Mat 23;16-26 16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.’ 17 Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? 18 And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it.’ 19 Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? 20 Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it. 21 He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who [dwells in it. 22 And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it. 23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. 24 Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! 25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and [l]self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.
Matthew chapter 23 stands as a peak above all other peaks in Scripture in condemning false teachers with verses 1–36. Its unmitigated, unhesitant condemnation is filled with weighty words. It is not easy to preach the passage of the eight woes. The term “woe” itself is so terrible—not actually a word, but a deep guttural sound coming from one who can measure and feel the infinite, awful, terrible wrath of God that will fall upon these people for all eternity. These woes are poured on the scribes and the Pharisees as they are the models of all other false spiritual leaders that existed before them and after them. It is very relevant to us, just like that day when Israel was spiritually dead, living in a decaying society with a terrible political scenario. We find in our nation that churches are filled with these scribes and Pharisees, and they are the greatest hindrance to the Gospel and the advancement of the Kingdom of God. They are a big hindrance for God to send any revival or reformation in our country.
We have to meditate on this and learn how to react to these men in our time. Peter, who was standing there and listening, learned the lesson well because we see him using the same tone with scathing rebukes when talking about false teachers in the New Testament church in 2 Peter 2. Now many are stumbled at this language, and even when we speak, people get offended. Why does the Lord use such stern language and unrelenting condemnation? See, we would have no problem if the Lord rebuked like this some criminal drug dealers who spoil thousands of young people’s lives, or child rapists who rape hundreds of children, or serial killers who destroy only the bodies of people in this world. But do we realize that false teachers do much more damage? They not only destroy bodies and their lives on this earth, but eternally destroy souls, damning eternal souls. We saw last week:
- Woe 1: For hindering people from truly getting saved. Neither will they go into the Kingdom, nor allow others. That is their definition: they exist, preach, set up organizations, and do everything with the goal of not allowing people to be truly saved.
- Woe 2: For making themselves rich by robbing the poorest with a show of devotion. They devour widows’ houses to gain people’s trust, making long prayers.
- Woe 3: For making their false converts double children of hell. They travel land and sea and convert people, and the influence of their teaching and conversion makes that person twice a child of hell. He will never be able to be saved, but slide into hell.
One side hinders people from getting saved, another side makes them twice children of hell, and in this great sacred profession, they devour the poorest people. What can be a greater crime? Aren’t they worse than child rapists or serial killers who can just harm the body?
The worst culprits, the worst people we should strongly expose and rebuke are the false teachers, much more than serial killers or child rapists. Until and unless we don’t see from the Lord’s perspective, we will continue to be spineless pacifists, talking in a wishy-washy way, showing no conviction for truth. So let’s deeply meditate, and may the Holy Spirit transform our minds and hearts. May He fill us with the zeal and burning with which the Lord opposed them, and may we learn from the Lord, just like Peter learned and preached in his epistle. They don’t stop with three woes. There are five more. We will look at three more terrible things they do.
Woe 4: For Developing a System Filled with Lies in the Name of God
Verse 16: “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.’”
Woe 4 is that they build a system full of lies in God’s name. They are always lying and teaching others to lie.
Notice how they did it, verse 16. “Woe unto you,” and while in the previous three woes He called them “hypocrites,” phonies, deceivers, now He graduates them and gives them another title. He calls them “blind guides,” because they lived under the illusion that they were the guides of the blind. All men are blind, but they are enlightened Rabbis who guide the blind to the path of light. He says, “You are nothing but blind guides.” Earlier, in a graphic way in Matthew 15:14, He said, “The blind are leaders of the blind, and if the blind lead the blind, both are going to fall in a ditch.” That’s a very blistering statement because they prided themselves on their spiritual sight and ability to guide people. He says here were the people blind, here were their leaders blind, and the blind leaders were trying to guide the blind people. How do these blind leaders lead the blind people?
This is what they teach: “Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.” Now, what is this? Well, they were liars to start with, and all false spiritual leaders are liars. They also teach and encourage people how to lie in the name of God. I mean, that’s just part of it all. But in order to cover their tracks and to appear pious, they had developed a system by which they could lie without any consequences/punishment.
One expression of depravity is that we all have a tendency toward lying. The world is full of lies. When we were unbelievers, one of the sins we easily did was regularly lie. So people would not believe us. So what did we do? When we wanted people to believe what we said, we would say, “Mother promise,” “Father promise,” “Child promise.” I still remember one guy who openly lied like a waterfall and only spoke the truth once in a while. So he would keep saying for everything, “Mother promise I will do.” Then when we asked him, “Why didn’t you do that?” he would say, “Hey, I told you your mother promise I will do, not my mother promise. So I am not obligated to do it.” The world plays around with that kind of lying system. That is the system these people had.
The leaders and people were filled with unregenerate liars. It had come to the point where people lied constantly and there was no way that you could trust anyone, unless you designed some means of making a person verbally bound to keep their word. So they made people promise, and they gave in their traditional teaching opportunities to lie, and did it in an ingenious way of getting around their promises.
How? Oaths were a big thing during that era, with people swearing by this thing and that. See, a man comes to the temple, hears an emotional sermon preached by a Pharisee, is moved, just like you see in many churches. They should stand up and scream, “Hallelujah,” “Hosanna Lord,” “Amazing! Lord did a miracle for me!” and in a moment of emotional piety, they want to stand up in front of people and say, “Hallelujah! Lord spoke to me today through Pharisee Dhinakaran. I will give my life to God, like Zacchaeus. From today, I will give all my money, four times more, to the temple and the pastor. I surrender all to my God.”
But how can we trust him? So they made him swear. Oh, but when you swear in emotional feelings of “Hallelujah,” you may not be serious, right? Later you will realize you will need that money, you really cannot give. You were not serious. But they wanted people to stand up and scream “Hallelujah.” “I will give all my body, wealth, soul to God.” “Pharisee Pastor Thangiah, your preaching changed my heart. Hallelujah!” “When Pharisee Dinakaran prayed, God spoke to me; Jesus appeared to me; He laid His hand on me, kissed me, took me to heaven, showed me apostle Peter and Paul, and then took me to hell. My life is changed. I am all God’s.” All those lying testimonies they need, and they even made them swear by God that they will do that and this. So people are all impressed. “See how Pharisee preaching/praying changed his life. What a powerful ministry he is doing!” He is not just saying, but even swearing. Their whole religious show goes on based on these lying testimonies and swearing, right? But most of those testimonies are emotional lies. How can you promise and lie?
So they developed a system where they can give a testimony even by swearing, but don’t have to keep it. You see. So they teach: “Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.”
When you feel that emotional feeling, don’t stop, don’t worry about whether you will keep any promises or not. Just get up, raise your hand, and praise God. Come to the stage and say, “I will give my whole wealth to God. Whatever I earn, 50% goes to God.” Say whatever you want, emotional. People should be amazed. But you can promise by the temple because “Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.” You see.
They developed a system where people can lie in the name of God. “But we are lying.” “Ah, don’t worry, you are giving glory to God. Imagine how many people will believe this and know God. Your testimony we will share in our Pharisee magazines.” When people ask, “You said you promised to give your life to God, what happened?” “Oh, you see, Pharisee Scribes tradition section 22 says a promise by the temple is nothing. I didn’t promise by the gold of the temple.” So they would praise “Hallelujah” and sentimentally swear they would do such-and-such, but in the process found it to be inconvenient or too costly. Then they had a quick out. “If I had sworn by the gold of the temple, then you could catch me. But as it is, an oath made on the temple is nothing.” “I am not lying. I swear to glorify God.” They saw themselves as quite righteous in the way they did this. If you think this sounds like “double-speak,” you are exactly right.
The point is they had developed a system where they could lie. And so in verse 19, He doesn’t even deal with the injustice, lying. He deals with the stupidity of it. To convict them of folly, He appeals to themselves: “Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold?”
Which is greater: the gold, meaning vessels, ornaments, the treasury, or the temple that sanctifies (makes the gold sacred)? Any thinking person will realize that the sacredness of the gold comes because of the temple—it’s where God dwells. This gold is made holy because it is in the service of the holy temple. And therefore the temple cannot be less holy than the gold, but must be more so; for the gold is blessed and sanctified by the temple.
But these blind men, He calls them morons, blinded and eyes full of covetousness, don’t see any value in the holy temple of God’s presence, but value the shining gold. Today gold rate is high per gram! “Blind people, you say the temple is nothing and gold is important.” What a ridiculous method of cheating and violating your word. Their eyes are on the gold. One preacher said emotionally in the worship time, “Take your chain, earrings, give it to God now, now, now. You will be cursed if not.” So their eyes are on gold.
Then, they didn’t stop with that—another method to lie. Verse 18: “And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it.’”
See their eyes are on gold and gifts, not on the temple or the altar. See this again, their greediness, to encourage people to bring gifts to the altar and gold to the treasures of the temple. So, gold without the temple or a gift without the altar is nothing.
So they teach, “If you promise by the altar it’s nothing, but whatever the gift is on the altar, whoever swears by the gift that’s on it, he’s bound.”
Verse 19: “Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift?”
“You morons,” What’s the gift if it isn’t on the altar? I mean, it’s ridiculous. It’s illogical. It doesn’t make sense. A gift standing alone is nothing. It’s only when it’s on an altar offered to God that it becomes holy. In other words, if you think by doing that, you’re touching something that’s not connected to God, you’re wrong. You’re wrong.
So He says, in verse 20: “Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it. He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it.”
Everything you touch eventually is going back to God, right? You swear by anything that represents God—a gift, an altar, the gold of the temple, the temple, the heaven of heavens, the throne of God—and you’re going to touch the God who fills it all. In other words, “Have you forgotten that God is everywhere, as creator of all and Lord of all?”
He rectifies the mistake by showing the true intent of an oath. An oath is an appeal to God, to His omniscience and justice; and to make this appeal to any creature is to put that creature in the place of God. Whatever you promise by the temple, or the altar, or heaven, it is made on God. The temple is where He dwells, and you are calling Himself as witness for your oath. If you swore by His throne, you swear by Him that sits upon it. You should fulfill it with all seriousness, and never lie in anything related to God. Never ever speak lies to God. If you fail, the oath shall be construed most strongly against yourself, and it is an affront done to Him in the form of the oath, so He will certainly take revenge for the greater affront done to Him by the violation of it.
False teachers create a world of lies. Oh, are you able to see this today? Politicians lie because that is the way they can run politics; the world lies because it is controlled by the father of lies. We all lived as children of the father of lies. It is only regeneration that breaks down the lying tendencies of fallenness and replaces it with truth. And that is a redemptive work, a sanctifying work, a work of regeneration. God regenerates a soul by truth, and it is truth that God uses to sanctify a soul, and God is a God of truth, and He hates all lying.
The Old Testament clearly commands that when you make a vow to God, don’t do it foolishly or emotionally. When you make one, pay your vows. God hates lying. In Psalm 50, verse 14: “Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the Most High.” Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Promise to God; keep your promise. Psalm 66:13: “I will go into the house with burnt offerings. I will pay thee my vows.”
In the New Testament in the Sermon on the Mount 5, the Lord rebuked this system and said, “You are My people of truth, regenerated. You ought to swear not at all, right? But let your communication be—what?—Yes, No.” In other words, such a person of integrity, such a person of truth, that if I say to God, “Yes, God,” then that’s exactly what I mean. And if I say, “No,” that’s exactly what I mean, and I don’t have to say, “I swear on a stack of Bibles,” “mother promise,” or “father promise.” As God’s child, my word is my bond. God is very serious that this is how the world should know His people.
In order to show how serious He is about this, how much God hates wrong promises in His name, He gave a graphic illustration in the New Testament church, Ananias and Sapphira. They said, “We’re going to give all we receive from the sale of this property to God.” Boy, it sounded so religious, so pious, so dedicated, so spiritual. They got a lot of money, they looked at it and said, “We made a mistake. Look at all this. The church budget doesn’t even need it. They won’t know what to do with it. I’m not sure we can trust them down there. We can’t give all this. We’ll keep part of it.” And you know what God did? Killed them in front of the whole congregation. They dropped dead. I imagine it had a rather great effect on next week’s offering.
The passage ends by saying, “So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things.” The lying world heard this, was scared, and knew these people are people of truth. Only truly saved people joined them. The Lord wanted us to be people of truth.
Oh, how it should break our heart! In the name of Christ, our country is filled with a lying system—lies, lies, lies. These churches will beat politicians and the world in lying. But these people are working for the devil, who is the father of all lies, but posing as if they are children of God. To develop a false system in the name of God is a lying system. Preachers giving false promises to people and cheating them. People giving false testimonies and growing their ministries. This is the norm. Even the world mocks at Christianity, how much it is trolled. The whole of Christianity has become a business, commercialized. How sad.
Whose eyes were on the gold and gifts of people, not on the temple or the altar, or the truth. They encouraged people to bring gifts to the altar and gold to the treasures of the temple, claiming gold without the temple or a gift without the altar was nothing. Oh, what drama, what screams of “Hallelujah!” When a preacher preaches, people come forward and commit and swear to give their lives emotionally. I have seen the same person getting saved after praying hundreds of times. All the testimonies were, “I saw Jesus,” “I was healed of this and that,” “I swear by God.” Many of them were lies. By a thousand artifices, they made religion yield to their worldly interests.
Corrupt church guides made things to be sin or not sin as it served their purposes, and laid a much greater stress on that which concerned their own gain than on that which was for God’s glory and the good of souls. The whole system operated in lies. And false spiritual leaders needed that because they lied all the time. So they had to cover themselves and appear pious and develop some kind of system where they could make their pious promises of what they’re going to do and still change their mind conveniently.
Do you see what damage these people are doing to the name of Christ and the Kingdom of God? Oh, how should we pray that God rebuke them and stop their work so that the name of God is not blasphemed among the Gentiles?
These people, with their lying system, had found a way to seemingly get around the ninth commandment, “You shall not bear false witness.” They not only broke the ninth commandment but also the third, since they took the Lord’s name in vain by their oaths.
They subverted the truth. False spiritual leaders don’t tell the truth, but they parade piety, trying to cover up for their lying pretense. We need to be careful of that. They subvert whole houses. They, by their great covetousness, as Peter says, use feigned words to make merchandise out of you. They lie. They say they need money when they don’t need money. They say God told them something when He never told them anything. They say Jesus led them into something when He never led them into anything. They lie. Beware of those liars who are false spiritual leaders.
Woe 5: For Being Strict with Small External Duties and Neglecting Important Spiritual Duties
Verse 23: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!”
Woe 5 shows they are very strict and precise in the smaller matters of the law, but careless and loose in the weightier matters. Their priorities are completely reversed, reversing values. They pay tithes of what? Mint, anise, and cumin. Mint, dill seeds, and cumin—tiny spice items, all used for flavoring food.
Now, in the Old Testament law, God instructed His people to give one-tenth of all their crops to the temple, which was run by the government. That’s how the priests were supported because the government was a theocracy run by priests. The Old Testament said in Leviticus 27:30 and Deuteronomy 14:22 that this included, quote, “all the increase of thy seed.” Now, what that meant was, you plant your seed and whatever you get of the increase, you tithe that.
But these literalists had taken that to the absolute ridiculous extreme. In the house, they grew some kitchen items: mint and dill. The smallest kitchen spices. And when it came time to sort that out, they’d go, “Here are ten little tiny herbs, one for God, nine for me.” I mean, it was ridiculous.
It was absurd. The Old Testament law commanded tithes of grain, wine, oil, and the firstborn of the flock, but not herbs from the family plot. God wasn’t asking this at all, but to show how obedient they were, they would go beyond God’s Word in small, external things. But they were down to this minuscule level. You say, “Why were they doing that?” Because it made them feel so pious, so righteous—trivia, minutia before people. They would even carry that as tithes, even this small amount, probably producing quite a bouquet of fragrance, especially when it was carried to the local synagogue as a tithe. Oh, even on small things, they are so righteously keeping the law. Their exactness in tithing small things would not cost them much, but would be cried up, and they could buy a cheap reputation. The Pharisee boasted of this: “I give tithes of all that I possess” (Luke 18:12).
They were really good at that, really good at counting out seeds. It would not be bad if you are good at small things, but it was hypocrisy. See the remaining verse: “For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.”
“You’re really good at counting mint leaves, great fooling around with dill, but bad when it came to the important parts of the law, the spiritual duties of the law. Justice, mercy, and faith, you completely violate the law.” The weightier matters—that word is a rabbinical word; Rabbis believed there were light elements to the law and weighty elements. Here He says the weighty elements are justice, mercy, and faith. These are spiritual realities. The weightier things of the law relate to inward holiness in the heart: being just, merciful, denying ourselves, walking in faith—in which lies the life of religion.
In the Old Testament, the prophet Micah rebuked Israel: “You are fully focused on outward rituals and small things, but you don’t understand the important spiritual requirements of the law.” Micah 6:8: “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?”
What are the spiritual duties God requires, the weightier things of the law? This is again a summary of the whole law: Love your neighbor as yourself means you will live justly and be merciful with your neighbor, and love God by walking in faith humbly with God. With men, we have to do justly: not lie, not cheat, no religious drama. To be paying tithes properly, and yet to cheat people and earn, is unjust. Live justly, work justly, justly earn. Don’t do any injustice to anyone. They were liars, unjust, devouring widows’ houses, not living justly at all. Then He says, “show mercy.” And they were unmerciful, brutal, unforgiving, unkind, ungenerous. They abused the people, piling, as it says in verse 4 of this chapter, heavy burdens on them, grievous to be borne, and not even moving one finger to help lighten the load. And they had no faith. They walked by sight. They walked by works. They walked by law. They walked by their own efforts.
And so He says, “You’re really great at external things, going beyond what is written, counting out even the smallest seeds, and you’ve missed the whole point of what is really important—justice, mercy, and faith.” You are partial in the law, picking and choosing duty which is easy and helped you before people. They avoided lesser sins, but committed greater. Spiritual matters you’ve lost. At the end of verse 23, He says, “These ought you to have done and not to leave the other undone.”
Paying tithes was their duty, and what the law required; Christ tells them they ought not to leave it undone. All ought in their places to contribute to the support and maintenance of a standing ministry: withholding tithes is called “robbing God” (Malachi 2:8-10). Jesus declared that if they wanted to tithe their herbs, that was fine, but not to the neglect of more important things. In other words, they prioritized the trivial while neglecting justice toward others, mercy toward the downtrodden, and faithfulness to God.
Verse 24 describes them in a very graphic way: “Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!”
In the Old Testament, the smallest unclean animal was a gnat (Leviticus 11:42). The largest unclean creature that was forbidden to a Jew was a camel (Leviticus 11:4).
So the Jew didn’t want to get involved with an unclean gnat or an unclean camel. So He says to them, “You know what you’re doing? You’re straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.” This is what happened: they would make wine, and as they’re crushing the grapes, if a little gnat flies around and lands in the grapes, the fastidious Pharisee would carefully filter his wine to ensure no unclean gnat, and after that, he drank his wine. Then he picked the gnats off his teeth, see. He didn’t even enjoy the stuff, sucking out the gnats so they wouldn’t be defiled.
So careful with small things, yet at the same time, what a graphic image: swallowing a camel, the biggest unclean animal of all. Ceremonially fastidious, sucking through your clenched teeth to filter out a gnat and then swallowing a camel. Your whole priority system is inverted. You’re just fooling around with stuff that doesn’t matter and blind to the enormous evil that you’re consuming. You’re afraid to eat the tenth mint leaf, and then you’re allowing into your life hypocrisy, dishonesty, cruelty, greed, self-worship. Incredible.
In their doctrine, they strained at gnats, warned people against every least violation of the tradition of the elders, but swallowed a camel by making void the Word of God, as when they quarreled with the disciples for eating with unwashed hands, and yet, through the tradition of Corban, taught people to break the fifth commandment. In their practice, they strained at gnats, showing they had a great abhorrence of sin and were afraid of it in the least instance; but they easily committed greater sins in comparison to a gnat, like swallowing a camel by devouring widows’ houses. They did indeed swallow a camel when they gave Judas the price of innocent blood, and yet straining out a gnat, when he returned and died, they didn’t want to put the blood money into the treasury (Matthew 27:6). They would not go into the judgment-hall of Pilate, standing outside for fear of being defiled, and yet they would stand at the door and cry out against the holy Jesus, murdering Him by the hands of Gentiles.
How much of this do we have today! False systems can get all wrapped up in the minutia of their structure, only outward rituals, but no spiritual reality in the heart. They are strict with small external duties and neglect important spiritual duties. They are very strict with external forms—in dressing, talking, outward acts of going to church, tithing—even going beyond God’s Word (e.g., wearing a white sari), but completely doing the opposite of God’s Word. They have no regard for spiritual realities: justice, mercy, and faith. All external religion is on display, so careful about going to church regularly, but no spiritual realities inside the heart.
Even some people are so careful about orthodox theology—they can clearly state the order of salvation, talk about the second coming with charts, all that—but they live in adultery. They think they are careful in theology. See, filtering out a gnat and swallowing a camel.
False religious leaders get wrapped up in inconsequential minutia and have no capacity to deal with the weightier matters. And it’s amazing how fastidious religious people can be and yet be so far from the reality of what God seeks. So many false spiritual leaders reverse divine priorities, substituting insignificant forms and outward acts of religion for the essential realities of the heart. See, that’s the point.
Woe 6: For Maintaining Clean Externals But Being Full of Extortion Inside
Verse 25: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.”
The cup and dish—the cup holds wine, and the dish (platter) is used to serve delicacies. “You clean the outside of the cup and the platter, and within they are full of extortion and excess.”
It is like you go to a house, and they give you a cup and plate. The outside is so clean, shining, so impressed with the outside, but inside it is dirty, filthy. Outside you seem very clean, but inside you’re really big at extortion. You have a ministry that looks pious, pure, but the whole thing is based on taking advantage of other people. You use people. You make merchandise out of people.
It is like nice food on a cup and platter you eat in a house. You realize the cup, the platter, and the food were acquired with money robbed from the poorest people, through extortion, even killing people, and by their blood this was robbed. Oh, but it is ceremoniously cleaned. It all looks so religious, and everything in it and on it was gained by extortion. They were careful to eat their meat in clean cups and platters, but made no conscience of getting their meat by extortion.
How true today! The true, pure religion of heaven of Jesus Christ, which should be the only hope of any society, is filled by false teachers like this, who outside have a clean cup and platter, but are full of extortion. How many false religious leaders are there from one end of this world who are offering people their religious plate, and in that plate is nothing but the stuff they’ve stolen from those very people? Milked them for every coin they could get out of them. Extortionists.
Extortion, by the way, is the word harpagē. It means to plunder or seize—they are spiritual rapists. That’s why we should get so angry with false spiritual leaders, because they are spiritually raping people. You see them just plundering people, just making merchandise out of people for their own gain. And it says they are full of extortion, and notice this word excess. That means unrestrained desire for gain (akrasia), a lack of self-control.
They are given so much: “You came with a cycle, next a bike, car, bungalow, and a private jet.” No control, on and on and on. Excess robbing, living luxurious lifestyles by robbing people. For all that, they appear so clean outside—minister, pastor—so meticulous even in small things, appearing so pious in their system, and everything they serve you was gained with their filthy desires, gained by the abuse of people. They are greedy rapists and robbers who steal and plunder the souls and the money and the hearts and the minds and the goods of everybody they can touch. They set outward purity and decency above inward sanctification and purity of heart. They made it a religious duty to cleanse the “outside” of their cups and platters, but neglected their own inward man. People generally took them for very good men. But within, in the recesses of their hearts and the close retirements of their lives, they were “full of extortion and excess”—of violence and incontinence.
So He says in verse 26, “You blind Pharisee,” and He personalizes it, “cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.”
The rule is, “Cleanse first that which is within.” Note, the principal care of every one of us should be to wash our hearts from wickedness (Jeremiah 4:14). The main business of a Christian lies within: to get cleansed from the filthiness of the spirit. Corrupt affections and inclinations, the secret lusts that lurk in the soul, unseen and unobserved—these must first be mortified and subdued. Those sins must be conscientiously abstained from, which the eye of God only is a witness to, Who searches the heart. If the heart be well kept, all is well, for “out of it are the issues of life”; the eruptions will vanish of course.
You better have more than your form. You better be sure that what’s on your plate is as clean as your plate. And no dish is clean which holds unclean food gained dishonestly. So prevalent today, the false spiritual leaders become rich, they become fat, they become wealthy with their paraded piety, and they have the heart of a thief.
Applications
We have seen three more woes of the Pharisees:
- Woe 4: For developing a system filled with lies in the name of God.
- Woe 5: For being strict with small external duties and neglecting important spiritual duties.
- Woe 6: For maintaining clean externals but full of extortion inside.
Yes, our country is filled with these men. The name of Christ is dishonored because of these men. While we identify these men, oppose them, and warn people against them, it is important to identify the Pharisee who lives in us and kill him, right?
See, it is all very easy for us to superficially handle these verses and accuse others and go. But when we run these verses again and again as a scanner upon our soul, oh, we see this man living in us. How much of preaching we do and don’t practice, how much is only external life without heart religion, how we rob God’s glory in our pride.
The word “hypocrite” has a broader range than we typically give to the word. It is not only conscious insincerity—living life as a pose—but also the failure to realize how hypocritically they were living. Some of the Pharisees were very sincere and didn’t realize they were hypocrites. They sincerely thought they were pleasing God with their lives by doing all this.
The Lord’s attack is upon their failure as the religious leaders of Israel, as interpreters of the Bible, and as teachers of the way of salvation. No doubt they were sincerely wrong. As Pascal reminds us, most of the real damage done in the world is done by sincere people. It is the sincere who persuade people to follow them, even over the cliff. It is sincere people who, through history, have succeeded in persuading people that evil was good and good was evil.
We will never really understand the Lord’s condemnations in this chapter if we allow ourselves to think only of those long-ago Pharisees, whether or not we see false teachers in our day.
We have to apply this to the Pharisee who lives in each one of us. In this, the Pharisee is every man. This is the man who lives in me, who is a hindrance to the Gospel. I had a great searching of my heart; it was ringing in my heart. We have to realize how evil this spirit is, how dangerous this attitude, how utterly contrary and hateful to Christ this is—the principle of selfishness, of pride. If we don’t realize and repent in us, how it will destroy us and others around us. We need to see it and feel it within ourselves!
Take the first woe… Woe 4 for swearing to God and not fulfilling. Do we live in a system of regularly swearing to God and lying before Him? We swear every week coming to Church. We swore when joining the church before God as a covenant: “I will be a faithful member, guarding my heart from the world through daily reading of God’s Word and prayer”—pretty basic swearing. How faithful are you? Pretty basic. Why are you not regularly reading God’s Word and praying? Isn’t that the reason for all failure in spiritual life? You swore to fulfill all other responsibilities. Think about your swearing in marriage before God. Your swearing every week, every time you repent: “Lord, I will repent and do…”
You know why you never take that seriously? Because you have learned to lie to God, living in a system of lying regularly to God. Swearing is such a serious thing in the Bible. Psalm 61, verse 8, and these are just samples: “So will I sing praise to thy name forever, that I may daily perform my vows.” Jephthah made a vow, though foolish, but how seriously they took it! And even his daughter was ready to die young. Will they both not rise up in judgment and accuse you for breaking your vows regularly to God?
What hypocritical Pharisee lives in our heart! An oath is an appeal to God, to His omniscience, and when done to Him, it is made on Him. If you fail, the oath shall be construed most strongly against yourself. You lied to God. It is an affront done to Him in the form of the oath, so He will certainly take revenge for the greater affront done to Him by the violation of it.
The reason our Christian life is filled with broken promises is because we live in a cycle of regularly lying to God and never taking our oath seriously. Only when we repent of those and take our vows very, very seriously can we see revival in our lives. May God help us to repent.
Secondly, the woe of tithing mint, dill, and cumin and neglecting the weightier matters of the law. We can be so precise about little things, comfort ourselves with our observance of many duties while largely forgetting how little we really love God or our neighbor. How polite and genial we can be in public and how harsh and cruel to our wives or husbands or children or someone outside on the road. How meticulous we can be in paying our tithe or going to church while keeping our mouths firmly shut about Christ and salvation in the presence of those who are heading to hell. How exercised we can be about what we take to be false doctrine or philosophy in the church or in the world around us while we ourselves are often given over to the crudest forms of lust or worldliness or pride. How orthodox about our beliefs, while our heart is full of sins.
We know how to keep our cups clean outside, but inside, what different people we are inside than we are outside! What a world we live in in our hearts! What an inner self, our true self, we hide from others. Inside full of self-indulgence! Think of it: how much self-indulgence—laziness, self-indulgence in entertainment, food, luxury, wasting time. Is there self-denial, self-control to glorify God in our secret life? Is there discipline? No, the outside cup is clean, but inside is full of self-indulgence. Oh, the Pharisee inside me, I see you! The more I run this scanner, the more Pharisee I see!
There is a man called Murali who preaches but doesn’t practice. How much is only external life without heart religion? How we rob God’s glory in our pride, who swears to God regularly, but lies before Him, never takes swearing seriously. “I will read today.” “I pray daily.” Daily living, lying to God. Very careful about small things, but the weightier matters of loving God and others fail. Outside clean, inside full of self-indulgence, uncontrolled self-indulgence.
If you honestly examine, so much of the Pharisee and pride lives in us. We will see most of the things we do are not to glorify God, but our self is the center of their universe. May God help us to run this scanner through our souls and repent.
The only way we can be honest is to have a heart religion and live in regular communion with Christ through a prayer life.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 