There are duplicates for everything in the world. There are duplicates for every brand item; this is a bigger market than the original market. We look at the high cost for the original and settle for duplicates because it is cheap. Nike, Adidas, Rolex. That is okay because that is what we can afford. But we all know the original has a peculiar attractiveness. Only when we see and use the original do we realize how poor and pitiful the duplicate is in comparison to the original; there is a striking attractiveness to the original. Peculiar authenticity makes us realize: this is original.
In spiritual life, there is a duplicate and an original. For many years, the people of Israel thought the most devoted, original spiritual people were the Pharisees and Scribes; the best devoted people they knew were these two. Though there were Sadducees, Herodians, and Zealots, they were far too politically motivated. So the best spiritual people the nation had seen were the Pharisees and Scribes, models of how to live as religious people. These were the gurus, Rabbis, and darlings of the people. They truly believed if but two men went to heaven, one would be a Pharisee. But they didn’t realize these were cheap duplicates because they had not seen the original.
The first time, John the Baptist came upon the scene like a gale wind! His life, convictions, and worldview stood distinctly different from what the people had admired in the scribes and Pharisees. So far/foreign was their practice of true godliness that John called them a “brood of vipers”! John the Baptist pointed to them that the true original standard is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the standard of authenticity.
Now, in the chapter before us, the Lord Jesus Christ shows how duplicate these Pharisees and scribes are. They may look like true teachers to men, but they are completely false teachers.
We move from Chapter 22 to 23. This chapter can be divided into three parts. In verses 1–12, Jesus speaks to His multitudes and disciples, and warns them not to follow the hypocritical practices of the scribes and Pharisees. Then, in verses 13–36, we read of the “7 woes” He speaks directly upon the scribes and Pharisees themselves. And finally, in verses 37–39, we read of our Savior’s tearful words of lament over the doom of Jerusalem for its hard-hearted rejection of Him. So, first comes our Lord’s warnings; then comes His 7 woes; and finally comes His words of weeping. This morning and next morning, we look at the warnings to His disciples and to the crowds.
I want to encourage you to give utmost attention to this chapter because we do not find Christ anywhere else in the entire Scripture so severely rebuking anyone else than these people, because their traits, motives, and practices were completely opposite to God’s kingdom, yet these very people and everyone around them thought they were so near to heaven.
It is a great warning against false prophets and leaders, and even false believers. If you think Jesus always spoke all kind, nice words, “gentle Jesus,” and we also should talk nicely to everyone, you have a twisted view of Jesus. The medicine for that is you should read this chapter; it will shock you first. The rebukes are very, very terrible, scathing rebukes, not anywhere else in Scripture, intensely hot words, bubbling, blistering, and burning as it comes from His lips like a volcano. It shows how much wrath and anger burns against them in His heart and soul if He spoke such horrible words against them. It is terrible to think: If in His humiliation He spoke like this, oh what will He do when He comes as a judge with all power and glory? How terribly will He crush them? The Holy Spirit has decided to record Christ’s words to make us tremble before them. How will you respond to these words? Again, it depends on that billion dollar question: What do you think about Christ? If you have the highest views of Christ and His glory in your heart, you will take these warnings very, very seriously. Reading this chapter, yours and my greatest desire and trembling prayer should be: “Lord, may I never have any of these traits in my life.” It shows how much the Lord hates hypocrisy and duplicates in our life. It is like reading about a terrible infectious plague in detail with all symptoms so we don’t ever get it.
One of the wisest lessons we can learn is when someone gets a beating. When our brothers or sisters get beaten at home, we learn from that so we don’t get beaten. When someone in life takes a wrong decision and suffers, we learn we should never be like that. So the same way, when the Son of God is issuing a stinging rebuke upon the hard-hearted, hypocritical, unbelieving scribes and Pharisees. He vividly articulates the doom they face. It is truly chilling! The Holy Spirit recorded these stern words for us so we learn from their error; from the beatings they get, and never ever go down the road they went!
So what lessons do we learn from this passage we should avoid at all costs? How to avoid being a false prophet/false believer? What should I avoid in my life so I manifest authentic originality in my life? I have listed five from verses 1–12. We will look at two this week and three next week.
Sermon Outline
Sermon Title: Five Dreadful Warnings from Pharisees and Scribes – Matthew 23:1–12
- DON’T PREACH WHAT YOU WILL NOT PRACTICE (vv. 1–4).
- If you do, this proves you don’t have three essential things:
- Divine calling
- Divine regeneration
- Divine love
- If you do, this proves you don’t have three essential things:
- DON’T LIVE AN EXTERNAL RELIGIOUS LIFE TO BE SEEN BY MEN WITHOUT ANY HEART RELIGION (v. 5).
DON’T PREACH WHAT YOU WILL NOT PRACTICE (vv. 1–4).
That is the first warning lesson you learn from the Pharisees and Scribes. Let us look at why they don’t practice what they preach.
Verse 1: “Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples.”
Notice the audience to whom He addresses these warnings are multitudes and disciples. Not even directly talking to the Pharisees and Scribes. From verse 13 onwards, He will pour woes directly on them. This, then, is an electrifying chapter. But now He addresses multitudes and disciples and warns them to never be like them. Why the multitude? Because they think the Pharisees and Scribes are heavenly role models, “originals,” and should realize they are duplicates and false teachers. Only when we wean somebody from false teachers, will they listen to truth preachers. So He prepares this crowd as He is going to die, ascend to heaven, and fill His apostles with His Spirit and make them preachers of truth. He exposes these false preachers now so they would listen to true spiritual teachers later on. This is the reason in Acts we see so many Jews realize their national leadership is false and more and more listen to the apostles and get saved and join the church. We see in the first preaching 3,000, and thousands and thousands added to the church by listening to the apostles. So this chapter is also a preparation for the church and exposing the signs of false prophets. It is a warning to the apostles and us, we who represent Him should never follow their false dangerous example if He has to use us to save the sinners.
So the first warning comes in Verses 2 and 3: “Saying: ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.’”
They sit at Moses’ seat. A “seat,” in the sense that Jesus here speaks of it, is a position of authority. If you had the seat of Moses in your synagogue, you were the chief teacher, you represented the authority. Maybe they had a special seat and called it Moses’ seat. But it refers to authority.
We talk about a “chairman” in an organization. What does it mean? Someone sitting in a chair? Even a watchman sits on a chair. It means he is in a place of authority: the CM seat, the PM seat. The seat of authority. So when He says the Pharisees and Scribes sit on Moses’ seat, they occupied a recognized position of authority in that society—the position of being the authoritative teachers of the law that God had given the people through Moses. They had made it their life’s vocation to study the law, and to interpret its application to daily life.
Verse 3: “Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do.”
Doesn’t mean do everything they say. Insofar as they truly and accurately taught God’s law, sitting in Moses’ seat and representing that, the scribes and Pharisees truly sat in Moses’ “seat.” When they taught faithfully from God’s law, Jesus tells His followers to “observe” and “do” as they say.
That’s important to notice. Jesus didn’t say, “The scribes and Pharisees are a bunch of hypocrites; therefore, ignore everything they tell you. Don’t even bother to do what they say!” That would not be in keeping with God’s command to us to “respect” and “honor” spiritual authority. After all, even the apostle Paul honored the authority of an ungodly high priest (Acts 23:3–5). Just because they are hypocritical, we must not therefore pull down Moses’s seat. We see again the great wisdom of the Lord: while He condemns the Pharisees and Scribes, people should not assume He is condemning the law of Moses, so He makes a clear distinction here.
Notice the Word of God is not corrupted, even in the mouth of a false prophet. It remains the powerful, pure Word of God. So if they teach what Moses taught, you must obey. It was binding on their hearts. “Do it.” This is the aorist tense, so it’s the idea of immediately respond, do it. Do it and keep doing it. Instant and continuous obedience to the law of God, no matter who articulates it. If God’s words are accurately taught, obey.
Don’t throw God’s word away because they are false prophets. So when they say the truth—and like a clock that doesn’t run is still right twice a day, false prophets tend now and then to hit the truth. So as far as they fulfill the role of representing Moses, you obey them.
The scribes and Pharisees made it their business to study the Scripture, and were well acquainted with the language, history, and customs of it, and its style and phraseology. Now Christ would have the people to make use of the helps they gave them for the understanding of the Scripture, and do accordingly. As long as their comments did illustrate the text and not pervert it; did make plain, and not make void, the commandment of God; so far they must be observed and obeyed, but with caution and a judgment of discretion.
Many a good place is filled with bad men; even the vilest men can be exalted even to Moses’s seat. We must not think the worse of good truths for their being preached by bad ministers. Though it is most desirable to have our food brought by angels, yet, if God send it to us by ravens, if it be good and wholesome, we must take it, and thank God for it.
Then Verse 3 He adds an important warning: “Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do.”
If they do not practice what they preach, how did they sit in Moses’ seat? That shows they didn’t have a divine calling. God didn’t call them. They were not qualified to take it according to God’s word. All it says is they sat in it, they took it. These usurpers had gone in and occupied the chair of authority when in fact they did not have a divine calling. See: They don’t practice what they preach because they have no divine calling.
Just like many false prophets in all of Israel’s history took Moses’ seat and called themselves prophets. We see Jeremiah and Isaiah repeatedly rebuked them. Jeremiah was a true prophet and all others were false prophets. Jeremiah 14:14: “The Lord said to me, ‘The prophets prophesy lies in my name.’ ‘I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spoke unto them. They prophesy unto you a false vision and divination and a thing of nothing and the deceit of their heart.’ ‘I have not sent these prophets yet they ran, I have not spoken to them yet they prophesied.’” Repeatedly he says, “I have not sent them, they have gone.” They don’t have a divine calling.
Isaiah faced the same kind of thing. People became so corrupt: “That this is a rebellious people, Lying children, Children who will not hear the law of the Lord; Who say to the seers, ‘Do not see,’ And to the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy to us right things; Speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits. Get out of the way, Turn aside from the path, Cause the Holy One of Israel To cease from before us.’” Don’t tell us the truth. We don’t want to hear what God wants us to know. That’s an amazing thing. One of the reasons people go into untrue religions, go into false religions is because they don’t want to hear the truth. They don’t want to hear what God really has to say. And so there’s always an audience for false prophets.
So these people don’t practice what they preach because they are not sent by God. They usurp the place of teaching, self-appoint. No divine calling. They speak not for God nor are sent by God. They had taken self-appointed seats of authority, filled them with their own ideas, filled them with their own traditions, filled them with their own regulations obscuring the law of God, and they tell things in the name of God that are not the truth of God.
It’s the same today. There are usurpers all over the place, false teachers taking Jesus’ seat, claiming to represent Jesus, teaching Jesus’ words. There are liars by the multitude, uncountable, fostering their falsehoods, their deluded dreams, making up their supposed visions, saying they represent God, speaking in His name and spewing out lies right out of hell that damn men’s souls from one end of this world to the other. How did they take the seat? No divine calling. No Bible qualification for Pastor is seen. All self-appointed preachers took the seat. They speak on their own authority telling people to obey. There is only one authority and that’s the Word of God, and when they deviate from that, they are usurpers as were these.
Secondly, they don’t practice what they preach because they are not truly born again.
Notice the Lord says, “Do what they say” from Moses’ seat, but do not follow their life, not follow their example. Because they preach what they do not practice. They’re hypocrites. They say something and don’t do it. They are phonies without integrity. They could teach the law of God, worship God, love, righteousness, love your fellow men, hate evil, but they didn’t live it.
Pastor, where does it say they are not born again because they do not practice what they preach? This is explained in Romans 2:17–24. Paul, showing all Gentiles as unregenerate sinners, in Chapter 2 shows Jews are also under sin and need to be born again. You know what is the argument he brings to prove that? He says because they only have their external religion and keep preaching to everyone what they don’t practice. Verse 17: “Indeed you are called a Jew, and rest on the law, and make your boast in God, and know His will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law. You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law? For ‘the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,’ as it is written.”
How are they breaking the law? Why do you just live an external life preaching what you will not practice? Verse 28: “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.”
He says you are preaching to others, but you are doing the same thing in your heart and secret life. Because you are not circumcised in heart, which means you are not born again. All you can do without regeneration is just preach to others. You live for the praise of men, but true regeneration makes you focus on God. Paul in fact condemns Jews, saying you are more inexcusable than Gentiles. At least they don’t have knowledge of the law, but you are of all sinners most inexcusable that allow yourselves in the sins they condemn in others, or in worse. For what greater hypocrisy can there be than to press that upon others, to be believed and done, which they themselves disbelieve and disobey; pulling down in their practice what they build up in their preaching.
See, the unregenerated man can read and even admire and even preach wonderfully God’s word, but he cannot love it in his innermost heart and obey them in life. Paul says in Romans 7:22, “For in my inner being I delight in God’s law.” Only when you are regenerated, you receive a divine nature, become a new creation, and love God’s law from the inner man. The unregenerate heart has no love for God’s law, and no internal ability to restrain the flesh and obey God’s word by the Spirit.
They could be outwardly moral and outwardly ethical, and they can develop very sophisticated ethics and morality, strict rules: daily prayer, reading, strict outside. You see, “Wow, so strict, so strong on outward things, really nice to see all outward things,” but in their inner heart, they don’t love God’s word to obey them in every part of their life. You have seen traditional Christians, oh, outside so decent, moral, good. But unregenerate people, no matter how good outwardly, no matter what their ethics are, no matter what their morality, they cannot restrain the flesh internally and obey God’s word. Hypocrisy can’t restrain the flesh. You look at false religious systems and you see—oh, they look so moral, so ethical, seem so nice and so warm-hearted. What they preach so much outside, even their teachers cannot live internally because of unregenerate hearts.
Paul says this is a sign of false prophets: “They speak lies in hypocrisy. They can’t live what they tell, and their conscience is seared with a hot iron.” Like burnt skin, it loses all sensitive nerves. False prophets have lived this hypocrisy so long that their conscience is like scar tissue. They have formed a callousness so that they are no longer even sensitive to the hypocritical nature of their existence. Their conscience doesn’t feel even pain: “I am so hypocritically preaching, but cannot live.” They are just liars who have lied so long, hypocrites who have lived hypocritically so long that they are desensitized to it. The truth is inside is wretchedness and rottenness that they can’t restrain.
These are not ignorant externally nice decent people. They are hardened hypocrites. They are on the outside calling for a standard, which their inside can’t live up to. They say it; they don’t do it. The truth is they can’t do it with an unregenerate fallen heart.
Now, you look at so many movements and groups today around the world all taking the seat of Jesus now that are false, externally so moral, strict, advocating ethical standards, binding those standards on people, and the truth is in their own hearts, they’re filled with garbage that they can’t restrain. And there’s an utter absence of true righteousness. You see them sometimes so holy in preaching, godly, but then a big scandal comes from their church: “Pastor robbed the church, had a relationship with women,” and he was in that problem. Some places it comes out publically, people wonder, “Wow, he appeared so moral and so upstanding, preached so powerfully. I cannot believe he did this.” It doesn’t always come out, however, quite that dramatically. In fact, sometimes we don’t even know it until final judgment.
Thirdly, they don’t practice what they preach because they have no divine love.
Verse 4: “For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.”
They not only did not practice what they preached, but preached it with no divine love or grace. They were very severe in commanding others to do those things which they were not themselves willing to do.
See the picture is a man loading his donkey, load upon load, pile that stuff high up to the top and hang down over the sides and strap it all in so that you can’t find the animal. Some pictures we see it as high as 10 feet, like it is a luggage lorry/truck. Keep piling; the poor animal cannot bear the weight, struggling, walking slanted 10 degrees, may even fall with that weight, and this guy walks next to it, carrying nothing. He will not even put one finger to support the animal. That’s the picture here, and it would have been a vivid picture to these people.
And that’s what the Pharisees do, says the Lord. They pile on regulations and rules and rituals and traditions. They developed 613 additional precepts around the law, and sought to bring the people under the direction of these additional man-made precepts. In doing this, they were trying to build a “fence” around the law, so that no one would ever come anywhere close to violating them. But in the end, all they did was create rules and regulations that were an unbearable load to carry around in life.
“For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders.” It’s an impossible load; their rules make the service of God a burden instead of joy.
They kept adding burden to burden, the piling never stops; they keep adding and adding always, imposing their own inventions and traditions, not from the Bible, their own rules, under the highest penalties. Insisting upon the minute circumstances of the law, and pressing the observation of them with more strictness and severity than God Himself did. Even the apostles (Acts 15:10) said, “Why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?”
All their standing before God was based on their keeping their rules and works. Not only did they pile people up with more and more guilt when they disobeyed those rules, they even punished people. “You do more works, heaven. When you don’t, you will go hell.”
A legalistic religion, emphasizing law, law, there is no teaching on mercy, grace, love, forgiveness. They wanted to pile people up with this morality and then live under the interminable/endless guilt of not being able to make it. They put the people under an unbearable strain when it came to relationship to God. “Do this, don’t do that! Bend here, stand there!”
All these rules and regulations were for others, for those mass sinful people who might disobey the law, but it was not for themselves. They are so godly, they can never think of breaking the law; outwardly they read, pray, tithe so much. They excused themselves from being under such a burden. In short, they preached that others should do what they themselves wouldn’t do. They commanded with strictness which they themselves would not be bound by; but secretly transgressed their own traditions, which they publicly enforced.
They placed heavy regulations on tradesmen and common workers while aiming no such strictures on their own scholarly band. Instead of helping the people to understand their own inadequacy before God as sinners, and to cast themselves upon His mercy and grace, they just heaped on more burden, doing nothing (not lifting a finger!) to encourage and help. They made everything a burden. The Sabbath keeping, oh, a burden on men’s shoulders, which was designed to be the joy of their hearts, by making hundreds of rules to keep it.
“But they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.” They wouldn’t even lift a finger to move it. And they wouldn’t do anything to lighten the load they placed on others.
They would not ease the people in these things, nor put a finger to lighten their burden, when they saw it pinched them. They could find reasons to loosen their man-made rules: “Oh, people are struggling, can we support them with a message of comfort? It is all man-made, can we adjust, ignore based on the situation?” Ah no, but enforced with all strictness, nor dispense with a failure in the least punctilio of them.
Paul said these false teachers bind you in 1 Timothy 4:3, “don’t eat that and this,” “forbidding people to marry,” giving rules, “don’t do that and this.” Mark 12:40, not even leave the helpless and poor, and says, “Pharisees devour widow’s houses,” they take advantage of the poor. We see in Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel false prophets how they cheat poor people and make themselves rich in the name of God. God rebukes these shepherds who actually, instead of feeding their flock, they feed on their sheep. To the public eye are known to eat people alive, to build great empires, to amass great fortunes, to build great prestige all at the expense of poor unwitting people.
This is a sign of false teachers, leaders: instead of serving people, they use people to lift themselves up, just brutalize people. Get everything out of them you can to build your own empire. The Lord saw these people as scattered sheep without shepherds. Pharisees wouldn’t even lift a finger to remove their burden.
What good news should have been to these people and how wonderful the words of Christ at that moment when they heard Jesus say this, Matthew 11:28: “Come unto me,” as opposed to them, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden.” “I’ll give you”—what?—“rest. Take my yoke and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” It is easy and light because Christ unites us to Himself in the yoke and Christ bears the burden of law for us, and sends His Spirit and writes His law in our hearts and gives us the ability to love the Law and obey.
The good news of Jesus and His apostles were in contrast to the horrifying bondage the false spiritual leaders put on the people. That is what Christ and His ministers did. They preached gospel, they preached grace, forgiveness, mercy. What Christ accomplished for us on the cross and formed churches. But these teachers didn’t stop. They even entered New Testament churches (Galatians and Colossians) telling the church, “you should be circumcised to go to heaven,” follow rituals. Paul went on to say in Galatians 5:1, “Listen, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”
What music must the words be like: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” “We are not under law, but under grace.” “Not by works, but by grace we are saved.” That is what the apostles preached. They removed burdens. Peter said, “Casting all your care on Him, for He cares for you.”
The same is true today. These false religious systems bind people with ethical weight, with moral codes, with restrictions/strictures of life from one kind of demand to another; they have to do this and that. All man-made rules: “Put on white sarees, no jewels, no TV,” etc. Some of them tell them who they can marry, where they can live, how many kids they can have. All rules: “Wake up 4 am, pray for 2 hours, light a candle, go through here on your knees,” or “follow these rules.” Even in Bible churches, so many teachers, the only topic they always preach is law, sanctification is the only topic, rules, accuse, accuse people. We should preach that also, but not always, burden and make people guilty. We should balance it with the preaching of grace, mercy, who we are in Christ, treasures of grace. Do not just burden people with guilt. Some of such people will not practice what they preach. To cover up, they will keep putting high standards in their preaching.
They bind that on them and never a word of grace and never a word of forgiveness and never tenderness and never a caring to meet the need that can only be met by forgiveness. It’s just the same.
So we have seen the first warning of a false preacher is: DON’T PREACH WHAT YOU WILL NOT PRACTICE (vv. 1–4).
This proves you don’t have three essential things: Divine calling, Divine regeneration, Divine love.
So when it comes to avoiding hypocrisy, Jesus here shows us from His rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees one of the things not to do. We must be sure that we preach nothing to others that we aren’t prepared to apply equally to ourselves.
Don’t Just Live an External Religious Life to Be Seen by Men Without Any Heart Religion (v. 5).
Verse 5: “But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments.”
The religious observances they followed, and the rituals they observed, the alms they performed—it wasn’t done out of a heart of reverent service and love to God. Rather, it was all done to catch the eyes of other people.
Jesus gives evidence of this that anyone in the crowds could see—even with the scribes and Pharisees standing in front of them. Can you imagine, they are standing there with large phylacteries. He says that they made their “phylacteries broad.” “Phylacteries” were little boxes, tied to leather straps, that they bound to their hands, or onto their foreheads. Into these boxes, they would place strips onto which were copied portions of Scripture, or written prayers. In doing this, they were seeking to apply literally what it says in Deuteronomy 6:6-9, where God told the Israelites:
“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).
It is a symbolic statement; all Old Testament saints understood it meant the Word of God should be controlling you in whatever you think (in your forehead) and do (with your hand). Ah, but when you are thinking and doing God’s word in mind and heart, how will men see? So that they could show to men, they made it a literal rule, like a dispensational literal chip in the forehead and right hand. This was not practiced anywhere in any Old Testament time; no saint did this but it was invented by them in the silent 400 years between the Old Testament and New Testament. They made a rule of literal phylacteries as a tradition.
As if that is not enough, ordinary people had small phylacteries, but the Lord says they made it broad. The bigger the box, the more pious, the greater devotion to God—but all that so people see it. Ordinarily, Jewish men would wear these ‘phylacteries’ during times of public worship. But when worship-time was over, the scribes and Pharisees continued to keep theirs on—walking around with them in public display in the marketplace.
Imagine the dramatic scene: they are wearing that and standing there. He shows: “See how broad,” (large and easy to see), in order to show that they were loaded-up with a lot of passages of Scripture and a lot of prayers.
In addition, they also enlarged “the borders of their garments.” This refers to the commandment, found in the Old Testament, in which God told the Jewish men to make ‘tassels’ on the corners of their garments (Numbers 15:37-41). These ‘tassels’—dangling down from their garments—were to serve as constant reminders to faithfully follow the commandments of God in daily life.
God appointed the Jews to make borders or fringes upon their garments (Numbers 15:38), to distinguish them from other nations, and to be a memorandum to them of their being a peculiar people; but the Pharisees were not content to have these borders like other people’s, which might serve God’s design in appointing them; but they must be larger than ordinary, to answer their design of making themselves to be taken notice of; as if they were more religious than others. But the scribes and Pharisees made their tassels ostentatiously long and “enlarged,” in order to give everyone the impression that they were more devoted to the law than everyone else.
So they would walk proudly spreading this phylactery and borders. We call it the peacock syndrome. The Lord says everything they do is to be seen by men and gives these two examples.
Now, it’s not that we must avoid ever letting our devotion to the Lord be seen. Far from it! Jesus Himself said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
But the difference is in the motivation. We’re to let our light so shine that men may glorify the Father—not that men may glorify us! In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:
“Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men.” Can you imagine? When the Pharisees whenever they gave tithing or charitable work, they would have a guy blow a fanfare on a trumpet to announce that they had arrived so everyone could watch them give and see how pious and how holy and how devout they were.
“Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.
“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. They love to pray standing in the middle of the synagogue and in the crossroads of the streets. Here they would pray their daily prayers right in the middle of everybody, where everyone could see them and remark how holy and how virtuous and how pious they are. They would find the most public place that they could do that.
“Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly” (Matthew 6:1-6).
“Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting.” They disfigured their faces. They would put ashes on their face and make it pale and white and they would go around, “I’m fasting, I’m fasting, I’m so devout,” see? It was all externalism. “Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly” (Matthew 6:16-18).
That was the whole thing, it was all on the outside. It was all for show. Their praying, fasting, good works, all to be seen by men. That’s the whole business. The gratification that comes when you think people think you’re something very pious and very devout. It’s an ego trip.
Doing works of religious devotion to be seen of men sometimes fools men; but it never fools God. Making sure we don’t put our piety on parade is yet another way we can avoid the pitfalls of hypocrisy in our walk with Christ.
All their end was to be praised of men, and therefore all their endeavor was to be seen of men, to make a fair show in the flesh. In those duties of religion which fall under the eye of men, none were so constant and abundant as they; but in what lies between God and their souls, in the retirement of their closets, and the recesses of their hearts, they desire to be excused. Are we like that? The form of godliness will get them a name to live, which is all they aim at, and therefore they trouble not themselves with the power of it, which is essential to a life indeed.
So we have the first two warnings of the Lord on the Pharisees, and we will study three more next week. See all this boils down because they had no divine calling, no regeneration, no true love of God in heart, so all they did was external religion and even preached what they would not follow. There was no true spirituality in their heart. Everything was for the outside, not the heart. All of their religion was for show. All of it was for fleshly gratification. They got ego satisfaction out of their religious parading and piosity and pompousness and ostentation. They wanted to show on the outside how pious they were so they could get the homage and reverence of the people.
Applications
The great reason for hindrance for the gospel is the world is full of duplicates/duplicate preachers, duplicate believers. That doesn’t attract the world. Original has its peculiar striking attractiveness. The world cannot deny when it sees true, trustworthy, authentic Christianity.
In a week’s time, the Lord will suffer and die on the cross and accomplish great redemption, rise from the dead, and then after 40 days ascend to heaven, send His Holy Spirit. Why did He pay such a price? If He had to live a duplicate hypocritical life, there is no need for Him to do that. He accomplished redemptive work to change us so that we no longer resemble the godless world from which He delivered us. By His grace we become authentic disciples of Jesus Christ—real kingdom citizens bearing the marks of our King. He explains the difference between a cheap imitation and authentic religion. Godly authenticity must characterize us as Christians. We face plenty of cheap imitations in our own day. Those are the stumbling blocks to the world to come to the gospel. Are we going to be like that?
If we have to be true original people of God, if we have to be originals for the Lord, may we take these two warnings to heart.
1. Great Importance of Practicing What We Preach
Not to preach anything what we will not practice. Notice I am not saying we will preach only what we will practice (that means a very low standard, bringing God’s word standard to our life), but what I am saying we will preach God’s word and practice everything we preach. Great warning to me as a preacher. Do I practice everything I preach? I may maybe, but my wife will say no way. She keeps saying whenever I preach something I don’t practice, she doesn’t look at my face; that is how I know. It is a warning I need to take to heart, that I need to practice all that I preach. Oh what a standard! Oh how the Lord knows how to catch everyone through His word. I stand condemned before all. I had my heart searching and still searching whether I keep preaching which I never will practice.
Though primarily talking to preachers like a big warning, secondarily it applies to all of us as believers as we all preach Christ to the world and one another by word and life. Just like false prophets, the world is full of false believers. How do you know you are not a false believer according to this verse? If you are not practicing what you hear, you are a false believer. Isn’t this what the parable of the sower says—who is a true believer? Not the wayside, not the thorny bushes soil, not the rock soil, but one that hears the word with a good and honest heart, holds the word, abides, and continues and bears much fruit. Or else you are a false believer, and James also says the sign of a man who deceives himself is only hearing and not doing.
We confess and profess, do we live up to it? We make fair promises, do we perform them? Oh, we preach and pray about prayer, do we pray? We preach about God’s word, do we read it? We pray for the conversion of the world, are we converted? Are we just talkers, confessors, but are empty of good works; great talkers, but little doers; “the voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” We have to examine our hearts. Are we like that? We are then a stumbling block to the gospel. May God help us to repent and practice what we hear, otherwise we are false believers, hypocrites, and the Lord will say on the last day that we built our house of faith on sand, hearing and not doing according to His word. Even our worship becomes a form of hypocrisy, just to pretend to hear and not do. We hear and pretend as if we are going to obey, but just hear and forget.
2. Great Importance of Guarding Our Heart and Maintaining Heart Religion
Oh, it is easy to drift into externals. For me and you, so easy to cross a week without personal time of prayer, meditation on God’s word, not asking the billion dollar question, “What do we think of Christ?” Not having proper thoughts of Christ. The Lord warns us not to have such religion, where we can have long prayers, long sermons, but He hates that. We have to keep teaching us that Christ is more concerned about our heart in everything we do. If that is not right, nothing we do is acceptable. 1 Corinthians 4 says even the last judgment, though He will judge us for works, but the value of those works will be based on the motives of the heart, as to the intents of the heart, as to the purposes and drives and thoughts and desires of the heart. That’s the true standard.
This lesson should teach us the great importance of regeneration. See, without regeneration all we can do is external religion. Examine yourselves: if all your Christian life has only been external, there is a serious problem with the foundation. Believers may once in a while become external but will repent, turn their heart to God. But if you have never had the experience of heart religion, you keep hearing and never able to practice anything, nothing goes into your heart. The root cause could be like these Pharisees: they didn’t have divine calling, divine regeneration, divine love. Oh may this passage teach you the great importance of regeneration. Christ said, “you must be born again” or even if you become the greatest Pharisee like Nicodemus, a teacher in Israel, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. How to be born again? It is a sovereign work of grace by the Holy Spirit. But you should sit, let Him use the means. The Holy Spirit always uses the means of God’s word. You hear God’s word and read God’s word prayerfully. Put yourself more and more under God’s word, He will do that work. But remember without regeneration you will never be able to live an authentic Christian life. That could be the problem for many.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 