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Matthew 23 | The Upward Way | Bible Study with A. Z. Adams — Transcript

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0:01Matthew [music] 23:1
0:04Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and his
0:06disciples, saying, "The scribes [music]
0:09and the Pharisees have seated themselves
0:12in the chair of Moses.
0:15Therefore, all that they tell you, do
0:19and observe,
0:20but do not do according to their deeds.
0:23[music] For they say things and do not
0:25do them.
0:28They tie up heavy burdens and lay them
0:31on men's shoulders, but they [music]
0:33themselves are unwilling to move them
0:36with so much as a finger.
0:39But they do all their deeds to be
0:41noticed by men,
0:43for they broaden their felactories
0:45[music]
0:45and lengthen the tassels of their
0:47garments. They love the place of honor
0:51at banquetss and the chief seats [music]
0:53in the synagogues
0:55and respectful greetings in the
0:57marketplaces [music] and being called
0:59rabbi by men.
1:01But do not be called rabbi for one is
1:05your teacher and you are all brothers.
1:09Do not call anyone on earth your father
1:12for one is your father he who is in
1:14heaven.
1:16Do not be called leaders, for one is
1:19your leader, that is Christ.
1:23But the greatest among you shall be your
1:25servant.
1:26Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled,
1:29and whoever humbles himself shall be
1:32exalted.
1:35But woe to you scribes and Pharisees,
1:37hypocrites.
1:39You shut off the kingdom of heaven from
1:41people, for you do not enter in
1:44yourselves, nor do you allow those who
1:47are entering to go in. Woe to you
1:50scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
1:53because you devour widows houses, and
1:56for a pretense you make long prayers.
1:59Therefore, you will receive greater
2:02condemnation.
2:04Woe to you scribes and Pharisees,
2:06hypocrites,
2:08because you travel around on land and
2:10sea to make one procelite, and when he
2:14becomes one, you make him twice as much
2:17a son of hell as yourselves.
2:20Woe to you blind guides who say,
2:24"Whoever swears by the temple, that is
2:26nothing. But whoever swears by the gold
2:29of the temple is obliged."
2:32You fools and blind men.
2:36Which is more important, the gold or the
2:38temple that sanctified the gold? And
2:42whoever swears by the altar, that is
2:44nothing. But whoever swears by the
2:47offering on it, he is obliged, you blind
2:50men. Which is more important, the
2:53offering or the altar that sanctifies
2:56the offering?
2:57Therefore, whoever swears by the altar
3:00swears by both the altar and by
3:02everything on it. And whoever swears by
3:05the temple swears by both the temple and
3:08by him who dwells within it.
3:10And whoever swears by heaven swears both
3:13by the throne of God and by him who sits
3:16upon it. Woe to you scribes and
3:19Pharisees, hypocrites. You tithe mint
3:22and dill and cumin and have neglected
3:25the weightier provisions of the law,
3:28justice and mercy and faithfulness.
3:32But these are the things you should have
3:35done without neglecting the others.
3:39You blind guides who strain out a gnat
3:43and swallow a camel.
3:46Woe to you scribes and Pharisees,
3:49hypocrites.
3:50You clean the outside of the cup and of
3:53the dish, but inside they are full of
3:56robbery and self-indulgence.
4:00You blind Pharisee, first clean the
4:03inside of the cup and of the dish, so
4:06that the outside of it may become clean.
4:09Also,
4:10woe to you scribes and Pharisees,
4:13hypocrites,
4:14for you are like whitewashed tombs,
4:17which on the outside appear beautiful,
4:20but inside they are full of dead men's
4:24bones and all uncleanliness.
4:27So you too outwardly appear righteous to
4:31men, but inwardly you are full of
4:34hypocrisy and lawlessness.
4:37Woe to you scribes and Pharisees,
4:39hypocrites, for you build the tombs of
4:42the prophets and adorn the monuments of
4:44the righteous, and say, "If we had been
4:47living in the days of our fathers, we
4:49would not have been partners with them
4:51in shedding the blood of the prophets."
4:54You testify against yourselves, that you
4:57are sons of those who murdered the
5:00prophets.
5:01Fill up then the measure of the guilt of
5:04your fathers, you serpents, you brood of
5:07vipers. How will you escape the sentence
5:10of hell? Therefore, behold, I am sending
5:14you prophets and wise men and scribes.
5:18Some of them you will kill and crucify,
5:21and some of them you will scourge in
5:24your synagogues and persecute from city
5:27to city, so that upon you may fall the
5:31guilt of all the righteous blood shed on
5:34earth from the blood of righteous Abel
5:36to the blood of Zachariah, the son of
5:38Barakiah, whom you murdered between the
5:41temple and the altar.
5:44Truly I say to you, all these things
5:46will come upon this generation.
5:49So in this chapter 23, Jesus is exposing
5:53Phariseism.
5:55He is exposing the most righteous, the
5:59most externally holy
6:03system of religion that existed in his
6:06day. And he's saying it's false.
6:10It's all centered in man's glory, in
6:14man's inner sin, in man's pride, and
6:18ultimately in man's rejection of God's
6:22authority. So, he starts off pointing
6:25out how all of their religiosity is for
6:29their own benefit. It isn't for the Lord
6:32and it isn't for others. So, he tells
6:35them that they love the place of honor.
6:37They love to be seen by men. He says
6:40they love the greetings. They love to be
6:42called rabbi and father and leader and
6:45teacher.
6:47They love everything that flatters their
6:49own ego. He tells them at the beginning
6:52that like to put burdens on people
6:55that they're not even able to lift with
6:57a finger. And he says, "Whoever exalts
7:00himself will be abased, but whoever
7:02humbles himself will be exalted."
7:05And then he begins to declare these
7:07eight woes.
7:09And a woe in this sense is like doom.
7:12It's like a curse. It's not Jesus isn't
7:16saying I'm pronouncing this curse on
7:18you. He's saying your sin has placed you
7:22under this doom, this condemnation. And
7:26unless you get out from under the sin,
7:29you can't escape the woe, the doom that
7:32is coming to you. and and he begins to
7:35go through the things that they do. And
7:38the first thing that he says is you shut
7:41the door to the kingdom from other
7:44people and you you won't enter yourself
7:48and you refu and you block others from
7:50entering also. And that is an awesome
7:54horrible thing. He's telling them that
7:58the narrow way that leads to life, the
8:01door that Jesus is, the door of truth,
8:05the door of grace, the door of
8:07opportunity, the door of faith. The
8:10Pharisees have made a habit of trying to
8:14keep people from walking through that
8:16door into the promise that Jesus is
8:18bringing. They're not willing to go
8:20themselves, but they're also blocking
8:23others from going. And this is the
8:26instinct of religious people who are
8:29unwilling to pay the price themselves.
8:30They don't settle with excluding
8:32themselves. They also have to go and
8:35slander it to others. They have to lie
8:37about it. They have to make people
8:39fearful of it. Fear-mongering. They
8:42throw away the key of knowledge. They
8:45won't enter and they keep others from
8:47entering also. And [snorts] I think
8:48that's perhaps an explanation as to the
8:52intense righteous anger that Jesus is
8:55expressing here is just how used by the
8:58enemy these religious people have become
9:02in blocking the way of hope and
9:05salvation to other people.
9:08He says that they devour widows houses.
9:11That means they deceive people who need
9:14help
9:16and they do it so that they can take
9:18their possessions.
9:21He tells them that they have a kind of
9:23evangelism that travels land and sea to
9:27convert someone, but when he's
9:29converted, he's not a son of God. He's
9:31twice as much a child of hell as
9:34themsself.
9:36He really attacks the way they have
9:38diluted the currency of truth through a
9:42kind of swearing that they were doing in
9:44his day. And what this means is that
9:49people's solemn word or commitment was
9:53no longer taken at face value. Instead,
9:57they would attach to it these more and
10:00more extreme
10:03invocations of valuable things, but they
10:07were swearing against things that they
10:09had no power over. So, it's like a child
10:12who says, "I promise I'm telling you the
10:14truth. If I'm not telling you the truth,
10:16I'll give you $5."
10:18Well, that's what the Pharisees had
10:20taught and allowed in their culture.
10:23They would swear to do something by the
10:26gold in the temple as if the gold were
10:28more sacred than the temple. And they
10:30would swear by the offering on the
10:34sacrifice on the altar as if the
10:36sacrifice were more sacred than the
10:39altar. And Jesus is saying, "Are you
10:41crazy? There's no way to pick apart the
10:44pieces of the temple or the throne of
10:46God or heaven. It's all one thing. It's
10:50all sacred because it relates to God.
10:53It's his house. It's his temple. It's
10:56his altar. It's his sacrifice. It's his
11:00throne. And you don't have control over
11:02any of it. So, it would be like betting
11:04and saying, "If I don't keep this
11:07promise, I'll give you $5."
11:10Okay, but what if you said, "If I don't
11:11keep this promise, I'll give you the $5
11:14that's in Shawn's account." Well, if
11:16you're not Shawn, that's a pretty stupid
11:18thing to say. But what it shows is that
11:21you're allowing levels of truthfulness,
11:25levels of commitment. Commitment is not
11:28what Jesus is attacking. Making a solemn
11:31commitment to do something is not what
11:34he's against. That's what he's trying to
11:37preserve. What he's trying to eliminate
11:40is the [snorts]
11:41variation, the levels of truthfulness
11:45where something could be more true and
11:47less true. And if you swore by the gold,
11:49then you have to fulfill it. But if you
11:51didn't swear by the gold and just the
11:53temple, then you could get away with a
11:54lie. That's what he's trying to do away
11:58with. Is this equivocation,
12:01these layers of honesty and dishonesty,
12:04and he's trying to get us back to where
12:07everything we say is as solemn and
12:10weighty as we made a solemn vow to God.
12:14Then he rebukes them for
12:17the approach that they take that they
12:20first focus on appearances instead of on
12:22the inside.
12:25And a lot of people misconstrue this and
12:28they act like God doesn't care about the
12:30outside. Well, he does, but he only
12:34wants the outside to be a reflection of
12:36the inside. When someone comes to
12:38Christ, they've got to change their
12:41heart. They've got to be cleaned on the
12:43inside of the motivation of the sin, of
12:47the envy, of the murder, of the lust
12:50that lives inside. And if they let God
12:53clean them on the inside, Jesus says the
12:57outside will be clean also. But there's
13:02an order that he's giving. Focus on the
13:05inner man, and the outside will reflect
13:08the change that God has brought on the
13:10inner man. Jesus cares about both, but
13:13he says inside first, outside second.
13:17The Pharisees focused on the outside
13:19first. The problem with that arrangement
13:22is you never know if you got the inside
13:24clean. If you focus on the inside, the
13:27outside will change. But if you focus on
13:30the outside, how do you know that this
13:32isn't a whitewashed tomb full of dead
13:35men's bones?
13:37Then he tells them that they like to
13:39boast about how they aren't like their
13:41fathers, that they wouldn't kill the
13:44prophets. And he says, "You're crazy.
13:47Even when you call them your fathers,
13:50you're showing that you are their sons."
13:52And he tells them that he's going to
13:53send wise men and prophets and scribes,
13:56and they're going to do the same thing
13:57to them that their fathers did to the
14:00prophets. They're they're going to
14:02murder them. They're going to scourge
14:03them. They're going to persecute them.
14:05Because what this all boils down to is a
14:09competition over authority.
14:12Who am I going to submit to? Am I the
14:15one I'm submitting to? Is my authority
14:19first and foremost in my life or is
14:22God's?
14:24And then he begins to weep over
14:27Jerusalem. And you remember that in the
14:30previous chapters he has come into the
14:32city and he has cleansed the temple and
14:35he has cursed the fig tree which is
14:38symbolic of the whole system that is
14:40being rejected by God. So this is likely
14:43a preaching that he would have been
14:45giving at the temple. And then from the
14:48mount of olives he begins to weep over
14:51Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
14:55who kills the prophets and stones those
14:58who are sent to her. How often I wanted
15:03to gather your children together the way
15:06a hen gathers her chicks under her
15:08wings, and you were unwilling.
15:13Behold, your house is being left to you
15:16desolate.
15:18For I say to you, from now on, you will
15:21not see me until you say, "Blessed is he
15:24who comes in the name of the Lord."
15:29So he starts the conflict with Jerusalem
15:34and the temple
15:36by cleansing the temple and they
15:39challenge his authority. By what
15:41authority do [music] you do these
15:43things? And he ends by saying, "I wanted
15:49to gather your children, but you were
15:51not willing." This shows the tension
15:55between God's sovereignty, God's [music]
15:59desire to save us and our free will. He
16:04wanted to save us. [music] He wanted to
16:07do this, but we were not willing. So he
16:11says, "Behold, your house, the temple,
16:13[music]
16:14is going to be left to you desolate."
16:17The sanctuary, the place where God was
16:19supposed to meet with man, the
16:21connection between heaven and earth,
16:23it's going to be left completely
16:25desolate.
16:28And you will not see my face, that is my
16:31[music] presence,
16:33until you say, "Blessed is he who comes
16:36in the name of the Lord." And this in
16:40the Greek this would sound like blessed
16:42is he who comes in the authority of the
16:46Lord. The fact that they did not
16:48recognize the authority by which he was
16:52operating shows that they [music]
16:54weren't repented. They hadn't accepted
16:56the teaching of John. And now he's
16:59[music] saying, "You're not going to
17:00have my presence in your life. You're
17:03not going to have my glory, [music] my
17:05presence in the temple like in the days
17:08of Moses with the tabernacle or Solomon
17:11where the glory filled and no flesh
17:13could enter. Now the flesh has filled
17:15[music] and no glory can enter. And
17:18you're not going to have my glory and my
17:20presence which is my face back in this
17:24house until you [music] say blessed is
17:27the one who comes in the authority of
17:30the Lord. And that authority is in
17:32conflict with the authority the
17:35Pharisees had built. The authority
17:37rooted in their own control, their own
17:40pride, their own supremacy. It is a
17:43tragic, tragic story.
17:48[music]

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