a little note card flyer out there on the demo loon table in the back. Twenty twenty four calendars are available in the lobby. They're out there over to the my left, your right, in the back. Twenty twenty four calendars.

Our official church calendar ever since I've been here has been one of these. They've been doing this for many years. The $10 pay for the calendars, but it also benefits the youth program. So twenty twenty four calendars are here. They're in the lobby.

They're $10 a piece. This one is a little bit unusual. But it's nice to be the place that people call when they need help. Krista Nethercott has been working for Valley Mortuary for some time. She has gone back to school to do this.

This is her thing. Now, she and Tyson are together, have changed the name to Valley Mortuary to Grand Teton Funeral Home. They've put out a call. They're doing revamping and changing things. They do not have the lease on the building where they've always been since I've been here.

So they are moving everything from the funeral home building to a storage unit in Idaho Falls on Monday, and they ask if I would announce that. So if you can help, Tyson's number is right there. And so if you want to help with that, I probably will end up helping on that myself. But if you want to, that's the unusual announcement of the morning. Hallelujah.

So what's that? That is Monday. Yeah, that's Monday. So, anybody have another announcement? Anything else?

Anything anybody want to testify? You got one. He's glad to be here this morning. Would you stand with us and we'll sing this little chorus. Hallelujah.

Glad you're here. I'm glad to be back.

He's my savior. He's my savior. He's my savior. He's my savior. He's my savior.

He's my He's my savior. Savior. He's my savior. He is worthy. He is worthy.

He is worthy. Is worthy. Worthy. Worthy. He is worthy.

He is worthy. I will praise him. I will praise I will praise him. I will praise him. I will praise him.

I will praise him. I will praise him. I will praise him. Amen.

Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is peace. Watch the rest and the syncopation on this one. Let's close that. Y'all can have a seat. I'm gonna invite the ushers to come forward.

I want you to pray with me. God, thank you for this beautiful morning, Lord. My my heart is just overwhelmed by your goodness, Lord, by your grace, by your mercy, by your forgiveness, by the beauty of this place. Every day, Lord, it's just a little different. And you know everything that is going on.

It boggles our finite human minds when we when we take in just the heavens above, the earth below. They're declaring your glory all the time, Lord. I'm overwhelmed by it. I'm thankful to be here this morning. I ask you, Lord, would you take all that is offered here this morning, your word to the transforming of our hearts?

Would you take all that is being offered right now in this worship through giving time? And take it and multiply it, Lord, to do your kingdom's work. May people come to know who Jesus is because of what you are doing in the midst of this little local body. In Jesus' name, Lord, we ask that you'd be doing your will among us in your way, and that we would not suffer any lack, but just be empowered by your spirit and by your multiplying presence. In Jesus' name, do your will, Lord.

Amen. Amen. Thank you, Judy. Oh, worship the king. Oh, seven woes.

I was just thinking, wonderful words of life. Sing them over again to me, wonderful words of life. Oh, what we've got for you today is seven woes. Seven woes, a conclusion, and a lament. This is from Matthew 23.

So it's right in the flow of what Jesus is saying in the temple on Holy Week on Tuesday before the crucifixion on Friday. So it's the last week. I didn't go on and on about that this morning, but context matters. And so I want for you to know, this is a continuation of Tuesday that we've covered for the last two sermons that I did. Now, Carl preached last week from Philippians.

I'm thankful. Love the message of Philippians. Glad to hear what he had to say. Two weeks ago, we were on Tuesday of Holy Week. That's where we are again right now.

Before I get to the seven woes, which I think is the most complete straight up list of woes in the Bible, we're gonna cover a few others. Okay? So there are six listed in Luke. Actually, this is kinda funny. The seven woes in Matthew.

If you look in a New American Standard Bible, like you're flipping through your Bible, or you look on Bible gateway under New American Standard Bible, and you look at this section, it'll say eight woes. But there are seven of them. And it's so strange. It's like, well, wait wait a second. How how did it get eight?

I've looked and looked and looked and can't find it. Well, if you'll look, verse 13 skips down to verse 15 in most modern new translations of the Bible. And so if you look, there's usually an asterisk or some note at the bottom of the page that says, verse 14 is this, the eighth woe was in verse 14. But most scholars believe that it was an interpolation from Mark that when you're listing woes, might as well just list them all. Right?

And so somebody in the past put in that scribe. I'm not gonna argue textus receptus and codex Sinaiticus and all that. I can do that if you want to, but it'll have to be later. Can't do that here. There are seven of them as I count them in the New American Standard Bible.

In Matthew, there are six in Luke, and some of them look very, very similar. But you have to think about this. Either Matthew preserved it in the proper time and Luke used it for author, you know, artistic license to make a point in Luke 11. Or Luke preserved it in the perfect time and Jesus, this presented Matthew with the opportunity to present these woes while he's talking to the Pharisees. Or maybe Jesus just talked a lot about woe to the Pharisees.

I think it's probably. Jesus spoke earlier in Luke. He speaks the same message because the message is the message is the message is the message. He's gonna keep on delivering that message. So here are the six woes in Luke.

Woe to you Pharisees paying tithes. We'll see that later. Woe to you Pharisees loving the seed of honor in the synagogues. Woe to you. You're like unseen tombs.

Some of these we'll see again. Woe to you lawyers as well. Woe to lawyers. So that one is actually the teachers of the law, people who are supposed to have studied Torah and know it really well. Woe to you who should know this really well.

Right? People who have studied it. Woe to you who build the tombs of the prophets. We'll see that one later. Woe to you lawyers again.

You've taken away the key of knowledge and you yourselves did not enter. So you had the key, but you took it away so nobody else could use it and you didn't use it yourself. Wow. We're gonna see something very similar to that in Matthew also. But when I preached through this one a few months ago, these were the six woes in Luke, and this is what they were about.

Hypocrisy. First and foremost, whenever Jesus is speaking to the pharisees, he calls them out for being hypocrites, which means actors. Those who put on a mask, who are different inside than they present outside. Hypocrisy. Imbalance, ostentation, impossible demands, intolerance, and exclusiveness.

So you might look at that list and go, one of those is kind of convicting. Two of them, maybe. Or you might just think, wow, he was really after those Pharisees. I'm glad I'm not a Pharisee. There might be one for you coming up.

What were the six woes in Luke? Hypocrisy, imbalanced, ostentation, impossible demands, where you put impossible demands on other people that you don't really do yourself, intolerance and exclusiveness. And then when he concluded in Luke, this is Jesus' or the conclusion of that story in Luke. It says, and when he left that place, the scribes and the pharisees began to be very hostile. Well, yeah.

Because he just said, woe be on woe be unto you. Right? They became to be very hostile. And they started to interrogate him about many subjects, plotting against him to catch him in something he might say. They were looking for something that he might say that they could trip him up, that he they would discredit him with his followers.

They would discredit him with the people. What they were looking to do is cancel him. Right? That's the common verbiage we see today, cancel culture. They were plotting against him to catch him in something he might say.

Oh, but you said. Oh, but you said. Right? That's what they're looking for. So those were the six woes from Luke.

And anytime I read those, it makes me think, this is not a new occurrence. Woah is an Old Testament thing that comes up all the time. And woah can be it's woah, w o e, can be anything from, woah, I'm swooning. Alas, bad news. Or it can be a really harsh message of condemnation, or it can be both of those things.

It can be, woah. Like, that's w o a h. But woah, I realize that this is speaking to me. This is a warning to me not to be a hypocrite, not to be unbalanced. It's easy in a polarized day to become unbalanced.

Ostentatious. I don't know about you, but we live in the wealthiest county in the world. Or in United States, not the world. I think Dubai's got its beat. I don't know.

I don't really know. I don't really know. I know the list came out. It's Teton County in The US. Impossible demands where we expect others intolerance exclusive.

Let's keep on moving. I don't want to think about that. Okay. Six woes from Isaiah. Think about this.

This is Old Testament. So, it's Old Covenant. Old Covenant stuff and Isaiah, God's prophet, convicted of his own sin, right? He begins to deliver the word of the Lord and he has six woes in a row. They're very much like this.

It's sort of like those in Luke. Woe to those who attach house to house and join field to field until there's no more room until you are a landowner in the midst of all of the land. Woe to you who arise early in the morning so that you can pursue intoxicating drink, who stay up late in the evening so wine may inflame them. These two woes are about greed and drunkenness respectively. Another one is kind of between the Lord of army armies will be exalted in judgment.

So woe has something to do with judgment. And the holy God will show himself holy in righteousness. God will be who God is. He's going to be holy and righteous, and a woe is a warning. Woe to those who drag wrongdoing with the cords of deceit and sin as if it was a cart with ropes.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Can you see that happening still? Seven hundred years before Christ, at the time of Jesus and now. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, valiant in mixing intoxicating drink, and declare the wicked innocent for a bribe.

Take away the rights of the ones who are actually in the right. Those are about deceit, blasphemy, self righteousness, and drunken injustice. Cheating in the last one there. Deceit, blasphemy, self righteous, drunken injustice. So if I was gonna look, Luke had those that we mentioned.

Isaiah has greed, drunkenness, deceit, blasphemy, calling good, evil, and evil good. Self righteousness, drunken injustice. I'm gonna make somebody mad when I do this, but I'm a I see a lot of y'all squinting. Forgive me. Okay.

When I see Habakkuk, that's six woes from Luke. Six woes from Isaiah. Now, are five in Habakkuk. We actually went through in first b in the Bible. We went through the minor prophets, and we read Habakkuk in the last few months.

And there is a list of five woes in Habakkuk two. Woe to him who increases what is not his. For how long? Makes himself rich with debts. Oh my goodness.

This one is about usury. We don't talk about usury a whole lot. If we do, we call it predatory lending. Okay? It's making a killing off of the poor.

Lending money and charging exorbitant interest is sinful and wrong and woe be unto usurers, predatory lenders. The next one. Woe to him who makes evil profit for his own household. Selfish evil profit. To put himself on high to be saved at the hand of catastrophe.

But it's a shameful thing. You're not gonna get away with it. Evil prophet. Okay. Woe to him who makes evil profit for his household.

Now, woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and founds a town with violence. Somebody has to suffer in order for them to build this city. This is self serving violence. Can you think of anywhere right now in the world where there are people that are pursuing for themselves with disregard for others? There's a self serving violence.

I can think of a place or two. Woe to him who builds a city on bloodshed, founds town on violence. Woe to him who makes his neighbor drink to even mix your venom even to make your neighbors drunk so as to look at, woah, wait a second. Let's just go to drunkenness, lust and violence. All right.

Read that on your own time. Habakkuk. Goodness. Two, six through 20. Drunkenness, lust, and violence.

What benefit is a carved image when its maker has carved it or cast metal image a teacher of falsehood. For its maker trusts in his own handiwork. When he fashions speechless idols, oh, this one is about idolatry. Woe to him who says to a piece of wood. This reminds me of another Isaiah passage.

Awake to a mute stone. Arise. That's your teacher? Behold, it's overlaid with gold and silver. Yeah, it's pretty.

But there's no breath at all inside of it. That's your God? It's not living. You made it yourself or you paid a craftsman to make it. There's no breath in it at all.

And then there's a contrast that says, but the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him. He is real. He is real. So the five woes from Habakkuk are usury, profiting from evil, self serving violence that puts others down, drunkenness, lust, violence, and idolatry.

So how are you all doing? As you go here, we've got a list of six and another of six and another of five. That's that's 17. 17 woes. How are you doing?

Do you feel like, I'm so far so good, you know? Are there any other isolated woes in scripture? Because all scripture is God breathed. All of it's good. And so if we examine what it says, are there other places where we need to take it seriously?

A woe is a warning. It's a warning of condemnation and judgment. And so I took it upon myself, are there other isolated woes where it's not a list of five, six, seven, whatever? It's just a woah here and there? Yeah, there are pages and pages of them.

I actually undertook this week to read all of them. Yeah, that was a lovely week. I'll have to say, first of all, I get nervous. I'm not so nervous by the second service. I play the bass in the first service to not be nervous.

If I had to sit on that front row while waiting for this, I couldn't do it. When you're out of the pulpit for a week, and I was last week, so I've got two weeks. Helps with study time. It also though ices me. It puts me on the free throw line waiting while everybody else is in a timeout.

I don't like that. And also, I don't really like delivering the bad news. I like delivering the good news. And so words of woe are warnings for us. They are wonderful words of life if we will pay attention to them, if we will follow them.

Are there other isolated woes? Yeah. There are pages of them. I'm gonna summarize. Okay?

Here they are. A lot of them are place names. Old Testament, you know, woe be unto Moab. Oh, that's great. That's not talking about the bike in town in Utah.

Woe be unto the Moabites. Woe be unto the Philistines. The third one I saw though, and these are in scriptural order. Third one I saw is woe be on us. Woe be on us.

Yep. Woe be on me, Job says, if I am wicked. Woe be on me. Woe be on me for making my dwelling among the ungodly. Like hanging out there.

Woe be on me, a lonely one whose loneliness drives him to a fall. Woe be on you, you who are ruled by immature hedonists. Woe beyond them who sin shamelessly. Woe beyond the wicked. Woe beyond the greedy and the drunk.

Woe beyond the deceitful, the blasphemous, the self righteous. Woe beyond the frivolous, drunk, and unjust. Woe beyond me, Isaiah says. For I am a foul mouthed man, and I dwell. I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.

When he saw the holiness of God filling the temple, he saw that and he felt convicted of his own sin. Woe be on me. I am undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell among a people of unclean lips.

Woe be on unjust lawmakers. Woe be on Assyria and Diamond and Ethiopia. Woe be upon me for I am treacherous. Woe be upon the proud, the habitually drunk. Woe be upon Ariel.

I don't think that's about the Little Mermaid. I don't know where Ariel actually is. It's a place name. Woe be upon the sneaky, deceiving liars and cheats. Woe be upon rebellious children.

Woe be upon those who trust in governments and military might. Woe be upon the destroyers. Woe be upon the one who quarrels with his maker. Woe be upon the one who questions the goodness of his maker. Woe be upon the one.

Woe be upon us for we are ruined, for we are evil. Woe be upon us for our evil. Woe to those who are at war with God. Woe to the unclean and impenitent. Woe to the men of strife.

Woe to the unrighteous builder. Woe to the bad shepherds. Oh, as a pastor, as a shepherd. James says, don't let many of you be teachers. Bad shepherds.

Woe be unto this evil generation. Woe to Nebo. Woe to Moab. Woe to the Chaldeans. Woe to sinners in general.

Woe to the evil abominations of the people of God. Do you notice that a lot of these are about insiders, not outsiders? Most of them are actually about those who are claiming to be the people of God, not the outsiders. Now some of them are Moab and Philistines, and that's for being against the people of God. Yeah.

They're they're in there too. Woe be upon the foolish prophets. The ones who are for profit prophets who follow their own spirit and not the spirit of God. Woe be upon the sorceresses. Woe be upon the wicked.

Woe be upon Jerusalem, is called the bloody city. Woe be upon the bloody city. For the day of judgment, for the enemies of the of God. Woe to the enemies of God. Woe for the bad shepherds, those who eat the sheep.

Ezekiel 34. Such a passage. For those in leadership. We're supposed to be taking care of the sheep. We're not supposed to be feeding on them.

Woe to those who know God but have strayed backsliders. Woe to Ephesians. Woe for the day of judgment and destruction. Woe to those who are longing for the day of the Lord. Anybody else feeling like this is stepping on their toes?

Like, we're yeah. Woe be upon us who long for the day of the Lord. Woe to those who are carefree. Woe to those who feel secure in the mountains of Samaria. Okay.

Woe to the strong nations. Woe to those who devise wrongdoing, those plotters. Remember what I said in Luke after the woes, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah? One of them is woe to those who plot to do evil. Woe to the plotters.

Woe to the unjust. Woe to the bloody city. Again, woe to the usurers, selfish, evildoers, violent builders, those who tear down others, idolaters. Woe to the beach dwellers. Hey, not just the mountain people.

The Cherithites. Woe to the rebellious and defiled, to those who are oppressors. Woe to the worthless shepherd who abandons the flock. Sorry, I was gone last week. Sorry.

There has to be a little levity in here somewhere. Woe to Chorazin and Bethsaida. That one jumps over into the New Testament. So all those others were Old Testament. And then, woe to Chorazin and Bethsaida.

Those are cities that are in the place where the people of God dwell. Woe to you Chorazin and Bethsaida. For if what happened in you had happened entire inside the land of the heathens, right, they would have repented and come and sackcloth in ashes. But you didn't. If they saw the miracles that you have seen, they would have responded and you haven't.

That's New Testament. Woe to those who are stumbling blocks, especially those who put people out of contention, access denied to the kingdom of God while they claim to speak for God. Woe to those who are stumbling blocks. Woe to scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites. We see that.

This is this passage. Woe to last end times, those who are pregnant or nursing during the tribulation. Woe to the betrayer of the son of man. Woe to the rich. Woe to the well fed.

Woe to those who laugh. Woe to those who receive men's praise the same way they treated the false prophets. Korazin Bethsaida, you see the gospels, we have a lot of repeats of the same. Woe to lawyers leading people, loading them up with heavy burdens that you don't carry yourself. Woe to lawyers that are barber students, but for the wrong reason.

I'm gonna skip one. I'll use it at the end. And then Jude, woe upon them. Them, those who are haters, money lovers, false prophets, and rebellious. And then if you feel like I got through all those and he hasn't mentioned me yet.

Proud is in there several times, first of all. And Revelation says, woe to those who live upon the earth. Did that get you? It's there's something there for all of us. We, without Christ, right, we, without Christ, stand under the woe.

The old covenant is, if you will do these things, I will be your God. But what about if we don't do those things? What if woe is upon us? Woe is our heritage. Here we go from there.

I think we're going to Matthew now. So this is what we came to talk about. Seven woes in Matthew 23. Now, we've seen the list from Luke. It's similar to this one.

I think this one is arranged in a chiastic construction. I think that it's arranged in a way where the center point is the point. And I think it's really helpful. So seven woes in Matthew 23 build towards that center point and then back away from it. All of them bolster the point in the middle.

But here we go. Seven paragraphs in a row, a paragraph each for the woes. This is the first one. But woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites. He repeats this a lot.

So this is folks who are religious people that believe that they have cornered the market on truth. Now, is such a thing as objective truth. No doubt about it. I'm not arguing for anything else. There is truth.

But when we say that we've cornered the market on it and our particular theology is the only way, we're standing right here with them. Scribes and pharisees, hypocrites because why? In this particular case, woe to you scribes, pharisees, hypocrites because you, yourselves, have the key, in Luke is what it says, but you shut the kingdom of heaven in front of people. For you do not enter it yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Now, if you think about this particular group at this particular time, and Jesus is the way.

He's the way, the truth, the life. He is that. And he says, woe to you because you're shutting the kingdom of heaven in front of people. You have all the information that you need. Messiah is right here, and you're not accepting me.

You're not accepting him. And you're not allowing anyone else to do it either. So this primarily is a failure to recognize the Messiah. You can, from this, extrapolate. Well, I know who the pharisees are.

I know what they thought about the law. I know how they expected the conduct to be, and all the rest of these are about conduct. Surely, that's about they put burdens on the people. But what it says is you're not taking the only way that is available, and you're hindering other people from taking it too. Think about him coming into town, and he's coming into town surrounded by groups of people who call him son of David and messiah.

And then when they get to town, the pharisees are plotting against him and against those people and saying, don't listen to this guy. He doesn't have the authority to do this. Pay no attention to this man. So first one, failure to recognize the messiah. Second one, woe to you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites.

Second time he said exactly the same thing. Because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte, you are very zealous. You are going and going and going, and you are trying to convert people to your opinion. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte. And when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

That's heavy words from Jesus. So he's not blasting missionary enterprise. He's going to send out his disciples to proselytize. He is gonna send out his disciples to share and teach them to obey all that he has commanded them. But right here, this is before that time.

He he says they're going out and converting people who may have come into Judaism from all manner of other nations. But they're converting them not to be the people of God, but to be Pharisees. And when it says, You make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. This one, it might hurt somebody's feelings. Don't know.

It might hurt both your feelings. I'll share two examples. I tend to, I've read Calvin. I've read Calvin's Institutes. I've read a lot of John Calvin's works.

And I tend to agree with what Calvin says. One generation from Calvin, I disagree with those guys. And two generations, I'm like, what in the world are they talking about? They missed his point entirely. Now, I've read a lot of Arminius' stuff too.

And I tend to agree with him. But two generations after him, it's unrecognizable. And so if we are trying to win people to our opinion, and the opinion becomes more important than the transformation of the word for an individual, heart, mind, soul, that's a problem. And we get to be more and more and more and more amplified in what we think is right. And we draw lines and distinctions between denominations and all that stuff.

This one says, that's bad. You're superficially zealous. You are very zealous, but it's superficial. Because all you're trying to convert them to is your opinion. And that does more harm than it does good.

So superficial zeal that does more harm than good. That's the second one. Third one. Woe to you blind guides. If I if I have a guide I mean, I love blind people, but I don't want for them to be guiding me.

I'd rather have somebody that can see and know what's knows what's going on. So just that is already a cut. It's the first time he doesn't say scribes, pharisees, hypocrites, by the way. Woe to you blind gods. You who say, whoever swears by the temple, that's nothing.

Whoever swears by the gold of the temple, now he's obligated. So this is when people were making an oath, and they were equivocate over what was real, binding, and what was not. Now what's Jesus? Jesus says throughout, let your yay be yay and your nay be nay. Speak the truth.

Don't equivocate. These folks are saying, well if it's this, it's all right. You don't have to go by that. That's not binding. It might be today a handshake deal versus I never signed anything.

Right? Yeah. You fools and blind men. Which is more important? The gold of the temple?

Or the temple that sanctified the gold? And you say, whoever swears by the altar, that's nothing. Whoever swears by the offering that is on it is obligated. Y'all are blind. You blind men, which is more important?

The offering or the altar that sanctifies the offering? Therefore, the one who swears by the altar swears both by the altar and by everything on it. The one who swears by the temple swears by the temple and by him who dwells in it. Everything that you say is before God. If you say you're gonna do something, be doing it.

Your word should be your bond. And the one who swears by heaven swears both by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it. Jesus is not equivocating. He is saying, let your yay be yay and your nay be nay. Don't look for loopholes.

This is a misguided use of scripture. You might not see that, but it's in there. It's a misguided use of scripture. They were taking the law and adding to it. They were taking the law and the prophets and adding to it.

And they had written so many things. And from the first century, there's a lot about what's binding and what's not binding. Well, this is that. And there were opinions, and it went back and forth. And well, there's a lot of quibbling back and forth over what the scripture says and why.

He's saying, be truthful. It's binding. When you say you're gonna do something, do it. Be people of your word. Don't be hypocrites.

These are equivocators. They're looking for loopholes, but mainly it's misguided use of scripture. It's not put there to quibble over. It's put there Well, let's just keep going. Let's let the text say what it's there for.

Woe to you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites. It's back. Third time out of four. Woe to you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites. For you tithe, mint and dill and cumin.

Wait a second. Jesus is getting on to somebody for tithing. Tithing herbs and spices? No. We'll get there in a minute.

Woe to you scribes and pharisees and hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and yet you have neglected the weightier provisions of the law. Justice and mercy and faithfulness. Which of those is more important? Whether or not you tithe your herbs and spices or whether you act justly and love mercy and faithfulness that you just are faithful. Equivocation leading into this one, the kind of the wishy washyness of that and looking for a way out, looking for a loophole.

And then this is just the faithfulness that is like God. Justice and mercy and faithfulness. They're not easy. Comparatively, it's easy to tithe a little bit of mint or deal or cumin. But justice is not always easy.

Mercy is also not always easy. And faithfulness, my goodness, we're fickle people. To be faithful is what it's about. Justice and mercy and faithfulness. These are the things that you should have done without neglecting the other.

Yeah, by all means. Tithe. Tithe. But do so in addition to living justly and love and mercy and walking faithfully. This reminds me of Hosea six and it's in Matthew so far, we've already heard this verse quoted twice.

One of the times was to to the pharisees by Jesus when he said, y'all go and learn what this means. Y'all go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. If you back up and see justice and mercy and then tithes, he's saying, I deserve mercy, not sacrifice. The mercy is the important part.

I'm not looking for that. I'm looking for a heart that is merciful and an acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offering. So that's not just the Pharisees. The Sadducees were in charge of temple worship and specifically about sacrifice stuff. So this gets everybody.

I desire mercy, not sacrifice and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. And then he closes out with, You blind guides, you who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. Isn't that a ridiculous example? You know both of those are unclean animals? If you ever lived in South Georgia, you have to eat like this all the time.

I live, when I was in Georgia where I lived and we just visited my folks last week, I live 50 miles north of Gnat Line. 50 miles south is where you have to start doing this. They're unclean animals, and I can tell you exactly what they taste like. You're straining out a gnat. It's a little thing.

But you're swallowing a camel. You're paying attention to little nitpicky details, and you're missing the point. This is the middle section. And this is a fundamental failure to discern the thrust of scripture. Why did God give us scripture?

Paul says that the Old Testament was given to us. Their mistakes are helpful for us to read about. We can see what they did and didn't do, and we can discern from that that we are just like them. And we should turn to God, that we should accept the new covenant. The old covenant just shows that everybody fails eventually.

The fundamental failure to discern the thrust of scripture. I have a book in my office that's called Adventures in Missing the Point. Isn't that great? Adventures in Missing the Point. We can read over something, and it's really easy to see, oh, yeah, yes, they should not live like they do.

Or we can read over it and go, oh my goodness, he's talking to me. This proud guy that lives on the earth, that is deceitful, that carries grudges, that hurts himself and others. Oh, hey. This is somebody who's a man of unclean lips. That when he squeezed, what comes out?

You know, when you squeeze an orange, orange juice is what comes out. And when you squeeze somebody, you get what is in there. And I love Isaiah for admitting that. Oh, I'm a man of unclean lips. Fundamental failure to discern the thrust of scripture.

If we will humble ourselves before God and the text of scripture, he will use it to transform our lives. And the woe that I've been sitting with for the past two weeks in preparation for this, I'm sitting in your lap if you haven't noticed. There's lots of woe to go around. Here we go. Where are we?

Number five. Number five. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. That's four out of five times. He said exactly the same way.

Woe to you scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites. For y'all clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside, they're full of robbery and self indulgence. I've never seen a dish that was full of robbery or self indulgence. But obviously, his metaphor is, yeah. Y'all are cleaning up the outside, shining it up and polishing it.

But what's on the inside is robbery and self indulgence. You're really looking out for number one, and you know it. You're trying to put on a brave face. You're trying to put on a face to the world, hypocrites, actors, that you're not, but you are, full of robbery and self indulgence. You blind Pharisee.

It goes from y'all to you individually right there. It it kinda for me, instead of just being a collective, oh, yeah. When it says you blind Pharisee, singular, it it points right at me. It points right at us when we take that seriously. You blind Pharisee.

First, clean the inside of the cup and the dish. Hand that robbery stuff over to God. Hand that self indulgence over to God. Hand over the self justification to God. And say, God, you know what?

I am wrong and you are right and I'll accept the forgiveness you offer. I want don't wanna be this way. I want for you to change me. That humble attitude, he will transform you. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish so that the outside of it may become clean also.

If you are walking in victory, if you are walking in righteousness, which is possible in Christ, is possible. If you are, then the outside eventually shows that. Misguided use of scripture, again. You're looking at it and saying, okay, that's what a righteous person looks like. Let me look like that.

I'll pretend to be that. That's where you get to be a hypocrite. Oh, to say, God have mercy on me, a sinner. The world around us, whether they're denying their sin or not, they don't know what they don't know. We're supposed to know.

And if we know, God have mercy on me, a sinner. That's helpful information. It's helpful information for them too. Right? I turn to God.

Let's keep going. Here we are. Number six, I think it is. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. There it is again.

Five out of six times. Actors. For you're like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful. Whitewashed tombs. Oh, that reminds me of Mexico.

The day of the dead, before the day of the dead. They go out every year and they clean up the tombs and they put a fresh coat of white paint on them all. It's because it's the day of the dead. We're gonna honor them. Yeah, that's wonderful.

Still full of dead man's bones though, right? You're like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they're full of dead men's bones. And all types of uncleanness. There's all kinds of yuck in there. And so you too, outwardly, you appear righteous to people.

But inwardly, you're full of hypocrisy, acting, and lawlessness. You know the law and you're not going by it. And if you were honest, you'd see that you're not going by it. It would produce some humility. But it hasn't in you yet.

Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites. You're superficially zealous. This is another one of those. Where your superficial zeal does more harm than good. When we present like we're perfect, and the rest of the world sees us and go, far from it, dude.

They can either see through it or they say, well, I can never be a part of that because I'm not that way. I'm broken. I struggle. I still struggle. If we say, yeah, I still struggle too.

But thanks be to God, because I can walk in victory in Christ. I can walk sober today, right? That's a big part of a 12 step passage is I can walk sober today. I can walk in victory today. It helps to be around other people who are willing to admit that they're having that they're having the same struggle.

So do you outwardly You appear righteous to people, but inwardly you're full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Okay. Woe to you. This is the seventh one. Woe to you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites.

Six out of seven times. And the other one was about hypocrisy. Right? The one that wasn't listed this way. Seven woes.

This is the most inclusive list of woes in the Bible. And it's in the New Testament. It's from Jesus' own lips. Woe to you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites. For you build the tombs for the prophets, and you decorate the monuments of the righteous.

And you say, if we had been living in the days of our fathers, we wouldn't have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets. No, I wouldn't have been that way. If we hear the Easter story, which we're working our way towards, you know, we're less than a few days out from the crucifixion. We hear the Easter story, and surely all of us in this church are thinking, I wanna be the one that says, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Woo hoo.

I wanna be one of those who's laying down my cloak so that the donkey can walk over it. That's me. That's me. That's me. We don't wanna see ourselves in the ones who are saying, crucify him.

Crucify him. They're they're doing the same thing. Oh, if we've been living in the days of the fathers, we're righteous. We're good. We would've listened listened to those prophets.

We would have listened to Jeremiah. We would have listened to Isaiah. We would have listened to all of those guys. We would have listened to Habakkuk. We would have stopped our predatory lending.

We would have stopped under the condemnation and the warning of the woe. We would have walked away from it. We would have left behind. We would have been right there with him. And Jesus says, and in just that way, you testify against yourselves.

You are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. You all fall short. You all do. And you don't like the bad news. And you want to listen to the false prophets that tell you everything is good and that you're fine and that you don't need to change.

And just this way, so in such a way as this, you testify against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers, you snakes, you offspring of vipers. How will you escape the sentence of hell? That's a serious question. Serious question anytime it's posed.

This is Jesus posing it to some group of people that he's just called hypocrites explicitly six times and implicitly seven. This is about a failure to recognize the prophets. And actually, beyond the failure to recognize the prophets, which was not their problem, that was the problem of their fathers, they are right now, right now, they're failing to recognize the prophet. Right? Jesus, prophet, priest, and king.

Remember the lady at the well, the Samaritan woman at the well? And she recognizes him and says, you're the prophet. I I sense that you might be the prophet. You're the one that Moses said we were supposed to be looking for. Right?

She recognized that. Untrained as she was, woman, Samaritan, outcast, all of those things. And she recognized him. And these are supposed to be the teachers of Israel. And they are not getting it.

It's a failure to recognize the Messiah. Was the first one failure to recognize him as the prophet, the Messiah? So that's the seven woes. And that question is how he closes out the section on woes. Now, he is gonna give a little concluding passage here.

But let's look at those seven woes. There's a failure to recognize messiah, is coupled down at the bottom with a failure to recognize the prophets or him as the final. Big capital p, the prophet, the taheb, the one that Moses said they should be looking for, Deuteronomy 18. A failure to recognize the messiah, failure to recognize the messenger that God has sent. Superficial zeal that does more harm than good, just converting people to your own opinion.

Superficial zeal down at the bottom. A misguided use of scripture to win people to your opinion or to your side of the argument. And then right in the middle of all those is this fundamental failure to discern the thrust of scripture. The thrust of scripture, it is given to us for our good to draw us towards a good and loving God who is compassionate and merciful. His steadfast love continues forever.

He's slow to anger. The fundamental failure to discern the thrust of scripture that it is for us and for our hearts individually before we're to use it to help anybody else. And and we're to use it to help other people, not to clobber other people. So Jesus' conclusion, it says, therefore, behold, all of these woes being true, and all of us are sitting under a condemnation of woe until we accept the good news of the gospel. For them, he's saying specifically to this crowd, therefore behold, I'm sending y'all prophets and wise men and scribes.

I'm sending y'all people who will share the good news with you. Some of them, you're gonna kill and you're gonna crucify. Did they do that? They did. Some of them, you will flog in your synagogues.

Did they do that? Absolutely, they did. And some of them, you'll persecute from city to city. Think about this. In the temple, the week before Passover, Tuesday before Friday, who do you think is there?

Pharisees. Right? Do you think Saul was there? Where else would he be? Saul.

Where would he have been? This is where he'd be. Now, that doesn't say he was there. It doesn't say he was sitting there, but the Pharisees were there. No doubt about it.

Saul seems pretty zealous to me. If somebody's gonna be questioning, I think he might be one of those guys. Saul, imagine him sitting there listening to Jesus' woes just getting madder and madder and madder. Behold, I'm sending you prophets and wise men and scribes. He has no idea.

He's gonna be one of those.

Some of them you'll kill and crucify. Some of them you'll flog in your synagogues and persecute from city to city. So that upon you will fall the guilt of all of the righteous blood that has ever been shed on earth from the blood of righteous Abel, the very first murder victim. Righteous Abel killed by Cain. To the blood of Zechariah, a to z, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered.

You did it. He's saying, now wait a minute, that was a long time ago. No. He's saying you did it. All of that sin, we all fall short.

Either sin's gonna be justly condemned or it's gonna be mercifully forgiven. You murdered him between the temple and the altar. Truly, I say to you that all of these things are gonna come upon this generation. Now this is the inauguration of the age of grace, and it's where the gospel is gonna go forth. But he's saying, your rejection, this final rejection, all of this falls upon you.

Which leads him to a lament. And this is the last thing we'll cover. Jesus' lament is Jerusalem, Jerusalem, The bloody city, it's been called in all of our woes. Right? Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stones that have been sent to her.

Who kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together. That's an interesting construction right there too. How often, Jesus says, I wanted to gather your children because what you're teaching your children is worse than you can possibly imagine. How often I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and yet you were unwilling.

You didn't want for me to have any sway. You didn't want for me, Messiah, to have any sway in their lives whatsoever. You want it for your way only. Your opinion first. And they're gonna be with me just like me.

How I've wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers chicks under wings and you were unwilling. Every time I see something about unwillingness, it brings me back. But you, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you were unwilling. I think of this in Isaiah. For this is what the Lord God, the holy one of Israel has said.

Yeah. There's a battle in front of you. And I know you're preparing for it, and I know you're trying to think your way around it. I know you're trying to work, work, work, work, work, make it happen for yourself. But this is what the Lord God, the holy one of Israel has said.

In repentance and rest, you will be saved. There's nothing you can do to earn it. In quietness and trust is your strength. But you are not willing. Oh, some of the saddest five words in scripture.

Behold, your house is being left to you desolate. You don't even know it yet, but in just a few years, thirty seven more years, that temple's coming down. For I say to you, from now on you will not see me until you say blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Where we see that? Well, Psalm one eighteen.

But we just saw it at the triumphal entry. We just saw it a few days ago as the chronology goes on Saturday, Sunday, the triumphal entry, Palm Sunday. And then this is Tuesday, just a couple of days ago. Well, we saw that. But he's saying, you're not gonna see me again in Jerusalem until you see me saying blessed is the one who comes in the name of Lord.

Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. This is something that will come to be Jerusalem, Jerusalem. You'll recognize the truth eventually. It's gonna be too late for a lot of you. So I mentioned, are there any other isolated woes?

And yeah, I read pages of them. How many of them apply to me and to you? A lot of them were for outsiders and specific outsiders in geographic places and times. Some of those places exist, some of them don't. But most of them were for people who claim to be people of God.

And so I had to wrestle with this. For the past couple of weeks, I've been considering these woes, trying to preach something else, quite honestly. It'd be nice to preach something else. This slide, this question, You snakes, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? That's a question he asked to them, scribes and pharisees.

And it's, consider the question Jesus posed. How is it that you'll escape? Now, that is tantamount asking, what are you gonna do with Jesus? What they were doing was denying him his messianic role. They were denying him being the prophet that spoke for God authoritatively about eternity.

They were denying who Jesus was to their peril. What are we gonna do? Are we gonna trust him for salvation? I know y'all came to church this morning. I know that.

But are we gonna trust him for sanctification? Are we gonna trust him to lift the curse of woe off of us for acting in the same way that some of these folks were acting? How will you escape the sentence of hell is a good question. What will you do with Jesus is the question. I'm gonna use Saul slash Paul.

And this is from first Timothy one, actually. First Timothy one twelve says, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful. I'm not faithful, he's saying, but he considered me faithful. I I wasn't.

I wasn't. I was all those things that he said in those woes. He considered me faithful, putting me into service even though I was previously a blasphemer. I called what was evil good and what was good evil. And he can he could see that I was previously a persecutor.

I was the one who was violently aggressively going against the followers of the way. And the way Jesus put it when he knocked him down on the road to Damascus was, why are you persecuting me? Man. And I was a violent aggressor. I liked it, Paul says.

I liked the violence of seizing those people and taking them in bonds back to Jerusalem where we could flog them. I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who strengthened me because he considered me faithful, put me into service even though I previously was all these things and deserved the woe. Yet, what I was shown was mercy. I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief. You know, church, we know what the Bible says, and do we go by it?

Consider this. The people who don't know what it says have no idea that what they're doing is wrong. Ignorantly and in unbelief. Now, the woe still sticks. The woe still stands.

But how we live makes a difference in how they receive that message. I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly and in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was more than abundant with the faith and the love which are found in Christ Jesus. And it is a trustworthy statement. It's deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

He came to take that woe off of us, sinners. Among whom Paul says, I am foremost. I was the worst one. I was the worst one in the worst way. I cannot believe he saved me, but he did.

And now he says, why? Yet, for this reason, I found the mercy of God so that in me, as the foremost sinner, the bad as I was, Jesus can demonstrate his perfect patience as an example for all of those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. I am willing to be used up, flogged, beaten from persecuted, chased from city to city. I'm willing to do all those things because Christ saved me. I didn't deserve it.

And now to the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. And the very last slide. I I have done a whole lot of bad news today, and I know that. But at the end, we turn the corner.

Right? Jesus is the one who takes our woe. Jesus is the one who takes our penalty upon himself. By his stripes, we are healed. It's not just about our salvation, but it's also about our sanctification.

And if we look at this list and we look cross armed and say, none of those woes apply to me. Oh. Lord have mercy. Every time I see the word woe, I mentioned this in the first service, I didn't mention it to y'all. I had an aunt that would say, y'all get in the yard and don't come back in this house.

Get out there and don't come back inside. You can drink out of the hose. If you come back in this house, woe be unto you, off comes your head and a chunk out of your behind. And I believed her. We stayed in the yard.

We went in somebody else's house if we went inside. If we if we recognize that the woe is still there. Right? It's not the the punishment. We've we've by believing in Jesus, he shield us from the punishment.

But we still can cause a problem for people who don't yet know him if we act like jerks. Right? If I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of. I'm under compulsion. I have to say it's Jesus, not my opinion.

I have to say that. I'm under compulsion to say Jesus is the way, the truth, the life. The gospel is that he came into this world to save sinners. And woe be unto me if I don't preach that. That's the last woe.

That's the only one I skipped. Woe be unto me if I don't proclaim the good news of the gospel. Would y'all stand with me? And we're gonna sing Amazing Grace. That's a nice close.

We're gonna do the big ending too. Yeah. The key the key change for verse five. Alright. Thank you, Jesus.

Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see. Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved. How precious is that grace appeared beyond high first belief.

The Lord has promised good to me. His word, my hope, secures. He will my shield and portion thee as long as life endures through many dangerous toils and snares. I have already come. When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun.

Amen. Just as each one of us who are believers have been given a gift, we should be employing it. Each of us should use whatever gift we have been given to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. I am not exactly the same as y'all. I am in the same family.

I've been given a different set of gifts. Y'all have gifts. I should be employing mine as one of the manifold streams of the of the goodness of God. And you are to be using yours as another one of those manifold streams of the goodness of God, the glory of God. The way that the world will see it is if we will humble ourselves before him and act in accordance with what he shows and gifts and empowers us to do.

In Jesus' name, Lord, would you be doing your will in our lives and through us, vulnerable as that sounds, to help others. Amen.