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much and do appreciate those of you who

1:00

already do that Guys we

1:03

are in Matthew chapter 23

1:05

a passage known as the

1:07

seven woes, and we got

1:09

through the first woe, even

1:11

though it doesn't have a

1:14

woe in it, but it's

1:16

in there. It has quite

1:18

a bit of condemnation. Jesus

1:21

is going on a tear right here,

1:23

so this whole episode is certainly going

1:25

to be Jesus just ripping the Pharisees

1:28

up and down. This guy is out

1:30

to get himself murdered. And,

1:32

uh, and this is, uh, this is where he

1:34

just lets it fly. Uh, no more pulls it

1:36

off. Yeah. Yeah.

1:38

Yeah. No, wait till the answer Scott, but okay.

1:40

Sorry. Yes. We don't want to, we don't to

1:42

spoil anything, but just so you know, when Jesus

1:45

sets out to get himself killed, that's exactly

1:47

what happens. What happened? He is

1:49

successful. And, uh, and it is

1:51

interesting because there are times where you, you will

1:53

see the Pharisees get upset and then like Jesus

1:55

will like remove himself or vanish or. he'll tell

1:57

the disciples something and be like, Hey, hush hush

1:59

now that my time has not yet come.

2:01

You get the distinct impression that like

2:03

the time has come. Like there's, there's

2:05

no, no holding back. He's just letting

2:07

it fly. If you're wondering what,

2:09

if the Pharisees were wondering, like, what does

2:11

this guy really think of us? They weren't wondering

2:14

at the end of this. Uh, and so, uh,

2:16

we are on the second low, Eric, what

2:18

do we got? Verse 13,

2:20

it says, but woe to you scribes

2:22

and Pharisees, hypocrites. for you shut the

2:24

kingdom of heaven and people's faces, for

2:26

you neither enter yourselves nor allow those

2:28

who would enter to go in. Woe

2:31

to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for

2:33

you travel across sea and land to

2:36

make a single proselyte, and when he

2:38

becomes a proselyte, you make him twice

2:40

as much a child of hell as

2:42

yourselves. Uftah. So I don't know if

2:44

I've ever said anything to anyone that's

2:46

as, like, vicious as what Jesus is

2:49

doing. Yeah. Like, by

2:51

starting with... to you scribes and

2:53

Pharisees, hypocrites, what he's doing is

2:55

saying, woe to you scribes and

2:58

Pharisees. And when I say scribes

3:00

and Pharisees, of course, I mean

3:02

hypocrites. Yeah. And

3:05

the indictment that he lays down on

3:07

them, you shut the kingdom of heaven

3:09

and people's faces for you neither enter

3:11

yourself nor allow those who would enter

3:14

to go in. So they are a

3:16

net negative in big ways. to what

3:18

the Kingdom of God was supposed to

3:21

be all about. And of course, this

3:23

is why Jesus has to come. I

3:25

mean, we mentioned this in his Sermon

3:27

on the Mount, that Jesus comes almost

3:30

like a prosecuting attorney to the religious

3:32

establishment and says, your days are numbered.

3:35

And that's exactly what this whole chapter

3:37

really depicts for us. Jesus saying, your

3:39

days, your days come into an end.

3:41

I didn't know this, man. If your

3:44

if your job is to be one

3:46

of these people that get up and

3:48

preach sermons, you know, a couple of

3:50

times a week. Study the word of

3:52

God all day, every day. Yeah. But

3:54

even in like a modern context, like

3:57

you, you should read this and like,

3:59

and know that, uh, that job is

4:01

pretty serious because what he's doing here

4:03

is he's telling the Pharisees like, listen,

4:05

you shut the door of the kingdom

4:07

of heaven in people's face. How, like,

4:10

how do they do that? They do

4:12

it through their teaching. That's what they're

4:14

doing. They're slamming the door of heaven

4:16

in people's face. And they

4:18

don't, they don't allow people to enter

4:20

it. By the way, they don't go

4:22

in either because they're not teaching or

4:25

believing any of the right things. And

4:27

they still do all this work to

4:29

make other little scribes and Pharisees, they'll,

4:31

you know, travel across land and sea

4:33

to make like just one little single,

4:35

you know, proselytite, but they're not like

4:37

bringing them into like the true faith

4:39

or anything. They're just making

4:41

a little a little copy of themselves. And

4:44

this is like twice the son of hell

4:46

that they are. I mean, this is like

4:48

this is vicious stuff because this could really

4:51

be boiled down to woe to you who

4:53

do not preach the gospel. Yeah,

4:55

it really is a combination of self

4:58

-righteousness and what self -righteousness ends up

5:00

beginning is people that are twice as

5:02

self -righteous, which is the problem with

5:04

their quote unquote converts and why they

5:07

end up becoming twice as much a

5:09

child of hell. I think

5:11

the hard thing about this is

5:13

that you could replace scribes and

5:16

Pharisees with pastors and theologians. And

5:19

you were to preach this in a

5:22

modern context. This is like Jesus walking

5:24

into your average church. You

5:26

might say the average church that doesn't preach the

5:28

gospel. I guess I give it that. Or

5:30

doesn't preach the gospel regularly or

5:32

preaches a gospel that is really

5:35

law or preaches a gospel that

5:37

is really the pursuit of self

5:39

righteousness or however you want to

5:41

say that Yeah, and saying to

5:43

pastors and theologians people that we

5:45

would say You know are Doing

5:47

the right thing they're trying to

5:49

serve God And coming in there

5:52

and saying and maybe it's even

5:54

a church that has a big

5:56

missional type outreach and it's Supports

5:58

going all over the world to

6:00

spread this message of the gospel.

6:02

It's not really the gospel Yeah,

6:04

and walking in there and saying

6:06

to me they're digging wells. They're

6:09

bringing vaccines They're you know bringing

6:11

whatever message of of righteousness through

6:13

works and going there and saying

6:15

you hypocrites you go anywhere to

6:17

spread this news and to make

6:19

little Christian copies of yourself, but

6:21

I'm here to tell you they're

6:23

not Christian and they were They

6:25

were closer to the kingdom of

6:28

heaven when they thought that they

6:30

were not good than they are

6:32

now that you've convinced them that

6:34

they're good because they quote unquote

6:36

serve God. Yeah. I

6:38

mean, yeah, what a could you

6:40

imagine like even yourself doing that

6:42

going into your local joshmo church

6:45

and just being like Yeah, I

6:47

mean, I mean and this is

6:49

what it is, right? Like it

6:51

if you stand in a pulpit

6:53

and you don't preach the gospel

6:56

It's not as though you're just doing nothing.

6:58

That's the big takeaway. It's

7:01

not as though, well, you didn't do the thing that

7:03

you were supposed to do, so now we're just exactly

7:05

where we started. have

7:08

the job of, in this case,

7:11

delivering the promises of them and

7:13

doing this correctly. But

7:15

if you have the job of proclaiming

7:17

the coming Messiah or the promises of

7:19

God, or in our case, the gospel,

7:21

and you don't do it, it's not

7:23

just like a neutral, like, oh, well,

7:25

it didn't get done. No, you have

7:27

shut the door of heaven in people's

7:29

face now, because you said something that

7:31

wasn't the thing, and they think now

7:34

that is the way to heaven, and

7:36

it's not. So you have now closed

7:38

heaven off to them. Well, if you

7:40

convince somebody, even using the word Jesus,

7:42

that there is any other way

7:45

to eternal life, to heaven, to

7:47

salvation, to justification, other than the

7:49

person and work of Christ alone

7:51

for you, anything, even serving

7:54

Christ. And this is where they

7:56

get into trouble. They'll convince people

7:58

that serving Christ is the way

8:00

to salvation. rather than

8:02

Christ for you, having served you, having

8:04

become the servant for you, having died

8:06

for you, having risen again for you.

8:08

You convince somebody that anything, even using

8:10

the word Christ as the way to

8:13

salvation, you are shutting the door to

8:15

heaven to them because they believe they've

8:17

got heaven. Yes, and this is exactly

8:19

right. I mean, any of us who

8:21

have shared the gospel with people will

8:23

know that the hardest people to reach

8:25

are often the people that have been

8:27

sitting in a pew for many, many

8:29

years in a legalistic system because they

8:31

think they already have what they need.

8:33

Well, you can think of the names.

8:35

Like if you think back in your

8:37

memory, you can think of the names

8:39

of these people, even the current names.

8:42

You can think of the names of

8:44

pastors, even current pastors that, you know,

8:46

I'm not, I can't look at anybody's

8:48

heart like Jesus can and can't say

8:50

that they have shut the door to

8:52

heaven and for themselves and others. I

8:54

don't know that. Christ, when he says

8:56

this, he knows that. He

8:58

knows that. He's looking into the hearts

9:01

of not only them, but the people

9:03

that they've proselytized, and he knows the

9:05

reality. I can't do

9:08

that, but you suspect, you

9:10

know, just because of what's coming out of their

9:12

mouth and the confession and the focus of their

9:14

confession, and it's terrifying.

9:19

It makes it to where if you step in that

9:21

pulpit, be like, I better not do

9:23

that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

9:26

Well, I mean, legalism always leads

9:28

to one of two responses, either

9:30

pride, which certainly was the case

9:32

with the Pharisees and the scribes,

9:34

or eventually despair. And

9:37

the despair can be, I

9:39

mean, darn near completely devastating

9:41

to the point where people

9:44

just apostatized in total. Yeah.

9:47

Well, at least he's done. It

9:50

does seem like that was probably enough. That

9:53

probably would have done the trick, but he's

9:55

not nearly done. No, no, he is not.

9:57

So verse 16 says, Woe to you, blind

9:59

guides, who say, if anyone swears by

10:01

the temple, it is nothing. But if

10:03

anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he

10:05

is bound by his oath. You

10:08

blind fools. That's

10:10

a heck of a way to address

10:12

them. You blind fools. For which

10:14

is greater the gold or the temple that has made

10:16

the gold sacred? And you

10:18

say if anyone swears by the altar, it

10:20

is nothing. But if anyone swears by the

10:22

gift that is on the altar, he is

10:24

bound by his oath. You blind men, for

10:26

which is greater the gift or the altar

10:29

that makes the gift sacred? So

10:31

whoever swears by the altar swears by it

10:33

and by everything on it. And whoever swears

10:35

by the temple swears by it and by

10:37

him who dwells in it. And whoever swears

10:39

by heaven swears by the throne of God

10:42

and by him who sits upon it. I

10:44

think Jesus wants you to just stop swearing by things. He's

10:48

pretty clear about that. He's

10:50

just like, this is a dumb

10:53

practice. He's

10:55

very much in the let your yes be yes

10:57

and your no be no camp. This

11:00

is a perfect description of the way

11:02

legalism looks though. It's always making false

11:04

distinctions. That's what he's doing

11:06

here. He's like, you guys have the

11:08

dumbest rules. Like the things

11:11

that you think are following

11:13

the rules are so stupid

11:15

that like I can only

11:17

refer to you as blind

11:19

guides and blind fools like

11:21

these these rules that now

11:23

you've like made up I

11:26

don't even make sense like

11:28

again is always the case

11:30

in legalism is the rules

11:32

that get emphasized are actually

11:34

the rules that aren't found

11:36

anywhere in scripture Well,

11:39

this isn't this how this works like you

11:41

can think of other things in your life

11:43

like that or that Christians would do so

11:45

like you have to imagine literally imagine a

11:47

scenario where you have a guy that's like

11:50

I Swear by the temple. I did not

11:52

do this thing and they're like, well, that's

11:54

fine That's good. Like, that doesn't mean anything.

11:56

I mean, he could be lying right now.

11:59

I swear by the gold in the temple.

12:01

Well, okay, now he's serious now. Oh, hey

12:03

there. Like that. How, how stupid is this?

12:06

swear my grandmother's grave. Yeah, I swear my mother's

12:08

grave. Yeah. Um, okay. Yeah.

12:11

Yeah. I think you made an

12:13

interesting point that the within legalism,

12:15

the rules that get emphasized are

12:17

never really the clear rules of

12:20

scripture like Of the Ten Commandments,

12:22

right? Yeah, nobody's ever walking around

12:24

really bragging that yeah, you know

12:26

what? I don't know about you,

12:28

but I taught my kids not

12:30

to murder like Yeah, me too

12:32

You know, I don't know about

12:34

you, but when I teach my

12:36

kids about going church we say

12:38

we go to church on Sunday

12:40

Yeah, it's always like you know

12:43

what in my house I taught

12:45

my kids that the Lord doesn't

12:47

want them to date and you're

12:49

like Yeah, I mean might

12:51

have a practical conversations about the implications

12:53

of dating when you're too young or

12:56

not ready or whatever, but Did Lord

12:58

tell you that he didn't watch kids

13:00

today? Like where'd you hear this, you

13:02

know, I think so you make a

13:04

good point It's like, you know, when

13:07

even especially when you hear bragging about

13:09

the rules that legalists are following It's

13:11

rarely the cut and dry rules from

13:13

the Ten Commandments It's typically something, you

13:16

know more obscure if it is in

13:18

scripture or just sort of a an

13:20

inference that they got from, say, that

13:23

I'm not committed adultery. Legalism

13:25

wants to find doable ways

13:27

of being righteous, right? So

13:30

like it needs to find

13:32

ways of being in control.

13:35

Yes. And so it does something easy where you're just like,

13:37

well, I'll tell you what we don't do around here. We

13:40

don't swear by the gift on the

13:42

altar. That would be much

13:44

and come on. And that

13:46

what you're doing there is that Jesus

13:48

comes along and is like so wait

13:51

a minute you think you're better Than

13:53

someone else because you only swear by

13:55

the altar not the gift by the

13:57

altar. Do you know How absurd that

13:59

is like that is it the neat

14:01

that doesn't make anyone better than anyone

14:03

else. So that's crazy I

14:06

heard a quick story, you know, from

14:08

not that long ago, from a very,

14:10

very pietistic sort of church body. This

14:12

is probably 40 years ago or so.

14:15

There was this missionary who had come

14:17

back and was visiting the states on

14:19

furlough and he decided to play a

14:21

slideshow. And this time it was

14:24

actually like a little movie that he had

14:26

made of his time there. And this church,

14:28

I mean, this does date it, it was

14:30

probably about 40 years ago or so. This

14:32

church had never actually played a movie. like

14:34

in their church. asked what you're saying. Yeah.

14:37

Yes. They had only ever seen a slide

14:39

show. Yeah. And he could tell in the

14:41

middle of his presentation that like the elders

14:43

were getting real nervous. And

14:45

afterwards after the whole service, they called

14:47

them back and they said, uh, you

14:49

can't be showing movies in this building.

14:52

That's unholy. And he said, well, I've

14:54

shown slide shows before and an elder

14:56

put his hand up and said, if

14:58

they're moving, it's in. If they're not

15:00

moving, it's fine. And

15:03

it's like, I mean, that's just a

15:05

perfect encapsulation of the way legalism sort

15:07

of works in the human mind. I

15:09

love it. Make

15:12

all these false distinctions. And that's exactly what the

15:15

Pharisees are condemned for here. I

15:17

think it's a sin that I find

15:19

all these things so entertaining. It's I

15:21

just know that that's probably the that's

15:23

that's probably the deciding factor. Like it

15:25

was like you almost went to heaven.

15:27

But the things that you watched moved.

15:31

And yes, that reason. No.

15:33

And of all things, the things

15:35

that are moving is missionary stuff.

15:37

Yeah, it's missionary. You went from

15:39

missionary stills to missionary video. Yes.

15:44

But it is what we are prone to

15:46

because we all are sort of addicted to

15:48

this kind of need for control. And so

15:51

it's a check on everyone because we all

15:53

have a little legalist living inside of us.

15:55

If we don't, if we're not paying attention,

15:57

it can creep its head up. Really? So

16:01

Jesus continues in verse 23, Woe to

16:03

you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. In

16:05

case you didn't get it the last time, I want you to understand,

16:08

I think you are

16:10

hypocrites. For you tithe,

16:12

mint, and dill, and cumin, and

16:15

have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice

16:18

and mercy and faithfulness.

16:21

Again, perfect hallmark of

16:23

legalism. These you

16:25

ought to have done without neglecting

16:28

the others. You blind guides straining

16:30

out of that and swallowing a

16:32

camel. Great line. Love

16:35

it. The perfect description. For

16:37

people in it, I mean, if there's

16:39

new Christians listening, I'm sure

16:41

they're going, how, how, why would

16:43

you ever tie the mint and dill

16:45

in cumin? That's

16:48

a good question. You know, you're

16:50

not trying to be as righteous as these

16:52

guys. These guys went to the spice rack.

16:54

Yeah. Took out 10%. Yeah. And then said,

16:56

Hey, you know who's not doing that? Most

16:58

people. You know what that makes me better

17:00

than? Most people. I

17:03

think it also just belies

17:05

the reality that we don't

17:07

really see things like spices

17:09

as valuable, but they

17:11

were in the ancient world, which is

17:13

why you had the spice road, you

17:16

know, the road that went from Europe

17:18

East in order to get spices from

17:20

places like China. So

17:22

it's very valuable. But

17:25

they're not as valuable as justice

17:27

and mercy and faithfulness. No. No.

17:29

Well, I mean, in the way

17:31

that you could sort of modernize

17:33

this, is it's entirely possible for

17:35

someone to, let's say, have all

17:37

the rights of a liturgy memorized

17:39

perfectly? Oh, you went there. I

17:41

did. But you

17:43

could do all of those things from

17:46

rote memory and feel very righteous about

17:48

it. Look at all that I'm doing.

17:50

Not that I don't agree with you,

17:52

because I do. But

17:55

you and I were just at a

17:57

gig together and sort of you kind

17:59

of had the same thing with churches

18:01

that refused to modernize by playing like

18:04

Chris Tomlin songs. Sure. It's the same

18:06

sort of, you know, none

18:09

of these, that's all mint and

18:11

dill and cumin. Yeah. And

18:14

none of them are justice and mercy and

18:16

faithfulness. Yep. Yep. That's exactly right.

18:18

So it's possible. to apply this in

18:20

any number of ways to things that

18:22

we actively deal with on a regular

18:24

basis in the life of the sort

18:26

of big C church. I mean, you

18:28

can see it anytime when you go

18:30

online or see the arguments that are

18:32

happening on Twitter, I'm sorry, X, you

18:34

know, you can, you can see

18:36

the arguments over the tithing of mint dill

18:38

and cumin. It's just different, different things today.

18:41

Well, and it's, useless to even saying never

18:43

talk about these things. Sure. He

18:45

never consider them, never figure, try to figure

18:47

out. what's the best sort of practice to

18:49

get people to feel comfortable in your church

18:52

so they come and hear the gospel. Whatever.

18:54

He's not saying that. But you have to

18:56

look at the word here. You have neglected

18:58

the way to your matters. That's

19:00

the issue. We're going to have that discussion. Don't be

19:03

neglecting the gospel. Yeah. That's

19:06

all that. Yeah. I mean, I go

19:08

to a church that's got the smells

19:10

and bells and stuff. So this is

19:12

not an anti -litergy screed as much

19:14

as it is just like, keep the

19:16

main thing, the main thing. Yeah, well,

19:18

what he's doing here is he's saying

19:21

that you This is like Some real

19:23

miss the forest for the trees kind

19:25

of stuff. So like that's it like

19:27

you've strained the net But just what

19:29

you swallowed the camel. It's like you've

19:31

like focused in Unlike the wrong thing.

19:33

So you're straining this theological net and

19:35

this is what it would be like

19:38

because he does say like hey these

19:40

you ought to have done and not

19:42

neglect Yeah, he's not saying don't don't

19:44

tithe your mint and cumin and dill.

19:46

Yeah, sure, those you should have done.

19:48

This is the illustration I would use

19:50

to put it into a more modern

19:53

way of saying it. So

19:55

this would be like him saying, you

19:59

have been careful to cross

20:01

the T's and dot the

20:03

I's. but you've still

20:05

misspelled all the words. You misspelled the

20:08

word, yes. Yeah. Right. And so, yes,

20:10

cross the T and dot the I, but

20:13

make sure the word is spelled right. Like

20:15

actually he's been saying something, right? Yeah. And

20:17

this is, this would be to strain

20:19

the net and swallow the camel where I'm

20:21

like, look at how good my handwriting is.

20:24

And you're like, those aren't words. Well,

20:27

the reality is that any time you

20:29

strain the theological net, you're going to

20:31

be swallowing the camel because you're going

20:33

to You're going to dip into a

20:35

conversation over how important one aspect of

20:37

the law is over another aspect of

20:39

the law, and you're going to neglect

20:41

the weightier matter of the gospel. Having

20:44

strained a theological net or two in my

20:46

day, I can tell you from experience this

20:48

is true. The gospels

20:50

would always loses and all those things. The gospel would

20:53

always loses. So

20:55

he's not done, of course. Woe to

20:57

you scribes and Pharisees, verse 25. Hippocrates,

21:01

for you clean the outside of

21:03

the cup, and the plate, but

21:05

inside they are full of greed

21:07

and self -indulgence. You

21:09

blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of

21:11

the cup and the plate, that the

21:13

outside also may be clean. Now,

21:16

of course, what they need to clean the

21:18

inside of the cup and the plate is,

21:20

in fact, the righteousness of Christ. But

21:23

because they refuse that, instead, they

21:25

lean on how they look outwardly.

21:27

And we know from other passages

21:29

in Scripture as well as history

21:31

from that time that Yes, the

21:34

Pharisees did very much to make

21:36

themselves look like and appear holy.

21:39

They had the phylactery hanging down with the

21:41

law, you know, over their forehead. I mean,

21:43

they did a good job of showing themselves

21:45

to look righteous. But what does Jesus say?

21:48

Hey, I see inside of you. And what

21:50

you've got is greed and self -indulgence. Yeah,

21:52

well, that's why the cup thing works, right?

21:54

If someone is like, hey, would

21:57

you like to use a cup? Which do you

21:59

prefer? A cup that

22:01

was a little dirty on the outside or

22:04

a cup that was like dirty on the

22:06

inside and you're like well Oh, see I

22:08

need the inside of that cup to be

22:11

clean for it to be useful like it's

22:13

it's That's where the stuff is that I'm

22:15

gonna be putting into my mouth. So like

22:17

I'm gonna need that to be clean What

22:20

he's saying is you know, you know, it

22:22

would have been good Is if you would

22:24

have went and got that baptism by John

22:26

like that would have been you're filthy man

22:29

Like on the inside and there's there was

22:31

a way to take care of that and

22:33

you guys did not avail yourself of it

22:35

Yeah, this is this is the problem. I

22:38

hear this and I hear people really getting

22:40

on Luther's case for being mean to people

22:42

and I'm like Yeah,

22:45

Jesus can be a little political.

22:47

I don't know. He's just been

22:49

many verses saying you hypocrite to

22:51

you hypocrite Hey man, ww JD and

22:54

one of the options has to be

22:56

he'd keep he could call you

22:58

a hypocrite. Well, why I mean, he's

23:00

not he's not done I mean

23:02

it gets like with each whoa it

23:05

sort of compounds on top of each

23:07

other so that by the end

23:09

you're just like Well, and and to

23:11

this one's point like look Cleaning

23:15

the outside of stuff is what

23:17

Jesus is saying here is like

23:20

doable, right? Like so you can

23:22

like present yourself as someone that

23:25

is very clean very good of

23:28

course the issue is is that

23:31

like that what needs to be

23:33

cleaned to be accepted before God

23:35

like you can't clean and You

23:38

are going to it's going to

23:40

have to be cleaned by another

23:42

but These guys are completely unwilling

23:45

to submit to this. They

23:48

think that the outside, the

23:50

external practicing of their manufactured law

23:52

and all this stuff is what

23:55

is required when it absolutely is

23:57

not. Well, the cleaning of the

24:00

outside is much more tempting and

24:02

much easier because the cleaning of

24:04

the inside involves death. I

24:07

want, yeah, and I want to get to, uh, let's

24:10

keep going. I want to get to verse 30 because

24:12

I think it's one that it really, really, really applies

24:14

to conversations we have in our time. Yeah.

24:17

So it says in verse 27, woe to you

24:19

scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for

24:22

you are like whitewashed

24:24

tombs, which outwardly appear

24:26

beautiful, but within are

24:28

full of dead people's bones and all

24:31

uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous

24:33

to others, but within you are full

24:35

of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Yeah,

24:38

this is pretty self -explanatory. This is you

24:40

like walking by a cemetery and you're like,

24:42

that's a beautiful cemetery. You're like, I bet

24:44

you if you saw the inside of that

24:46

cemetery, you wouldn't think it was so beautiful.

24:48

You also start to believe that even though

24:51

he's just saying you scribes and Pharisees and

24:53

calling them hypocrites. And the more you hear

24:55

this, the more you start identifying as a

24:57

scribe and a Pharisee. Yes. Yeah. Oh, this

24:59

is, this is just as much a condemnation

25:01

of human nature as it is the scribes

25:03

and the Pharisees, because we all, we all

25:05

can find ourselves. a different sonification of the

25:07

human nature to try to save one's selves

25:09

by works of law. Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

25:11

We call the white wash tomb is pretty,

25:13

is pretty. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, it's pretty

25:15

vivid, right? Yeah. That's vivid. Like, oh, that

25:17

looks really nice. Did you paint that tomb

25:19

up? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, is

25:21

it still a tomb? Yeah, yeah,

25:24

there's totally bodies in there. Yeah,

25:26

there's rodium corpses for sure in

25:28

there, but it looks nice He's

25:30

not done verse 29 woe to

25:32

you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites You

25:34

build the tombs of the prophets

25:36

and decorate the monuments of the

25:38

righteous Saying if we had lived

25:40

in the days of our father

25:42

fathers, we would not have taken

25:44

part with them in shedding the

25:46

blood of the prophets Thus

25:48

you witness against yourselves that you

25:50

are sons of those who murdered the

25:53

prophets Fill up then the measure of

25:55

your fathers you serpents you brood of

25:57

vipers. How are you to escape

25:59

being sentenced to hell? Therefore

26:02

I send you prophets and wise men and

26:04

scribes notice who is doing the verbs who

26:06

is doing the sending by the way Yeah,

26:08

I send you prophets and wise men and

26:11

scribes some of whom you will kill and

26:13

crucify and Some you will flog in your

26:15

synagogues and persecute from town to town So

26:17

that on you may come all the righteous

26:20

blood shed on earth from the blood of

26:22

righteous able to the blood of Zechariah, the

26:24

son of Barakiah, whom you murdered between the

26:26

sanctuary and the altar. Truly,

26:29

I say to you, all these

26:31

things will come upon this generation.

26:36

Yeah, this

26:38

is the old phrase from Romans

26:41

one and Adam's fall. We all

26:43

fell. You know, this

26:45

is this is an illustration of that.

26:47

to the Pharisees. And this is illustration

26:49

of that to us. We say this

26:51

kind of thing all the time. I

26:53

mean, even if you think of just

26:55

even within political context, we would never

26:57

let anything happen like what happened in

27:00

the barbarian past. You know, meanwhile,

27:02

we like to think that if we were in

27:04

the Garden of Eden, we would have made a

27:06

better choice than that. If we were in, you

27:08

know, I don't

27:10

know, 1937 Germany or whatever you

27:12

want to use as your illustration.

27:16

And the reality here is that he,

27:19

like you said, watch who's moving the

27:21

verbs. He says he's

27:23

about to send you a whole new

27:25

set of apostles and watch what you

27:27

do to them. Only one

27:29

of them survives and he survives in exile.

27:32

Yeah, well and then you have ultimately what

27:35

dude like I mean he's saying hey you're

27:37

gonna tell me yeah your father like you're

27:39

like Imagine this so like you're decorating the

27:41

tombs and the monuments of like the prophets

27:44

and you're saying all these great things about

27:46

him and you're saying oh If we ever

27:48

know if we had been us we would

27:50

have of course listened to these men We

27:52

definitely wouldn't have murdered them of course and

27:55

then but he's like oh the evidence is

27:57

about to come down that like you You

27:59

won't just murder the prophets. You're going to

28:01

be the ones who murder the one who

28:04

sent them. Yeah. I mean, this is the,

28:06

and this is the parable that he just

28:08

got done telling, I mean, just been a

28:10

couple of episodes ago, but like it's very

28:13

recent that, uh, hey, uh, I sent some

28:15

prophets out. You treated them all shamefully. And

28:17

then I sent the son and what'd you

28:19

do to him? You said, we got to

28:21

kill this guy. And that's

28:24

exactly what you're going to do. The

28:26

only way we'll get our inheritance is

28:28

if we kill the one who deserves

28:30

the inheritance. Yeah. But

28:33

these, but I mean, you want to talk about

28:35

some law though, man. I mean, this kind of

28:37

stuff, like you have to, I don't think Jesus

28:39

is saying these things like calmly. No,

28:42

no, I've always gotten the impression that there

28:44

might be a little raised voice. Yeah, I

28:46

think so. I mean, when he said 32,

28:48

when he says, fill up then. the measure

28:51

of your fathers, you serpents, you

28:53

brood of vipers, how do you, how

28:55

do you escape being sentenced to hell?

28:57

It's hard to picture saying that calmly. Yeah,

29:00

I don't think he's like, that's,

29:03

um, that's rough.

29:05

I mean, that is, that is rough stuff.

29:07

And when he says that, you have to

29:09

hear when he says that, uh, Philip, then

29:11

the measure of your fathers, he is saying,

29:14

he is talking about them killing him. Yes.

29:16

Yes. Now. Do we

29:18

have time to finish this chapter? We're

29:22

out of time. We'll

29:24

have to get to it next time.

29:26

Because even in the midst of him

29:29

just delivering maybe the harshest words of

29:31

law to this crowd, that does not

29:33

preclude him from sharing the gospel as

29:35

well. And we will see that in

29:37

the very next passage week. I think

29:39

you have to understand that Jesus is

29:41

saying these things. He is

29:43

angry and brokenhearted at the same

29:45

time. that's right yeah and we'll

29:47

see we'll see that next week

29:50

yeah all right well we will

29:52

uh we'll do that hope you

29:54

guys join us i'll see you

29:56

guys then sounds good You