Matthew 23:13-31 - Homiletics

Condemnation of their hypocrisy.

I. THE EIGHT WOES .

1 . The first. The reiterated "Woe unto you!" is an expression of holy indignation. Christ, the righteous Judge, denounces the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. He knew the hardness, the impenitence of their hearts, and in his awful justice he pronounces their condemnation. Yet those very woes are also utterances of holy sorrow. The word is thrice rendered "alas!" in Revelation 18:1-24 . (see also Matthew 24:19 ). The Lord grieves over the sinners (see verse 37) while he condemns them. The woe must come upon the impenitent; the Lord knew it in his Divine foreknowledge; he foretells it now. His words are stern, very terrible; but it is the sternness of holy love. He cared for the souls of those scribes and Pharisees; he had wept over them as he drew near to the city two days before; he closes this awful denunciation of the Divine wrath with the most touching outburst of grief. He spoke in tones of warning, if so be that even now these hard-hearted men might learn to know the terrors of the Lord, might repent and be saved. "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" The awful words come again and again, like the refrain of a dirge of intense sadness. It was this hypocrisy that was killing their souls. God requireth truth in the inward parts; he searcheth the hearts; he knoweth all things; he is the God of truth; he hateth falsehood. These men were acting a part; their whole life was a lie; they eared only for the appearance of piety; they had no wish to be really holy. They said their prayers; they did not wish to have the things for which they prayed; they did not even try to live as they prayed. They read their Bibles; they pretended to honour them and to believe in them; they had no real faith; they made no attempt at all to regulate their lives according to God's Holy Word. Nothing is more hateful in God's sight than hypocrisy; it is unbelief; the hypocrite does not really believe in God's omniscience, that he readeth the hearts of men. Hypocrisy is an acted lie, and it is the devil who is the father of lies. God loveth truth. These hypocrites, the Lord said, shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. The kingdom of heaven was the Christian Church which the Lord had come to establish upon earth. There were multitudes willing to listen to the gospel of the kingdom, ready to enter in. But the Pharisees closed the way; they brought all their great influence to bear upon the work of obstruction. They would not enter into the kingdom themselves; they were like the guests first bidden in the parable of the marriage supper. And they hindered them that were entering in, who were on the point of becoming Christ's disciples. When the people were amazed at his mighty works, and said, "Is not this the Son of David?" the Pharisees interfered with their envious and malicious suggestions, and dared to attribute the miracles of the blessed Saviour to the agency of Satan. They agreed that if any man did confess that he was the Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. So they shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. They set themselves in direct opposition to the gracious will of God, to the Saviour's work of love, opposing him now, as afterwards they opposed his apostles—"forbidding us," says St. Paul ( 1 Thessalonians 2:16 ), "to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost." Upon those who fight against God, who hinder the work of his servants, who try to check the progress of the gospel, the woe must come, the heavy wrath of God must surely fall upon them.

2 . The second woe. Revelation 18:14 has apparently been inserted here from Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47 , where it is certainly genuine. The scribes were like those false teachers described by St. Paul in 2 Timothy 3:6 . They made a profit of their reputation for knowledge and sanctity, imposing upon weak women. They were not what the Lord bade his apostles to be, fishers of men's souls, but they fished for their money. They made long prayers, but their prayers were mere acting; they were addressed in reality not to God, but to men, to those widows and others whose favour they sought for filthy lucre's sake. Therefore, the Lord said, they should receive greater condemnation. They were not only hypocrites; they were covetous, dishonest. The condemnation of the hypocrite would fall upon them, and the condemnation of the thief. The affectation of piety for the sake of selfish gain is awful guilt in the sight of the all-holy Lord. We were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. That tremendous ransom ought to give depth, reality, zeal, to our religion. It is grievous sin to substitute earthly motives for that one only Christian motive, grateful love for our Redeemer.

3 . The third woe. The Pharisees were not without zeal; they had zeal enough; they were fanatics; they would compass sea and land to make a single proselyte. But their zeal was party zeal. Party spirit had taken the place of religion in their hearts; they would work hard for their party; they would not deny themselves to please God. Their missionary zeal, such as it was, brought no glory to Almighty God, saved no souls. The proselyte, once made, became twofold more the child of hell than his teachers, more bigoted, more devoted to party, narrower and more exclusive, prouder of the privileges of Judaism than even those who had been born Jews. They should have been children of the kingdom; alas! they were children of hell; for there is no place in the kingdom of heaven for hypocrites, but only for the true worshippers, who worship God in spirit and in truth. The devil is the father of lies; those whose worship is a lie must have their place with him.

4 . The fourth woe. They were blind guides, fools and blind. They professed to be teachers; they despised the untaught. "This people," they said, "who knoweth not the Law are cursed" ( John 7:49 ). But they were ignorant themselves; they did not understand the very ritual which they prized so highly. Their teaching was full of puerile and false distinctions. An oath by the temple, they said, was not binding, neither an oath by the altar; but he was a debtor who swore by the gold of the temple or by the gift that lay upon the altar. They who taught such untruth, such folly, were fools and blind indeed. They did not understand the order of consecration; the gold was sacred only because it belonged to the temple, which was the house of God; the gift was sacred only because it was offered upon the altar, which was the table of the Lord. The gold derived its sacredness from the temple, the gift from the altar. The Lord recognizes the reverence which is due to consecrated things and places. We may find God everywhere; we may worship him everywhere, not only at Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim; but in the present limitations and conditions of our human nature it is necessary for us that special places should be dedicated to his service, and associated in our thoughts with his presence and his worship. The sacredness of things or places is derived entirely from that association with God's presence and service. Then to swear by them—by the altar, or by the temple, or by heaven his dwelling place, is to swear by him whose presence alone giveth consecration even to the heavens. Every oath is in reality an appeal to God; the omission of his name does not avoid the awfulness of reference to him. Then the Lord's disciples may not swear, save under those solemn circumstances when an oath is required by the magistrate and sanctioned by Holy Scripture. No evasions, no pitiful distinctions, like those of the scribes, no substitution of less sacred words, can make the ordinary use of oaths lawful, or even harmless.

5 . The fifth woe. Their religion consisted in small outward observances; it had no inner truth; they affected a scrupulous conscientiousness in things infinitely little, while they omitted the weightier matters of the Law. Scrupulous exactness in the payment of tithes and in Levitical purifications were the distinguishing characteristics of the Pharisaic fraternity. It was well enough to pay the insignificant tithe on common garden herbs; but ostentatious carefulness about this and such-like trifles, combined with carelessness about the great inner realities of personal religion, showed the hollow hypocrisy of their lives. They would strain out the gnat, the small ritual offence, and swallow the camel, the huge uncleanness of soul-defiling sin. Judgment, mercy, and faith were the weightier matters of the Law, unspeakably more important than the details of outward ordinances. To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God, were, the prophets said, better than thousands of burnt offerings. The Lord Jesus Christ enforces the teaching of the Law and of the prophets. Obedience in small things is right; obedience in great things is necessary for salvation. The exactest ritual and the strictest orthodoxy are of no value without justice and mercy and faith. "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." This is the precious fruit—the fruit of the Spirit; without this, the husk, the rind, are worthless.

6 . The sixth woe. The Pharisees were especially scrupulous in avoiding all occasion of Levitical defilement; they heeded not the uncleanness of their hearts. It profits little to cleanse the outside of a cup or platter, if the inside is filthy and pollutes the food. A fair outside may hide the evil heart from the sight of men, but the eye of God sees through; to that all-seeing eye the wicked soul lies open in awful clearness. The Pharisees were blind. Be our prayer, "Lord, that I may receive my sight." We want to see the condition of our souls, to know the whole truth, the whole sad wretched truth. Then we shall begin with that which most needs cleansing—the inside, the inner life of thought and feeling and motive. God desireth truth there. "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." If that is clean, made white in the blood of the Lamb, the outward life will be clean also. "Blessed are the pure in heart." But the outward show of purity without the inner truth is vain, worthless, contemptible .

7 . The seventh woe. They were like the sepulchres around Jerusalem, which, according to Jewish custom, had been whitened a month ago, and still looked bright and clean in the sunlight; within they were full of all uncleanness; their very whiteness was a warning, that men might avoid defilement. So was it with the Pharisees; they made a great show of religion; but that outward show, like the whiteness of the sepulchres, spoke of inward corruption. The true man is humble in heart; he knows his own shortcomings; he makes no display of religion; he walks humbly with his God. Much talk, much show, is an evil sign; it is often an index of an unclean, unconverted heart.

8 . The eighth woe. They built and garnished the tombs of the prophets and the righteous. The Lord may possibly have pointed to some of the conspicuous sepulchres which lay before him on the Mount of Olives. They condemned their fathers' crimes; but they owned that they were the children of them which killed the prophets. And, the Lord said, they were like their fathers, they had inherited their fathers'spirit. They would have slain the prophets, had they lived in their time, as now they were about to slay the Christ of God. They honoured the prophets in the distance; they would have hated them in the present. Stier quotes a striking passage from the Berlenberger Bibel: "Ask in Moses times, 'Who are the good people?' They will be Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but not Moses,—he should be stoned. Ask in Samuel's times, 'Who are the good people?' They will be Moses and Joshua, but not Samuel. Ask in the times of Christ, and they will be all the former prophets with Samuel, but not Christ and his apostles." May the Lord save us from this spirit of unworthy jealousy, and teach us to honour goodness, not only in the remote distance, which is easy, but in immediate proximity to us, which is sometimes, alas for our miserable selfishness! very hard indeed. "Charity envieth not:" follow after charity.

LESSONS .

1 . Christ is an awful Judge, as well as a most loving Saviour. Take we heed unto ourselves.

2 . His wrath must fall on those who oppose his blessed work. Let us help it with all our might.

3 . Christ hates hypocrisy. Seek above all things to be real.

4 . Party spirit is a poor substitute for true religion. Seek to save souls.

5 . Is your outward life blameless? It is well. But it is a small thing in comparison with the infinite preciousness of purity of heart.